Tim Miller, Sam Stein, JVL and Mark Hertling React to Trump's Iran Address

[0:00] all right let's do it i first need to say holy shit all right we are live guys [0:04] mark we're live mark yeah save for the show i uh okay first of all let me just apologize to [0:10] people who are tuning in we had some technical difficulties uh not sure how to describe what [0:15] you missed if you're watching that at first honestly guys i thought okay there's something [0:21] there's a structure to this there's a purpose to this he's going to outline some path outward [0:28] and then it just honestly and i know this is a cliche but it was an extended truth social rant [0:34] it really was it was a stitch together truth social rant that basically boiled down to we [0:40] are very close to meeting our core objectives and also we're about to bomb them into the stone age [0:45] that was it contradictory claims with no actual strategic vision jvl's sort of not fully in [0:52] agreement um but why what do you what what did i get wrong it's not uh it's not that i'm not full [1:00] he says we're very close to our core objectives i don't believe he outlined any core objectives [1:06] uh he well i mean just as a piece of performance was that a guy who sounded together to you guys [1:18] because that sounded i mean i don't want to make light of cognitive decline but holy shit if you [1:26] have kids in the military and that's the commander in chief do you think to yourself yeah this guy's [1:31] got his fastball [1:33] don't worry he is dialed in he knows just what's going on no i mean i just think it was sort of [1:39] terrifying like if my my oldest kid is going to turn 18 next week was enlisting i would like chain [1:46] him to to a pipe or something and say you cannot go into the military with this guy running that [1:51] i mean it's insane it was sleepy it was ad-libbed i i'm pretty sure it was ad-libbed i mean i i'm [2:00] almost positive it was ad-libbed at least portions of it were ad-libbed it was incoherent at parts [2:06] it went to [2:07] weird sides like leave it to your imagination but they can't believe what they're seeing what are [2:12] you talking about again it was contradictory there was no actual i'm not sure what the purpose was [2:19] it just was a summarization of everything you said that's what i want to ask mark what do you [2:24] think because this this wasn't a impromptu thing on the tarmac or something like this like i mean [2:32] this was a plan this was a set piece what do you think the strategic or political or communications [2:42] objective of this was well i i gotta tell you i i was writing notes scribbling notes like crazy [2:49] the only thing of any value i took off that was halfway coherent when he start talking about the [2:58] strategic objectives but then he named our objectives were to eliminate the navy they're [3:05] now destroyed [3:05] to take out their air force and missiles and those are all now gone his term not mine the [3:12] industrial base is gone those were the three i heard then he went into what i think we should [3:20] probably appropriately call the rape pillage trump doctrine because he invited all of europe [3:27] and anybody else that wanted oil just to go in and take it uh because he doesn't need it i mean [3:32] we don't need it we've got more than saudi arabia and russia combined which is an outright [3:37] lie [3:39] uh so the the one thing as i was scribbling i finally i just thought to myself who's writing [3:46] this speech for him who is putting this thing together who is his speech writer and what kind [3:53] of communication process do they have to actually get some kind of coherence and precision and [4:01] discipline into the things he's communicating to the entire american people he asked for airtime for [4:08] this tonight and it's just amazing that anybody gave it to him and he's not going to probably get [4:16] it anymore unless he beats up i disagree i am so glad that they gave it to him i'm happy people got [4:23] to see that i think it's important people see that because it was if you if you just read his [4:28] truths that's not the that's not the vast majority of the population but this is his rambling truths [4:33] and to see it in the flesh was remarkable tim miller has joined us tim you're very hot on this [4:39] in general the truth social posts is a rambling truth social like whatever i think so yeah let's [4:40] calm down, let's get on this, let's go what's going on, let's have a good time, but we're [4:42] not going off on this, let's just i wasn't supposed to be on tonight but what in the [4:48] fuck was that? honestly? what in the fuck was that? to general hurtling's point about who [4:55] wrote it, whoever's writing the truth social posts is who wrote it so maybe the golf caddy i [5:00] guess the golf yeah i think the golf caddy probably wrote it um because because it was it was a true [5:05] he writes his own posts, yeah he dictates them to an aid. [5:08] um so that yeah i think it's probably him and i because it was just a rambling truth social [5:09] gravel besides that, so um, so he dishes my post estavam, h powiedz, am ich diein, ich werde wenig haben [5:09] social post like the as best as i could tell like if you are coming into this clean like if you had [5:16] watched the artemis launch and then went and cooked a dinner and then like accidentally left [5:21] cbs on and came back and like he was talking you know and you're trying to figure out what are we [5:27] doing there like why is this war happening still the best thing that i could tell that he said was [5:34] was we're there to help it's like we're there to help and and israel and the entire middle east [5:41] would be wiped off the map if i hadn't won and that's why we're doing this and we can't let them [5:47] have a nuclear weapon there was never a pitch for like why actually we care if they had a nuclear [5:52] weapon like i understand in the abstract etc but i i don't know i just as me sitting