David Frum: A Very Bad Time for Bozos to Be in Charge

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Hello, welcome to the board podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller. Delighted welcome back to the show. One of our faves is a staff writer at the Atlantic.

“And host of the David from podcast. It's our friend David from. What's up, man?”

Thank you, Tim. Good to be on home field today. Well, you hosted me on your show where we hashed out whether I go on two natives with my friends on the left or whether I'm too much of a codepank piece. Now, so I want to continue that conversation towards the end of this podcast. But first we got to get to the news and I'm here in Texas. And we have learned that Walker Texas Ranger himself Chuck Norris has moved on from this

mortal coil. Please send our sympathies to him and his family. I wonder if you have any life experiences with Chuck Norris or his fellow magas. The first time I became aware of you and I'm don't mean this in a disrespectful way to Chuck Norris was you are battling on television and extremely small Trump support. I'd heard of you

by reputation, but I'd never seen this because you have such an affable manner. I'd never

seen like the night underneath this leave. And he called you at one point a fake conservative and you said, if I'm the fake, why are you sitting on a booster seat? And it was just the walls came in Chuck Norris. Obviously, a great American great star. But it is worth remembering how many of the Trump supporters like him like Casparta are extremely small people. And you were the first to point out this trend. Well, I appreciate that. I appreciate the

recognition on that. I don't. I'd never met Chuck Norris in person. How we was it? Like a lot, a lot of movie stars. And the camera likes small people. I don't know quite why that is maybe they have better skin. But there's something the camera does love. It's

“actors to be on the small side. Yeah, it is frustrating for those. That's why you don't”

be star. That's why you don't trust me. I always look at the photos of myself on Instagram.

And I'm like, I'm handsome or the most of my not. Let's get on to some more important news. I want to as mentioned, kind of back into Iran and hash out my new piece Nick Tern. But first, I want to go through the Trump crazy of the week because there's so much to discuss. Yeah, I guess we'll start with the coins. There's news yesterday at the Treasury Department is hurtling forward with minting what will now be three different coins with Trump's picture

on them. A $1 that will circulate. And two commemorative 24k gold coins were standing behind a table looking mad. Yes, you know, if we ever get to write this chapter of history. And if it is a chapter of history comes to a less grim ending than it's sometimes it looks like we'll have a happier ending. I think one of the verdicts of future history may be that what saved America

“was that Donald Trump could never tell the difference between the substance of power and the image”

of power. If you're doing a serious program of consolidation of power in an authoritarian way, you don't do something as godly and shameless and unamerican as putting a living president's image on the coins. That just gets everybody upset. It creates opposition to the whole project in a way that might not be there if you just focused on realities. And maybe it seems to be true that as Trump's hold on the realities of power, falters are weakens a little bit. That he gets more

consumed by the ballroom, the Kennedy Center and his image on these coins. I mean, it's obviously unamerican. It's arguably illegal, although the New York Times had an interesting story, but some of the loopholes are using because the coins are commemorative maybe that they don't come under the rules governing currency. But it just seems a provocation that a wiser authoritarian would avoid. Yeah, I felt a little bit better about that notion that maybe Trump would focus

on his true passions like the marble armrests at the Kennedy Center two weeks ago. But it does seem like unfortunately he's able to juggle some catastrophic choices home in a broad while also minting himself coins. Well, one more point about this that is sort of a sign of daylight breaking through, which is it doesn't look like he's going to be able to protect Cori, Lewandowski and Christy-Nome. Now, understood that their operation was distinct from the Trump

operation. And that's one of the reasons they're in trouble. It's like the sopranos. They forgot to put the cash in the envelope for Tony and ran their own griff without telling Tony about it. And as everyone remembers, you get whacked, but it will raise the question if law is allowed to

millions and tens of millions is wrong, why is taking bribes at the White House in the hundreds of

“millions and billions okay? That is a good question. And I guess a subtext to that given the coin”

news is, would taking the bribes be okay if the bribes were all on the new Trump minted one dollar coin or Trump crypto or Trump crypto. The DHS thing is that I like your positive news there. I'm hoping for accountability for Cori Lewandowski. We've even knew things at the end of the book live shows where we let people do a rant and they can choose whether it's something they're hopeful for or something that they hate. Something that got really big applause last night

was hope that maybe there'll be criminal accountability for someone and maybe that man will be stankbreath Cori Lewandowski. And so I'm with you on that. The concern, the other side of that

coin to brutalize the metaphor is what is replacing them at DHS. That's another big news this week.

You got Mark Wayne Mullen coming in there. He seems just kind of like a masculine, Christy Nome. I'm not sure exactly the differences between the two of them.

“Well can we pause there because I don't get too far to the Iran at news. The United States is now”

engaged in a global war spanning from the Caspian to the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean against the world's leading state sponsor terrorism. So designated year after year by the U.S. State Department. The leading state sponsor terrorism uses a lot of terrorism and Iran has a long history of activating terror networks all over the world, including in the United States. So you would think it would be for the administration leading the war, a matter of vital concern

to have a non-bosal as head of the Department of Homeland Security and maybe also a non-bosal at the FBI. But while telling everyone that one of the reasons that the United States needs to fight Iran is the threat of terrorism, how unserious about terrorism are you if you put the this team of bozos in charge of defending the Homeland against terror attack. Literally you were there at the point of the creation of the Department of Homeland

Security. It was in the wake of the terror attack. They don't even pretend as if Mark Mullen has any expertise or background or ability in that way. I mean, they've now refashioned the Department entirely around their immigration plans and their deportation agenda. And as you mentioned with cash, so to pull this up here during a testimony, I guess it was two days ago. The existence was Wednesday. Carson Cohen from Tennessee was asking about the

experts they had fired on Iran. And he says, the people you fired, they worked in counterintelligence on Iran. Did they not? And the cash replies, I'm taking it your word on that. He's like,

“you're the director. I could you should know who the people you fired were. And that is the”

story. Like they fired these guys because they were caught up in the Trump classified documents case because among the documents that we're in his bathroom at Marilaga was Iran war plans. And so since these guys experts on Iran counterintelligence got pulled into that, they've been fired. So as you mentioned, like across the board, whether BFBI or DHS, they seem totally on serious about that domestic element of the potential fallout for the war.

