On Again, Off Again (5/26/26)

追加: 2026-05-27

[00:00:03]Welcome to the Commentary Magazine daily podcast. Today is Tuesday, May 26th, 2026. I'm John Pod Hores, the editor of Commentary Magazine. With me as always, executive editor Abe Greenwald. Hi, Abe.

[00:00:15]>> Hi, John.

[00:00:16]>> Senior editor Seth Mandel. Hi, Seth.

[00:00:19]>> Hi, John.

[00:00:20]>> Social commentary columnist Christine Rosen. Hi, Christine.

[00:00:23]>> Hi, John.

[00:00:24]>> And Washington Free Beacon editor Elelliana Johnson. Hi, Elelliana.

[00:00:28]>> Hi, John.

[00:00:30]Well, I could use a vacation after this weekend. The stress of following the news this weekend, unlike pretty much any such stress I've ever experienced, except like in the week leading up to a pre a presidential election whose outcome is not yet determined.

[00:00:50]uh the peace deal that basically was announced on Saturday morning, which to me looked like uh Munich 2, JCPOA3, you know, Rocky 4. I mean, everything bad. Uh I guess people like Rocky 4, but I don't. Um uh then you know automatically began to crumble and it all seemed as though the reason that we believed that a deal was imminent was entire was leaking entirely from interested parties not only inside the administration seeming to come from the more uh I would call the MAGA side of the administration as well as supposedly diplomatic sources in the Middle East who were seemed to be trying to incept a ceasefire out of their own heads when the Iranians weren't even responding to our proposal, whatever our proposal was. And then if they were responding were responding on Twitter that they weren't agreeing to anything. Um and so oh gradually over the 48 hours that from which this started it became clear that uh there was no deal there could be no deal and indeed then we went kinetic with uh with an actual sea battle. I know it's not really a battle. The Iranians were trying to lay mines and we fired on them and blew up their ships but it's a little bit of a sea battle. you know, like if it were if it were the 19th century and the the Barbarie pirates versus, you know, the US Navy, that would be a that would have been a a sea battle. Um, and Israel, uh, Israel, which was supposedly involved in the larger ceasefire or larger peace talks in ceasing its activities against Hezbollah and Lebanon, basically went, "Uh, no. Uh, they're they're throwing drones at us. They're using a new drone strategy where they're where they're using swarms and uh we have to destroy them now. And Rubio and Trump both said, "Okay." And Israel is now basically at war in in Lebanon against Hezbollah.

[00:03:11]So that was some weekend of peace that we live through.

[00:03:17]And I for one am very grateful that it is Tuesday morning and we are not here talking about the wreckage uh of an America that has decid that had unilaterally decided to get itself out of uh a mess that it got itself into basically or acknowledging that that that was what had happened.

[00:03:37]>> Well >> well they also I Yeah.

[00:03:39]>> It does seem John like the Trump administration is eager to make a deal.

[00:03:44]I think that part of the reporting is right. Um, but it seems to me like the Iranians are determined not to let it happen. U, the Trump administration has laid down um, you know, some red lines on this. Um, but the Iranians are demanding a few things. One of which is sanctions relief upfront. Um, whereas the administration is saying sanctions relief will be given on the basis of performance. The Iranians continue to assert uh control over the strait or some kind of ownership over the strait while the administration says a deal would restore must restore the straight of Hormuz to the status quo ante. Um and the uh Iranians continue to insist on a right to enrichment um even if they turn over in some capacity uh their um nuclear materials. And number four, um the only thing both sides seem to agree on is that the deal would not address um missiles and support for proxies. Um but uh the Iranians seem to have now prevented the administration from being able to agree to a deal. They have snatched >> Can I say one thing to set the table before everybody else speaks? If that deal, the deal that the administration wants were a deal that Iran would agree to with leaving the missiles aside, sure that would be a deal they should accept.

[00:05:26]That's essentially a negotiated victory.

[00:05:29]We get the dust. Uh the straight is opened. Uh they basically acknowledge that we beat them even if they don't do so by by coming to the table.

[00:05:39]>> We take the blockade off.

[00:05:40]>> We the blockade is gone and we get the nuclear materials. That that is basically a definition of victory. And the Iranians are not agreeing to negotiate of our victory at the at the negotiating table. So, it's not even that the deal, the more you found out about it, that the deal was so terrible.

[00:05:59]Although the impulse, what I think we thought was because they were negotiating so hard and seemed so eager that they would crumble at the last minute and start making concessions like, "Oh, they can keep 40% of their non-enriched uranium and and they can keep this and we won't talk about that and the other thing that if they were in the last mile that they would be so eager that they would um you know that that they would take some take a victory. and turn it into a a loss.

[00:06:32]>> I think it's also important to note the deal was supposed to play out in two phases. The first phase was supposed to be the opening of the Straight of Hormuz and the removal of the blockade and then a 60-day period in which the US and Iran would negotiate over the nuclear part um with missiles and support for proxies entirely put off and they couldn't even get to you know the opening of the strait and the removal of the blockade in order to get to part two of this deal. Um and meanwhile Iran they the Americans catch Iran lane mines in the straight of hormuz um if it's not clear that Iran is not interested in negotiating a deal and will never negotiate away um their nuclear materials. You know, I I don't know how much more the administration needs to hear, and I am just very skeptical that any good deal can be negotiated without the real and credible threat of Syria force.

[00:07:38]And I think that's a problem in these negotiations. Like Iran has to really believe um that we are willing to go back to war. And I just don't think they believe that because of the timing of these negotiations um with respect to the mid midterm elections.