there on the [5:57] couch watching this rambling old man talk about this war i'm like a little bit more worried about [6:02] donald trump using the nuclear weapons that all he needs to do is press a button [6:05] but i don't think he's going to be able to do that he's going to be able to do that he's going to [6:05] be able to do that he's going to be able to do that he's going to be able to do that he's going to [6:05] then the mullahs in tehran enriching uranium through a multi-year process and attacking us [6:11] with nuclear weapons not to say it's not a concern that iran would have a nuclear weapon but like [6:16] there is no pitch that like this was an urgent thing that could matter to somebody who lives in [6:20] topeka like like that that there's a you know so so because otherwise the iranians might extort [6:27] the rest of the middle east the way they're currently doing it right i mean this like [6:33] the pitch was literally we're there to save israel like it's literally [6:36] was literally the pitch like we're there to save the middle east and our other friends israel and [6:40] our other friends are good friends they're giving us a free plane and friends saudi arabia good [6:44] friends saudi arabian cutter that is the pitch and like that is crazy like that it's a [6:50] cra that's a crazy pitch it's like we have to keep and then there's no announcement there's no like [6:55] so in service of that we are going to do this that and the other thing right yeah in service of that [7:00] we're going to send in troops to to israel and like we want to go get their uranium like that's [7:06] the point that iran has iran has two weeks to make a deal or else we're going to send people in [7:11] we're going to go get the uranium and take it out so they can never do it again that would be an [7:14] insane i i don't know mark hurtling would probably know better than me that seems like that would be [7:18] an insane mission but like that would at least be a coherent strategy that like or a something i can [7:25] i can notion that they're giving people that's not what he offered it was just a rambling mess where [7:29] it's like whatever i meant if he if they get the nuclear then maybe the middle east would go away [7:34] and something something something [7:36] We can't have it other presidents could have had it. Oh, by the way. Do you know how long the Korean War was? [7:47] Let's play that video and mark address that after [7:50] Because this one just blew my mind when he was comparing this to World War two and World War one in the Korean War as if [7:57] You know, it's just like it's a minor inconvenience that we're having here [7:59] So why don't we play that and mark on the other side go off? [8:02] the nuclear sites that we obliterated with the b-2 bombers have been hit so hard that [8:10] It would take months to get near the nuclear dust and we have it under intense [8:16] Satellite surveillance and control if we see them make a move even a move for it [8:22] Will hit them with missiles very hard again. We have all the cards. They have none [8:28] It's very important that we keep this conflict in perspective [8:33] American involvement [8:34] In World War one [8:37] lasted one year [8:38] seven months and five days [8:41] World War two lasted for three years eight months and 25 days [8:46] The Korean War lasted for three years one month and two days [8:51] The Vietnam War lasted for 19 years five months and 29 days [8:57] Iraq went on for eight years eight months and 28 days [9:02] We are in this military operation [9:04] so powerful so brilliant against one of the most powerful countries for [9:10] 32 days and the country has been [9:14] Eviscerated are on is really no longer a threat. All right mark [9:20] He clearly wrote that with the help of chat GPT. But what are your thoughts? [9:24] Yeah, you know, that was the part where I said to myself who the fuck is writing his speeches. I mean it seriously, you know [9:32] I I've had the opportunity during combat operations to meet [9:37] with or be with for short periods of time a couple of senior leaders and the president of the United States and I got to tell you [9:45] You walk away with conviction you understand better because they communicate [9:51] You know [9:53] After listening to this, you know, if I were a four-star general today in his military [9:59] I think I'd walk out of the room saying something along the lines of we're all gonna die because he doesn't know what he's doing [10:06] I mean he has [10:08] no friggin clue the well first of all I mean you know you could you could talk [10:13] about each one of the calculations in the war yes the United States was in [10:18] World War one for a year and however many number of days but that thing went [10:22] on for ten years and it was a slugfest I mean we don't even want to get into the [10:26] military history but again who gave him that information he didn't get it [10:31] himself I mean he's not his own researcher on this stuff so someone is [10:36] feeding him this stuff and the people who are feeding them this stuff are the [10:41] same ones that are allowing the entire US government to go haywire right now [10:46] and we have said it's so many I'm sorry go ahead no I was you know Tim I've [10:52] heard you say it so many times on different media outlets of where are the [10:57] people standing up and saying enough this this man I mean I don't care what [11:03] your ideological background is this guy does [11:06] not have any idea what he's talking about he's talking about what he's doing [11:06] not have common sense uh he just doesn't have a sense of reality uh and again [11:13] it's people around him that are a lot I mean when the teleprompters were set up [11:18] in the wherever he was given the speech from and they allowed him to give this [11:23] speech it's like that's it's criminal intent yeah no I'm just going to say [11:29] briefly this sorry that JV go just like even if they aren't all gonna you