Curt Mills: Trump Can Save America or Wage Another War, but He Can’t Do Both. Here’s Why.
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So it's amazing to me that over 20 years after the Iraq war, its architects and supporters are still not fully in control of America's foreign policy, but certainly influential in it. And it's shocking to me that two months after Trump's landslide victory, a race in which he ran against the neocons, the neocons are still brazen enough to try and influence and sabotage his nominations.

Welcome to the Tucker Carlson Show. We bring you stories that have not been showcased anywhere else. And they're not censored, of course, because we're not gatekeepers. We are honest brokers here to tell you what we think you need to know and do it honestly. Check out all of our content at TuckerCarlson.com. Here's the episode. We are days but less than a week before Tulsi Gabbard's hearings. Where are we?

in the below-the-radar war between permanent Washington's national security establishment, the neocons, and the incoming Trump administration? I think it's unclear. So, as of this recording 10 minutes ago, Mr. Hegseth, the defense secretary, was just confirmed on a 50-50 vote. Hegseth is an interesting character. I believe a former colleague of yours. Yes. He appears to have done a bit of a conversion on his foreign policy policy.

beliefs and the best evidence of that is the people that he's picked so far. So his cadres, the people that will serve as... Okay, I ask you to pause right there. So what you're... This is relevant to people who know Pete Hegseth from clips on acts of him from eight years ago saying things that would lead you to believe he's a pretty stout neocon. Yeah. But...

Okay, so that's what you're referring to. Yeah, I mean, I think the available evidence is that he is like a – circa 10 years ago was a pretty conventional Republican. Yes. And he has changed his life in more ways than one. Yes. So he is a question mark. But the early evidence is the people that he has chosen to surround himself are stark departures from the man –

from 10 years ago. And so that's a big deal. It is a big deal. Especially in a place like the Pentagon, which is hard to control. Yes, and wants no change under any circumstances except an annual increase in the number of four-star generals. It's the largest bureaucracy on Earth. It is. And it exists to serve itself.

It's got a pretty abysmal record of winning wars, a pretty great record of spending money. It desperately needs reform. And you're saying that based on the personnel choices you think he's making – he's now the defense secretary, by the way, as of right now. Yes.

that he is like sincerely on board with Trump's foreign policy. Yeah, I mean, he did not need to make these picks. I don't think he needed to make these picks to get confirmed. I don't think he needed these picks to win any senators. He is courting, I think, minor controversy now, which is why we're having this meeting. He did not need to do this. It was a move of conviction and belief and principle in his early days in office.

Before even. So give us an example. Just give us an example of what you're talking about. Sure. There's going to be this Michael D'Amino figure who will have the Middle East portfolio. He has been advised throughout the process by another figure named Daniel Caldwell. These are both, you know, people in their 40s or 30s, you know, basically millennials who are veterans of the global war on terror. They're very much in the. So they fought in that.

Yeah, Dan did. And Michael was a CIA agent. So yeah, these are the guys that were hunting down IRGC, Iranian Revolutionary Guard core people in the forever wars that Trump and Vance ran on reforming and ending, etc, etc. And so, you know, they're very much in the Vance mold of we went there.

Not really sure what the point was. And we want to roll back from that somewhat. I think you might have heard this message from Mr. Trump at least once or twice in the last 10 years.

So, these, I don't know, Damien, I know Caldwell, who I think of as a man of genuine integrity, high intelligence, and principle committed to his country. I think he's proven that. I honestly think he's like a wonderful person. But he's being attacked by people who never served with a long, unbroken track record of destroying America as somehow anti-American. Yeah. Yeah.

How does this work? Yeah, I mean, I think that the tactics are pretty clear. So, um, uh,

No one reads anything. Fair. Everybody is cynical, confused. Says the magazine editor. Nobody reads anything. Yeah, yeah. Are you right? Get a headline out there. Call someone a naughty word. Say they're anti-country or they are radical, racist.

You know, if anyone sues this publication, it will take years and years and years and hope that some club member at Mar-a-Lago hands this to President Trump and tries to trick him and thinks that Mr. Trump is a stupid man. And this is the approach.

And this is what they are trying to do. That's exactly. It is a cyclone. Uh, I mean, the word has been abused by the Democrats to me. Yeah. But it is, this is actual disinformation. Yes. I hate to use the word, but like, because, but what are the publications? Who are the people involved in this campaign of lies? Okay. I mean, I'm not familiar and I don't know any of the people over there personally, but the big story that's going around, um, on both Domino and I believe Caldwell is from Jewish insider. Uh, and, uh, again, uh,

No one really wants to be attacked by something called Jewish insider. It doesn't sound very fun. And so they are running headlines against people and they are attacking them. And what they do is they don't say anything that is per se inaccurate, but they totally strip the context for everything. So what, let's go one by one. Do you know Domino's?

