Panel: A 'complete victory'? Why is Trump still facing war backlash from MAGA diehards?

[0:00] As for the ceasefire, the president is accusing Iran of doing dishonorable things [0:04] by holding up a big part of their apparent agreement, which would be opening the Strait [0:10] of Hormuz. The waterway remains effectively closed, with only a handful of ships being able [0:15] to get through since the pause was announced. And back here at home, Trump is unloading on [0:21] Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens, and Alex Jones, all of whom have criticized him and [0:27] the war. Calling them low IQ and stupid nut jobs and troublemakers, Trump is claiming that their [0:34] views are the opposite of MAGA, or I wouldn't have won the presidential election in a landslide. [0:39] I don't know about you, but I am sick of this s**t. I'm just, I'm sick of it. Can't he just [0:49] behave like a normal human? I mean, honestly, like the president, 3D chess, just shut up. Shut up [0:58] about that s**t. You don't threaten to wipe out an entire civilization. [1:03] It is vile on every level. There will be nothing like it. Open the f*****g straight. How dare you [1:11] speak that way on Easter morning to the country? Who do you think you are? [1:16] How do we 25th Amendment is s**t? If I was the Democrats, I'd stop poking Trump and messing with [1:21] that only makes it worse. Like you guys need to watch out. This isn't a guy acting like he's crazy. [1:25] This is real. Owens called Trump a genocidal lunatic, and she called for the 25th Amendment [1:30] to be invoked. She responded to Trump's post tonight by saying it may be time to put Trump [1:35] up in a home. So President Trump is really struggling right now, trying pretty aggressively [1:41] to shape the narrative. He appears to be talking to Iran through Truth Social. Not sure why that [1:48] conversation can't happen in private. And then he is knocking down his one-time allies and trying [1:55] to pretend as if he didn't talk to Tucker Carlson maybe about six weeks ago, if the New York [2:00] Times is to be believed. [2:01] Well, listen, I think that montage was extremely fair. [2:05] Thank you, Noah. [2:06] The president and the people around him have a tendency to, you know, not apply a lot of [2:11] discretion to the president's allies, regardless of who they are, what they say. And in this [2:15] case, it has come back to bite them. That said, I don't know who their constituencies are. [2:20] We know who the president's constituencies are. When it comes to this war, 80, 90% of Republican [2:24] voters, to say nothing of mega voters, self-described mega voters, support the war, whereas they [2:29] do not. Who are they siding with? They're siding with the president. I think this ceasefire [2:33] actually had some legitimacy to it. There was a value to seeing, well, Iran's position [2:38] had softened. They were coming closer to us. Our position did not. We were conducting re-strikes [2:42] on targets we had already hit. It was time to get a breather and see if the diplomatic process [2:45] could work. It hasn't worked. Over the course of the last 48 hours, this has become a unilateral [2:49] ceasefire. If the president allows that to stand, it is a huge embarrassment for him, [2:54] for the nation, and a sacrifice of American hegemony. That will frustrate the podcasters. [2:58] I don't think he cares. But, I mean, you seem to be kind of [3:02] actually making a bit of their point, which is that where we are right now is not great. [3:07] I mean, we have a ceasefire that only one party is adhering to, which is us, the United States. [3:13] Meanwhile, the Strait of Hormuz is closed. Meanwhile, Israel is continuing strikes in Lebanon. [3:19] Meanwhile, Arab allies are also experiencing strikes. So where does that really leave us in terms of real [3:26] progress? And by the way, we have no idea what the points are. Okay? They're 10 points. Maybe they [3:31] exist. Maybe they don't. We don't know what they are, but they do seem pretty far apart in terms of [3:37] what the United States wants and what Iran is willing to offer. [3:40] Yeah, absolutely. Like, it doesn't take an expert in contract law to know that both sides of an [3:44] agreement need to have the same understanding of what the agreement is. And it doesn't seem like [3:47] that's the case here, nor does the public. And so we're in this really interesting position [3:52] where the win is some agreement with Iran that gives them way more leverage than they had at the [3:58] beginning in terms of controlling the strait. And I think what the administration is learning now [4:02] is that firepower doesn't always win when you're fighting a war that is based and turns on geography [4:08] of a region and diplomacy and things that get solved without bombs, but actually with nuance and [4:12] agreements and international relations. He's gutted a State Department that could help him with that, [4:16] and I think he's just sort of disabled himself from being able to deal with it properly. [4:20] What is, I mean, do either of you think that there is a constituency or an explanation for why [4:27] the Megyn Kellys and the Tucker Carlson's are willing to, if Noah is correct, sacrifice a portion [4:33] of their audience with a message that maybe they don't want to hear? I mean, maybe they took the [4:37] president at his word when he campaigned against doing, you know, wars in the Middle East. I mean, [4:43] his entire criticism of George Bush was a failed war in the Middle East and how it was a waste of [4:49] American prestige and how it was essentially, you know, we sacrificed our soldiers for nothing, [4:56] and we ended up losing American dignity and respect in the global order. That was, you know, [5:01] it's not what I said. It's what Donald Trump said to gain power in the Republican Party. And, [5:08] you know, I mean, I am not a fan of any of the people who are criticizing him, but [5:12] I think maybe what united Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly and Alex Jones, you know, people I vehemently [5:20] disagree with, is that they actually took the president at his word and they're just another group of [5:24] people who've been suckered by this guy who lied to them to their face. I don't think they've been [5:29] suckered. I mean, my thing is, is that like, Megyn saying, I'm