[00:07:54]>> Yeah. I'm not sure I believe it. I mean, you know, as as as you said, Elelliana, the administration seems eager for a deal, and I just wonder how many more times we're going to go through this cycle. Um cuz I've I've I've literally lost count. Is this the third or fourth sort of we're very close, we're working very hard, got to iron out a few things moment. Uh it's it's happened a few times and um you know when you talk about the stress um that this induced it was so stressful because it was all noise signal everything for between Friday and last night we had absolutely no clue what was going on. There were conflicting reports. Um there were administration insiders leaking very positive things. Um then there were people writing on Substacks that that we have that we were willing to give up everything. And my fear is that we're going to do this so many times and eventually it will be the kind of situation where the US starts making those types of concessions, John, that you're talking about. Um, which is what the Obama administration did. I mean, the Obama administration basically went to the Iranians and they said we and and the Iranians said, "No, no, no, no, no." And they the US would come back and John Kerry would come back and they go they'd meet in Vienna and they go and every time the Iranians would say, "No, no, no, no, no." And eventually the US said, "Okay, we could work with that." Um, and that is that is my fear because when Trump simply says there's a deal when there's no deal, um, it's eerily close to doing that >> and it's the greatest deal ever. It's the greatest piece of paper that you've ever seen. Theou is the most beautiful, you know, thing ever. Um, that's tough.

[00:10:04]And if they know he's not willing to go back to war, this is going to be a tough going.

[00:10:13]>> I I think also what's interesting is that he's um it seems to be conducted through not through Pakistan but through Saudi Arabia. So, you know, the the mediator is really the Arab states deciding when they've had enough. And Trump looked like he kind of called their bluff over the weekend, which was like, "All right, if you really if you really want peace in the Middle East and you want everything to, you know, just to be be fine and dandy and then uh I guess we'll all sign the Abraham Accords and uh we'll all, you know, be officially part of the same alliance and we'll sing Kumbaya together." And they were like, "Well, I don't know about that." So there's an element to this >> with that. They they were silent. The story was when he said this on this group phone call >> join the Abraham Accords. There was dead >> silence from Saudi. I mean I can't you seven people on the phone call went silence though.

[00:11:13]>> So I I think that he's you know he's uh I think that he's nervous about the fact that this is the fact that he's not really in control as much as he thought he would be. And it happened really a few weeks ago when the Saudis and Kuwait said, "Hold on, you got to put a pause on this because we thought you were going to hit back at Iran much harder if they hit us and you're looks like you're not willing to do that. Therefore, you know, everything needs to stop." Um, and so that was like the beginning of this. Somebody else could literally just pull the curtain.

[00:11:55]It was, you know, it was like, it was like Showtime at the Apollo and a, you know, a a a janitor clown came out in Saudi dress or something and and pushed him off the stage. And since then, the uh that has not gone away. The feeling that he is not fully in control of what was until that moment his war has predominated. And I and I think we saw a little bit of him trying to claw that back over the weekend.

[00:12:29]>> I don't think I don't think a little.

[00:12:31]But Christine, >> I I just I think a couple things. One, we really don't know what's going on right now. And the fact that we're days into not knowing what's going on right now is a failure of communication on the part of this administration. I think we have reached the limits of Trump's brand of performative diplomacy where he says, "I'm going to blast him to the stone age." And then he says, "Now we have a deal. It's the best deal ever. there's a I understand the disruptive impact being useful in some strategic negotiations and we've seen that. But he's created a new world now. Um but it's not clear he knows how to govern it. And I think that's where it's very disconcerting to those of us who are like, "Okay, we're we're with you on toppling Iran. Iran's bad. Iran Iran having nuclear weapons very bad thing. We've all known this for a long time." But we forget that that although he says that he still sees that as a negotiating tool although that is the one consistency over the weekend is the nuclear dust the nuclear dust. So, I'm I'm pleased to see that, but I'm not sure that his administration's negotiating team, perhaps with the exception of of Rubio's insight, um, understands that they do need to learn from what happened during the JCPOA. Not so that they don't make the same mistakes, but to understand they absolutely cannot trust Iran in any sort of negotiation about its nuclear program. No American leader has ever been able to trust them. And that was the fatal flaw in Obama's reasoning. We shouldn't be trusting Pakistan at all.

[00:13:51]I've been pretty consistent in saying that was a mistake. And now we have to consider other regional um actors, Qatar in particular, who's going to start giving more money to the Iranian regime because they still want to maintain their position as the middleman in that in in that whole uh setup. So, I would like to look that the president's about to go get his physical today. I imagine he's going to want to get before the cameras and tell us in what great shape he is. He loves to do that. I would like to hear him address where we are right now because the uncertainty is no longer something that I think the American people should be living with. I was interested to see over the weekend a more push back publicly from Republicans in the Senate. Um Tom uh Cotton, Senator Tom Cotton has introduced a bill to make sure that we that the Iranians cannot profit from control of the strait that there would be that that's absolutely unacceptable whether they call it a so-called environmental tax or not. that is still uh controlling a a international shipping lane. So I like seeing that movement as well. I hope that puts some pressure on Trump to think about what a a good deal would look like. I don't think we should fall into the trap of constantly comparing it to the JCPOA though because he has changed the world as as it stands now from what it was then. We have degraded a lot of their capacity. We've taken out a lot of their leadership. But I'd like to hear from him what is victory?

[00:15:06]Because John, I think you outlined at the at the top of the show a kind of sense of okay where where are we? What his victory look like? I want to hear that from the president.

[00:15:15]>> What happened seems to me that they jumped out and we don't know who the they is. They jumped out. I mean, Trump jumped out. He wrote this long true social post saying we're on the verge of an agreement subject to finalization.

[00:15:33]So, which means they're not on the verge of an agreement. um presumably finalized when you say, you know, we have an agreement. We're just like literally dotting the eyes and crossing the tees.