Just by correspondence. Okay. And what's yours? Is this a radical figure, anti-American figure? No, this is somebody who wants to pull back, I would say moderately from the Middle East, which I think at this point is basically bipartisan outside of the radicals within Washington, D.C. and the Beltway.

Okay. I think this is a fair assessment. So the people who want to continue what we're doing at unsustainable cost, being a bankrupt country, by the way, sending aid to countries that are not bankrupt, those are the radicals, I think it's fair to say. So what are they saying about Domino in this hit piece?

They are trying to make the reader jump to the conclusion that he is anti-Israeli, that he is pro-Iranian. He's pro-Iranian? Pro-Iranian. He is somehow pro-radical Islam. You know, he's pro all the scary people in the Middle East. Radical Islam. Sure. It doesn't really matter. I don't know the guy. Sounds kind of Catholic to me. Do you know a lot of Shiites called Damino or is that a common name for Persians?

Not to my information. Okay. And again, I think it bears repeating that this person was responsible for the tracking of Revolutionary Guard Corps members in Iran...

potentially sent some of them to their death. So the whole thing has an opera buffet flavor to it that he's being attacked as... So what you're saying is these are people who will say anything. It doesn't matter. They're kind of from the Barry Weiss school of journalism. Just like you have an objective, something you want to achieve, and whatever it takes to get there is fine. You will say it. It doesn't matter. You'll call anybody anything.

If it serves your purpose. They are very, very willing to destroy this person with absolutely no compunction. Is there any evidence that he's, quote, anti-Israel? None. Right. None. And in fact, there's evidence to the contrary, which he praises the country. Yeah. So, okay. He is critical of aspects of the war.

It's okay to be critical of other people's wars or your own wars. It's okay to offer analysis of war. Or to even state that it's not, in fact, our war, as the President of the United States just did on his inauguration day, emphasizing from behind the Resolute Desk that it's their war, not our war. So I read something from a guy called David Wormser, who was one of the architects of...

We're not from this country, not really concerned with this country at all. And also, I think it's fair to say, you know, someone who should hang his head in shame given a lifetime of destruction that he's helped bring to our country, but describe these policies as anti-American policies.

So I have to say, it takes a lot of balls for someone who has no interest in the United States to accuse someone whose whole orientation is helping the United States of being anti-American. But I've noticed this a lot. If you...

the question, like, what are we getting out of this? You know, the endless war cycle. We're getting bankruptcy, obviously, but, like, is this good for us? They'll accuse you, you know, the Constantine Kizan, also not an American, will accuse, that wing, will accuse you of being somehow woke and you're, like, left wing for asking these questions. Have you noticed this? Yeah, I mean, it's interesting that you raise some of these figures. We go into this all night. I'd like to. Yeah, they're hoping... There's no more repulsive group in American life. No.

than the people who continue to push death and bankruptcy on the United States. I think that's fair. Can't recover from death. No, you can't.

So, I mean, I think that they're hoping that Americans don't do the reading. They're hoping that Americans read X posts. Yeah. They're hoping that Americans watch random cable news hosts, that they're zoned out and they hear, they have, you know, let's say they have a positive view of, you know, certain aspects of America's role in the Middle East and they start, you

tar and feathering people on the internet and that there's no pushback on it. At the same time... But it's just, I guess the only reason I have noticed this is because it's so over the top. Rather than, look, I think...

A lot of these positions are legitimate. I disagree with them. You know, a ton of these people are smart people. I know almost all of them. And they could make like a straightforward case for their position. Like, here's why we should affect regime change in Iran or here's what we should kill Putin. I mean, maybe there's a case to be made for that, but they never make the case. They attack anyone who stands in their way in the most brutal and dishonest ways. They have no limits at all in their behavior at all.

And I just find that repugnant and like corrosive. Even if I agreed with them, I'd be against that. Like, what is that? It's guerrilla warfare. The win at any costs. Win at any costs. I know I'm jumping around, but I just, I'm exercised. I just watched what's happening to a man called Steve Witkoff. Do you know Steve Witkoff? Yes. So he's a friend of Trump's. He's a real estate guy from New York. I happen to know him just for other reasons. How well do you know him? Pretty well. You know, just personally, I don't know a ton about his views.