So let me just remind people why the Department of Homeland Security was created and maybe it wasn't a good idea, but he was the logic back in the Bush days. When the 9/11 investigations were conducted, one of the things that was found was that the CIA had possessed a lot of the information, maybe sufficient information necessary to prevent the 9/11 attack. But the CIA had no operating ability to do anything about it. The FBI did have the operating ability

to do something about it, but it didn't have the information. And the reason that they didn't have the information, it was not just a bureaucratic screw up. It's the CIA operates by one set of rules. It's an espionage agency. It doesn't have to respect civil liberties. It doesn't have to charge people and send them to prison. It just needs to know things. The FBI needs to charge people and send them to prison and properly in a constitutional

democracy limit the knowledge that a police department has because they can't just go for inheriting around everything. But what do you do with international terrorism where the CIA is gathering information by one set of rules? And the FBI needs to operationalize that by another set of rules. You didn't want to bring the CIA into DHS. It's not there, but you needed to create some kind of structure for coordinating all the information that was available to the United

States government to protect the United States against terror attacks and other catastrophic threats. So that's the theory. And the people who were in charge of DHS were supposed to be serious, homeland security, protectors. And whatever you think about illegal immigration, and I probably more hawkish about it than you, it's a threat to the labor market. It's not a threat to

anybody's safety. And DHS needs to have the mandate of American safety first. And that means

competent, efficient, experienced counterterrorism, counter espionage professionals, not, as I say, the team of buzzers. I kind of have to do this. I feel like sometimes when

and yet they're also the only people with no power. There is a question right now in this moment

about how the Democrats handle this DHS funding fight, especially the context of the war, a less important priority. But real, something that's affecting people is TSA, most importantly, the people who work for TSA that aren't getting paid, but also that's getting worse and worse if you're trying to travel. That has various impacts on the economy in the country. The Democrats offered just funding TSA. Now this is all wrapped up in the Mark Wayne Mullin confirmation process as well.

How would you recommend they handle this given the context of the threats? Well, this again is going to anticipate something you wanted to say for later. Let's just do it. We'll just do it. We don't need to go on to my agenda, David. We can talk. We can just kind of hang out and we'll come back. We'll save the MMA for the end. Okay. I wanted

to do the MMA fight at the launch first to give people a little appetizer, but instead it can be a

dessert. So the Democrats are conducting the DHS fight. As if the Iran war is not suddenly agenda one item in Washington. Obviously, the president has done something fantastically irresponsible with how much security. As he's already done something fantastically responsible with the FBI. And as he does something fantastically irresponsible by naming Joe Kent to be counterterrorism, person this, this person, talent war record, personal tragedy, history, but whatever the reason he is

clearly mentally unstable with crazy views and should not be anywhere near the government of the United States much less than national security portfolio. So those were all crazy responsible things. How do you press the president on that point? You have to say, you know, the Iran war is on.

“The Iran war is a fact. I think you have to get to his right on national security. He said,”

Mr. President, you started a war of your own volition against the world's leading state sponsor terrorism. And you are leaving the homeland naked to Iranian terror attack and Iranian terror cells because you want to send a lot of guys who do roofing to prison or import them. That's your priorities, deporting roofers. You are leaving the country naked to terrorism. And I think sometimes Democrats need to ask themselves, if the tables returned, if you had some complete,

I don't know who the Democratic Trump would be, but somebody as irresponsible as that, playing games with national security for some completely unrelated agenda in the middle of a war against Iran, what would the Republicans do? Think about, you know, that's strategy. The next terror attack will be the fault of cash potential because he's an idiot and an expert at chugging beer and locker rooms, no doubt. But that may be chugging beer and locker rooms is not the skill set you need when

you're... He's designed his own shoe. He is a person who can do shoe that he is designed for himself. I don't know if he cuts that. And a very small size. But meanwhile, the homeland

“is naked. But that means you have to take on board the reality that there is really a war against”

this leading state sponsor terror and not in any way either undersell the danger from Iran and not in any way of putting your fingers in your ears and say, "Law, Law, we can't hear that there's a war on because whether you like the war or not, approve the decision to start it, it's on." So what's the thing with that in the context of the funding fight then? How do you get to the right of them? Because there's, you know, you could imagine various different strategies

that could be put forth. You know, I don't know, like you could imagine a pocket-stemocratic party going to them and saying, "We're going to give you more money for counterintairs and here, but there is, you know, one catch you have to, I don't know, take off the masks of Ice Age and

something like that. You know, we're just a spitball. There are million things that they could do.

The other way to look at this is continuing the fight, which is to say now, we're not going to fund this agency as long as you haven't made these concessions. How do you think about it? The hazard of approach to saying we're not going to fund the agency is it is not impossible that there is an outbreak of lucidity on the Republican side. Because the strategy, I just recommend that Democrats use against Republicans is available for Republicans to use against

Democrats. And John Corne and basically did this. There's this exchange is here. I'm an Austin, it was Greg, because it was a progressive house guy crashed one of John Corne's press conferences outside the airport and Greg was saying basically it's your fault that we're not funding these guys, like we offered to pay them and and Corne's shop at it because when he goes, you want more terrorist attacks. We have this terrorist attack on sixth street in Austin, like that like that exchange happened.

Right. Well, that's that's the obvious play. I'm just imagine Carl Roever running the Republican party right now. And you had a Republican party that was about winning elections, not about stealing

“as much money as it can before the roof falls in in November. That's what he would do. And it would”

work. And by the way, it has the merit as Henry Kissinger used to say about when he would offer a line of argument. He said, you go, this argument has this advantage, this advantage, and it is the further additional merit of being true. So this is the further additional method of being true. The country is very vulnerable right now. And Iran has a long history of conducting terror attacks

couple of years ago, they nearly assassinated the Saudi ambassador on his way to dinner at a popular

“restaurant here. The British apprehended Iranian agents casing out the oldest synagogue in London.”

