The Ukraine-Russia War Is Entering a New Phase

Added: 2026-06-03

[00:00:00]Welcome to the Dispatch podcast. I'm Steve Hayes. On today's round table, we'll look at the latest developments in the Ukraine Russia war and how the battlefield may be shifting in Kev's favor. And we'll spend a moment on the allegedly imminent deal with Iran. Then we'll spend a few minutes on toxic partisanship and the frustrating red blue cheerleading for moral cretins like Ken Paxton and Graham Platner. And finally, not worth your time, Donald Trump, the UFC, Millie Vanilli, the Freedom 250 celebration, and despite all of that, the continued greatness of America. I'm joined today by my Dispatch colleague Jonah Goldberg and Dispatch contributors David French and Mike Nelson. Let's dive right in. Mike, I want to start with you um and start with some good news for a change. We have been seeing persistent reports uh on the Russia Ukraine war both in the popular press and also from um military analysts such as your colleagues at the Institute, former colleagues at the Institute for the Study of War. Um that the war is turning or maybe even has turned, that Ukraine has gained battlefield advantages, um that Ukraine has built momentum, that Russia is increasingly struggling. There was a UK intel assessment last week that Russia had lost 500,000 soldiers, which is much higher than we had heard before. There's a Financial Times piece out today uh looking at uh Vladimir Putin and his standing with Russians and the headline is Putin could pay a personal price for failure in Ukraine and uh sort of bullish on on what's happening in Ukraine. Can you tell us, Mike, if you believe these assessments? H has there been some kind of a turn? Does Ukraine in fact have momentum? Number one, and number two, if so, what does that mean? And what, if anything, can the United States do to boost Ukraine's prospects of bringing this war to an end?

[00:02:06]>> Well, I I think one of the common threads throughout the war uh was that, you know, reports of Ukraine's demise have been grossly exaggerated, right?

[00:02:13]every month or every couple weeks, we hear Doug McGregor and others around him saying, you know, the collapse of Keev is imminent and it's about to happen.

[00:02:20]That's never been the case. you know, from the earliest days of the war from from uh you know, the the the the the initial strikes of the Russian invasion, there there was a a period of time, a period of weeks where the Ukrainians were on the ropes and they were very very realistically facing complete uh Russian conquest and through a series of number one horrible decisions by the Russians, both tactical and operational, but also through the the great determination of the Ukrainian fighting forces and their political leadership, they repelled that and kind of blunted the the the offensive and ground things to kind of a standill. had, you know, certain grinding campaigns like Mario Poll and other places where um where it was it was grounded the lines that we've seen largely stagnant over the last couple years, but as you've mentioned, you know, reported by ISW, who's from the beginning of of the war, been the the the greatest source of objective information about where things are and this latest report uh which is just the latest reflection of great work from George Baros and and Katarina Steenko who kind of run the Russia team there and have from the beginning of the war.

[00:03:24]um we see that for the first time since 2023 uh Ukraine is starting to take back more territory than they're losing. So in aggregate they are on the offensive. And what we've seen is Ukraine has not only through that same grit and determination and and will to to maintain their independence that they've they've demonstrated throughout, they've also out innovated the Russians. uh they've not only you know led the way as we've seen uh as the world's leader on drone technology and integration into tactical operations but also started to be able to mass forces in a way that nobody has these these because of the use of drones and the inability of Russians and Ukrainians to some extent to mass forces in in in preparation for an offensive we've seen most of the Russian offensive operations have been very small at the platoon level you know raids through through small objectives And what we're seeing is the Ukrainians are starting to be able to integrate in this in conjunction with their their drone deep strikes against both ground lines of communications, C2 nodes, massing and and staging areas. Uh they've been able to start integrating some more armor and mechanized uh offensives. So they're they are like I said out innovating the Russians. And if this trend continues, you know, there's hopeful uh cautious optimism. If this trend continues, I think that what we're going to see is uh, you know, continued Ukrainian progress. Now, your question about what we can do to support the Ukrainians, I think it's important to point out that despite what many of the isolationist uh Ukraine haters have pointed out, we largely have not been supporting Ukraine for for a period of time now. As the vice president famously said, it's greatest accomplishment that we withdrew support from them. So the the Europeans are buying American weapons to provide to the to the Ukrainians, but we could restart a great deal of our support which would could help make the difference in this offensive.

[00:05:13]>> And Mike, just one thing on that, we are still providing intelligence, right?

[00:05:16]Which is like important.

[00:05:18]>> Correct. Yes. Yeah. So we and and we are still some of the the weapon systems that were that have been either provided before or that the Ukrainians or the Europeans purchased on behalf of the Ukrainians still require US integration so that those systems are operable. So, we haven't like cut off support, but we also turned off the spigot of financial support or direct military aid, which we could restart.

[00:05:39]>> Yeah. David, is there any chance of of uh the United States doing that? I would think this would be a time when sort of Ukraine supporters among Republicans in the Senate in particular, but in Congress might take their case to the the White House to President Trump and say, "Look, this is an opportunity here if if you uh believe the this ISW report that we've been talking about, they write at at the end of their summary, Ukraine likely has a unique and timeconstrained opportunity to exploit its current initiative. While Russian forces remain vulnerable, Ukraine's partners should expand their support to these Ukrainian efforts at a moment when Russia is reeling from both battlefield setbacks and Ukraine's deep strike campaign with the aim of forcing Russian President Vladimir Putin to re-evaluate his approach to this contract. It feels like a moment where why am I not hearing more from from the Russia from from the Russia hawks in in Congress?

[00:06:33]>> Well, there's not many left for one is when it comes to especially on the Republican side. There's a few. there's just not many left. Uh number two, I think there's a sense of futility that there this administration has staffed sort of top to bottom with people who don't like Ukraine. I mean, I would not put Marco Rubio in that category, but I would put a lot of the DoD um sort of Trump apparatus in that category. Um, so I I don't see a lot of move uh room for a significant political move between now and the midterms, maybe after the midterms. But also, this is an interesting question. What is it that we could do right now that would be very decisive when a lot of the Ukrainian advantage has been gained through their own drone industry and their own innovation and drone tactics where we are arguably behind them >> for sure. And so we we do have very high-end weapon systems like tomahawk missiles and things like that that could be helpful for Ukraine, but we've just seen in Iran that we expended huge percentages of our high-end weapon stocks and did not achieve the ultimate desired endstate as of yet. And this is this is right now a situation where I don't think even if we said Ukraine you get 500 Tomahawk missiles right now.

[00:07:55]>> Yeah. Would that be decisive? No. No.

[00:07:58]It'd be damaging to Russia. It would not be decisive.

[00:08:01]>> Sorry, just if I can just jump in with an answer to your question. One thing that Zalinsky has been asking for is Patriot missile defense system. He wrote a letter to President Trump 5 days ago said, "I need this. This is going to help me immediately if you provide it."

[00:08:14]And as far as I know, what we're recording this Monday morning, 10:00 a.m. We haven't given a response. We certainly haven't given an affirmative response to that request. and they're even wanting to manufacture Patriot missiles, which we should allow them to do, I think. And and so, yeah, I do think there are weapon systems that can help. And the Patriots make a a particularly big difference when it comes to countering the other high-end Russian systems. This the Patriots are not something to deal with the drone threat, the Shah drones and all of that.