I don't sense that we probably don't agree on foreign policy in some ways. But he was tasked by Trump, as you know, to go over and affect some kind of ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. And he did. And I doubt he's anti-Israel. In fact, I know he's not, whatever that means. And he is being attacked as somehow an agent of the Islamic Republic of Qatar and like anti-Israel Steve Witkoff. Yeah.

And I happen to really like Steve Witkoff. I think he's just, I just like him. He's just a great guy, actually. And he's really tough and he's just a good guy. If you had dinner with him, you'd like him, trust me. But I'm just blown away by the dishonesty. Rather than say, hey, Steve Witkoff, like I disagree with you or whatever. It's, he's working for Qatar.

No. What? He's from, like, Long Island. What are you talking about? This is the higher profile. I mean, they're hoping, again, that Trump has learned nothing. They insult the president's intelligence. But these people are disgusting. They're liars. And, like, if there's one thing the country said too much of, it's lying. Let's just stop lying. Let's just be honest about things. I agree. Yes. I agree. We've been corroded by lies. Completely. The country's about to collapse because of lies. And...

The people pushing endless war are one of the main vectors for that lying, like because there's just no reference point in reality at all. If Steve Witkoff is an agent of Islamic Republic, then I just give up. Do you know what I mean? Yeah.

No. Okay, sorry. Lecture over. No, no, no, no. I mean, the Wyckoff thing in some ways is what set the whole thing off, right? Wyckoff? He's like the most reasonable, moderate person in the world. No, he's not anti-Israel. He's just tough. I think the Wyckoff thing surprised both sides, though, I would note. Why? So, I think, so obviously you knew him before, within recent years. Okay. So, I think in general, the open source intelligence, to use a

Lame term, but like that I would say is that the Hawks people who want to say go all the way on Iran did not expect wet cough to be So pragmatic and then additionally the realist and restraint camp also did not expect it did not accept although all the reporting from say Israeli media and

say, Haaretz or Sides of Israel, that Witkoff went in there and sort of, with both the incoming Trump administration and the remnants of the Biden administration, forced Prime Minister Netanyahu into some sort of deal, a deal that he had turned down six months ago in May of 2024, basically identical deal.

That threw most everybody in the loop for a loop. And that has set off, as far as I can infer, a...

climate of hysteria within Israel itself, at least among the, I'm not sure, sir, Netanyahu himself, but at least within the factions of his cabinet that are hard line as hell. Okay. So they disagree, you know, they've had to give a little, everyone does. Not a disagreement. I mean, like this will not stop unless there's pushback.

All I'm saying is when you reach an agreement, everyone gets pinched. Okay. That's just the nature of it. Right. And no one likes it, you know, but like tough, that's what it is. And, and,

My read on Witkoff is that he's just not super ideological. I think he's pro-Israel. You know, I wouldn't even question that. But I don't think he's an ideologue. He's a self-made real estate guy who started with like a single apartment building in Washington Heights. He's a tough human being. And I think you need someone who's practical and tough to affect a negotiation. You don't want someone who's captive to all kinds of theories. Trump says, hey, Witkoff,

get a peace deal or, you know, get a ceasefire in an intermediate peace deal. First step toward one. Yeah. And what coughs like, okay. And he just shows up and he's like, Hey, you, you, you're like, that's what you want. I think, I think, uh,

a lot of Israel was surprised by this. I mean, this was lost in the absolute cacophony of 2024. Really? But yes, like if you read, I read the Israeli Express daily and there were members of Netanyahu's

coalition. So these are members of the prime minister Netanyahu, people who are not in his party, who are more hardline than him. And they were saying, Trump's really talking about this endless war stuff. This might be a problem. And this was back in October and September and August, and no one was paying attention because it was Brad Summer and other things were going on. But this was coming. And the fact that they got it done, not even before, not even

during the transition itself, also surprised people. And so... I'm sensing inflated expectations here. This is a foreign country, obviously an ally, a close ally, the closest ally, I think it's fair to say, but a separate country. And so...