[00:15:44]which is one of the reasons why people those of us who believe that we have not yet achieved uh victory in this war and that anything short of victory is going to be a catastrophic blow to America's reputation to our efforts to project power to convince people that they should think twice when we tell them not to do something that violates the international order stuff like that how disastrous this could be. So it's not that he wasn't involved, but it's very possible that his negotiating team and we don't even really there seem to be various teams in different places. There are negotiations with the south the Qatari there's some kind of joint and then Pakistan is somewhere and somebody's talking to the Iranians but they have to get messages to uh to the uh bedridden Ayatollah like on a donkey cart and then brought back to so you don't know whether the Ayatollah has approved the terms that they're talking about or not. Some of the negotiators I are are are IRGC, some of them are the politicians. Trump has clearly been told from the get from four, five, six weeks ago that there are interlocutors in Iran who want to make a deal with the United States. That is a consistent through line. We have that we are negotiating that there is somebody that we are talking to. I believe that to be the case. I think it's very clear that whoever it is that we are talking to does not have the power to to make an agreement and that every time they say something they get slapped back or or >> or control over the nuclear materials.

[00:17:26]That's the key. Like this person might not be able to enforce any agreement that that might get signed, >> right? So um but I wonder whether uh given the fact that apparently on Saturday afternoon people on our the American negotiating team were speaking on background to all kinds of people and we people I would not actually maybe it's just the communications team at the White House but basically they lined up Seth noticed this they lined up the kind of MAGA faithful the most MAGA faithful to start tweeting about what a great deal it was. Alex Bruowitz and Jack Pobiac and this one and that one and suddenly we're, you know, in a brand new day in a brand new dawn. And when former Trump Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said, "I don't like the way this deal looks." White House communications director Stephven Chung, who needs a GLP 1, two, three, four, and five injected into his body and a gastric bypass and a brain transplant, says Mike Pompeo, Trump's own Secretary of State, doesn't know what the f and he didn't say F, he's talking about, and he should shut up.

[00:18:49]That is not the way that you herald the coming of a great deal. Somebody on the MAGA side decided that they wanted to get out the idea that the deal was coming and that everybody should line up behind it before anything happened. And any hint that that was not going to be the case was going to be met with social media aggression bordering on psychopathy.

[00:19:18]And that was also a sign to me that something weird was going on because if you're really going to end the war a war, you're not going to tell Jack Pobiac first.

[00:19:35]Do you know what I mean? You're going to bring in administration might do precisely that John. That's actually what >> you're going to bring in Tom Cotton first. You're going to bring in the person who can spread the word out to the other 99 members of the Senate that he cauters the deal as we might say. And they couldn't do that and they wouldn't do that and they weren't in a position to do that. And I'm not sure that Trump was being told the full truth about what was being negotiated for him, >> right? Because as it was as if Trump was referring to one deal and they were referring to a different deal, right?

[00:20:13]That's how it felt. Like Trump in Trump's head, he's talking about the fact that, you know, the deal I offered is >> uh they have to give up everything.

[00:20:24]>> So that's a great deal. And that's great. and someone's telling him, "Oh, we're close. We're close to a deal." And in his head, the deal he has is, >> "We get everything. Unconditional surrender or whatever." And they're picturing two different deals. This is the danger when you have an administration that doesn't contain people who are able and willing to push back against the leader. That's actually something you need. You need someone who's willing to say, you know, this isn't working out this way. We have to plan for this eventuality or this contingency. He has not in his second term generally had people in his cabinet or in his orbit who are willing to do that consistently when he is uh very much focused on a particular path. We saw this with the tariff uh stuff as well. So that is a that is a weakness I think in an administration that actually does need someone who he can listen to and trust who will give him an alternative set of options.

[00:21:16]>> Okay. But there is an alternative set of options. That's the thing about this war and that's the thing that I think he basically has realized by Sunday night if he hadn't realized it before. He had three he has three goals for the war.

[00:21:29]One added after the war started which is getting the Straits of Hormuz open and never trying to close them again. But the other is no nuclear weapons and we get the dust and an elimination in some fashion of their missile program.

[00:21:47]And that's a go no-go thing. So when it comes back to him that well in 60 we're going to negotiate over the terms in 60 days and maybe they'll get to keep some and not another. He does have in his head because he keeps saying it that the last thing that he wants anyone ever to say is that this resembles the JCPOA.

[00:22:09]You don't want to compare it to the JCPOA. But he does and he said three times yesterday, this is not the JCPOA.

[00:22:18]That was the worst deal ever. Anything that involves using percentage numbers of uranium enrichment, 3% 60% centrifuges, any talk like that is JCPOA talk.

[00:22:36]>> Yeah. He doesn't want you to have to analyze the deal to know who got the better of the deal.

[00:22:42]Right. Right. In other words, the American people, Obama had to spend months trying to talk the American people into the idea that this was a really good deal. And he had this very long spiel about how you see it's 10 10 years and then there's two extra years and the sanctions will stay on if they start spitting the centrifuges. we're and even then by the time the deal was actually before the American people, three-fifths of the United States was opposed to the JCPOA. That's something that people forget. So, you know, the Senate vote against the JCPOA was 62 Senate.

[00:23:22]>> By the way, people forget it because then the Benro's echo chamber uh was was put to work. Um and I think you know which Benoitz was the deputy uh national security uh adviser famously bragged about how he could feed JCPOA talking points to a new generation of journalists who knew nothing. Um, and I think John, when you talk about uh the social media figures that um got the memo to start talking up this non-deal over the weekend, that's Trump's version of the or that's this administration's version of the echo chamber. Um, it's no it's no longer going to be about uh print media, legacy media. It's going to be about social media. uh figures, streamers, and and and and the rest of it. And that's what got me concerned um because I it's not the JCPOA. I get that and I I take Christine's uh caution there seriously. But um this this was this reminded me of oh they are laundering garbage just like Ben Rhodess did.

[00:24:42]>> But they were laundering garbage that hadn't yet been fully served up as the garbage.

[00:24:48]>> That was that was the thing. Like the more you read the details that say Barack Ravid was putting out or others were putting out about what was in the deal, you were like I mean I kept saying I was texting with 15 different people and everybody was like he can't agree. He can't agree to this.

[00:25:11]Like just two months ago he said the exact opposite. like he's snatching defeat from the jaws of nobody. There is nobody except Alex Bruowitz and Jack Pobiac and Steven Chung's little army of morons that is going to say that this deal is good. Nobody. Like all Republican senators are going to say, "Yeah." And like every Democrat's like, "You see, the whole thing was a total blunder and we went to war for no reason and put ourselves at risk and we used up all our munitions and da da da da."