sick of this. Why can't he just act [5:33] like a normal human? And I'm like, he can't act like a normal human. That's why so many of us worked [5:37] against him being elected because we knew that he would have an itchy trigger finger if you gave him [5:42] a big red button to push. We knew that he was erratic. We knew that he would be not right for this role, [5:47] which is why so many of us worked to not have him elected. So she either didn't realize, [5:52] these people either didn't realize that he was crazy and dangerous, which most of us did, [5:55] or they didn't care. And now all of a sudden they're like, oh, hold on. If he actually nukes [5:59] 90 million people, there's going to be blowback on us. And this is crazy and he can't do it. But [6:04] we've been saying this for forever. I know, but I think everybody who took him at his word made a [6:08] mistake. I agree. I thought he was, would do terrible things like this. But I'm just saying, [6:13] when you're asking, why would they possibly, you know, take him on? Because it could hurt them. [6:18] It's like, it's like, let's imagine that they actually think he was like not lying to his face. [6:23] Well, through everybody. I can't get into their heads, but I just, I want to, [6:27] I do want to play this Tucker Carlson bite from 2024, December, 2024, because it's, [6:34] it's about who he thinks Trump is. And I'm sure plenty of people at this table might disagree with [6:40] his read on it. I would say Trump voters like Trump himself are really forgiving people. [6:49] They don't seek revenge. They seek some measure of justice because the human heart longs for justice, [6:54] but they don't seek to grind their enemies under their feet. That's what the left does. [7:01] A fair amount of projection maybe in there. Tucker Carlson has done this game for years now, [7:07] right? I mean, not only is this, I think the fourth or fifth time he's proclaimed World War [7:11] Three was about to break out, but he, he tries to maintain this dialogue with the president, [7:15] thinking he can have influence. And I actually think it's pretty admirable that the president is like, [7:19] I have pretty hardcore beliefs on this. You talk about Iran, Donald Trump has been saying the same [7:24] thing since the early 1980s. Like he is a broken record when it comes to the threat that Iran posed. [7:30] And I guess I'm just the panel's pan gloss here because I think that things will work out fine. [7:35] I trust the plan. It's possible we could get out of this, but it's hard to see from here because the [7:42] ceasefire that we have is actually, we see that they have continual control. He's yelling, [7:49] he's upset about it, but we are not bombing and they still have control. [7:53] They didn't gain that power. They've had that power. We're just seeing them willing to exercise it. [7:58] And at any point right now, what is happening? Right now we have, we have the dominant military [8:13] in the region. We are able to call the shots on this, not on the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. [8:18] We could do it if we so wanted to, it would take more blood and more treasure. But there is, yes, [8:22] the, you know, the ceasefire is fragile. It's a concept of a ceasefire. But the number one point, [8:27] okay, you got 10 points, you got 15 points. This is exhausting. This is exhausting. [8:31] The gaslighting is the fact that the U.S. is losing, that we're somehow defeated. [8:35] We are losing. You can't, you can't say this is a counter victory. We have not achieved our [8:39] strategic objectives. We have spent $50 billion. The counterpoint to what you're saying from the [8:46] Wall Street Journal op-ed is that declaring victory is premature. They say Trump has achieved some of his [8:51] war aims, but the Iranian regime remains a threat in the Strait of Hormuz. And the job is far from [8:57] finished, despite what he promised last week. The unfortunate truth is that Trump put himself [9:03] in this position. He has inconsistent rhetoric on the war, claims of victory amid threats of unleashing [9:08] hell and its end to Iran's civilization, raised global fears and undermined support at home and [9:14] abroad. And Trump hated this op-ed so much that he sent out a truth social post saying the journal is [9:20] the worst and inaccurate. He said, there's nothing premature about this victory. One of the reasons [9:26] I think people believe that they're declaring victory is because literally they were declaring [9:31] victory yesterday. And then the president last night, late last night, he says, in the meantime, [9:37] while they're waiting for the Strait of Hormuz to be opened, our great military is loading up and [9:41] resting and looking forward actually to its next conquest. Is he just moving on to the next thing? [9:48] This is totally mad. These are like the rantings of a mentally ill person. And so, [9:53] you know, the idea that you have soldiers and American troops who are just sort of waiting for [9:58] him to make a decision on his whim. If you had like an elderly neighbor that was posting those things, [10:02] you would probably do a welfare check on them and say like, I hope you don't have access to weapons [10:06] because you seem very unwell. And this is the commander in chief. And so I just, I really think the [10:10] absence, the silence of one part of Congress on what he's doing, I mean, that's just, it's catastrophic [10:16] for the American public. I just can't believe it's happening. [10:18] Can you rationalize this, Dylan? [10:19] It's extremely undesirable to have a president who is an unreliable narrator [10:23] in a time of war. However, this isn't new. This is how the guy talks. He speaks in superlatives. [10:28] We didn't say it was new. [10:29] Yeah, I mean, it's just arguing that it's not good. [10:31] But I mean, yeah, and again, I'm going to cede every criticism of the president in this moment, [10:36] but I would also contend that if you listen to what the brass is saying in the Pentagon, [10:40] if you listen to Marco Rubio, even J.D. Vance. [10:42] You mean the brass that hasn't been fired? Because the brass that would tell us the opposite [10:45] would be the ones that haven't been fired by the Pentagon. It's all become ridiculous, [10:50] right? We can no longer, at the end of this, we have lost the narrative.