[00:08:45]These are to deal with the ballistic missiles, the hypersonic missiles, >> which we've seen more of lately.

[00:08:50]>> Yes. And they really matter. when I was in Kev was when we had the Patriots intercepted the Kinszels in 2023. It was the first >> really big test of could the Patriots do this and it was I'll never forget it. I was at a front row seat to the whole thing. But I I think that what is very interesting about this moment and and if just to give a second to give some context here, Russia's way of waging this war at this moment I think has been checked by Ukraine.

[00:09:22]And their way of waging the war was a grinding infiltration tactic sort of approach where what they would do instead of these big armored mechanized assaults is they would try to filter troops through in ones and twos and threes and fours. And maybe 70% of them wouldn't make it through, but 30% would.

[00:09:42]And they would dig in and they would dig in and they would stick there. And to the point where it got really hard to tell where there was a front line. It was more like marbling than direct lines. But if you got enough Russians kind of fully behind the line or infiltrating through, you would get that very incremental move. And this was something that Putin was content with or seemed to be content with so long as the math worked. Were Ukrainians inflicting uh too many casualties or not enough casualties to stop this grinding advance? And the magic number, and Mike, correct me if if I'm wrong on this, the magic number is somewhere in the rounds of 30,000 a month.

[00:10:21]If Ukraine can inflict more than 30,000 unreoverable losses on Russia in a month, the math no longer works for them. They just can't move forward. And if that number falls well below 30,000, the number the math works for Russia. If it goes above 30,000, the math doesn't work for Russia. And lately, then math hasn't been working. And then there's an additional factor here and that that Ukraine now has a medium strike drone capability that is really able to start impacting logistics in the Russian occupied areas of Ukraine. So there are lots of drone strikes now on the main roads supplying Russian forces and Russia's almost is supplied a lot by truck by ground and so they're striking these trucks now in a way that is really raising some concerns on the Russian side that can they sustain their troops in the field. So if you have trouble sustaining your troops, you're losing more men than you are being able to bring to the front. The math doesn't work for Putin anymore and he's going to have to go through an innovation cycle and right now the innovation cycle is favoring Ukraine and the question is how do you exploit it?

[00:11:36]>> Yeah. And an in innovation cycle takes time of course and we haven't seen as much innovation as you pointed out on the Russian side as we have on the Ukrainian side which suggests that the that that the Russians really are in in a bit of a a pinch here. Jonah David mentioned Marco Rubio earlier and you know I think on the one hand Rubio is someone who you know understands Vladimir Putin understands the threat from Russia or has understood maybe is a better way of of putting it to be precise. I talked to one of Rubio's sort of top advisers uh a little bit ago and and he said I was I was frustrated because Rubio had done things like give this interview on the tarmac. This is I think in back in February of 2025 holding out the possibility that the United States and Russia could have new uh sort of revived economic relations and that could be a way for Russia to make it through this war and and and finish the job. And this person said, "Look, Marco Rubio knows Vladimir Putin is a bad guy."

[00:12:40]But he has been sort of on both sides of this in his public rhetoric, not wanting to say something that would piss off his boss, right? Who's obviously got a much warmer view of Vladimir Putin. And Marco Rubio is worried about Iran and he's worried about Cuba and he's worried about Venezuela and he's worried about the broader Western Hemisphere.

[00:13:04]Can we count on Marco Rubio to be the one person to make these arguments? And if not Marco Rubio, is is anybody is this just a moment that we'll look back on in six months and think of as a missed opportunity?

[00:13:17]>> Yes.

[00:13:19]>> Okay, moving on. Um, yeah. Look, I mean, like I I don't um so I agree with you that part of what's going on with Rubio, and I I I don't want to be uncharitable to Rubio in so far as I I think he's better than the, you know, the tallest skyscraper in Kansas analogy implies.

[00:13:41]um because he's actually pretty good at he let's put it this way, he could pass a touring test on on um grownup serious foreign policy arguments better than anybody else in this administration. He understands the arguments. He knows how to articulate them. I think there are even moments when he sincerely believes them. Um, and the problem that we have is that he's kind of alone and he's also caught up in this dynamic of having to having to translate Trumpism for to serious people um, in a way that doesn't piss off Trump. And that makes him just a completely unreli not necessarily wrong and not necessarily a liar and not necessarily, you know, uh, cynical. It just makes him an but it makes him an unreliable narrator about anything that comes out of this administration. And that's sort of true of everybody, but like Henry Kissinger spoke in a kind of code where like he was sort of like Alan Greenspan at the Fed, right? Like he worked hard not to say something that someone could say, "Oh, but you said this before, right?" And I don't think in this environment, Rubio is can handle that.

[00:15:02]particularly and we forget that Rubio is also the national security adviser at a time where the National Security Council has just been gutted >> and normally there's a healthy tension between the State Department and the National Security Council. I I I'm sure there are tensions now, but I just >> I mean there might be because Rubio sometimes says one thing and sometimes says another. So maybe it's a tension within Marco Rubio.

[00:15:26]>> Yeah, I think it might be. I mean I know internal conflicts, Jonah.

[00:15:30]>> Yeah. So I I just I think you know the part of the problem is you know you mentioned Cuba. Trump wants like Rubio has a sincere interest in Cuba. Trump has a sincere but different interest in Cuba in so far as he's trying to like knock up all these winds and and also change the subject from how Iran is going. And um I think the same lack of preparation and foresight that went into Iran is going to go into Cuba.

[00:16:07]Different result happens. You know, Cuba can't close the the Caribbean equivalent of the straight or anything like that.

[00:16:14]But I I have no confidence that these guys have a day two strategy for Cuba.

[00:16:17]And the idea that somehow indicting the 94year-old retired brother of the former dictator as a pretext to do a Venezuela part two kind of operation. It just highlights again how Venezuela was Suie Jenerys, but Trump likes the idea and once he thinks an idea is successful and once it he thinks it's cool, like taking the oil, which he's had in his head since the 1980s, he doesn't let go of it and policy has to reason backwards from that. So I I think there's a lot of stuff going on now that are missed opportunities, you know, including what was on the table. Apparently, I was reading somewhere that we had when we were talking about Iran um the offer to take the the the dust um >> the nuclear dust which I just talking about is >> um >> HU I guess >> repatriating that to the United States was an option proposed by Iran prior to the operation epic fury. Now, I don't necessarily believe that, but like they can claim it because, you know, Iran proposes things and then says, "Well, that's not what we meant." But, um, it's very difficult to look at the 95 days or whatever it's been since we went into Iran and say that we were um better off beforehand. And I think when it comes to Ukraine, the tragic thing is is I think it has been missed opportunity since 2014.

[00:17:43]And we could have done a lot more, a lot better under Biden, under Obama, under Trump one, and under Trump, too.

[00:17:49]>> And we didn't. And a lot of Ukrainians died and a lot of Russians died. Um, and a lot more will.

[00:17:56]>> Yeah. I mean, I think Rubio, if he still believes today what he argued as a senator um about Russia and about Ukraine, you can hold out some hope that he's inside making arguments that we should help them at this moment of of uh of advantage. But I just I don't have a ton of confidence that that's the case.