[00:25:46]Like, it didn't make any sense the terms that were coming back from him. It might make sense if this were the George HW Bush administration which negotiated essentially a ceasefire with Saddam Hussein that left him in power and caused us to have to go to war with him again 10 years later. You know, like that would make sense from those. But that that is what no one is saying on the Trump administration side because they know the American people do not want to hear it because if the if that's I think why the whole nuclear dust negotiation involves now this caveat that like we can send people to the dust itself we don't have to extract it and they can assure us that it's not being enriched. you know, all of these new details, but that is avoiding the unsaid thing, which is in if Iran says no to all of that, particularly about the nuclear materials, in order for Trump to do what he says he wants to do with regard to Iran's nuclear capabilities, that will require a heavy presence of troops, a real war, lots more naval activity, not these little, you know, strategic things we've been doing. And that is something I think he knows the country would not necessarily support right now. And so that's the unsaid, unspoken thing. and Iran is relying on no one saying that, but it kind of coming out in some sort of negotiation.

[00:27:01]I assume I don't see any any benefit from the Iranian standpoint to agreeing to just give over all of that material.

[00:27:08]They're going to make that part very difficult. And that's the that's why the second stage, as Elelliana correctly pointed out, that second stage of negotiation is going to be them just constantly resetting the egg timer in the kitchen and waiting for us while we cook leading up to the election. But that assumes there's going to be a second stage >> because the first stage is already been rejected by Iran.

[00:27:30]>> I mean, it's been rejected.

[00:27:33]>> I mean, I I don't know how many times different people had to say yesterday that they weren't agreeing to any of this for it to be clear that it was being rejected. And then of course we get this wonderful statement at the beginning of the Haj uh from the uh from the Ayatollah you know who may not even exist uh Moshaba Kame who you know may be like the you know and Woody Allen sleeper he may just be a nose that they're you know like trying to clone back into into life but he but this statement comes out it's like oh I welcome all the Haj and by the way Israel will not exist in 15 years and death to America.

[00:28:13]Uh, okay.

[00:28:14]>> Get out the classics.

[00:28:15]>> That's really That's >> Someone's shaking a Someone's shaking a magic eightball. Iran version.

[00:28:22]>> Yeah. I mean, the phrase >> ask again later.

[00:28:25]>> Israel will not exist in 15 years is literally what started this whole we have to do something about Iran before they get a nuclear weapon thing.

[00:28:38]>> More than 15 years ago.

[00:28:39]>> It was 20 years ago. 21 years ago, it was Mahmud Ahmedad upon his election as president of Iran who said, "Our task is the elimination of Israel. It will not be around very much longer and also announcing that they were accelerating their interest in, you know, nuclear materials." And that literally triggered a worldwide understanding that the Iranian purpose had become millinarian and that it was looking to destroy the Jewish state and something needed to be done about that. Which is why every single major political figure in the United States has said Iran can never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. And I think it's also every figure in the world basically says it's just sort of like a cliche now Iran can't get a nuclear weapon. So if Moshaba again if that's him saying oh they're not Israel is not going to exist in 15 years and the and the they're the little Satan in America is the great Satan.

[00:29:48]That's really uh really we're Trump is going to make a peace deal with him.

[00:29:55]There is the no peace deal with him.

[00:29:58]That's them saying, "No peace deal.

[00:30:00]We'll we'll go down with the ship. If you can probably sink our ship, we're going down with it. We're not you know, we're not scrambling to get off the ship."

[00:30:12]>> Now, I would love to see some uh you know, some international law experts and defenders of international law react to Iran's pledge to control the strait forever. Because this is also what's happening. Iran is not just saying no deal. They're saying in addition to no deal, we're also going to take X, Y, and Z. And you know this is a this is a situation where it would be very easy for for the EU countries to step in and say well you can't have the straight because you can't you can't toll an international waterway even even if you know there are c even if there are certain technical property rights that you have and whatever you can't toll an international waterway you can't toll the straight and no No one's actually saying that because they're not willing to do what it would take to force Iran to not toll the streets. Somebody has to go in and make them do it. Um I want to quote the uh Institute for the Study of Wars uh daily does a daily report on where the war is.

[00:31:24]Um and uh here's the funny part about the Straits of Hormuz thing. Here's what they say. Iran has continued to claim that it and Oman control the straight of Hormuz as territorial waters. By the way, just for our listeners here or people watching on YouTube, if if you haven't, you really do have to go take a look at a map and see what the Straight of Hormuz looks like cuz that that will that informs how it is that the Iranians can even think of doing this and why they're why uh they're saying that they in Oman can control the straight.

[00:32:00]Anyway, Iranian officials says uh ISW are attempting to reframe transit tolls as protection fees to give Iran's protection rack at the veneer of legality. The straight of Hormuz is an international waterway under international law. Iran is claiming that the strait is territorial waters and under the administration of coastal states. But it is notable in this context that Iran does not define the United Arab Emirates as a coastal state even though the UAE borders the strait. So it is said these are territorial waters for us and Oman but not the UAE which also has a border because the UAE is of course aligned with the US and Israel in the war against Iran. So, this is just nonsense on stilts, you know. It's like it's like a parody uh of itself that they're trying to claim some kind of international law standard that allows them to control the straight with the exception of one of the three countries that borders the straight. So again, like I don't know who we're negotiating with here. Once again, all of this looks like we're negotiating with ourselves. And in this case, Witoff and Kushner or somebody Trump's like, "You go get a deal." And to be fair to them, Trump says to them, "You go get a deal." So he's they're sitting across from somebody who says they're speaking for Iran. Maybe it's gutter, maybe it's whatever.