You know, I think realistic expectations would be we get some of what we want. We don't get everything we want because, you know, we're not in charge of the United States. Okay, but there's a tension here. I mean, so first, the relationship between the president of the United States and the prime minister of Israel is extremely unclear. Yes. I don't think maybe only the two of them know. They have disagreed since at least...

over the election, but they probably disagreed beforehand over strikes in

in iran the last time you and i spoke publicly was over the salamani strike in january of 2020 um and there were since then reporting in the last five years has come out that the two of them disagreed over that uh trump felt uh that the israelis didn't do their part et cetera et cetera et cetera so for years for at least half a decade the whale has been poisoned between trump and netanyahu doesn't mean the relationship is done um but there's been an atmosphere of mistrust

Well, he's had that, you know, I've watched closely and, you know, interviewed him more than once and, you know, for- Netanyahu? Yeah, for, you know, well, moving on 30 years. Yeah. Because he's been in and out of office and he's had complicated relations with every president, you know? Yeah. I mean, I think the key thing to understand for your listeners, anyone who's not turning this off because we're getting into the depths of Israeli politics here, but Netanyahu's situation is unstable. Yes. Yeah.

A super majority of Israelis want him out. They want him to resign. He does not want to resign because if he resigns, he may go to prison. And also, he's been a power achiever for 30 years. And I've noticed that people who do that often don't like to quit. I think that's fair. Yeah. Okay. So, he doesn't want to quit for both reasons of his freedom and...

you know, the way of his life. Yeah. Yes. Okay. So recognizable syndrome, I would say. Yes. Yes. Not confined to BB. It's international. Yes, it is. Okay. So how does he not quit? It's pretty clear that,

spectacular circumstances justify his presence. It's very similar actually. I mean, there's been comparisons between him and Churchill. It's actually fair. Only in wartime can someone like Netanyahu at this point get a position. I get it. The war has to go on. So what war? So they have basically a deal with Hezbollah.

I think it's not like, I think that is by far the least likely that they're going to go back in there. There are basically two options. One, once all the hostages are exchanged, then they go back into Gaza. Okay. Or I guess one B is to do the West bank, which is already going on right now. Or two, what do you mean? Do the West bank invade it and exit? I mean, I mean, what about the people who live there? Like what happens to them? Not Israel's problem.

What do you do while you're in the West Bank? I mean, what are you doing there? What is the point of the operation? Do you know? To annex the territory and build developments. I mean, this is... I mean, and, you know, the unstated thing is that they'll either export these people or eliminate them. And so...

It's pretty terrifying stuff. It's not light stuff, but this is not a light interview. And so the problem is the US is the military underwriter of this. The Israelis probably can't do this without us selling them weapons. And so while Americans are tuned out and not thinking about this kind of thing, our reputation overseas is one of arms dealer. And over time that affects your children,

It's being able to travel abroad that affects America's reputation overseas. It's dicey stuff. Well, it caused 9-11, among other things, right? So, yeah, it has effects for sure. Yeah. Right. Option two is Iran. Yep. Which is, as I'll just quote them, I'll quote the hardline perspective itself. It's the head of the snake in the conception of the Israeli hardline and also the neoconservative right in the United States. For sure. And so...

Israel also can't do Iran, in my view, and also in general assessments, without the help of the United States. It's usually joint U.S.-Israeli airstrikes, or even a solo invasion of Iran by the United States is the ultimate sort of fantasy. I'm going to need more coffee to proceed because you're blowing my mind, Kurt Mills.

I was in a restaurant the other night, in fact, this weekend, and I had a little trouble hearing what people were saying. And I thought to myself, I'm a little young to go deaf. Why? Well, because I grew up shooting, bird hunting, target shooting. And I remember my father saying, just stick a Marlboro filter in your opposite ear and you'll be fine. I wish we'd had suppressors, but we didn't.

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Hey there, Ryan Reynolds here. It's a new year, and you know what that means. No, not the diet. Resolutions.

Just one quick digression about Steve Whitcoff. Sure. Um...

I think it's really significant that he's not a professional foreign policy figure. He hasn't spent a career at the State Department or, you know, doing bilaterals for his career. You know, he's just a smart, tough, competent person who was charged with a task by the president and he got it done. And maybe we need more of that. I mean, you know, there are certain parts of statecraft that, you know, probably it's helpful to have experience in statecraft, but...

but some of it's just pretty straightforward yeah get a ceasefire okay yeah no no i know i mean i i think there has could anyone from the state department have done what steve whitcoff did do you think no especially without the without the president's of course not yeah yeah but even if trump had like called someone in and been like okay mr career diplomat can you affect a ceasefire he'd be like well it's very complicated hey ceasefire stop

No, it's the same. I mean, like, international relations has been made into, they have to make it into, like, a pseudoscience. Exactly. Smart. Just like everything else. Yeah, just like everything else. Just like journalism or...