[00:18:17]Mike, I want to jump to Iran. Um, speaking of Rubio, speaking of of what the administration thought would be quick uh conflicts, can you help us understand the language of this conflict? You know, on the one hand, it's a war and it's an obvious war. Um, on the other hand, the administration would have us believe that it's not a war and then the president sometimes talks about it as a war. We're right now in the middle of a ceasefire. um I think roughly 50 days in to a ceasefire in which it seems as if the two sides are targeting one another uh with military action on a daily basis. The the Iranians uh overnight shot um missiles at US troops in Kuwait uh that were intercepted. Um, the US has um has launched its own what what are being described as low-level attacks on Iran. Is this a war or isn't it a war?

[00:19:21]Is this a ceasefire or isn't it a ceasefire?

[00:19:24]>> Well, I think as you point out, there are levels to the internal contradictions that are they're nested like a Matruska doll, right? So on the outset, it is a war when the president wants to pound his chest and talk about how glorious it is that we've we've been successful, but it's not a war when he recognizes or at least pays, you know, lip service to the war powers of the of the Congress and says he doesn't need to to report it that that we're at a ceasefire. And so it's a pause. It's a war that has been going on since the beginning of Epic Fury, but at the same time, we've been at ceasefire for longer than we were in the conflict conflict portions of it. And then that ceasefire that has been officially or at least as the president represents it on the books since April 8th has actually conducted or um had several instances of kinetic activity as you've pointed out. I think the the basic level of why we're not in a real ceasefire is we have agreed to stop our offensive operations and respond only when Iran takes offensive action. But Iran has not given us any such guarantee. They've they've done nothing to stop what they what their intentions are. They they've continued to mine the straight. They've continued to threaten international shipping.

[00:20:32]They've continued to try to run the blockade. They've continued to shoot missiles and drones at our Gulf Arab allies. So, in reality, all we've done is since April 8th, given Iran time to refit, rearm, re-equip themselves, reorganize themselves. There are reports that currently they have doubled down on some of their besieged the the the IRGC's internal police uh their besieged crackdown of dissident. They've executed people. They've arrested people. They're continuing to reinforce uh their their systems of power inside the country that that you know target any threats to regime survival. And at the end of the day, that's the most important thing to them. It's regime survival. And they are coming out well ahead of where they started in terms of, you know, retrenching their control of the of the country and the region as a whole.

[00:21:19]The the the president, you know, is just broke before we came on here. It looks like the Iranians are withdrawing from this deal that we have been assured time and time again was right around the corner. And I think it's just the latest example of the Iranians thumbming their nose at the president who has said, you know, very boisterously that he is going to conduct, you know, rain fire and brimstone down on them and has done nothing since they've continued to give nothing in exchange for these uh continued extensions on the the quote unquote ceasefire.

[00:21:47]>> Yeah, David, we we keep hearing report.

[00:21:49]I mean it's been now it's it's now would be comical if we weren't talking about it in in the context of a war report almost daily reports about the imminence of this deal and different parts about it these leaks that are about it but one of the more persistent leaks over the past week or 10 days >> has been this idea that the United States is prepared to give the Iranians some $300 billion and how exactly that would look and what exactly it would mean uh you know open to interpretation based on sometimes conflicting leaks But it seems to be a part of virtually every package that's discussed.

[00:22:25]Is there any scenario where we could reach some kind of a a deal um a permanent ceasefire, a long-term deal where it would be appropriate for the United States to provide Iran, especially if it's this current regime, which is basically the Iran Revolutionary Guards Corps and shadows of the the old um regime, where we could provide them with $300 billion and it would be a responsible end to the fighting.

[00:22:53]Um, not with this regime. I mean, no.

[00:22:56]You you could imagine a situation where you have a Marshall plan with an allied regime, but even in that circumstances, $300 billion is a lot of money.

[00:23:05]Unbelievable.

[00:23:06]>> That's an absurd amount of money. Just extraordinary. And I don't think of it as real at all. I I I think that what you're dealing with is a president who takes carrot and stick to an extreme rhetorical place. So we we will destroy your civilization. Those are words that you should never hear from a president of the United States because guess what?

[00:23:31]A president of the United States is one of only a few people in the whole world who can actually have the power deploy the power to destroy a civilization.

[00:23:39]That's why you don't you don't say these things. And then you turn around and say $300 billion, which is sort of the diametrically opposed reverse of that. You know, now not we're going to destroy your civilization. We're going to lavish your civilization with gifts.

[00:23:57]>> That feels like a absurd carrot and absurd stick is what you're constantly dealing with. And so over time, these guys have learned how to call the bluff. They they have learned how to operate within this environment of extreme overpromising in both directions. And so, you know, what Mike just said about Iran cutting off indirect contacts with the US here in the this report came down in like the last hour since we've been, you know, literally, you know, since we're starting to record. That is not something that a terrified nation does, >> right?

[00:24:33]>> If it is thinking that we're flirting with disaster and total destruction, you don't cut off talks. This is what a nation does when it thinks it's figured out the guy, when it thinks it has the upper hand, when it thinks it has leverage. Now, it could be wrong. It could be wrong about that. But that's the approach that Iran seems to be taking is it seems to be taking an approach like it holds the cards. like it believes it holds the cards. And so, you know, part of this is reminiscent of the whole Gaza situation. If you if you remember back months ago when Trump declared total victory in Gaza, part of the whole deal was going to be this glorious rebuilding of Gaza. Remember, you were going to have the peace board, you have an international lead, you know, all of these things. And it was going to culminate in Gaza just being a beautiful jewel of the Mediterranean.

[00:25:24]And you just feel like you're it's rerunning the same playbook, which is I will destroy you, but the instant I stop destroying you, I will build this magnificent place out of your country.

[00:25:36]Neither one of the two things was on the table. And neither one of the two things I think genuinely ultimately will end up being on the table. But under no circumstances, there's not a universe into which an IRGC dominated government should receive anywhere close to 300, much less 30, much less $3 billion of American money. This is a this is a country that should be sanctioned, not rewarded.

[00:26:09]>> And what are we doing? What are we doing? Well, I remember when Republicans and conservatives and Obama critics freaked out over $1.3 billion and the $400 million of pallets of cash. I was one of the ones freaking out. I thought it was outrageous that we would do this and now we're talking about, you know, 300x >> uh at least as a negotiating point. I wonder, David, back to you on that.

[00:26:33]>> It it seems to me, >> you know, I think you're you're the the Gaza comparison is an apt one. Perhaps you could also point to tariffs where Trump, you know, maximalist language and then he, you know, pulls it back in and there ends up being something that's a little bit of what Trump wants. It's not nearly as as much as as he's talking about. I wonder in this context though if the more the more desperate the president becomes and I do think the president is desperate here the the projections that we're seeing now from people who understand oil markets a lot better than I do suggest that this is 4 to 6 months that what we've seen in the spike in oil prices now has actually been mitigated to a certain extent because other nations and everyone has been already using their reserves and when we hit the real crisis it's it's coming and the, you know, the the the head of Exxon, I think, predicted $150, $160. Um, you're talking about four, six, eight months for any kind of recovery if things were to sort of return to or come as close to status quo anti as they could. I wonder as President Trump becomes more and more desperate if when he uses these kinds of solo um language on the polls, extreme alternatives, if we don't every day inch closer and closer to one of those becoming a reality. And my concern is, you know, if if he can't get this deal, if Iran cuts off contacts, if there are no more negotiations, he's talked about wiping out the civilization. Um, doesn't that become more likely on a daily basis? And I say this, of course, as somebody who I'd love to see the Iranian regime go, but worries me. I mean, you know, Steve, we're in a we're in uncharted territory here. We've we've just never had a war leader like this.