[00:33:38]and they keep moving the football uh or the goalposts or whatever analogy you want to use because they are like the Americans during the JCPOA negotiations, their overriding purpose is to get to a deal. So if Iran says no, they got to move a little bit and then they got to move a little bit. That's that that's them. The question is what the United States does. So they are having this conversation. The conversation makes them optimistic because they're giving in on various fronts and the Iranians or the guties or whoever's are smiling and saying here have some more mint tea and I have a delicious pastry for you and it's all really wonderful. mood lightens, but none of it has anything to do with what will actually be agreed to by the person who went to war and said, "I have three per I we're going to destroy their offensive capabilities. We're going to get the dust and you know, they are never going to have a nuclear program ever again." And that's what he said.

[00:34:46]The one thing he didn't say was that we want regime change, right? That's and that that's where they still are. But Trump is the one who set the terms for the ending of this war. And if they can't even give him even remotely decent cover to claim that he's gotten there, he's not going to agree to it.

[00:35:11]I mean, his his animal cunning will not allow that to happen.

[00:35:16]>> But then what will he do? He will, if he doesn't agree to it, what happens next?

[00:35:20]And I think that's the question on America's mind. Certainly on my mind because he this this iteration over and over of bluster and threats and then oh we have a deal oh it's the best deal ever. I think that you're correct that that cannot go on for much longer.

[00:35:34]>> Okay. I have an answer for that. So what if we're stumbling into the correct policy backwards which is to say we've done the military damage that we can do. Everything else that we do after this, you know, becomes creates the conditions under which a potential post Islamic Republic Iran will not be able to be a functional country. But we are going to keep the straight open. We're and we are going to blockade the the Iranians are not the Iranians are blockaded. And if we can h if we can stomach doing that for six months with all the attendant pain that that will cause the regime might well well collapse. That might be the right strategy to win the war finally. And of course, then our friend Eli Lake had a very depressing piece in the free press yesterday or the day before yesterday about the real reason Trump needs a deal with Iran, which is that according to him, according to sources, uh the munitions crisis is very real. that we have gone through, you know, we haven't been replenishing our stocks and all of this and we've gone through an immense amount of weaponry and material and we if we have to do much more of this, we are going to we're not going to have enough stuff in reserve for the real potential crisis that might happen if say China decides to move on Taiwan.

[00:37:12]And so Trump needs a deal so he can stop firing weapons. Now, if that's true, and I don't know that it's true, but it sounds certainly I mean enough people are worried that it's true and we do know that we haven't been replenishing our munitions enough, then the Hormuz blockade of Iran that will make Iran choke and have literally no foreign commerce or trade or anything um becomes a viable long-term strategy to make them break. What about that as a theory? I think that solves Trump's near-term problem, but the long-term strategic implications of a United States that's just come out of the end of this conflict, uh, where China and other world powers see how we've backed off from that strategic goal of controlling nuclear weapons does shift balances of power. I think that's not good long-term for the interests of the United States or for the interest of Western countries in general. And to have done that and ended up in that position while having um alienated many of our allies I think is is of concern to me I think in the next 20 to 30 years even if in the immediate few months to year or through the end of Trump's term that there's some sort of balance restored.

[00:38:28]>> I mean it's this is the reputational problem and it's why I'm not sure I believe that he wouldn't go back to war because it I don't know. I mean I I don't know. I don't know. No one knows. We have no idea. And his inconstancy is very very jarring and difficult. And it is that one of those moments where you go, I don't know how we can go through two and a half more years of this.

[00:38:53]Like I I I just don't understand, you know?

[00:38:57]Uh today, by the way, of course, we have the primary in Texas, right? the S Senate runoff primary uh or runoff between um Senator Cornin uh mainstream Republican votes with Trump 100% of the time and Ken Paxton, a man uh convicted of crimes who bribed people and had to pay settlements to people that he wrongly indicted in order to cover up his fact that he made them hire his mistress and stuff like that. and Trump endorses Paxton and Paxton is likely to win and thus give the Democrats the first real chance they've had to have a senator from Texas since Lloyd Benson.

[00:39:41]And you know, so that's what also what he did last week.

[00:39:46]>> Although I would like to resurrect Lloyd Benson from the dead and have him arm wrestle Telerico because I really would not put my money on Telerico in that. I mean, Telico is still very weak candidate for a Texas Senate candidacy.

[00:39:57]that he is. But Paxton is a you know I mean Paxton has won races. That's clear. He is the he is the attorney general of the state.

[00:40:08]Uh and uh but >> Pax Paxton's a weaker candidate. I do think uh Paxton can win in Texas. Um the and I and I think um my understanding is Trump endorsed Paxton because um he saw polling indicating tax uh Pax Paxton was going to defeat Cornin and he was inclined to get in front of it and take the credit for what was going to happen anyway. But I think this creates a couple of other problems um for the president um between now and the midterms. uh some of which Matt talked about when he was on the podcast. Um which is that um the president has um alienated the Senate. Um you know, the Senate is a really tight-knit group and he needs some things from the Senate. Um he's trying to get funding for his ballroom. Um and they are not inclined to get it from him. Um he uh Attorney General Todd Blanch had a very adversarial uh meeting. My understanding is um with senators over this IRS slush fund for uh government weaponization that the president wants uh and that was last week. And um there there are whispers and questions raised about what Justice Alo u might do. There's the potential of a Supreme Court retirement between now and November. I think people are thinking it won't happen, but nobody knows. Um, and so if you look at the Senate, um, President Trump has essentially pushed out Tom Tillis in North Carolina. Um, he's pushed out, um, uh, in Louisiana, I'm blanking on the guy name. Yeah, Bill Cassidy. Um, and he's endorsed, um, Paxton over Cornin. Um, he's insulted Susan Collins in Maine.

[00:42:16]Um, and those things I, you know, are things that I think make it much harder for him to get what he wants um, in a midterm year, just months out, um, from November elections. Let's see how far we're almost in June. Uh, so five months out from a midterm election. Um, and I think, you know, he he's made it a bit more difficult to get what he wants from a Republican Senate with very slim margins. Um, 53 Republican senators. Um, so we have that primary in Texas today.