know [11:33] that's being a little cheeky but like who the hell knows yeah sure maybe like [11:36] maybe they do a ground incursion they didn't announce anything right so short [11:39] even short of people are gonna die like let's say he does the opposite right [11:44] which is like hey in two weeks I give another speech just like this where I [11:48] talk about how we won and we haven't done anything differently and whatever [11:50] we've won that is that is not as bad of malpractice because people won't be dead [11:57] but that is also about like there is real damage happening all around the world like to but to [12:02] Americans but to the people that live in countries that are allies every day this goes on [12:07] you know like we are you know people are going to have shortages like they're going to be gas [12:12] lines in the UK and in Japan like not far from now like people in this country that are struggling to [12:17] make ends meet like are going to have their prices go up on everything and he can't enunciate why at [12:23] all it's just like well we're just going to keep on keeping on for a couple weeks and who knows [12:27] maybe we'll degrade their missiles more it's like who cares why yeah JVL I mean I I feel silly even [12:37] by their first debate we we went to our first commercial break and the during the commercial [12:44] break we had like us on to talk and I remember saying to people well okay well he's going to [12:51] have to drop off the ticket because this is the equivalent of a health event on national [12:54] television didn't this kind of look like a health event on national television no I I'm not I mean [13:04] and it's one thing to to ramble when it's just about look at all the things we've done or maybe [13:11] Jade Greenland but you're in a hot war I mean you you do have American service members in harm's [13:21] way you've had people killed you have like actual bombs going off this seemed like a health event [13:27] and is it crazy to think that no Republican in Congress is gonna walk out and say look we all [13:37] saw that right you you guys saw that too right I am kind of curious yeah I want to see what the [13:43] reaction is on that I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure [13:44] I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure [13:44] in the online right because there have been people who in the lead up to this the sort of people who [13:48] are waiting for an off-ramp we're getting excited about all these leaks right there's a bunch of [13:53] leaks being like he's going to declare that this thing is over he's going to say he's winding it [13:57] down the objectives have been achieved and he did do that at the top and then he didn't do that he [14:03] went from we're here to help the war will be over quote very shortly to we will be hitting Iran very [14:09] hard over the next two to three weeks these are contradictory it is it is but I do think [14:14] um I think that he implicitly closed the door to ground troops elaborate so I the reason I say this [14:24] is because if you give this speech and you tell the country in the first real way that you've [14:32] addressed the Intel war period uh hey we're almost done it'll just be another two to three weeks [14:39] we're really close we've almost achieved all of our strategic objectives and you don't prepare them [14:46] for ground troops you don't say it's possible that we're going to put boots on the ground and [14:52] then you do it the political fallout from like a normal prison that's the prism of a normal [14:58] politician though I think I think I don't know I just think his whole I don't know I mean I can do [15:02] whatever I want to send in to send in ground troops after this doing what he's doing political [15:09] damage I mean he also he also spent tonight saying he's going to commit a war crime right he said he [15:15] will not he will yeah bomb [15:17] the power plants simultaneously all of them simultaneously so we're acting like well you [15:23] know he's an irrational person here saying irrational things I don't think we could be [15:27] like well he didn't say he'll send in ground trips therefore there's no ground troops right [15:32] I just think he's I think he's trying to get through the day not even to not even nod to it [15:39] or say and who knows we may have to I agree that it's crazy I just don't know if there was any [15:45] implicit message I don't know [15:47] here's the thing I'll add to that I mean you know I've had family members while I was deployed while [15:54] our sons were deployed who took they were assuaged by members of the government coming on TV and [16:02] saying here's what's happening here's what's going to happen in the future it's a tough fight [16:06] humma humma and I I remember my wife when saying one time that when during Desert Storm when people [16:14] like Colin Powell or or Dick Cheney I mean even Dick Cheney I don't know if you've ever seen a [16:18] Dick Cheney getting on the air and and speaking what was happening okay we know our soldiers are [16:24] over there for a mission right now if I were not so much a soldier it would scare the hell out of [16:29] me as a soldier watching this speech but if I were a family member of one of those 60 000 people who [16:36] are deployed to the Middle East right now in in ships and and Muse and an army Brigades I'd be [16:44] scared to death I really would I I want to talk about the oil stuff first so I think that's that's [16:48] second because i talked to josh barrel on the podcast for a long time about this today and i [16:52] think he was really sharp about how like you know we're about to go through a period like we're not [16:59] there yet because a lot of the petroleum was on ships and stuff we're only he said we're doing [17:03] this for two or three weeks and we're about during that time period kind of towards the end of that [17:06] time period we're about to be a place where there's like actual shortages people