[00:28:18]And so, >> a lot of this is just going to be gross speculation to be honest. But here here is my concern.

[00:28:27]So far in this Trump second term, there is one clear check on Trump and that's like the Dow. He doesn't like to see the Dow go down. And when the Dow goes down or when like there there are extreme there's extreme turbulence in the bond market. That was one of the things that led him to to back away from the liberation day tariffs as the bond markets were signaling like we got problems problems problems up ahead. And so the he has been engaging in this longunning sort of weird market manipulation where he just is constantly teasing a deal. He's constantly teasing all of this good stuff and it just keeps working and working and working and working. And so the one thing that is sort of his check is is right now not working to check him. Dow is over 50,000. It has been going up throughout this quote unquote quasi ceasefire, whatever it is. And so this sounds ridiculous to say this, but I feel like a lot of our national security strategy is being dictated by what he's able to do in the stock market.

[00:29:36]>> I think that's not >> and with and with the stock market. So we have to overlay on top of this what if the Dow stops being manipulated or what if other external factors economic factors like the growth of AI and America are not strong enough to overcome sort of the negative the drag of oil prices inflation etc. And so that that's this other wild card circling out there and hovering out there. And if the Dow starts to drop, does he then just pursue a deal? Whatever deal, >> right, >> will stop the bleeding. And that's what I'm worried about from an American national security standpoint. does he launch this war does real damage to the Iranian military but but doesn't you know doesn't have the enriched uranium doesn't do as much damage to the missile stocks as we thought doesn't stop him supporting the IRGC supporting Hezbollah and Hamas accomplishes none of the key war aims and then because the DAO might start plummeting reaches this accommodation with the Iranian regime that ends up making it stronger I hon Honestly, that is my sort of most real what I would call the most realistic negative outcome here is a Dowdriven capitulation to the Iranian regime that leaves us much worse off than before the war started.

[00:30:59]>> Look on the bright bond market.

[00:31:02]>> Yeah. Yeah. What am I want to narrow my frame, Jonah? I thank you. Thank you. I >> if I could real quick. So, you know, to to to David's point, the the president is obviously and has demonstrated that he is feeling the pressure and that's why he hasn't gone down a realistic route of of reintroducing the stick to a certain extent, not destroying the civilization, but making good on any of his promises to to end the ceasefire.

[00:31:27]And while we don't yet know exactly how this is going to turn out, it the you know, the auguries are trending towards some kind of deal that is going to be beneficial to the Iranians.

[00:31:37]the Secretary Haggath and others like him will point to the overwhelming tactical overmatch that we've achieved as primmaacy evidence of of of a victory. But I think it's important to remember like the very nature of war if you boil it down to kind of cynical terms or or just you know cold hard terms you're trading lives to achieve an outcome. Even in our most you know definitive victories we traded lives to achieve our independence from Britain.

[00:32:01]We traded lives 2% of the population to keep the union together. We traded hundreds of thousands to you know defeat Nazi uh Germany and and and imperial Japan. So even a victory or even a victor rather makes the decision I am going to trade my military members lives in order to achieve this outcome by any metric of the things that we want versus what the Iranians want. If there is financial integration of the Iranian regime to the international market and some kind of financial windfall where we pay them directly. If there is retention of their nuclear material, if there's de facto recognition that they were allowed to kill 30,000 people and get away with it and do it the next time, if there's any one or these things, they have made the correct trade to trade a couple thousand of their IRGC in order to advance their strategic position. So from any metric, if it trends the way it's going, this will be looked at. No matter how many people we killed, it will be looked at as an Iranian victory.

[00:32:58]You know, the the Russians lost by factors many more than the Germans did, but the German flag wasn't raised over Moscow in 1945. So, this will, if things hold, if the president does not reverse course and come up with a no kidding realistic way that he is going to increase kinetic pressure on the Iranians in a way that he hasn't been able to before, then this is going to trend towards an Iranian victory.

[00:33:21]>> So, I think I agree with that entirely.

[00:33:23]I I think the the thing I would stress is when you know again there could be some internal dynamic among elite factions that causes a great outcome here that we're we don't have visibility on >> right >> barring that I think when history is the history is written on this the colossal error in judgment on the Trump administration's part was starting out by killing Kmeni and Samosa the senior leadership, right? Because what it did was you can't start as regime change war during negotiations, right? I mean like like they the Iranians I have a perfectly defensible point of view that says that the US was launched negotiations as cover for this attack.

[00:34:14]Right now all is fair and love and war and all that kind of stuff, but from their perspective that was incredibly delotterious for trust. We can say that.

[00:34:22]And um so by killing the leadership at the beginning that sent the signal I mean I remember talking to Ken Pollock about this day basically the first couple days of the war. Whatever we thought Trump was up to, whatever Trump thought he was up to, whatever Heath thought he was up to, what we did was utterly convincing to the Iranian regime that we were going to try and destroy them and have regime change. Mhm.

[00:34:51]>> Like you can't kill the supreme leader and the parents of the and the family of the sup of the the son of the, you know, the inheritor of it all and 50 IRGC senior leaders and all this kind of stuff and then say, well, we're not really going for regime change. We're looking for somebody to negotiate with.

[00:35:06]And so, you know, as as as Ken has made this point to me, you know, offline, um, one of the things that like they never wanted to close us close a straight of Hormuz, like that was always seen as really escalatory.

[00:35:23]But what what taking out the leadership and talking about regime change did is it taught Iran's hardliners that closing the Straits of Hor moves does not trigger regime change, it prevents it.

[00:35:36]Right. So we got the causation all backwards here. If we had started with like some mowing the lawn stuff with escalatory stuff, we could have conceivably driven them to the negotiating table about something. But instead, we started at existential.

[00:35:54]We're going to destroy you entirely and take you all out and then leave whoever survives to the mercies of the mobs of the families that you butchered and tortured. They're like, "Well, we got nothing to lose here. Let's shoot all of our neighbors, you know, let's let's lob missiles at all of our neighbors. Let's take out the the Straight of Hormuz.

[00:36:13]Let's do all of these things they said that we we can't do because it would be escalatory and and trigger a regime change war because America started a regime change war and and the rest is sort of commentary." And so now like Trump doesn't want to do the crazy escalatory stuff because he's realized that it, you know, it like I keep thinking of pop culture stuff where like the nerdy kid just refuses to say uncle and the bully eventually has to like give up because he doesn't want to murder the kid in the schoolyard, right?

[00:36:46]I mean, it's that's sort of the position Trump is in. the only options left to him are are like maybe not civilization destroying but closer to that right to turn Iran into Gaza. Trump doesn't want that. And so the Iranians just simply have longer staying power on all this and I don't know how you fix it. And so I think we're going to give them money.

[00:37:09]I'm I'm happy to predict it now. Not happy, but I'm willing to predict it now. We're not going to give them up give them money. Maybe it's through some back channel. Maybe it's through some fee. You know, we'll rename what the tolling thing is, but there's going to be tolling in the straight of Hormuza of one way or another. Maybe Oman gets a cut. I don't know. Maybe we don't give them billions of dollars. But we're in this sort of uh Gordian not problem because all you have to say right now to Donald Trump to get him to back off of doing a deal is saying, "Oh, you're doing what Obama did. This is the Obama, this is JCPOA." And he freaks out and we start this we're two weeks away from a deal all over again thing. But that that's not sustainable on the stock market timeline or on the gas price timeline.