Yeah. Even education. Like you can't teach third grade without a master's degree. Yeah. Are you kidding? Yeah. So it's just needlessly complex. When the first requirement is, do you like third graders? It has nothing to do with your master's degree. The whole thing isn't, it's absurd. Yeah. And then, you know, it's the same thing with all of academia, which is like people's theses are increasingly more Baroque and like nobody actually knows large things like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or at least know it in a way that is applicable in religion.

power in real life. And I mean, maybe things are changing now, but like also a lot of the foreign policy establishment, it's different now in the second term, but wouldn't work with the first Trump term, wouldn't work with their team. And I think that was a discredit of the country. I think that just did not serve the country. Well, of course it didn't serve the country. Well, we know the country hasn't been served because look at the country.

And so I think, you know, we can say of all players, they didn't serve the country. That would include the media. And there have been times when I didn't serve the country, like when I advocated for the Iraq war. I mean, we're all culpable to some extent, but it's just remarkable to me that people are continuing it. So now, instead of telling us that Saddam has weapons of mass destruction or that Osama bin Laden attacked us for our freedoms or whatever the lie of the day was,

The new idea is that Iran is, quote, the head of the snake. How many Americans have been killed by Iranian proxies in the United States over the last 20 years, do you think? How many Americans in the United States? Yeah, have been killed by Iran-sponsored terrorism. Zero. Right around zero. How many have died of fentanyl ODs, drugs whose precursors come from China? Millions.

Well, more than a million. More than a million. Yeah. Okay. I think, I mean, look, look, to play, to play. I mean, what are you talking about? The Iranians, the Iranians back proxies that killed us troops in the Iraq war. Yeah, of course. But we shouldn't have done the Iraq war.

Well, Iran took over Iraq because we took out Saddam Hussein in a majority Shiite country. I happened to be there for that. And even I, as a 33-year-old moron, was like, wait a second. It's just a basic interest in demographics. Like, isn't this going to go to Iran now? Yeah. Anyway, yes. Right. Right. But I just find it amazing that...

There's been no public conversation about whether or not the United States should go to war with Iran. There's been no case laid out. At least in 2002, they had the decency to lie to us in a pretty complicated, sophisticated way about weapons of mass destruction. Now it's just like, shut up. You're anti-American if you ask questions. And it feels like we're moving toward a conflict with Iran. Is that a fair argument?

I think we have been moving towards one. And, you know, I think basically the biggest risk of a democratic administration is a war with Russia. And the biggest risk of a republican administration is a war with Iran. So my rule is always that's why it's more ethical to be a republican because at least the Iranians don't have nukes yet. So that's actually like pretty close to my first principle. Yeah.

like just outright. We have simplified it, haven't we, Kurt? Yes, yes. But the Iran war would be still like the worst and like not something that we should pursue. And look, foreign policy experts at this point will chime in on this conversation being like, oh, well, that's just so unrealistic. That's not actually what we want. This is actually just a ridiculous externality. But I think it is worth noting that Iran,

We have done wars toppling governments throughout the region over the last 25 years. So number one, it's happened very recently. Number two, it is kind of the explicit goal of the hardliners. And the hardliners keep moving the overage window in their direction. And so while this is perhaps not 100% certain, hardly, there is a hard drive towards doing this and picking off...

Pentagon deputies and allowing leaders like Trump and Vance to be surrounded by hawks and no dissenting voices whatsoever is absolutely essential towards any road to war. And I have to say, the amount of calculated deception on the right, so all of a sudden, Barry Weiss, who's a leftist, becomes a conservative because she's against trannyism or something. Right.

You know, every normal person is against that. But it's pretty obvious that the whole purpose of her organization, the Free Press, and her career in journalism is to kind of soften up the right for war with Iran and to attack anybody. And she had this whole constellation of people, you know, Neil Ferguson and all these kind of people who had weight to the project, but who really are all kind of paid people.

to flack for war with Iran and attack anyone who's not with the program. I felt the sting of this, so I didn't really understand how this worked. But then, you know, someone with like thoroughly moderate foreign policy views, I don't really want war with anybody. I'm not against anybody. And all of a sudden you're like, wow, you know, people are calling you anti-American.