You have to be prepared for this to be an Iranian tactic. And the DHS is unfunded. Somebody needs and somebody will make an issue out of that. And the strategy is not to preserve the non-funding. The strategy is to get the department funded, but with rules, with the right priorities.

And with the terrorism first approach. And by the way, the FBI is part of this. And cash

Patel needs to be in the sites and someone who not just is a crook and a time-wester, but as someone who is leaving the country naked to its enemies. And the counter to that is just that, yes, the war in Iran is the fact. The other thing that is the fact is that I don't Trump got elected and put in a bunch of clowns to run all of these agencies and they've run it away that is lawless

with President DHS, but also incompetent across the board. And why do you want to be complicit in giving these clowns an incompetence additional resources?

“Because there's a government. There's a government. What should you have to?”

There are just so many points where Democrats could make this case. For example, in 2022, when Russia escalated its war against Ukraine. Russia's one of the world's largest energy producers in the world, Russian Ukraine are largest food producers in the world. They created a huge shock to energy and food markets. I wrote about this a lot at the time of the Atlantic.

And through an amazing success of coordinated response between the United States, Europe, Japan,

and other friends, that challenge was blunted. And what the Russians hoped would be an economic disaster did not turn into one. But one of the means used was that President Biden authorized the largest release of oil from the strategic petroleum reserve in American history. And that was a good call. That was the right thing to do in 2022. But in 2024 and 2025, with these amazing low fuel prices that President Trump kept bragging about, that was the time to go refill. And he didn't

do it. He didn't do it. And so we need to do more releases. But had it been topped up in 2025. The United States would be in a much better position. So there is a national security argument all these against this administration, which is, and by the way, one of the things that you would want to top up is some aid for Ukraine, because Trump keeps saying that the reason there aren't enough weapons apparently is that so many were given away to Ukraine. Well, he was selling weapons

“in 2025, not giving anything. And not, again, not stockpiling, yet a year and a half. Why didn't he stockpile?”

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I want to talk about the relationship of the allies with regards to the war that we get into the war itself, just because there's been a bunch of news on that this week. We had in Denmark a pretty astonishing news story about the lengths to which they were planning on protecting Greenland in the case of an American invasion with the Japanese Prime Minister in the Oval Office yesterday. I extensively have a more conservative figure. I don't want to pretend to

be an expert on internal Japanese politics, but somebody that was a sense with more Trump friendly potentially, a new Prime Minister there, and the Oval Office Trump attacked her and Japan for the

this week, Alster, from the rest of his colleagues, yeah, talking about the tensions between

“tier-stormer and the UK. A lot there, but that's kind of what you click on the various ways that”

are relationships with our traditional allies are being straight. Well, the Denmark story is the most shocking and startling, and this is a rumor that those of us who are interested in these in the Arctic, I had been hearing since January, but last week it was confirmed by Danish news agencies with good sourcing to the Danish government in quotes on the record. It's not been on the record before. The Greenland is, of course, Danish territory, part of the Kingdom of Denmark at a substantial

autonomy, and the Danes and Donald Trump in January really ramped up a threat to an exit by force. And so the Danish plan was obviously Denmark cannot defend Greenland against the United States.

Their plan was to send their best soldiers to Greenland, to die, to be killed, and their hope

was that if the United States shed Danish blood, it would so shame the United States, they hoped. They had that sufficient confidence in the United States to believe that Americans are still capable of shame for murdering allies or killing allies. It would stop the war, but that was their plan. Blow up the airfields because of the frozen conditions that you can't land on off the airfields. You'd have to use the airfields, blow up the airfields, and then have

like, there's a big pasture where you can land the plane. Right. And then have the soldiers there, and their mission was, take casualties, and shame the Americans. And there were going to be French troops as well, and I think some British observers. So in January, the allies were preparing for a NATO war against an American invasion of NATO territory. And for the United States, now they say, "Oh, our allies are so ungrateful." They were preparing for you to kill them.

So there's a reason there's a little testing from the old Brad Todd line, Trump's opponents

“taking literally, but you have to take him seriously, but not literally. Unfortunately, if you're”

discussing an invasion of a NATO ally, the allies have to take the American presence at his word, and at least prepare for that, rather than try to decide when he's speaking out of his ass. And by the way, it's not clear, this is a part of the one part of the story we don't know, is whether, in fact, the deterrence worked. We don't know how advanced American plans were in January. It's very possible that had the Danes not done that. There would have been a seizure

of Greenland territory, and that the threat of not having runways and having to kill Danes did deter the United States. We're waiting to find out that piece of the story. I don't want us. I don't want to assert a distruder, not true. I don't know, but that's the question you have, is how close was the United States, and did Denmark successfully deter the United States? So that's the Danes, and then, you know, I mentioned to the Japanese from Minister in this week,

and in addition to just the disrespect to the allies, not giving them a heads up about what we're doing, not engaging them. All of these countries are kind of suffer economic consequences as well, in a very real way. And to me, we'll see, I don't have a crystal ball, but you'd have to imagine that will exacerbate these relationships even further. I mean, they've been insulted, they've been threatened to be invaded, and now Trump has done a military action without

their buy-in that is going to have real ramifications for them domestically. Everyone's aware of the price of oil in the price of gasoline, because there's one global oil price. But it's worth remembering that the actual flow of oil, 80% of the oil from the Persian Gulf goes to Asia. The United States is now, again, the largest producer of oil in the world, the North America, US Post Canada, produced about 25% of all the world's oil, and even more of the world's

natural gas. And the United States imports a little from Canada, it imports a little from some other places, because they're particularly kinds of oil that don't come from the United States, and in turn America exports all, but America's a net export. So you're going to have higher prices, but there's no risk of a supply shortage in the United States. But in Asia, South Korea, Japan, China, too, they're a realness of outright shortage, because the tankers that are expected,

that are not making their way, are on their way to Asian markets in 80% of cases. So the United States is putting a special burden on its Asian allies. And that's a moment that calls for language of sympathy to stir solidarity, because what you're ultimately afraid of is that maybe not Japan, maybe not South Korea, but people who like you last like Malaysia and Indonesia, Vietnam, countries that are important to American strategic planning, but are not really friends of the United States.