[00:37:47]>> But I wonder if he doesn't get to the point for exactly the reasons that that you've laid out. If he doesn't get to the point where he can't do anything that that doesn't make him look like Obama, if he agrees to some kind of a deal because the Iranians have the upper hand, I think in in many respects on the negotiations. And then he says he he reaches his effit moment and just says like you know because we've seen him do this in virtually every other aspect of his political career of his time in office. He reaches this point where he goes maximalist and I think that is you know it's it's a concern. It's a it's a a leading concern of mine. You know, I'm I'm keep thinking back to that moment at the very beginning when of of the Iranian operation where JD Vance had a moment where somebody was asking, well, you know, why aren't why do we think that this will turn out better than other Middle East interventions? And Vance with just extraordinary arrogance says, well, those are stupid presidents, >> right?

[00:38:45]>> Those are stupid presidents. Well, okay, wait a minute. What you're beginning to see are why two different presidents took two different approaches that were not this one. So approach number one, Bush with Iraq. He's saying, "We need regime change. I'm going to make it happen." In other words, I'm not going to leave it to chance. I'm not going to do shock and awe and create incentives and try to get people to rise up. Nope.

[00:39:11]Regime change is just going to happen and we're going to do it by force. And Iraq can't stop us. the follow on insurgency can't stop us. We're just going to do it. Well, the obvious the downsides of that, and as much as I still support the decision to go into Iraq, and I still support the Iraq war, the downsides of that approach are obvious to everybody, it is a long-term casualty inensive, brutal conflict that results when you decide, we're going to make it happen. Well, what's the alternative to that? Well, one of the alternatives is we'll reach an agreement with an odious regime. And if you're going to do that now, you're in control of the outcome because you can either sign the agreement or not. But to reach an agreement with an odious regime with the Obama approach, it was you're going to have to make a compromise.

[00:39:59]There's going to have to be a compromise. So in walks Trump, he says, "I want regime change without the mess or I want agreement without compromise."

[00:40:10]um you know, those are not the options on the table. They're not the options on the table.

[00:40:15]>> And so what you're starting to realize is why previous presidents made the decisions that they made. As imperfect and as troubling as they were, agreement or invasion or agreement or or the stick being used to its its logical conclusion really become the only ways to sort of feel like you're in control of the outcome here. Whereas here what they're doing is they're doing half measures on both sides.

[00:40:44]>> Yeah.

[00:40:45]>> And acting as if and being act and being shocked that this is not working out and but they don't want to pay the price for either one either an agreement or a military victory. They don't want to pay either one of those prices. And so that's why we're we are where we are.

[00:41:02]and and his model for success where he thinks he learned the lesson with Venezuela, I still think is unresolved.

[00:41:08]You know, we had Gonzalez calling for elections yesterday or Saturday uh approaching the six-month mark. You know, the communists, you know, in so much as they are the Deli Rodriguez uh regime is still in place and that is the underlying framework of what is existing in Venezuela is still not acceptable to the Venezuelan people. That is still unresolved and that's going to cause problems that Trump has still not resolved. And everybody thinks I mean I think the way that the American people think about it to the extent that they think about it at all anymore because it's really disappeared from from most of the reporting is that this was done it was done successfully it's over and that's a su that you know that's a that's a win. I think that's the way Trump saw it. I think that's what led to his his fil decision-m uh on Iran and I think it could be what leads to additional problems in Cuba.

[00:41:52]>> Yeah. One one quick last point about Trump's rhetoric just because um I've gotten into some friendly disagreements with some people who think that his rhetoric is his rhetoric is always bad.

[00:42:03]So why make a big deal out of it? It's just words, right? It's just you know you know Trump's don't get so upset about the mean tweets kind of thing, right? But this is how he's conducting international diplomacy under fire, right? And I think when when the biographies on Donald Trump are written and I god, can you imagine how many biographies are going to be written about Donald Trump over the next 20 years? Um, I think the the power of positive thinking stuff is going to be one of the most important character Rosetta Stones about Trump once you look for it. like he thinks that if you say what you want the outcome to be is it makes it happen.

[00:42:51]And if you go back and you look over the last, you know, 3 months of this war, he keeps saying what he wants the deal to mean as if that will make it mean that.

[00:43:03]>> Yeah.

[00:43:04]>> And it's not working on the Iranians and therefore it's not working. But it's amazing to watch how many Republican politicians and sort of MAGA Inc. types think, okay, this is okay, the message has gone forth. You know, we just what a couple days ago, Nuke Gingrich had this, well, clearly Trump is Thusidities kind of thing, right? Um the message goes forth that okay this is the new talking point about how this ceasefire deal is brilliant and um everyone who can't see it is a rhinocer whatever and then the thing falls apart 2 days later and um it feels like that act like there the number of people willing to sort of leap on the premature thing and say that this power positive thinking approach is the real thing is dwindling by the day. I don't know how Trump responds to that when no one is willing to sort of go along with the BSPR aspect of this. Um, and that could be bad. Reality becomes more and more difficult to deny, I think, and more and more people are waking up to this reality being being uh really sticky. I want to spend a few minutes before we quit on this just the last couple of weeks uh in toxic polarization. Uh I mean, you know, this we've been polarized for a long time since before the dispatch existed. We've talked about uh polarization and the the sort of toxic political environment a lot on this podcast, but I have to say just looking at the past couple weeks in in in particular, two examples, two races, Republicans and their behavior toward Ken Paxton and Democrats and Graham Platner. And I have to say I feel like we've reached sort of absurd and depressing levels of toxic partisanship here. And Joan, I want to start with you on the Republicans and Ken Paxton. You know, you have the Republican party that ran really, really tough ads against Ken Paxton earlier this spring in an effort to get John Cornin uh elected to get him through a Republican primary. brutal ads about the extent of his corruption, um just how he's a moral cretton and why he would be unfit to serve in the US Senate and would possibly maybe even likely lose a general election to a Democrat.

[00:45:36]The Republicans have now taken those ads down. Um they've sort of 86 their uh their attacks on Kent Paxton.

[00:45:46]>> Careful, those are >> now have That's not murdering. That's just getting rid of them, by the way. Uh and you now have these same Republicans who know better making, you know, e either grudging endorsements of Ken Paxton or in some cases actually rather ausive endorsements of Ken Paxton. And you know, on the one hand, this is certainly not the first time that we've seen this.

[00:46:11]I mean, this is sort of how politics works, right? you you you back your guy, you fight really hard, and then when it's over, you know, Republicans rally around the nominee. John Cornin himself a week before he went down to defeat in the primary said that he would do this, that, you know, I Ken Paxton is an albatross around Republicans next. He's horrible person, but yes, if he's, you know, if if he beats me, I will endorse him.

[00:46:36]This feels like this is an extreme version of that just because of how cretinous Pax Paxton is. Am I wrong? Am I just looking at it through these sort of I don't know cynical glasses? No.