are gonna [17:10] have to cut down on their behavior to offset the shortages we have it'll be less of a problem here [17:16] than it will be in the rest of the world but it's a global market uh we've had the largest like [17:21] monthly increase in gas prices i think ever this month the the chart went to hockey stick during [17:27] that speech and the speech was like even at the end of three weeks it wasn't like oh the straight [17:35] is going to be open basically like if you're trying to read through his gobbledygook you know [17:39] dentures like talk like the takeaway is like well actually no it's not actually it could be who [17:46] knows how long after that before the straight let's actually let's play the world that's gonna [17:49] have to deal with it okay i have one more thing play the clip because it's very clear he has no [17:54] plan for the straight itself and he i will just before we play it i'll just say he also said in [18:00] this kind of went unnoticed he said we could bomb their oil but we're not going to because we want [18:04] them to rebuild but we could bomb their oil so obviously let's do take let's do take the oil [18:09] clip and then kim finish uh your thought on the end of that the countries of the world that do [18:16] receive oil [18:16] through the hormone straight must take care of that passage they must cherish it they must grab [18:22] it and cherish it they can do it easily we will be helpful but they should take the lead in [18:29] protecting the oil that they so desperately depend on so to those countries that can't get fuel [18:36] many of which refuse to get involved in the decapitation of iran we had to do it ourselves [18:42] i have a suggestion number one buy oil from the united states of america [18:46] we have plenty we have so much and number two build up some delayed courage should have done it [18:52] before should have done it with us as we asked go to the straight and just take it protect it [18:59] use it for yourselves iran has been essentially decimated okay i'll defer to you guys on the [19:05] geopolitics of this of taking the straight by the or whatever his plan was for the uk but like [19:10] on the just economics part of it he's talking about the economics we're going to be in a [19:13] period of shortages and he's like okay so the straight's gonna you guys aren't gonna be able to [19:18] figure that out it's going to take a while for that to figure out i'm just doing basic adam smith [19:22] here we don't want the world buying our oil actually we should probably put some the export [19:27] ban back on like if we get into this situation like we should be hoarding our honestly if you [19:32] don't care about america even more wouldn't it tim i mean if the demand yes if the demand because [19:40] foreign countries want to buy our oil instead of having us sell it domestically supply demand right [19:48] demand goes up price goes up yeah you guys want to show you something sorry his plan would drive it [19:53] up even more yeah yes that's what you guys are doing sorry we're saying the same thing i thought [19:56] you're saying what i was suggesting what would yeah no i mean it's absolutely i mean it's it's [20:01] crazy guys check check out this check out the oil futures graphic we want to put up [20:10] tell me if you can see the time where trump started speaking yeah man little direction chart [20:20] the alice chart yeah and then it's like again and then it's like okay we're gonna sell the people [20:24] the oil no wrong like he has no he has no concept for how the economic situation is like [20:33] he's like walking around what this reminds me of is i went skiing like the weekend before tom hanks [20:39] got covet and we're on the mountain we're going down the blues and it's like whatever you know [20:46] we hear that there's this thing out there there'll be a little disruption and the next thing you know [20:50] that it feels like he's skiing right now like during like right before we're about to have a [20:56] very serious economic crisis and it's like i've got no no plan at all can i raise something for [21:05] the group sure so one of the thing you know one of my little obsessions is about like the decline [21:11] of the american-led world order and all of the advantages that that once afforded us trump's plan [21:18] is that other nations presumably led by china ought to form their own alliance and association [21:28] to exert control over the strait of hormuz yeah right right he's he's willing into existence [21:36] a global strategic competitor for america yeah that's the craziest shit i've ever heard yeah [21:42] we have a super user we have a super user question actually on this that i want to get i'm going to [21:47] pose this one to mark actually uh it's from [21:49] joe lt 49 he says if the straight home moves was so easy to open defend as trump claimed it was [21:54] then why hasn't our own military already done it because it's not yeah because it's not i mean we [22:04] we've talked about this i've written about it several articles in the bulwark it's hard you [22:09] know this whole combat thing it ain't easy and yeah you know especially when you're you're [22:15] miffing it as this current administration is with no planning as you said earlier [22:21] jvl it's it's not just long-term planning it's short-term planning it's any planning at all you [22:28] have the cause and effect when you're trying to use military force as the principal element of [22:33] national power before you've done anything else and when you don't put the military force into [22:39] action with a required end state we don't know what we're doing other than bombing things [22:46] something has gotten into his head thinking that we can get into [22:51] and out of wars using air power alone with some special operators every once in a while to snatch [22:58] and grab people or to create regime change that's not how it works and it gets back to just [23:04] a simple understanding if you're