I said, you guys are just too unreliable, too flaky, and you never think about our interests.

“So why should we think about yours? That's the first run. I mean, I think you have to have”

start having some hard conversations in the countries that are actually allies. And you saw this from Mark Carney, and Canada starting to have these conversations about whether, you know, rebalancing the relationship and how much America's relied on versus China is something that is being considered, right? Do you think that's empty threat? No, it is not at all an empty threat,

ally, geography is geography. I spent a lot of time on this question. The Canadian mood is always

has historically been. The United States is this intimate partner. And the American sometimes drag Canada into dentures where Canada would rather not be, like a trade war with China over electric

“cars, but when they say go, you have to go because they do so much for you. And there's a kind”

of integration to the highest levels of government. I think one of the things that Carney was saying is, it's not we're breaking off from the United States to realize reality with China. He's saying, the way I think about the 21st century is they're going to be three superpowers, the United States China and India. And the United States is a little more benign than China and India, but not dramatically more benign. And so our goal is, we'll always be closer to the United States than China and India,

but we have to have options in a way that Canadians never thought about optionality before.

The Indians carried out an assassination on Canadian soil. Admittedly, somebody who deserved it. Okay, or probably allegedly deserved it. But still, I just can't just get two sentences on that because I'm not aware of the Indian assassination in Canada. I knew I know the Saudis sent a team to Canada to try to kill one of NBS's political foes, but they got shut down about the Saudis at the border, yeah. So Canada has a bad history of turning its eye to diaspora terror

fundraise. There's a deal. If you're a Tamil, if you're a Sikh, if you're a Hezbollah and you fundraise and if you don't conduct any operations in Canada, but you raise money in Canada for operations elsewhere, Canada will sort of look away. And this has been a special problem with Sikh terrorism. In the 1980s, there were some Sikh terrorism inside Canada, but since then there's been a

lot of fundraising, but no, and the Indians have complained and complained and complained and finally

they've murdered. One of the alleged largest Sikh terror fundraisers in Canada, you know, he was allegedly a big terror fundraiser and there was allegedly blood on his hands, but still it's bad form. And the Chinese do even worse things, interfering Canadian elections. They harass intimidating, kidnets, sometimes Canadians of Chinese origin, who speak out in ways that the Chinese state doesn't like. But so the Chinese saying is, look, China and India obviously

bigger problems in the United States, but the Americans are also a threat. And so Canada needs

“it's like a problem in geometry where you need to stay away from all three points of the triangle,”

of the triangle of danger. But it used to be, you wanted to be as close to that safety point and it's no longer a safety. That's what Carnie's message was. Not the canvas because we couldn't even become China's hour. The expanding war, the Middle East, just a little baseline of how you think it's going. How do you think it's going so far? I think there are two tracks and military

track and the political track. And I think the military track is going, and again, I'm not an expert on this, but in my impression, the military track is going much, much better than you would gather from following most conventional American opinion, whether legacy media or new media. The United States and Israel are successfully, they have neutralized Iranian air defense, they are eliminating Iran's ability to do offensive attacks. So the attacks have become

more ragged, more poorly aimed. And the Iranians are doing, being pressed to do stupid things, like shoot it, everybody, including the Turks, and they shouldn't be shooting at. People, they ought to be looking to make some kind of ally out of, they've made an enemy out of the Turks, they're making an enemy out of the Gulf States. And the Israelis in particular are destroying the security apparatus of the regime, but with these highly targeted attacks on checkpoints,

“on officials who have done monstrous crimes. So that part, I think, is succeeding. And although it's”

hard to see the resolution, if you'd look at one of those military matrixes and you say, where do you want to be on X-Day? I think they would say that everyone is completely satisfied with where they are and whatever day of the war this is today, I guess this day 22 something like that. It's the political track and they're two political tracks. One is, where are we going? What's the goal? The Trump's idea seems to be that you hit the Iranians enough and they negotiate. That puts

all the initiative and the Iranian hands. All they have to do is not negotiate and sooner or later Trump gives up. Not the Israelis, but Trump. And the second problem is, this is the bigger one. He has no permission structure. He has no authorization for Congress. He has no certainty that Congress will fund his war. He has no permission from the public. There is real economic pain, and it will get worse. And he is not told Americans it's coming. He has no permission from it,

and his numbers will crater. And as first fuel and then food prices rise for war that Americans do

we already is going to crumble more. So I would say military progress, political trouble now and

worse trouble ahead. Yeah, I guess I want to add a third vector because I think that when the

“military success is being discussed, I take your point that in a lot of media, there is more”

skepticism and hostility to this for good reason. And so there's not a lot of focus on if you're grading this as if it was a war game. And it's a number of leaders of the other side, taken out out. You know, a number of missiles taken out. I bet that these really in the U.S. operation has been as well as successful. But the other vector is kind of this quasi military geopolitical one, and you know, which is a little bit different from just a pure politics. It's kind of this

middle ground. And thinking about, okay, well, when you started this operation, you knew that the Iranians are going to do something. Maybe they've been less effective at protecting their missile stockpile than you've thought. And so that part has gone well. But blowing up oil infrastructure all across the Middle East is causing very real problems, geopolitically, for sure. And that, I think, has been, you know, the ability for the state of

core moves to totally be shut down, you know, rather than having, you know, little kerfopholes there, is something that, obviously, they did not expect or want. And, you know, the, I guess, if you have the state of goal of the nuclear program, again, I'm not an expert on this, but looking at, you know, various military experts that you've read, it doesn't feel like additional progress beyond what was made in last year has been made at, preventing them, you know, from attaining a nuclear

weapon, a Danny Citrant, Citrant with, you know, as a formerly IDF intel guy that had to pretty negative assessment, essentially, if what's been happening there. You know, again, if you're doing scoreboard counting, the military fighter has been well, but like the impact, more geopolitically, to me feels much more negative. As an observer of the run up to the Iraq War, what were the most

important mistakes made in 2003? And among the more never serious enough thought to, what if we

“don't get the best case or even the mid-case scenario? What if we get the worst case scenario?”