[00:42:50]And the other interesting primary we have, John, is a Democratic primary, uh, Democratic runoff, I should say.

[00:42:58]um in the 35th Texas Congressional District between the rabbid anti-semite Moren Galindo um and the other Democrat Johnny Garcia.

[00:43:11]Um the free beacon actually brought Galindo maybe three weeks ago to national attention, noting her um she's a self-described sex therapist um whose social media is littered with anti-semitic posts. Um and when she was prodded by other media outlets following our reporting, she said um that she wants to turn ICE detention centers into a prison for American Zionists where they would then be castrated. Um and um there's been a lot of attention on a mysterious um GOP linked super PAC that is boosting her candidacy. This is a swing district um that is now R +4 uh due to the redistricting in Texas. So it leans Republican and Republicans believe she would be the um weaker candidate obviously um and there has been an enormous amount of media attention to the fact that Republicans are boosting her. I saw Dave Wigel of Semaphore saying the real story in this race is that Republicans are boosting this candidate. not that this woman actually won a runoff election in a Democratic primary. And I thought it was worth noting um that, you know, the goal of politics is actually to win. Um I don't think it's crazy that Republicans are boosting this woman.

[00:44:36]They think it's more likely um that she will lose the general. That's not crazy.

[00:44:41]And that and to remind our listeners, I have not seen this noted in a single story about this that it was Democrats who pioneered the techniques of meddling um in the opposing party's primary and it is now a standard tactic used by both parties. Um that happened in 2014.

[00:45:03]Uh Claire McCascal, then the senator from Missouri, her allies meddled in the Republican primary to boost the weaker candidate Todd Akin of legitimate rape fame. Uh they did so successfully.

[00:45:19]Macascal prevailed. She was not defeated until the free beacon uh reports about her uh bus tour or her um what an RV tour of the state that she was actually taking a private jet from stop to stop.

[00:45:36]Um but this is now a standard technique that was pioneered by Democrats and um that is not the story of this race. The story is that you know Democratic voters still have to go and vote. they they still have to go and cast ballots for this candidate. So, it will be quite in interesting to see who prevails in that race tonight.

[00:45:56]>> Can I add to that because I remember we discussed this on the on the podcast many times that in every uh election that Trump was on the ballot. We heard from the Democratic party that he was a threat to democracy. He's, you know, he's going to bring he's going to topple down everything like he he is an existential threat to the nation. And in every one of those races, the Democrats were funding the most extreme MAGA candidates in many local and state elections. Uh because for exactly the reason you say, Aliana, politics is a dirty game and all you want to do is win. And so they did that. But it was the contrast at the time between the moral grandstanding of the rhetoric coming out of their mouths and the absolute cash being sent directly to the most extreme I mean some really extreme people who thankfully didn't win their races. Um, and I remember us discussing that at the time. And so I was struck as well, just as you said, that that this has become suddenly a scandal that that we should all attend to when in fact it's just >> Yeah. This is what we should be paying attention to, as always, what the Republicans are doing, not who the Democrats are voting for. Um, and it turns out, you know, anti-semitism, if folks haven't noticed, might be good politics in a Democratic primary.

[00:47:06]>> By the way, it's not just that.

[00:47:09]Remember, we had 10 years 20 years maybe of the runup to uh the McCain Fineold campaign finance law.

[00:47:19]Uh talk about how uh the weakening of the parties, the strengthening of the packs, all this Republicans using illicit illegitimate money to control politics. And we needed these campaign finance reforms, much of which were overturned by the by the Supreme Court on first amendment grounds later in the Citizens United decision.

[00:47:45]Right now, the left in the United States and the political left, it's not necessarily direct giving to candidates, but there are foreign billionaires, two of them in particular, uh, who are basically funding the American left and create and funding NOS's and funding get out the vote, everything that everything up to giving money to candidates or to political parties that have built this infrastructure that has strengthened this left-wing surge in the in Democratic circles. It's not simply populist, though I believe I believe it is, but um it is a surge of unprecedented strength and it's incredibly wellunded and that seems to be okay with people. I mean, the Koch brothers became the demons of American politics for a decade. and this guy in China whose name I um now can't quite sum it up.

[00:49:00]>> Neville Roy Singum.

[00:49:01]>> Singum, right? And then uh and then this uh >> who whose wife is Code Pink Media Benjamin. Um and because of Singum, Code Pink is turned into a CCP front group, >> right? Uh and uh which is also weird.

[00:49:17]And then of course the there you have the Soros family and you have uh this guy Fergie Chambers who is the who is the grandson of some billionaire.

[00:49:27]Anyway, I don't see any concern about the interference of big dark money in American politics. Once again, as long as those politics can agree or conform with liberal biases, it's all it's all fine. And I'm all in favor of calling out Republican and conservative hypocrisy, but the level, if people could remember, sum it up, the level of uniform rage and disgust at the money polluting our politics. that had to be driven from our politics because it was so filthy and it was it was rich people maneuver, you know, playing with us like we were puppets and here we are somehow mysteriously with this socialist mayor in my city and you know somebody and Graham Platner you know storming the beaches and running you know Janet Mills out of you know out of her candidacy and all of that. And that is and the and the thousands of tents that mysteriously appeared on every college campus in 5 seconds when the encampment thing started. All of these interferences in American politics and discussion, a lot of it exogenous, a lot of it from abroad. And they don't care >> there. You know, I think there's a sense of denial that runs quite deeply in most partisan Democratic voters minds. I've confronted it in friends of mine where if you mention dark money being now much more largely a a project of the left, they're shocked. When you mention that the Democratic Party is not any longer the party of the workingclass American, but the party of the wealthy and the elite and the higher educated, they're shocked even though they know it to be true. And I think there is this um undeniable sense that if a an encampment pops up, it's organic. It's the people rising up. This this weird sort of mythology that the democratic left has built around itself that no longer comports with the infrastructure of money. Some of it as you say, foreign uh money flowing into these NOS's flowing into these causes that are not only extremely to the left of the average Democratic voter, but quite to the left of the average American voter. And I think that's where, you know, that when stories break about textbooks that have been funded by an NGO which say all kinds of crazy anti-semitic nonsense and anti-American stuff, people are genuinely surprised because there is not a consistent storyline that helps Democratic voters understand that this is their party now. And I think it's why we'll see this both this midterm and certainly the next presidential election are going to be very important when we see what the Democratic voter agrees or disagrees with. When you have an anti-semitic candidate, as Elelliana was pointing out earlier, when you when a primary can produce someone who says there should be Zionist internment camps in this country and nobody even so much as shrugs about that on the left or says, "Oh, she didn't really mean it."