going to wear the title of commander-in-chief [23:08] you sort of need a little bit of information about what the military does and how they do [23:13] it and you don't put two marine muse of 2500 marines apiece and an airborne brigade in an [23:21] area the size three times of iraq and expect to overcome the country and to do great things and [23:29] take over a strait that's a major choke point in the world it takes a lot of people to do that and [23:35] it's really really hard when you've got an enemy that gets a vote can i can i bring up a question [23:41] about jail trump elect mart hurtling was a comment i saw across the screen there and i don't i don't [23:46] hate that that's the solution i i hate it a lot i want to bring i want to i want to bring up something [23:52] jv on this one first there was no there was a newsworthy bit of a mission in this speech okay [24:00] for the past quite a few hours actually 24 well the most news i think last 24 hours we've been [24:05] told that trump is going to use this speech to talk about nato and how angry he is at nato and [24:11] how he wants to get the us out of nato unless i missed it he did not mention nato he did talk in [24:19] the abstract about allies need to take the oil but he didn't mention nato now earlier in the day he [24:25] talked about nato and how angry he is at nato and how angry he is at nato and how angry he is at nato [24:27] and he said this so this is just the the preface for you guys this was leaked or posted by the [24:32] white house accidentally then ripped it off the website but let's play that comment he made about [24:36] nato earlier in the day and then i'm curious to jvl for jvl why did he not mention it tonight [24:41] first the speech and so i learned about nato nato won't be there if we ever have the big [24:47] one you know what i mean by the big one we ever have the big one hopefully we won't [24:50] relationships very good with the big one better than with nato but uh [24:56] but they won't be there and we spent billions you know we didn't have to go into ukraine ukraine's [25:02] thousands of miles away across the ocean we helped we didn't go into ukraine [25:07] stupid individuals is the big one china or russia who's he talking about not totally sure what the [25:12] big one is anyways that's that's the preface for the speech we all expected him all you me and mark [25:18] were talking about this we thought he was going to go off for nato yeah why i forgot i'm sorry [25:28] a commenter said brian [25:30] the big one sorry i you know it was the thing i thought i thought he was going to go after it [25:38] for a couple of reasons and go after nato uh all the reasons he would have presented would have [25:44] been wrong uh and it just amazed me that all he said basically was they didn't help us out or and [25:51] he used the the they versus nato didn't help us out which surprised me uh but you know truthfully [25:58] it doesn't matter because i'm not that i'm not that talented i'm not that talented i'm not that [25:59] because i'm not sure nato wants us anymore uh if if we continue you know it's interesting i [26:05] had a conversation with someone in europe the other day and they said you know for the first [26:10] term of his administration and for part of the first year uh we were feeling sorry for you guys [26:17] and you know because you had this guy leading you but now you're all with him you know nothing's [26:23] changing and he's still doing crazy stuff so we don't blame him alone anymore we're blaming all [26:28] of you which i found to be an interesting dynamic from someone in the nordic region that has a lot [26:35] of influence my serious answer your question sam is that um uh i think that the previous clip [26:43] answered your question like i think that he feel they feel like they covered the fu nato bit with [26:48] the good luck opening the straight uh you know i think that it was more about kind of that you know [26:54] because he makes that sly he thinks it's sly i guess comment about like you guys could do [26:59] show some courage you haven't showed courage yet but better late than never and i think that was [27:04] kind of the deal also maybe he didn't realize that mark ruda was coming to town next week and [27:09] mark root has been buttering him up a little bit they're golfing buddies i don't know mark [27:13] ruda might have been an arnold palmer type situation with him i'm not sure can i ask a [27:20] a real question a little dangerous please my question is not real no no dangerous question [27:35] america get from being israel's partner in this war no this is not an answer question so here's [27:43] i mean i just want to say like if if everything is transactional like if everything is transactional [27:52] and we are allied with el salvador because we give them money and they take our prisoners [27:57] right and we are allied with delce rodriguez because even though she's a socialist autocrat [28:04] she does what we tell her to do i mean israel gives us nothing [28:11] israel takes a great deal of of aid and iran could open this our weapons they buy our weapons [28:19] they buy our weapons with the aid but sure yeah no i'm with you did you like i like i don't again [28:25] again from from his trends and now i could make the like well israel's a democracy like you know [28:29] i could give you the old republican neocon reasons why but from his point of view [28:36] why is he extending himself for israel he says it is too like this is the other thing like this [28:45] is the king in the mouth of the world his own plays the open story all across the Big League [28:45] and he's the only court until not really can be the president of parliament bork says i pull on the [28:45] fold and he's not because he's not him the skate is just because as has he is emmquaver to strawberries [28:45] In the speech, he says that, like, we are here to help. [28:49] Israel and the Middle East would be off the map if we didn't do