What does that look like and what happens then? And the second was, how do we plan for after the shooting stops or after formal military operation stop, what happens then? How do we get to a political resolution in Iraq? And both of those were very poorly planned and there was a real failure, a refusal to think about worst case scenarios. And there is a joke circulated at the time, how many bush officials does it take to change a light bulb and the answer is, what are you talking

about that light bulb is perfectly fine? What do anybody need to change it? And you're giving aid and comfort to terrorism, if you've been contemplating changing the light bulb. So, there's a drum people looked at that record and said, you know what, they screwed up on those two counts, but like amateurs. We're going to show some professional refusal to think about worst case scenario. We're going to show them, you know, what happened when you put cash per tell on the job

of not thinking about things, how much not thinking can cash per tell do? And turns out, you know, he can way more than Paul Wolfowitz. Yeah, we're going to take that same mistake and add it to Megalo, maybe. Yeah, so the cult of personality. When you eat these stories saying they didn't plan for the straight of hormones, I'm sure that the United States Navy, there's a whole floor of the building that has spent the past 50 years thinking about what

happens if the straight of hormones is closed. There's not a plan, they're probably eight plants, all kinds of options with cool names, or actually pre-trumps of their uncool names. But you have to prepare, you know, the Iranians might really do this, and Mr. President, have you considered

“which of those hot plans you will choose? Have you consulted with the American people?”

But how you will embrace them for the shock to oil prices, it's going to. And he just said, I'm not thinking, I'm just going to assume they don't do it. Not because the Navy didn't think about it. But because he refused to consider the worst case or even the mid-case scenario. And this is the most probable thing the Iranians would do, and they don't seem to have taken it seriously at all. Yeah, I think they're two elements that, just really quick on the on the priming

that the country for all this stuff. And it is another just massive difference from the Iraq war, right? And so the planning was not there for the worst or mid-bad case scenario. And over time, obviously, resentment built anger belters, you know, we could do a poll podcast series on all about ramifications of that. But like in the initial months, people were understood what the mission was or thought they did or about, you know, bought in on the stated mission. That isn't happening here.

And so when you have these negative ramifications that are affecting people's lives, tangibly, and you can see them immediately. And then they ask themselves, wait a minute,

why were you even doing this in the first place? Like, I don't even understand what we're doing.

Like, what are what the point is of this that I think puts them in even the worst position to try to navigate it. And to add to that, they said, last summer, President Trump struck out

would be sorry about that, although they might be troubled by the legalities of it. And then he said, mission accomplished. We did it. We obliterated the Iranian nuclear program. If you're worried about that, you don't have to think about anymore. I did it. I saw that yay me, why don't people more people say thank you to me? No one ever says thank you to me. But I did it your welcome. I said, and I didn't consult Congress and I spent a lot of money, but I did it. Nine months later,

the country's back, why? Well, that thing I told you I did, I actually, I didn't. Sorry. So I told you not to think about anymore, but I, now we're at a big war, and the price of fuel

“is going up because I need to fight a ground war, which I think we're on the way to fighting,”

because even if it's just cargile and that's still ground, yeah, to fighting a ground war,

for something I told, I promised you, I had fixed already. And I never went to Congress,

I didn't go to the UN. You know, again, there's not a lot of Iraq more nostalgia out there, but I just want to remind people, President Bush in 2003 got authorization from Congress. And he had a whole series of UN security council resolutions against Iraq, and he went back to the UN to try to get another one. He failed, but there are a bunch of resolutions before, then authorizing the United States and allies to enforce no nuclear weapons in Iraq. He put together some kind of political

consensus, and he had public approval on his side. For a while, then the war went wrong, and the WMD, we don't, everyone knows the story. And again, I don't cite this as, you know, here's a great success story, but just here is some show of institutional respect to the way war is fought in the United States. And so then to the military, you mentioned this. So there's

“reporting in Axiots this morning that very serious contemplation of sending in either an amphibious”

unit or helicopter, you know, they have different plans or options, try to take this car

guy land, which is in the straight form. There's a lot of Iranian energy assets, very risky type operation. And again, when you think about the potential negative outcomes for this, I ain't every day that the straight-up form moves is closed. There are all manner of unintended consequences down the pike, you know, some of the stuff we talked about with geopolitical with our allies earlier, also then the economic, you know, we saw what a supply chain crisis could

does to the economy in 2022. Joe Biden's over the consequences, you know, it's not just going to get us, it's fertilizer healing, a bunch of stuff. So, and then the potential for escalation, what happens if the operation doesn't go well and, you know, gone through additional troops died, et cetera, et cetera. So I mean, that's where we're at right now, which seems very for carriers.