[00:52:36]If you can have Graham Platner with his Nazi tattoo and everybody makes excuses for him, that is the party. In the same way that we have been critical, I think you're right, John, of our own party that the Republican party, I can't even call myself a Republican anymore, the Republican party's uh extremes on its own fringes. This is not something they've come to terms with because they haven't had a national election where they've had to choose. They are about to have one in November and they'll have another one in the next presidential election.

[00:53:00]>> I mean, sorry. But sorry >> on this the point about the democratic hypocrisy here.

[00:53:08]It's important to remember that the foreign money and the NOS's they also go into shaping the narrative of a corrupt GOP.

[00:53:21]Um it's all it's this loop. Um, so obviously they're not going to now shape push the narrative into criticizing uh uh foreign funding of of the of the Democratic party.

[00:53:43]I mean, so we're just living in these false narratives >> and there's a lot more every election you have more politically homeless Americans who are sort of like, where do we go from here?

[00:53:54]There's also this, you know, on the subject of Styer, it's worth, you know, Christine brought up the idea of uh spontaneous grassroots move, the assumption of spontaneity and grassroots and all that stuff. Styer, you know, today Semaphore has an interesting piece about Tommy Styer's campaign paying influencers online and you know social popular social media accounts to say nice things about him and there was a problem with them initially.

[00:54:24]>> Platner is doing the same thing by the way. um liners doing the same thing and the New York Times had a a big piece about um you know this is a new technique in campaigns um because it goes back to our conversation on this podcast about you know advertising um using social media that's a new way to advertise. Well, it's a new way for politicians to advertise too, >> right?

[00:54:49]So you can say like not only is Styer >> not only are they hypocritical because they just don't like billionaires except when the billionaire is one of theirs but he is at the forefront of this new and what Democrats behind uh closed doors as this semaphore article says when you ask when you ask progressives when you ask Democrats behind closed doors they are very nervous about the the tactic that some of their own people are using because they see it as a way to hide where the money is coming from and to whom the money is going. In other words, this really blows up the whole idea of having that transparency in elections. Styer is by all accounts at the forefront of this whole paid influencer, paid social media accounts.

[00:55:39]So that it's not just the that he has the money, but he is that those billions, you know, not that he's spending billions on social media accounts, but those billions are going to pioneer new ways in hiding the money that he personally is putting into his own election. This is the sort of thing that would be considered a major scandal, I would think, if it were a Republican.

[00:56:01]>> I I I mean, am I alone in thinking I have no problem with this? Like advertising always morphs and it always plays games and it always tries to >> in Styer's case they were not disclosing the uh that they were paid influencers.

[00:56:18]>> You know they were they did because we only know that they're paid influencers because of a California state regulation, >> right, >> that required him to release that information. It's more like we don't know a platter. I think now we can just assume now that half the political accounts of the United States, if not more, are basically paid advertising for C campaigns. And indeed, if you're doing it and not getting paid, you are a schmuck because someone will pay you. If you have 10,000 followers, you know, you got to somehow get in touch with Act Blue or something because they'll they'll they'll start they'll start funneling money to you if you do what they want.

[00:57:05]>> You hear that Mitch Daniels?

[00:57:09]>> I'm sorry, Elliot.

[00:57:10]>> They're doing this for free.

[00:57:11]>> Yeah. No, I mean, seriously, like like advertising more, you know, it's like when when direct mail started, it was like, oh my god, what is this? This is you're they shouldn't be allowed to do this. They're they're putting they're sending letters to people and raising money that way. I don't know why that was, you know, or whatever, you know.

[00:57:29]>> But the combination of this form of advertising with the power of the algorithmically driven news feed and the fact that all Americans now get all of their news from social media. And you have a lot of uh younger voters in particular who don't understand that they're actually being marketed to, not because they're ignorant, but because the disclosures are buried or only surface if someone investigates. That's where I I think it should say paid ad on any Tik Tok video. Any bit of social media that is bought and purchased should list that. And we do have federal regulations regarding that that are not very strictly enforced with regard to influencers acknowledging that they're being paid sponsors. But that would actually be a very uh good use of federal regulation is to enforce that.

[00:58:13]Say this is a paid advertisement. They have to do that for television. They have to do that for radio. Why not enforce >> television and radio are regulated by the FCC and this is not regulated by the >> Well, that's and that's a loophole that they've been trying to close, but we haven't yet succeeded in doing that.

[00:58:28]I think this is a short-term problem by which I mean uh the BS detectors of people.

[00:58:38]We're still in this like first moment of this >> like we'll vote how AI slot Jesus tells us to vote right now.

[00:58:45]>> Right. But I know it feels like it's been a decade and that you know where we've been being spun like tops for a decade. I know that. But eventually people do grock the difference between what's real and what's what's not real and they get very very cynical about it.

[00:59:06]It may take a little while for that to start kicking in or they basically will believe in nothing. I mean that's the other possibility is that nothing that is fed to anybody on Tik Tok in five years will be believe. It'll be sort of like when your original email program like I was on an email server called Spryet like that that was my first one and at some point Spryinet got was destroyed because of the spam. They didn't have a good enough spam filter.

[00:59:39]They didn't have a good enough protection or something like that. And then every day you got 150 spam. You had to get the hell off Spryet uh because you couldn't use it anymore because it was choked. to like that. And and it could well be that people will just look at Tik Tok and say or these servers and say this is all garbage. It's like watching a television channel that is only commercials or something like that and I don't I can't take it.