this. [28:53] So, like, he's saying that we're doing this as part of the deal. [28:57] And you would lump in UAE and Qatar and Saudi with Israel, I think, [29:01] as countries he's talking about and talking to the leaders of. [29:04] But, like, those other countries are buying him off. [29:07] Maybe Israel's also buying him off. [29:09] I don't know. [29:09] The Gaza, the Board of Peace, he wants to control Gaza. [29:12] He wants to be the king of the world. [29:14] Jared's going to put some condos there. [29:17] I don't know. [29:17] I guess that's the answer. [29:18] But, like, he is explicitly, it is such an attack on America first, right? [29:26] Like, which is why you see the backlash within America first. [29:30] The speech is essentially, like, we're doing this to help them. [29:34] And I don't, I'm with you. [29:36] I don't know. [29:37] You know, again, you could say the democracy thing. [29:39] You could say other things that people would say is that it's important to have an ally in the region. [29:43] But, yeah, right, because of the radical Islam. [29:45] And maybe they'll come for us. [29:46] Israel is the first line of defense. [29:48] Like, there's a lot of other things. [29:48] For a guy who's purely transactional. [29:51] That's what I'm trying to get my head around. [29:53] Like, I can tell you why America would be allied with Israel, right? [29:56] This is not my expertise here. [29:58] But I do think, and I'm curious if we can find someone smart to talk about this. [30:03] If you look back at the first term, the thing that they really were most proud of on a foreign policy level was the Abraham Accord. [30:12] And they talked a lot about reorienting the geopolitical landscape of the Middle East around a set of agreements. [30:19] And they talked a lot about reorienting the geopolitical landscape of the Middle East around a set of agreements. [30:20] Between certain countries and Israel and creating a sort of nexus of stability. [30:25] And Iran was obviously not part of that agreement. [30:28] And they were very close to getting Saudi Arabia to be part of the agreement. [30:32] I'm not sure where that stands right now. [30:33] But, you know, putting that alongside with the weaponry that Israel buys, the intelligence sharing that we have with the Israelis, the historical alignment as a democracy in the Middle East. [30:44] And obviously, there's a close personal relationship that I believe Jared Kushner has with Bibi and all that. [30:49] You get a kind of larger idea that you can pivot the Middle East politics around a series of these agreements. [30:58] Now, that being said, it's clear that the Israeli – and I talked to Sue Gordon about this. [31:02] I'll buy that. [31:03] That's a pretty compelling explanation. [31:04] Can I add one element to that? [31:06] Sure. [31:07] Let me just finish on Sue Gordon quickly, and then I'll say it. [31:12] Sue Gordon, who was the principal deputy DNI for Trump's first term, and she left when Dan Coats was fired, but she was involved in all that stuff. [31:19] I mean, she was involved. [31:20] She was pretty open about it. [31:21] Israel's objectives here are very much different than ours, and they are forcing our hand in ways that she doesn't and I don't think Trump quite appreciates. [31:32] And, Mark, you talked a lot about who's advising him and who's giving him strategic advice and why aren't serious people in the room. [31:40] And I guess the only sort of caveat to that is there might actually be quite serious people advising him, just not in the Oval. [31:48] Right. [31:48] All right. [31:49] Go ahead. [31:49] Yeah, just two thoughts on that. [31:50] One. [31:52] It's so obvious what Sue Gordon is saying. [31:53] This is you don't you can be the most low IQ person in the country who knows nothing about geopolitics, who's just watching this. [32:01] And it's like, obviously, this war is way more in Israel's interest. [32:05] It just is. [32:05] Israel would say it. [32:06] America would say it like it's in their acute security interest. [32:09] Right. [32:10] And so then this is how conspiracies begin to blossom because people are like, so then why are we doing it? [32:16] You know what I mean? [32:17] Like, why is somebody who said he was America first doing it and he can't enunciate it? [32:20] Right. [32:21] And so to me, I think that just. [32:22] Just as an aside, like, if you're concerned about anti-Semitism, you should be concerned about this, that like Donald Trump cannot enunciate why he's doing something where obviously the mission is so misaligned from Israel. [32:31] The other just answer JBL's question really quickly. [32:34] What is Jonathan getting about this? [32:35] Sam sparked a thought, I think, which is really the answer. [32:39] He's getting puffed up like baby. [32:42] It's like, you're so great. [32:44] Are there other folks in that world like you're so great, you're going to be the one you're going to bring peace to the Middle East. [32:49] This is your legacy. [32:50] It's related to the Accords and safety forever. [32:54] And they're going to build a Donald Trump statue in Tel Aviv to me like that's something that I can, like, wrap my head around from like thinking about it from the Trump perspective. [33:03] I think that's right. [33:04] Hey, one of those lines just quickly, John, another another commenter, and I'm trying to get some of these viewer comments in here because I want to make sure they feel heard. [33:14] But this does kind of get to what you were saying two seconds ago. [33:17] I'm going to throw it to you, Tim. [33:19] Jonathan says, if Trump had resisted doing an Oval Office address to this point. [33:24] Or. [33:24] Other similar trappings of war to avoid the optics, what changed now to get him to do a traditional speech that still had very little content? [33:32] Like, why do this now? [33:36] I'm sorry, Jonathan. [33:37] I have no idea. [33:38] I mean, I came on and said, what the fuck was that? [33:40] I really, I truly, I truly