And let's say the operation does go well, because I'm sure it liked the Navy with the straight-up

home moves, the Marines have been thinking about carguerland nonstop again for 50 years, and they've probably been training for it and they're the Marines. So let's say goes, well, now what? Because the real ground truth question is going to be supposed to you as these rarely seem intent on doing due collapse, this hateful regime, which is doing additional hateful acts by the day, hey, murdering teenage girls, or hanging high school athletes, and it's hateful. And the

Israelis are like the hand of God striking down the judges who hand down those ends. So let's say the regime does collapse. Now what? Iran is a semi-developed society, it's got roads, it's got hospitals, it's got a huge problem of keeping the water on, it's got electricity, who's in charge of preventing roving gangs of criminals from taking over the streets of Iranian cities. The Iranian military is going to be broken. And if the idea is,

somebody takes power. Who? Trump even said we killed them, I don't know, we have a couple guys in mind they're dead now. Yeah. And if if the idea is that the polymede dynasty returns, I'm they're going to need some kind of international structure. And by the way, they're going to need international aid, because by the time this ends, if it ends in anything like the way the United States and Israel hope, and that I hope with a transition to some new kind of regime,

it's going to be broke. They're going to need international assistance. And they're going to help reconstructing their oil facility. Who's thinking about that? Well, nobody our friends don't want to steal stuff from them. If they get a regime wants to take there, it will be wants to do the Venezuela deal. We're going to take carguer and then we're going to get a 20% vig, you know, 5% for the country, 15% for Don Jenner. This is the other really important mistake

about Iraq. And this is why I personally was most guilty of, so I'm very conscious of it. So you looked at a picture of Baghdad in 1923, you saw these buildings. It looks sort of like buildings you knew. And there must be people going to work in those buildings. There must be something like a state. So when you remove the 200 worst actors at the top, you'll inherit a state structure.

“That's what happened in Japan in 1945 is, you know, the people of the ministry of tramways”

continue to go to work and to operate the tramways. And it turned out no, actually, there was no state. The United States had broken and the Iraqis had broken that state long before. There is nobody in those buildings. They weren't doing anything. So when you remove the 200 worst actors, the whole thing disintegrated into chaos. And it needed many more people, many more armed people,

The original plans for Iraq said, you'll need 300,000 men. And that which, by the way,

“was the correct number. It turns out. If people had accepted that, the Iraq war would never have”

happened. No one was sending 300,000 to Iraq. So the United States government at the time, President Bush, Donald Trump, shielded the Cheney persuade of themselves. They can do it with 100,000 troops for a short time. And that was not true. And chaos program, as I said, two few people for two short of time for the excellent reason that they wouldn't have said the proper number. It wouldn't have been worth it. So that's the question we're facing with what is it going

to take to keep order in Iran if you collapse the regime? It's a country of 90 million. It's bigger

than Ukraine. It's mountainous. The population may be well disposed to at least the beginning. But they'll get Groutchi, too, if there isn't electricity if there isn't water. When I just assess what is happening in this conflict, I feel like Barbara Lee or Code Pink. I think this is just a catastrophe of epic proportions. I think it's possible. It's most likely going to be the biggest catastrophe of either Trump term. I guess up to now, who the hell knows

what the future could hold. I just think economically geopolitically. I don't see any possible good solution for Iran. I think that the worst case scenario is just a total breakdown of the state and a refugee crisis and something that looks like Syria. The best case scenario is huge

economic shock and a different eye tole and charge. I could the whole thing seems horrific.

I'd build crystal under this weekend. We got some teasing on social media because the headline

“of the podcast was end of the war. I just like that's how I see it. There are others, there are”

Democrats and you talk about this a little bit on your podcast about thinking that that's the wrong approach. We are where we are. The Iranians are bad guys. I need to be managed. Where do you see my Barbara Lee approaches and correct at this point? I think what you're doing is you're pushing together into one question, what are two separate questions. So question one is, would you oppress the Go button at the beginning? Of course, or would you have approved the pressing of the

Go button at the beginning? So, President W. Bush, President Obama, President Biden, they all had the opportunity. President Trump won to press the Go button and they all said no. So, that's a pretty wide range of presidents and you know what? No, no, go. And if you'd ask me the day before this right, would you approve a Trump led war on Iran? It's absolutely not. Even if it has the military's ready, the political leadership, they're not to be trusted. They're not ready. The Homeland's

naked. They're crooks. They will take a volumeance from the Saudis and the Kuwaitis and the Go fees. No, I am not in favor. I would not, if I were in charge, I would not press go. And if I'm as an observer, as a poll answerer, I do not approve the decision to go if it done by President Trump. No, no, no. But now it's March 20. The Go button is pressed. What happens now? And this is

“I think is where our disagreement is. I don't think it's a meaningful answer to say stop the war.”

Because everything I'm worried about, we're already on that path. So my response is the people who care about the country, which in which I do not include President Trump, need to find some way to assert authority over this war that has begun and it is on its way to being a very big war. The plane is in the air. So the question is, how do you bring the plane? I'll turn it around. Well, I'll try to land it on the ice and greenland. I don't know. Yeah, but what stop the war

really means is turn off the ignition and see what happens. Because you can't go backwards in time. You can't turn the plane around. You can't undo what has been done. And so I just don't see how it could get better. Like what is a path to a getting better than it is today? And I don't see it. I think stopping the bombing and getting Israel to stop as well and letting Iran figure it out feels like it's not a good situation that's really bad, such a way. Yeah, because they don't stop.

The Iran doesn't stop the war. Why? Because they have to exact a price. If supposing we did that, the Iranian regime not to reassert its authority within its territory, which means killing a lot of people. And they have to exact a price from the Emirates. They don't stop firing in Israel. They have to exact a price. Right now they look there. What is, what is, this is where I start to feel like, again,

a peace necker, an America first person. What does that have to do with us? Who cares? I just think

back to when we were in the Bush air, and you were writing for speeches, I was working in Republicans one thing that we kept talking about was, we needed energy independence at home because we did not want to be caught up in dealing with the fights of these mollus and be at their mercy overseas. That was the point of becoming energy independent. And so now it's like, why, who cares

that, doesn't? There's no such thing as energy independence. There's one global price of energy.