[00:46:51]Paxton's a gargoyle, right? I mean, like, um, it's like when his own wife refused to endorse Paxton, you know, who sat through and voted to save him in the his impeachment trial. Um, but then had to announce that she was leaving him for biblically sound reasons was the way I think the phrase she used. you know, like I find it's it's I don't want to steal thunder from your follow-ups on this, but like there's a rough parallelism between Graham Platner and and Ken Paxton, right?

[00:47:27]>> Um >> I don't really like this is a point David's made for a long time. It's a point I've made for a long time. I don't really care about the arguments about like who's worse.

[00:47:39]The question is who's acceptable. Yeah.

[00:47:42]Right. And it's like I mean the analogy I always use is like there's a really interesting dorm room bar conversation about who's worse, Hitler or Stalin, right? The question the point is is that whoever you think wins the contest to be bad doesn't mean the other one's good, right? And um this idea that like the the only place where the parallel doesn't completely work is is that I understand thinking that that James Tarico is just like an unacceptable person for a Republican to vote for. But the idea that that Susan Collins is somehow like this absolutely unacceptable freak of a candidate um is something that I think Democrats are really really unpersuasive on. But those are my priors. The simple fact is that both buys are unacceptable. And to watch these people make these pretzel logic claims about like there was there was a prominent uh journalist who said on Twitter the other day the reason why these allegations that Graham Platner is uh was texting women um not his wife and why this story is really taking hold is it because it reaffirms the impression that uh he makes bad decisions. But is it really all that bad to have a senator who makes bad decisions? It's like, well, yeah.

[00:49:08]>> Come on, name names. Who was it? Who was it, Jonah? Come on.

[00:49:12]>> And but like that's the thing is like this is this idea that somehow um once you get into this question of the most important thing is who controls Congress, you get permission structures out the yin-yang to forgive anybody and everybody anything personal. And you know, John Cornin, you can have your problems with him. Utterly honorable, decent guy, carried a lot of water for Trump, carry a lot of water for Republicans. And um Texas made its choice. And the expectation that everyone should now just shut up and not criticize the nominee is a sign of just pure partisan brain rot.

[00:49:53]>> Right. I mean, if you're going to argue that Torico is some sort of existential threat, why'd you nominate Ken Paxton, >> right?

[00:50:05]>> I mean, come on. Like, stop stop gaslighting me here. And I know that term is completely overused, but this is an appropriate appropriate use. And so, you know, you're going to tell me that James Tallerico is the the Borg, the world destroyer, the man who's going to trans all the kids in the land. And so, what we're going to do is nominate the person least apt to beat him with an R by his side and then bully everyone into coming on side. Spare me. It's It's a very similar kind of ridiculous analysis to what we've seen. I I I thought you were going to refer to a different journalist who referred to the necessity of defeating of supporting Platner to deal with like I think the pure evil or the evil of Susan Collins >> who's one of only seven senators in American history to vote to convict a president of their own party. She just voted to try to end the Iran war. Okay.

[00:51:12]voted for some of Obama's Supreme Court nominees, one of the most bipartisan senators in the last two decades.

[00:51:18]>> If if what all you're saying to me if you say that we need to have Nazi tattoo, uh well, which by the way, how rich is it that Well, there's two times we know when he needs to cover up his Nazi tattoo.

[00:51:32]>> This is Graham Platner, the the Democratic Senate candidate for for Maine. Yes, >> we don't want to cross the streams between Paxton and Platner, >> right? We may also have a Nazi tattoo.

[00:51:42]We don't know.

[00:51:44]>> The best thing you can say about Paxton is we don't know if he has a Nazi tattoo.

[00:51:49]>> Exactly. But we do know there are two circumstances where he will hide that Nazi tattoo. And one is when he wants a Senate seat and the other one is when he's lurking on a predatory sex app. He will make sure that his hand covers that tattoo when he's taking his cowl picture.

[00:52:08]>> Like what are we doing here, guys? It's like if are you going to make an argument with a straight face to me that Graham Platner, a man with all of this baggage you wouldn't hire to be an assistant manager at your local fast food store, now should be on the Senate to stop the existential threat of Susan Collins. Come on. So David, let me follow up with you first and then I want to go to Mike because both of you have written pieces about Graham Platiner making this argument and I would say, you know, Mike, in in your piece, you identified yourself as a sort of still never Trumper. And David, I think we can fairly assign that um that label to you.

[00:52:48]It's it's not the case that a lot of other, you know, so-called never Trumpers are doing that. I think some of them, some of the, you know, whether they're former Republican, never Trumpers, whether they're, you know, hardcore Democrats, you know, there's a there's a a spectrum on which they land.

[00:53:05]Some of them are sort of cute, sort of, very soft, tacit Graham Platiner supporters. Um, and and some of them are more explicit Graham Platner supporters making exactly the arguments you just said they were making about Susan Collins. What's the distinction here?

[00:53:22]Why why do you why are you making the argument that you made in the New York Times? And we'll include your piece in in the show notes. We'll include Mike's as well. Why are you making the argument that you made in the New York Times where other, you know, strong Trump critics, never Trumpers, uh, have made the opposite argument?

[00:53:38]I think that the distinction could boil down like this. Do you think Donald Trump the man is the singular threat or do you think that Trumpism and which and I'm I'm defining this broadly in other words sort of the the the ends justify the means partisan polarization pure hatred is the threat of which Trump is a symptom and I'm in the latter camp. I think Trump is a symptom of a problem of partisan polarization and hatred, etc., that he makes worse. He He's like a hacking cough that breaks a rib. He's like a symptom of the disease that makes the disease worse. But when you watch Democrats try to support Graham Platner, it's like walking through a carnival funhouse version of watching Republicans talk themselves into supporting Donald Trump in 2016.

[00:54:40]And it's a lot of the same arguments.

[00:54:43]It's a lot of the same bullying. It's a lot of the same. And you're sitting there jumping up and down going, "Guys, we know where this leads. This leads to corruption." Because the first thing that will happen, the first thing that will happen if Graham Platner wins is the call will go up in that left-wing progressive populist class. Find me more Graham Platiners because the the guy that wins, that's the model. It's not well sh we we held our nose. We voted for him. He won.

[00:55:18]We're not super happy about it, but we had to do No, no, no, no, no. We all know how this works.

[00:55:23]>> We know that it's going to be find me more grand platiners. That's going to be the call that will go up. That's the corruption of the party that results.

[00:55:30]And we're just watching it happen right in front of our eyes. Just like it's like in it's a sequel. It's a bad sequel.

[00:55:37]>> Mike, you had a piece um uh I will point out not in the dispatch. Um >> had you only for institutions that uh in part were led by people named Jay Goldberg. So that's that's the rule.

[00:55:53]>> Perfect. Uh great piece in the Atlantic late last week making a similar argument to to David's on Grand Platner. What what distill that argument for us and explain sort of where we are in this moment of toxic partisanship. Well, I I think what David was saving saying that basically since the the phrase was coined about 10 years ago and it was very hyperbolic when Michael Anton said it then everything has become united 93 everything is existential and no concession can be made we must achieve every victory and it's not just in presidential elections but here we saw it with people making similar arguments to support Massie in you know an election that was going to determine 435th of the of the House of Representatives power that people were willing to go all in and support, you know, somebody who was trafficking and anti-semitic conspiracy theories. Uh, and they were willing to support him solely because he was an aggravant or an agitation to to to Trump. Um, and I think that basically as you as David just said, everything has become a symptom of this this um this mindset that uh the other side there's nothing worse than a victory to the other side.