have no idea. [33:43] He offered that he announced nothing. [33:45] Maybe he was thinking that there was like the Artemis was happening today and this was going to be a big I'm trying to get you get inside Trump's brain. [33:52] I don't know that like this is a big moment for America and the rocket ship was going to. [33:56] Go. [33:56] Up and I was going to do rah, rah, maybe his team kept telling him he had to. [34:01] And finally he said, okay, you know, a lot of times people think about this stuff as strategy when really it's just human, whatever frailty and inertia and stuff. [34:10] Or it's just like finally he had to answer. [34:12] I, I, I'm open to a better theory if somebody has one, but he didn't say anything. [34:17] Yeah. [34:17] I wasn't supposed to be on tonight. [34:18] People want to hear Mark Hurtling anyway. [34:20] So we're going to let Mark. [34:21] No, no, no, it's interesting because I think, I think the conversation about Israel is important because, I mean, this is a blinding flash of the obvious, but Israel is in a bad neighborhood. [34:32] So does Iran. [34:34] Uh, I, I think it's fascinating that we're hearing reports about how other Arab nations were pushing Trump to continue, especially nations that contributed a lot of money to his son-in-law. [34:46] Uh, they want him to finish this because they don't, they don't. [34:51] It. [34:51] It means they don't have to, uh, you know, Israel has the concept of mowing the grass whenever the terrorist in, in Gaza or, or Southern Lebanon or, uh, the proxies or Iran starts getting a little froggy. [35:07] Every other Arab nation in the region doesn't care all that much for the malign instincts of, uh, of Iran as they put their foot against Saudi Arabia, against UAE, against [35:21] Iraq. [35:21] Against every other country in the region. [35:23] So what you've got is competing bookings in this region. [35:27] And, and unfortunately it, it seems like the president and his family is connected to both sides of those. [35:34] Well, Mark, let me ask you a follow-up question because you raised an interesting prospect. [35:38] Let's say these Arab governments could snap their fingers and go back to the day before the war. [35:46] Nothing had happened. [35:47] They'd all take it, right? [35:49] Oh yeah, absolutely. [35:51] Would Israel? [35:52] Absolutely. [35:53] Yeah. [35:53] I mean, you know, it, it, they see this initially as a good thing because Trump was acting. [36:02] I don't think most of the Arab governments realized as well as some members of our administration, what the fallout was going to be. [36:10] It was predictable. [36:12] This thing has been war-gamed and red-teamed for the last three decades within the department of defense. [36:19] It's obvious what was going to happen. [36:22] The straights were going to be closed. [36:24] The proxies were going to be closed. [36:25] The proxies were going to be used. [36:26] There's all kinds of hidden weaponry inside of Iran, just like there was inside of Iraq that, I mean, every time you felt you, you had fixed and finished all the Iraqi arms caches, there were 20 more on the horizon. [36:41] They, they do their policy through weaponry and that's a fact. [36:47] So you're not going to destroy all the weapons, no matter what the chairman of the joint chiefs and Pete Hegseth tell the country. [36:54] You're just not going to do it. [36:56] And diplomacy, in my view, being a soldier is probably a first resort, not a last resort. [37:03] We keep relying on the military to fix and bomb everything. [37:08] And we're going to continue to have these kinds of quagmires if you continue to do that. [37:14] JBL, what do you think about that? [37:17] Uh, I don't, I mean, I, I don't know if the other Arab states, Mark would know this better than I do. [37:26] Um, I don't know that the Israelis would do a take back here though. [37:30] Uh, and I'm just, the reason I say it is only because I've, I've read some reporting in, uh, I want to say it was financial times and have rats, but it could have been someplace else where they're like, what do you mean by a take back though? [37:45] Not doing, I mean, no, we can go back to where we were. [37:49] I don't think that's the case at all. [37:51] Oh, okay. [37:52] I'm done. [37:52] I just misunderstood. [37:53] I misunderstood the question and I'm sorry for that. [37:56] I, yeah, if they could bottle it back up, if they could say this never happened, we'll go back to. [38:02] Um, early February, not, you know, no bomb had ever been dropped and we'll just go back to that status quo. [38:07] Israel would definitely, I don't think Israel would do that at all. [38:10] I mean, they've been pining for this for, for years. [38:15] Would Saudi Arabia take it back? [38:17] Possibly. [38:18] Uh, I mean, they've seen what the hooties do to them on their Southern border. [38:22] Uh, they don't want any part of this, so they want these people destroyed, but they don't want the kind of after effects that we're seeing right now. [38:31] You know, we're sort of, we're kind of beating around the larger. [38:33] Question, I guess. [38:34] And Trump is feeding into it because he didn't give us any specifics in that, but the real sort of big question is what is the offering? [38:42] Like, how do we get out of this? [38:44] Right. [38:44] And so max Brooks, eight, six, five, seven, not, um, uh, who knows if it's one of the more famous max Brooks is, but whatever. [38:51] Not the zombie war X max, bro. [38:54] No, I don't think so. [38:56] All right. [38:56] Is there any action? [38:57] This is for Mark. [38:58] Is there any actual off ramp for Trump to take? [39:01] How do we actually see this ending from a realistic perspective? [39:04] From a realist perspective, [39:06] two weeks ago, I had this fear, Tim, that, uh, I'm sorry, Sam, that there was not going to be a potential good off ramp that the best. [39:16] And in fact, I said at one time on some channel that, that the best we could could gain