And wherever it comes from, that's the price. So you may get all of your energy from the United States from North America. There may be no absolute shortage, but the price will be the global price. You can't get oil from the Persian Gulf to Japan. Well the Japanese entered the auction market for North American oil. But if we stopped, wouldn't Iran then just sell their oil? Again, these are all bad scenarios. I'm not for this, but we're here now. I look at the same thing

that you're looking at now, and you're saying we're here now, so we should figure out how to manage the war. I'm saying we're here now, and everything we do from here gets worse. If I guess the new Iranian regime, whatever asshole I told it takes over, then start selling their oil to Asia, that's not great, but we shouldn't have done, we shouldn't have started this conflict.

“And the first place, why are we going to fight on car island?”

So that Asia can get oil? It doesn't make any sense to me.

So two answers to my question. The first one is, why do I care, and the second is, what do I

hope would happen? What made it into what I hope for is kind of unlikely? Why, because the reason I became an anti-Trump Republican in the first place, and I remain an anti-Trump Republican, I've disaffiliated from the party and moral discussed, but I believe in American global leadership. I don't want to see the Chinese fleet policing the Persian Gulf. Even though the oil is flowing not to the United States, but to American allies, the United States gets enormous benefits from

being in charge of world safety, because if the United States is not either there won't be world safety or China and India will do it, and I don't want to live in that planet, and I don't want that planet for my children. But we've elected Trump twice since then. Look at the job he's doing managing, because he's not doing a good job. It's being managed quite poorly, and maybe we should

“just stop and let him be America first and build his art chair and stop doing the stuff, and then we”

can deal with all of that reinserting our legal power in 2020-29. And maybe the twice election

Trump means, I mean, I comment this again from a Canadian point of view, where I sometimes, we look at the United States as outsiders, but we also maybe have more admiration and trust in the United States, and a more idealized version. But the America I believe in, and maybe I'm just a fossil, and when I shuffle off the stage, this view goes with me, I still believe in the mission of the United States. I still believe in the capacity of the United States. And yes, the two

elections of Trump challenge my view of the ultimate value of the American experiment. But I'm not giving that up, and so I still want to live in that unipolar American-led world order with rallies, like-minded countries, to meet the challenge from China that tries to recruit India into that order difficult as that project is, and this is part of it. And so what I hope will happen, and again, this is maybe more fancival than your idea of stopping the war, is that there are enough for

public and senators who behind the scenes will work with enough democratic senators behind the scenes,

“and democratic senators who have to say to President Trump, you have to put a responsible first”

in the DHS. You have to replace that of the FBI. If Hague Seth wants to keep his job, let him keep his job, but let's make sure that someone who's doing the job, who isn't Hague Seth, because he's on meathead, and let's have some real people, unless have achievable aims, and let us apologize to all our friends in Europe, and let's try to build the coalition, and let's give the American people the message you should have given it, and maybe that message can't come from you. You know,

the reason we call it the Marshall Plan, the thing in the United States did after World War II, which was because President Truman at that point had lost the trust of Republicans in Congress, and he said, if it's named for me, it won't happen. He found George Marshall, who was the most admired man in the country, and said, "This is your idea now." So we need to find people who are admired, where in the vicinity of the Trump administration, who can become the face of

getting us out of this jam that President Trump has driven the country into. As I said, I would not have pressed the go button. I was not in favor of pressing the go button, but the go button is pressed, it can't be on pressed. What would you tell to a Marine right now about, or that their family, about why they're going to do an amphibious attack on Cargailant, like what is the point, why would we do that? It would be a hard thing to say to somebody in that

line of danger. I hope what I'm about to say is true, you have drilled this operation, you and your predecessors every day for the past 50 years. You are going to succeed, and you're going to succeed at acceptable cost because you're in the United States Marine Corps, and you've been thinking about this under President's going back to Jimmy Carter. I'm sure that Carter planning started under Carter, and it will work, and you are doing this because the United States is at war with the

world's leading state spawns of terror that is the blood of many, many Americans on its hands, and that has killed 40,000 of its own people in a matter of weeks, and you're bringing a better future to that country, and you're doing what Americans soldiers do at their best, which is fight for justice and freedom, not only safety at home and justice and freedom for other people, and I'd hope that that would be true, and that there would be people back home who would feel

a little bit that sense of what America used to be and should be again, but isn't now.

and more so than me, and so maybe this is my version of you being a Canadian looking in,

like maybe my distance here is not giving me the full point of view on something, and so I just want to posit this and get your reaction. One thing we agree on is I just think that there's a

“score of anti-Semitism here and globally that is expanding and growing, and I think that that's”

a problem, I think simultaneous that obviously Israel has very serious security issues, which they have the right to deal with, and yet the way in which BB has worked with Trump on this war, to me has done a lot to exacerbate the global anti-Semitism problems, and I think if you look it's just to give one example of this, Joe Kant who we can both agree is an anti-Semite and a bad person, he resigns his job and he writes the sentence. Iran does no imminent threat to our nation,

and it's clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel. Here is what Carolyn Love

at the spokesperson for the President's side in response to that. This is a lie. President Trump has clearly and explicitly stated he had strong and compelling evidence that Iran was going to attack the United States first. If you were to stay person in the world and you were listening to those two statements, and Joe Kant, the anti-Semite says, "No, there was no imminent threat, we did this due to pressure from Israel," and the other side says, "Oh no, that's not true. Iran

was going to attack us any day now. I don't think it's crazy for sensible people to look at that

“and say it seems like Joe Kant is the one that is saying the truth here." And I think that that”

is created a problem for Israel and for Trump that they have put themselves in the situation.