[01:00:11]>> Yeah. Condandy Rice tells a great story in her memoirs about visiting Russia and trying to advocate for the opposition to have media rights. And one of the things they didn't have is, you know, in Putin's Russia, they didn't have access to TV. It was all propaganda. And she went to the I think it was Medvidev was technically president at the time, but she went to the administration and she said, "We one of our demands is we want you guys to let them to let opposition ideas and figures have some time on TV.

[01:00:42]You have a monopoly." And Bed Vide's people said to her, "Nobody watches TV.

[01:00:47]Nobody gets their news from TV. It doesn't matter what we say." And she said, "Uh, okay, whatever." Then she went to she met with the opposition, the guys who at the time were really feeding this this internet rush, this rush of the internet, you know, the online opposition in Russia, and said to them, "Look, I'm working. I've put in a formal request with Medvidev to have you guys have some media equity here on Russian TV." And the activists said to her, "Nobody watches TV. It doesn't matter."

[01:01:21]That was like the joke for Condi. She was like both sides said it doesn't nobody cares about TV. This was the propaganda. So that's the idea is the idea that anything coming to you through this particular medium is just assumed to be prep preackaged for you and there are other ways that people are going to get what they believe is the truth.

[01:01:43]>> But the problem is that there there really aren't other ways. I mean now that this is where people live now. So they can come to whatever >> now the operative word though.

[01:01:55]>> Yeah. But where are they going to live after?

[01:01:57]>> I don't know. Did you know Tik Tok was ever going to exist?

[01:02:01]>> I'm just saying the same thing. It's all but my point is >> but >> if it's if they're going to live virtually essentially um then the problem remains.

[01:02:14]>> Yeah. This is where I become very pessimistic where you were a little more optimistic, John, and that's that we have we have we're long past the idea that there can be a shared reality when it comes to information. And so it is if you're under 30, the nihilistic direction has been going on for a while now. And I think that's what worries me.

[01:02:30]Again, like we'll we'll still parse everything we read and figure out if it's true or not. That's not even on the radar screen for for the next generation. I mean, the horrible part about this is that you could imagine in all innocence, right, after 2016, this idea that arose that that the social media companies should do something about trying to make sure that lies were not being spread over their over their services that were distortive and convinced people that things were not true. And then of course that was just politically weaponized into a into a censorship machine that kept the Hunter Biden story from being and you know COVID stories that were were viewed as uh inappropriate or unorthodox and all of that. And that's of course that's the cure that's worse than the disease because it's not a cure. You're just therefore spinning the news in one direction. And >> but the future is what the Trump administration ju just did, which is to remove all information about prosecutions of January 6th participants. That's the future is that the administrations itself will just disappear information and there's no way to resurface that. Even the internet archive cannot always resurface those documents. So I think what that's more like I think both sides will do this. By the way, as we saw the Biden administration's behavior with regard to the tech companies, the kinds of you know first amendment violations of ordinary citizens were ridiculous. But I think that is the future where who then is able to maintain access to information that a government agency or official decides should no longer be publicly available for any other reason than that they don't like what it says even if it's something >> there's been a lot of that. Look, you know, there are still papers from the Kennedy and Eisenhower administrations that are deemed classified.

[01:04:16]That's insane. You know it that is I mean it is literally insane since since everybody in those papers is dead and the countries that we were fighting most of them a lot of them don't know no longer exist you know so um controlling information is something that governments try to do at all times they do it with with whatever means and modalities they ha can have the this removal of the January 6th information which is so outrageous as to be, you know, sort of un unthinkable. There are still other sources for it. There's the there's the there's the Congressional January 6th commission which released tens of thousands of pages of documents and the court documents still exist in the court system that the that's under the judiciary. That's not the executive branch. So it's amazing but it is not it it is not memory hold like the Kremlin could memory hold something because it was the only holder of any document in the country and that everything was totally centralized that that that said this is this is a whole other uh topic about this um this idea that it's again like this weird thing where the Trump people admirably or sort of like conservatives got very worried about this white revision of the past, you know, removing the statues, changing the names of things, rewriting the history books to make sure that they, you know, cast America in a bad light. And so you think, oh, that's really, you know, that's very important and it's they're trying to establish the historical record properly. And it's like, no, you know what they're doing? They went they started there and now that what they want to do is write history according to their lights and revise everything so that it conforms with their propaganda just like the same thing happened with the truth commissions at at Facebook and and Twitter and and and everywhere else and this is why you know governments can't be per have to be over overseen and that there's this terrible crisis with the if the Senate were functioning properly what the Justice Department just did with those J6 files would be instantly the subject of hearings and or or they wouldn't do it because they would be too afraid that the Senate would come down on them.

[01:06:44]So that's another part of our, you know, dysfunctional system at work. I want to make a quick recommendation. Uh I saw a movie this weekend, best movie of the year so far in my opinion, Tuner. It is a small uh it's a heist movie. Uh it's a safe cracker movie. Uh but it's about a piano tuner whose skills as a piano tuner turn out to uh help him as a safe cracker and he gets c he gets involved with Israeli gangsters and he's a musician who falls in love with a brilliant young pianist and he works with Dustin Hoffman at the age of 88 who is his senior piano tuner for whom he needs to get a lot of money really fast because he's in the hospital and all these things converge. Stars an actor named Leo Wood who was in um who was in White Lotus season 2 if you want if you're were a fan of that. Uh, it's a it's an extraordinarily good movie by a 33-year-old director who has already won an Oscar for his documentary, interestingly enough, given what Seth was talking about about Alexa Navali, the opposition figure in Russia and uh, won a documentary Oscar and this is his first film, Tuner. Go see it. Trust me, you can read my review I think later today in the Washington Free Beacon.

[01:08:12]Elelliana's own Washington Free Beacon.

[01:08:16]Uh so we'll be back tomorrow for Elelliana, Seth, Abe, and Christine. I'm John Poritz. Keep the candle burning.