out of this was a draw. [39:23] That's the best. [39:24] And the only off ramp I could see, and I thought the president was going to do it tonight was to say, it's over, we've done what we wanted to do, and now we're pulling out and it would have been [39:34] disastrous, but it would have been the best thing for the country. [39:38] He didn't do that. [39:40] He didn't do that. [39:41] Now the, you know, the, the courses of actions are still up in the air. [39:45] We don't know what he's going to do next. [39:47] Cause he still has a lot of military forces in the region. [39:51] There's been no conclusion to what's going on. [39:54] Iran is still doing things that he's saying they're not doing. [39:58] And I don't see an off ramp right now without a global, um, at least. [40:05] Global dysfunction in terms of supply chain and the oil economy. [40:12] And I hope I'm wrong. [40:13] I'm not an economist. [40:14] I'm a simple soldier, but that's the way I see it going down. [40:18] I, uh, I mean, I, I would just say this and we should probably be wrapping up soon, but, um, it does appear to me that Iran will exit this war in a stronger strategic position than it entered. [40:33] They will have lost a bunch of material. [40:35] They will have lost a bunch of infrastructure. [40:38] But they navigated a succession crisis, which was going to hit them anyway, in a couple of years, uh, which is always dangerous for an authoritarian regime. [40:48] They proved the viability of a strategic weapon that they had long threatened, but never used before, which was the ability to close the trade for those. [40:57] They did it, which means that that has to be taken into account forever, right? [41:02] It's no longer a theoretical. [41:03] Well, maybe they could, it's now everybody knows that if there's a war. [41:08] Yeah. [41:08] Yeah. [41:08] They can do this. [41:10] They will likely be resupplied by the Chinese with material very quickly following the end of the war. [41:17] Uh, and they now have the ability to project power in the region in ways they didn't before the bomb started from operation epic fury. [41:31] And I, I just, to all the people who are like ride or die with Trump purely because they hate the Iranian regime. [41:41] Which. [41:41] By. [41:41] By the way, I hate the Iranian regime too. [41:43] They're very bad. [41:44] They're terrible, terrible people. [41:49] They are, they will be more strategically sound and more able to project power as they exit this because of this war. [41:59] And I just think that that's undeniable. [42:02] Can I, can I add something to that, uh, JBL? [42:04] Cause I think something's important that I learned. [42:07] One of the many things I learned spending a lot of time in the middle East is we in the west are concerned with personalities. [42:14] Who is our leader? [42:15] What are they doing to organizations? [42:16] How does, how does, how does the dynamic of that personality work to build something strong in the middle East and to include Persia, we're talking more about a dependence on institutions as opposed to personalities and all of the institutions in Iran, even though they've been damaged, they are still intact. [42:36] The theocracy is intact. [42:38] The IRGC is still intact, although dramatically damaged their weapons systems in many cases have been. [42:45] They have been destroyed. [42:46] The people are still looking for a leader. [42:49] So there is still that essence of, of systems, uh, versus personalities working in that country. [42:57] And I think that lends credence to what you were just saying in terms of them regaining their solid footing, rebuilding a little bit, if they can get the economy running again. [43:07] And, um, and they're, they're going to come out of this stronger than we went into it. [43:13] I'm going to just, we're going to close in about a couple of minutes here. [43:15] Um, and thank you guys for doing this. [43:17] And again, apologies to everyone for the earlier technical snafus. [43:20] I want to play a clip again from Trump earlier in the day, talking about how he was going to tell the world that he was doing a great job tonight. [43:26] And then we're going to look at what actually transpired. [43:29] So first the clip. [43:30] Get a little speech at nine o'clock and basically I'm going to, uh, I'm going to tell everybody how great I am. [43:39] What a great job. [43:40] What a phenomenal job. [43:42] What a phenomenal job I've done. [43:45] All right. [43:46] Well, as of. [43:49] Uh, [43:49] 10 or five, so about, you know, 43 minutes or so since he's finished speaking, uh, a few things to just go through crude oil is up. [43:58] Brent is up. [43:59] Dow is down. [44:01] Futures S and P is down. [44:03] NASDAQ is down. [44:04] We have some graphs about this. [44:05] If we can pull them up. [44:07] I mean, that is just brutal, brutal. [44:11] That's a 500. [44:13] Apparently this is a $550 billion in market cap in 25 minutes as he addressed the nation. [44:21] Uh, he gave no, uh, just no. [44:22] Just to summarize, he gave no reason for being in Iran and he gave little explanation for how we are going to get out of Iran and people are just sort of wondering where we go from here and we've tried to game plan it out on this conversation. [44:40] I think we've come to some conclusion that we are just stuck in a really bad spot and we'll see what happens over the next two or three weeks. [44:51] Mark JVL. [44:53] Thank you guys for doing this, uh, for everyone else who watched. [44:56] Thank you for doing this as well. [44:58] Um, Oh, nice. [44:59] Sue Gordon texts me to say she's watching Sue. [45:03] Come on anytime. [45:05] Uh, for everyone else. [45:06] Thank you for coming on and subscribe to the bulwark. [45:08] We love you guys. [45:09] We love our fans. [45:10] Sorry. [45:11] We couldn't get some more of your questions in the conversation, but we'll try and do better fellas. [45:15] Take care. [45:16] Good luck, America. [45:17] Thanks guys.