Well, there's precedent for this. So what you're just, I don't know. I don't know any of the people you described personally. But I'm just saying like there was, you said the problem with voting Republican is you're more likely to wind up with a war with Iran. And I agree with you. I'd much rather have a war with Iran than a war with Russia, but kind of don't want either one. And it's just interesting how the groundwork, I just know because I've been in conservative media my whole life.

all of a sudden all these new people and you're like, oh, Barry Weiss, are you really conservative? Well, not at all. Then what are you doing here? Oh, you're trying to convince me that I'm not allowed to oppose a war with Iran or I'm going to be written out of the conservative movement or something. Okay, so a lot of people are comparing Trump to Reagan these days. Yeah. And I think it is an inaccurate comparison, but there obviously are comparisons that are very different human beings based on my position. So if you accept that Trump is...

the biggest cheese since Reagan on the Republican side. What happened in the Reagan years? So the neoconservatives, that is people who came from the left and moved to the right, were very, very savvy

effective, and reasonable at domestic policy. They were very, very good on the crime issues of the day. And their periodicals gained currency because, hey, actually, we should clean up the streets of New York, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I knew a lot of them, and some of them were...

really smart, decent people too. And by the way, some of their foreign policy viewers were not crazy at all. They were, they recognized the Soviet Union was evil. Like the first generation of neocons, Midge Dechter. I mean, I kind of love Midge Dechter. I don't know. Do you know what I mean? I don't think that they were all nuts at all. Yeah. But by the nineties and two thousands, you know, if you believed in, you know,

some crime enforcement in New York, you also had to believe towards the march towards regime change in Iraq. And so, again, I don't want to sound like- I'm skipping that part of the buffet line. Yeah. You don't know. I will take the safe city and the thriving economy. I'm going to leave out the forever war. Is that okay? But I think it is the essential pitch of this new generation of neoconservatism, which of course does not call itself that.

But it is moderation on the social issues. Let's turn down the volume. Yeah. And at the same time, over here in the column space over here, a little news item about what's going on in the Red Sea and why the U.S. needs to care. And it's a drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip. And it can go on for months and years and years and years. And all of a sudden, we super care about the Houthis in Yemen. We super care about Iran. And we have to...

underwrite a war in Israel until every single member of Hamas is dead. And it's just not clear that the U.S. international, the U.S. national interest is there, to put it lightly. Yeah, and I guess what I object to is, I mean, I'm never offended by people with different ideas, but

I'm never offended by someone who makes a sincere case, affirmative case or something that I disagree with. Okay. And by the way, maybe he's right and I'm wrong. I've certainly been wrong a lot. The part where I get enraged is the bad faith. Yeah. And so you ask questions like, well, is this in our interest? Well, you hate so-and-so. I don't hate anybody. And I certainly don't hate that. I certainly don't hate that country. I like it a lot, actually. Yeah.

But there's no room for, they don't, they're preventing discussion. And a lot of these people have the gall to describe themselves as, you know, warriors for free speech when of course free speech is the last thing they want and they've gone out of their way to prevent any kind of open conversation about the most important topics in our collective life.

So I'm just bothered by the lying. There's too much lying, don't you think? Absolutely. I would say, and by the way, I'll even go farther and say, having worked for Bill Kristol for five and a half years. Bill Kristol, the editor of the Weekly Standard. Correct. That was the absolute launching point magazine of the Iraq War. For sure. And I was there. I mean, I started the very first day of the Weekly Standard, August 1st, 1995.

30 years ago, and I thought Bill Kristol, I still would say, was a great boss. Interesting, fun to talk to, funny as hell. Obviously, I think he's taken a really dark turn, and his life has been kind of a disaster, and I feel bad for him. But one thing I'll say about Bill Kristol circa 2000...

is that he would make an actual case for his views. He would say, we have to go in and take out Saddam for the following eight reasons. And he would write... And you would say this is 95, 96, 97. I mean, I was there for all of that. And I wasn't paying super close attention because I was dumb. And I was focused on other things. And I was like, oh yeah, it's a foreign policy hobby horse. You know, he's into that stuff. I'm not that into it. I didn't understand the stakes. I didn't really understand anything, actually. I mean, I was like a kid. But...

I always admired and still admire his willingness and that generation's willingness to make their case, to write some paper. Here's what we're for. That is gone. And now it's just like, can we censor the people? Can we call them names to the point where they get kicked off social media? So there's no counter argument. Well, even Crystal himself has stopped writing.