[00:57:06]Um the Democrats are to twisting themselves in knots and to the point that was made that you know Paxton is the nominee now but why did you nominate him? The people are talking as though the primary in Maine has already happened. It has not. It is he is actually not the nominee. He's just the presumptive nominee because he's swolling. David Costello is still running. Janet Mills is still on the ballot. the Democrats are not do not have to make this mistake yet because they have said that he is their standard bearer in in in defeating once again the great evil of Susan Collins that they must support him and to do so they're twisting themselves in knots. Now I think the judgment of someone who emlazed themselves with a obvious there are other people and you took issue you know uh I saw plenty of people over the weekend take issue with this the idea that it's similar to Nazi logos. No it's a Nazi logo. It is clearly the insignia of the SS. Um I think that's the high water mark. But others as new scandals are breaking we're seeing that they're just like well that's no big deal too.

[00:58:04]Well that's no big deal too. Well that's no big deal too. And at the end of the day, the question is what does Graham Platner actually have going for him besides the fact that he once again is is aggravating um the establishment and and you know to David's point if he becomes the standard bearer then just like the progressives think they learned the lesson from the election of Montani that that is the new model you go further left you go more outrageous you say that you you adopt the principles that are should be considered abhorentt to everyone and that's extending beyond just getting a Nazi tattoo, but also his his beliefs, you know, the statements about his fellow service members, his statements about women who were victims of sexual assault. You know, this is now adopted as standard. And I will name names. It was Jill Philippic, however you pronounce her last name, who was the one who said, "Yeah, sure he has bad judgment, but who cares? You know, that's good enough to be a senator."

[00:58:56]This is a woman who has established her brand on calling out and criticizing examples of misogyny. And in that very same tweet, she said, "Oh, so he's engaged in light misogyny. Who cares?

[00:59:07]Everyone who's lining up behind planner is selling out every principle they claimed they had in order to support him."

[00:59:14]>> Jonah, I want to play, let me play a clip real quick. Can I play a clip and get you to react to it? Uh, and then you can respond to to Mike as well.

[00:59:22]>> Paxton is a flawed candidate. There are definitely flawed candidates in the Republican party, but it's not just the guy with the Nazi tattoo. It's also the uh Hezbollah supporter in Michigan who looks like he's going to win, who won't condemn the Ayatollah. It's the former al-Qaeda volunteer in New Jersey. It's the woman in Cal in Texas who said Zionist should be put in concentration camps. There are some flaws, but I will I will take Ken Paxton any day over a terrorist sympathizer who Democrats continue to platform. So that's to be clear, he wasn't Biden's Biden's DOJ did decline to to prosecute him. They had the option to go after him on that front. I look I I wish that we only had boy scouts in politics. I totally wish we did, but I I will take Ken Paxton any day over a Hezbollah and an Iranian sympathizer.

[01:00:05]>> Right. Right. But is >> Jonah, that's Lydia Moan, who's a correspondent for the New York Post.

[01:00:11]And what I am interested in your reaction to is the framing there.

[01:00:17]>> Why can't she just criticize the Democrats who she objects to, the Hezbollah supporter, the you know, all the people she's criticizing? I I happen to agree with a lot of the things she's saying there, but then there's this compulsion to say, I'll take Ken Paxton over those people. They're not running in the same race. There's no reason to do that. Why do you have to defend one side, one team, one color?

[01:00:39]>> Right. Well, that that's the the first point is that that's not the choice she's presenting is not a choice.

[01:00:48]>> Right. Right. Like it's not like Paxton's running against the Hezbollah supporter. Right. Right. So like you don't have to take Pakistan over the Hezbollah border because they're in different races. Um and you look this like what aboutism drives me there there there are form there like there are legitimate forms of what aboutism like in legal hypotheticals. Well what about this case? How would you you know that kind of thing right? As a game of logic I have some tolerance for it which drives me. I remember being on special report panels on Fox and Trump would do something outrageous and some Trump defender would say, "Well, what about what the New York Times did?" I'm like, "Well, is the New York Times first of all a corporeal sensient human being?"

[01:01:37]And second of all, is the New York Times president of the United States? Right?

[01:01:42]So much of it is just an effort to sort of distract. And I I am and I the point I wanted to make before just very quickly is that um like this tendency of of making allowances for power is not new. Right?

[01:02:01]I like I'm one of my more eggheheady obsessions is pointing out that the phrase um from Lord Actton power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely is is misused in the sense that in the actual context where the phrase comes from it was a letter from um a friend of Actton uh Actton and and this guy named Kiteon were have writing having a correspondence and Kiteon was asking for his advice about whether or not he should um cut the some of the bad popes some slack in his history of the papacy. And Actton said, "No, you actually have to hold them to a higher standard, not a lower standard. You can't just do this like, you know, got to break some eggs to make an omelet thing for people in power. You actually have to hold people in power to a higher standard." And so the corruption that Actton is getting at, I mean Actton believed in what we the way we use the phrase, but what he actually meant in the actual context of the time was the way intellectuals, historians, journalists carve out new stand, you know, give special dispensation to people in power for things they would never forgive for their from their neighbor or their colleague or their friend. And I I've been obsessed with this for a very long time. And some people might remember that I was sort of invested in the Clinton scandals and I still remember Gloria Steinum literally arguing that presidents that that that that Bill Clinton deserves the benefit of the doubt of and the benefit of what she called the one free grope rule and that's was her phrase for it right and I had spent them >> the previous 10 years >> like Park is, you know, I went to an all women's college hearing about zero tolerance for this. They ran Bob Pacwood, best name for a sexual abuser out there, um, out of the Senate. Um, they said that sexual harassment um was a zero tolerance thing. It was all about the dis the the disproportionate power of those in power versus those without power below. And then Bill Clinton plays Baron in the Milkmaid with an intern and all of a sudden we invent the one free grope rule. Right? Right. So, this thing is is not new to politics. It just used to be that most of us were capable of saying, "Holy crap, that's hypocritical." And instead, the hypocrisy is now the point. And our ability to sort of pick it up as has become so atrophied and it makes people like us having this conversation seem like the weirdos rather than the normies to a lot of people. I think I I think so. I had a little um exchange yesterday on on the Meet the Press panel um with Val Demings who's a former uh Democratic office holder uh member of Congress from Florida and and my argument in in a sense was the opposite. I mean, it was the same except for your last except for your concluding thought, which is I think the normies look at Washington and look at this stuff and think like, >> how messed up is this really? Like, you're going to defend Ken Paxton after having pointed out accurately all of the problems with Ken Paxton as a senator for months now, or in some cases for years now. And now you're going to line up with him because he's wearing a red jersey. And the same is true with Platner. You're going to shrug off the Nazi tattoo guy. Not even shrug him off.

[01:05:23]You're going to advocate for the Nazi tattoo guy because he's wearing a blue jersey. I think most normal Americans look at this and either they're as frustrated as we are. Or they just check out or they're just done. I can't be bothered. These people all suck on every side and so I'm done. And that is I think where it gets very frustrating.