How do you react to that? I right, well neither is true, but the problem is that the truth

is one that it's a little difficult for leaders to articulate. So Iran, in March, if I guess the war started February, February of 26, was not an imminent threat to the United States. That's not why the United States struck. The United States struck because it's really actually made Iran so vulnerable. That for the first time since 1979, the long simmering US Iran war, which has been going on nonstop in one former another since 1979, the United States could strike with devastating

effect and at very low cost. Thanks to the Israeli success last summer, against the Iranian air defense, this was the moment when you could achieve something that every American president has thought about very seriously. The United States worked with Israel under the Obama administration to use clandestine means to stop the Iranian nuclear bond program. And the Israelis were doing things like messing up the Iranian centrifuges, killing Iranian nuclear scientists. The United States

did not veto those actions and probably helped. So there has been this war in the shadows for a long time. It goes back to kidnapping of American diplomats at the embassy in 1979, the murder of American Marines in 1982, and they root the torture of the CIA station chief for the Iranian supplying IEDs in Iraq. This is a long running battle. The United States struck now because it

“was the moment of safety. And so the claim of imminent threat, I think, is untrue. Iran was struck”

because this was the moment to prevent it from becoming the next North Korea. And that's that I think is why the military was willing to do it. And President Trump acted maybe he was under the impression his poll numbers would go up. Who knows how to think, so I'm not going to pretend to understand that. But for Israel, this war truly is existential. I mean, the Iranians have made it very clear. The reason they wanted nuclear weapon was to have a big they used to, a big clock in the center

of Tehran with the countdown to the annihilation of Israel by the year 2040. And the Iranians were the funders of the people attacked Israel on October 7th. So from an Israeli point of view, that war doesn't end until you've gone too Berlin in a way and turned off the source of the existential threat. And Israel is much in a much safer place. Israel has a much narrower margin of security than the United States does. But there was no imminent threat, but it's also not true. This is some kind of

Israeli scheme. It's America saying this, I don't think the Kamal Harris would have done this. But if a younger and healthier Joe Biden or President in 2026, would he have thought very, very hard about striking around then? I believe he would have. And even I think even a President Obama might have thought very, very hard. This is the moment, let's do it. Just my one follow-up on this. And then we'll close with them and I find if people deserve

that they've been waiting for is given the nature of the existential threat. Israel cannot make decisions on war and peace based on what's going to be said on the Theo von Podcast America. You know, I recognize that. And yet, I just given the increasing isolation and concerns about anti-Semitism in the West and Europe and the U.S., I even listen to that answer that you just gave. And it's like, well, the U.S. didn't really go because of Israel, but Iran was an existential threat

to Israel. Like this was a real threat that they had faced. And now we are part of it because it's kind of for these like long, complicated, more bank shot reasons. And I just worry, if you're Israel

a lot of ammo. You're giving out a rhetorical ammo and aid and comfort to people that don't

“like you don't want to be supportive of you. And I think maybe, you know, you could be putting”

yourself in a situation where in 2028, you have two different presidential candidates who are both opposed to you because of the way that this was prosecuted. And that is also a long-term risk to Israel. And I just think that it would be fair for people to critique or to be concerned about the relationship based on that. Is that wrong from your perspective? No, I don't think that's wrong. There's Israeli peace and American peace. And it is a very

difficult balance from an Israeli point of view. And I speak as a Jew and a supporter of Israel. It's a very difficult balance for friends of Israel and for Israeli to think how much of our security should we rest on the opinions of others and how much should we rest on our own limited strength?

This is goes into history that never mind the Holocaust, but one of the things that I think

every Israeli remembers is when Israel kidnapped out of Ikeman from Argentina in 1960 and

“probably Israel for trial, that action was condemned by the resolution of the United Nations.”

And the Intepiate in 1976, when Israel flew to Uganda and rescued up a plain full of hostage, just who were going to be murdered, the United Nations didn't quite vote to condemn it, but it nearly did. And so deep in the memory of every Israeli and friend of Israelis, you know, if we relying on popularity to protect the Jewish people, then read, or never that popular, and people will be sorry for us afterwards, but they won't help

us before. So now Israel has to be sure about this and why is because Israel strength is limited, it can't just, it can't behave in any way it wishes and it depends on permission of others and it needs support from the United States and Spartaners and Europe. So it can't do whatever it wants. Or the idea of chasing likes and clicks, that's not a viable strategy, not for a country that is on the verge of extinction. That said, and the United States has a right of veto over Israeli

“actions. It's often exercised it, but I think if you knew the full history of what has gone on”

under Obama as under Trump, you would be impressed by how much more cooperation there is historically been between the United States and Israel on Iran and how much less vetoing. The MMA fight that was supposed to honor America's birthday has been changed, David Trump. It was going to be on the 4th of July. Yes. And that was troubling to me because the 4th of July is already starting to have a tinge of melancholy. My former favorite holiday is already

starting to have a tinge of melancholy. And I was like, what am I going to? How am I going to just disassociate myself from the world on this of independence day? Luckily, Donald Trump has done us a favor. He's moved the MMA fight to his birthday in June instead. It will be celebrating the president and it will be aired on the new network of choice of the White House CBS. CBS has said to air the MMA fight and there'll be some sort of rocky versus drug go MMA fight on the White House.

And this time the president of the United States will be on drug go side. So the United States marked the hundredth anniversary of independence with a great exposition of science and technology in the city of Philadelphia, the 1876 position. And the contents are still on display at the Smithsonian

Museum in Washington at the Museum of Industry. That's basically from his preserves the highlights

of that 1876 show. It celebrated the 200th anniversary in 1976 with many events. But the highlight was a giant regatta of sailing ships in New York Harbor that was jointly American and British. As if to say, 200 years ago, the most violent battles of the revolution were fought in between the United States and Britain in New York Harbor. And today, these two intimate friends are together honoring that to enter that anniversary in New York Harbor with ships that

look like the ships of the 18th century, what a beautiful image. And the 250th MMA fighting. Just like the decline and fall of the American Empire symbolized right there. And a special badly executed goal commemorative coin, find out gas stations everywhere, the president Trump in his rocky short pants and his fake six back abdominal muscles. Well, there we are. That's David from go check out his podcast today approach. It's very

excellent. Thank you, too. And hopefully we'll be having you back here soon. All right, brother.

Thank you always for your hospitality.

All right, everyone else, we back on Monday with Bill Crystal C. L. then peace. The board podcast is brought to you. Thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer Ansley Skipper and with video editing by Katie Lutz. an audio engineering in editing by Jason Brown.