Well, he could never write. Not a genius, I will say. But, you know, an affable, amusing person in meetings, you know. I mean, probably the most successful political organizer of the last 30 years. Yeah, and tireless, you know. And there are good things to be said about Bill Kristol, obviously. He's called me a Nazi like 100 times, but that's kind of the point. I'm not a Nazi. I'm not for the Nazis. I just don't, you know, I've got different views. And that's the turn that I'm really bothered by. Yeah.

is just the pure ad hominem attempts at censorship. And Barry Weiss engages in that relentlessly behind the scenes using all kinds of proxies, some of whom I know.

And I just want to say it out loud. I just want to say, oh, this is that this is deception here. Okay. So I hope people know that. I think it makes it impossible for the new president to do what he's promised to do if he doesn't solve this conundrum. Tell me what you mean. So, I mean, if the president wants to send troops to the U.S. border.

And the president wants to rebuild the American economy. And the president wants to focus on China. And the president wants the moral credibility to end the Russia-Ukraine war at some point. Expanding the war in the Middle East, even with prolonged arms sales.

corrodes his political capital. Who's going to pay for that? The United States. No, but I mean, we literally are operating in the red to the tune of trillions of dollars. Like how, in what world can we afford that? Well, it's a very complex topic. We don't have any functioning community hospitals left.

We have the reserve currency, and we can keep writing debt until it causes an inflation crisis, which a lot of people thought would happen earlier and did not. And even our inflation crisis in the 2020s was mild by global standards. So accordingly, we've got plenty of room for the big enchilada, which is an Iran war.

Yeah. So this, it just feels like a big deal. It's a big deal. To me. And it feels like it's worth, I mean, it certainly, if you comment on this, you do ask yourself, is it really worth it? You know, do I want to get into this? By the way, a lot of people I really like and I'm friends with violently disagree. So you run the risk, which I really don't want of rupturing friendships over it. That's the last thing I want ever. Yeah.

And you think, maybe I should be quiet. But it does seem like that's a huge step. And at the very least, the public ought to understand that there are highly motivated people pushing us toward that. Do you think that we will participate in a military action against Iran? Well, the big question is right now. So there's a new Iranian president. So the previous Iranian president died along with his foreign minister in a helicopter accident over the summer.

A little mysterious. Are you going to use air quotes around accident? I mean, a lot of things happened last year. It's very possible. I mean, I don't think... Everyone got killed last year. So many accidents! The Iranians' equipment, helicopter equipment, to my understanding, is old. And it is a rough part

part of the world and it's possible that it, it's likely that it just went down. Yeah. And again, I would say, I would not fly in a helicopter with Iranian officials. I'm just telling you that. Yeah. And again, if you think it was Israel, the Israelis pretty much, pretty much took credit or didn't deny all the other assassinations that occurred last year. I don't, you know. Speaking of Hamas leadership,

et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Just for the record, I try to suspend judgment because I know a lot about what countries do. And I do think, this is one thing I'll say in support of Israel, I do think that it is, you know, it isn't fair to just single out Israel and say they're doing naughty stuff. Like lots of people are doing naughty stuff. That's just a fact. My only concern

The only point where I would feel like I want to say something is if the United States gets sucked into it. Now we're talking about our interests, my country, where my family's from, and I think it's fair to speak up then. Yeah. So I guess maybe the 2025 zoom out, you would say there was an election in Iran right afterwards. Yes.

A lot of people disagree with our perspective, will disagree with this term, but the more moderate candidate, people think there are no moderates within the regime, but the less hardcore candidate won. This is the first time this has happened since Trump left the Iran deal. And this person, it is not clear how much power he has within the system. The Supreme Leader is old. It's

It's not clear how old. And there will be a succession crisis to succeed the Supreme Leader should he die. So it is this weird situation where every time Iran is in a crisis, and they're in a crisis right now. They're in an electricity crisis by all reporting. Again, don't know if we can trust all the reporting, but they can't keep the lights on in Tehran fully. And what will they do? And so every time Iran is at a decision point, there is a fracas between Iran

what I will call the moderates and the hardliners within their government. The hardliners want to go for the bomb. They think, we can't trust anybody. Right. We need to get the bomb. They also recently signed a mutual, you know, a defense pact, just short of mutual defense pact, but a security arrangement with the Russians. So, they seem to have a bunker mentality right now. If

U.S. intelligence or Israeli intelligence or Western intelligence assesses that they are going for the bomb in a real way, so they can either be true or false, but if they assess it, then there will be severe pressure on

on the new administration to do airstrikes on Iranian nuclear. I get it. Look, I don't want Iran to get the bomb. I don't want anyone to get the bomb. I'm against the bomb. Okay. But I was around when Pakistan got the bomb. And Pakistan is a country with a lot of wonderful people in it. Kind of a great country in a lot of ways.