[01:05:45]Okay, quickly before we go, I we need to uh spend just a moment, not worth your time today, on this debate that's happened sort of all around us. We didn't really engage it until Jonah, you did in the G File on Friday, and that is the controversy over the celebration of America's 250th. We are now seeing battles on social media about the the musical performers and the people who are quitting. You're seeing uh arguments. Kevin Williamson, our colleague, had a phenomenal piece about fighting in the front yard that was uh ostensibly about the uh the UFC fights that are going to be taking place at the White House um in the coming weeks. Uh a very unique and terrific uh piece looking at that. Jonah, tell us what we should think about America's 250th and who should who should people be frustrated by?

[01:06:44]>> Um, we should be frustrated by everybody and everything, right? Because America got into this mess collectively.

[01:06:50]Um, and at the same time, we should not dispense blame uniformly.

[01:06:57]Um I think the thing that's things that the primary thing that has been missing in a lot of this talk is you have you know you have a lot of Republicans politicians bemoning how this has become politicized by the left and that this is you know this has become partisan and you have a lot of people on the left sort of making a similar or adjacent argument. Um, the person to blame here is, I mean, I'm sorry, I know it's predictable, is Trump because there was a commission that was an actual bipartisan commission that was supposed to make decisions about celebrating 250 u, the 250th anniversary of America in a bi nonpartisan bipartisan kind of way. You know, a sort of c-spanny kind of nerdy um, non-controversial way. and the Trump people pushed aside. So, Freedom 250 is not the official thing. The I think the original organization was America 250 and it's been sidelined by, you know, a whole bunch of vendors who are like the the people who brought you the the Trump phone kind of crowd, right? And so, um, they they politicize this, I think, less to politicize it, at least at the outset, and more to make a profit on it.

[01:08:19]I think it's more about the corruption than it is about the partisanship.

[01:08:23]>> But because that crowd does not know how to do marketing in planning that isn't by its nature trying to monetize Trump super fans, it becomes partisan in the process. And so this is a just a really good We talked at the beginning about wasted opportunities. This whole ugly, stupid mess is a wasted opportunity because he only turned 250 once and we'll all be dead by the 300 anniversary and we took an opportunity to have a really nice national celebration of why this is an awesome country and instead it is going to be evidence of how this awesome country is in a really ugly stupid place right now. And so I mostly blame Trump, but I think everybody helped get us here.

[01:09:12]>> David, the um you know, it's it it is sort of sad. It's very sad that we're having these kind of you know, here we are 6 weeks before the actual uh anniversary. Um so much to celebrate.

[01:09:27]We've been running uh a series over the course of the past year celebrating the greatness of America and the incredible accomplishment that is 250 years of this American experiment. All of the things that all the good that uh America has done for itself and for its citizens, for the rest of the world. And yet here we are, as Jonah points out, in a fight in a pointless, ugly fight about this crap. And there's reporting from the New York Times the other day that Donald Trump um purchased between 15,000 and $50,000 worth of stock in TKO Holding Group in March, which roughly coincided with his heavy promotion of this UFC fight on the White House lawn. And if you're, you know, if you're if if you're cynical about it, and I try to be really skeptical, but not slide into cynicism, I'm failing more and more lately.

[01:10:31]This is in some ways the most apt way that we could see this celebration in this moment with all of the greatness of 250 years and then this just total show that we're seeing right now with the with the the the grift and the corruption and the silliness and the partisanship.

[01:10:51]Can you help me figure out which one we should focus on more?

[01:10:56]Well, you know, I'm so glad that Jonah brought up the difference between America 250 and Freedom 250. This is something that a lot of people are missing. And I think some of the artists, you know, a bunch of artists that were announced for the Freedom 250 concert backed out of it. And Martina Burke bride statement was interesting because she was like, I thought I was joining something very nonpartisan and then it turned out not to be that. So, it's pretty obvious reading between the lines. She was thinking, I thought this was America 250. It wasn't America 250, it was freedom 250. And then you have I think that we might be underestimating the negative effect of the visual transformation of the White House that the East Wing is now demolished and we have this giant like they've they've you know begun the plans for the big UFC fight. You've got all the apparatus around sort of the you know the the the ring there and it just looks monumentally tacky.

[01:11:54]And then you also have on top of that that it's UFC, which look, I don't have anything in particular against UFC. Uh, it's not my favorite sport. I've watched it some, but it is probably one of the most partisanced sports in America right now after the head of the UFC spoke at the Republican National Convention. It' be like Adam Silver, the commissioner of the NBA speaking at a, you know, at a at a political party convention. So, it's most partisancoded sport right now. It's not one of the top sports in the US.

[01:12:27]It's a very niche sport really by its fandom.

[01:12:31]Visual wreckage to the White House. And I think a lot of this is actually hurting Trump more than he might think uh that it does. It just all communicates a degree of chaos.

[01:12:43]But I continue to have some faith that the better message will break through.

[01:12:50]and and I had uh a great conversation with Justice Gorsuch and he talked about how in 1976 um we had a lot this was not a good time guys. 1976 we're two years out of Watergate. We're one year removed from the fall of Saigon. We're just a few years removed from urban riots that made you know 2020 look like romper room. We're just recently removed from the wave of assassinations. There was a lot of thought that America was in a state of decline and yet sort of the story of America was strong enough to come through to the point where the 200th still was a celebratory event.

[01:13:32]We got a lot of the same problems now at 250. Sadly, the big difference is we all we and rather than having a president and Gerald Ford who is doing everything he possibly could to try to pull America together, we have a guy who's doing everything he can to pour gasoline on the fire. And the question that I have is how much does that leadership difference, how much of a difference will it make as we reflect back on 250?

[01:13:59]And I still have a lot of hope that the underlying goodness of the American principles and the American story, which for all our flaws, we're such a better place than we were 250 years ago, that that can shine through. That that will shine through, but it will be in spite of and not because of the government of the United States of America.

[01:14:23]>> Mike, do you share David's cautious optimism?

[01:14:26]>> Well, uh, yes. uh in terms of what we're looking at, I do uh share his optimism in the long term, but in terms of what we're looking at right now, first of all, I think, you know, if if Millie Vanilia is saying you don't meet their threshold for integrity and that you're misrepresenting yourself, you probably need to take a step back and question things. Um, but you know, looking taking aside the destruction or the the the the disruption to the White House that the UFC event is going to take, taking aside that it is UFC, which you know, it's fine. It is very popular and there are going to be multiple ways that we can celebrate America's birthday. I think it's also important just you know transparently to point out that it's not taking place on the American on America's birthday. It's taking place on June 14th which is >> Trump is Trump's Trump's birthday and flag day. It's it's it's flag day, the army's birthday, the day Montgomery Burns found love, all those things. But just, >> you know, it just coincidentally happens to be on his birthday, nominally a celebration of America's birthday. And a year ago, we can go back and remember we had the Army's 250th birthday, a parade that ostensibly was sold as to celebrate the Army's birthday, but just coincidentally on the president's birthday. And the tell I think there was we didn't have a parade for the Marine Corps's 250th birthday or the Navy's 250th birthday. We only did it for the service that happened to land on the president's birthday, which I think kind of gives away the real answer. Now, David and I will probably agree that it was also the superior service and the only one worthy of a parade. But, uh, I think I think the White House had a different idea for it.

[01:16:01]>> Well, thank you all for for joining. Uh this is a terrific conversation and we will see you next time celebrating America's 250th.