spent a fair amount of time there. However, the government of Pakistan... Is arguably scarier than Iran. You think? Harbored Osama bin Laden, et cetera. ISI has been, you know, really a source of disorder in South Asia for a long time. And they've exported nuclear technology, including to North Korea. So no one's ever said anything about that. Like, it's not a crisis that the Islamic Republic of Pakistan has the bomb. I don't really get it. I mean...

why was that not a crisis? Why do we do nothing to do nothing to stop that? I, I, I guess it occurred basically when, uh, the U S was still quasi pro Pakistan over India. And, uh, it was, that was a bad bet by the way. It was a Nixonian bet. Actually. He really, he really didn't like Indira Gandhi. It was basically, okay. Well, he basically, I think we can say longitudinally that was a bad bet. He just didn't like one person and it didn't really matter. That was like betting on Wang computers over Apple. Like it's,

kind of didn't turn out. Yeah. Fair. I'm not holding a wang in my, so. But the point is, there. Might want to cut that. No, we're keeping the wang in. Okay, yeah. Look, all I'm saying is. My father sold wang computers. Oh, did he? I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to make it personal. No, no. Well, no, it's just, at one point, the top salesman in the country of wang computers. Yeah. Your father sold some wangs.

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Look, all I'm saying is it's important to maybe dial back a little bit on the moral outrage and assess the world as it is, assess what you can do, you know, create a hierarchy of priorities. Like, we don't want other countries to get nuclear weapons. I think that's, I'm with the neocons 100% on that. But, you know, in a complicated world that we don't actually control, what will, you know, what can we do? What are the limits of our power?

given a lot of other factors like our domestics, our economy, the needs of our people. Like, you can't do everything. That's all I'm saying. Yeah, no, I mean, so I think Trump should complete the work of his first term, which is he revoked the JCPOA, the Obama-Iran deal. Right. And he should do a Trump-Iran deal. Well, he's sending Wyckoff over to do that, apparently. Yeah, so Wyckoff, the aforementioned, not only did what he did with the Israelis, he was promoted for it, per

Per reporting. It has not been confirmed to my understanding by the transition or the White House. But per the FT and I believe another outlet, Witkoff is getting, quote, the Iran file. Within the Trump universe, that's as much power as the president wants to give it. But as of filming, his role is expanding. And if Trump wants a lasting legacy of peace and prosperity, there needs to be an accommodation with Trump.

the de facto government of Iran. So if... Of course there does. This is just... This is totally insane. It's counter to our interests, I guess, is what I would say. If you were Trump and you say to Steve Witkoff, hey, Steve Witkoff, go get a, you know, ceasefire in place, and he comes back like 20 minutes later with a ceasefire, wouldn't you say, okay? We like that pace. I like that pace. Wouldn't you send him to Iran? I would. Yes. Yes. Yeah, I mean, I think...

Yeah, I mean, this is actually something both Trump and Obama, who apparently get along now, at least perfunctorily, agreed on. Well, they both dislike Michelle, I think. So, they, remember Obama on the debate stage in 08, said, and he was just howled down for this, whatever you think of Barack Obama, said, we should meet with the Iranian leaders.

Face to face. And Trump did similar maneuvers in the first term. Why wouldn't you? Yeah, with Kim Jong-un, et cetera, et cetera. And again— He's sucking up to dictators. Oh, shut up. I mean, was North Korea policy more stable from 2017 to 2021 or 2021 to 2025? I don't think after 25 years of this nonsense, killing dictators and watching their countries become more chaotic and more dangerous to the United States and the world—

that we have any obligation to listen to people who chirp like that. No. Sucking up to Dick Seth. Shut up. To link it all. You don't know anything, actually. So we started this conversation with sort of the campaign against the cadres that are now serving Secretary Hexeth. Yes.

The people that are leading it, as far as I can infer, are oftentimes many of the people that were behind the original rock war. Well, yeah. Yeah. This may seem obvious. Well, I'm 55, so this is driving me completely insane. I thought after...

We discovered that the pretext of the war was a lie, that those people would, I don't know, don ashes and sackcloth and go like sit on a pillar for 10 years. I think a lot of Americans assumed that they did. So we do this for a living. No, they didn't. They went around the World Bank and they still run the State Department. And Toria Newland, who was an architect of the Iraq War, was an architect of the Ukraine War. Like this just doesn't end. But most Americans...

have real jobs and don't know this. And so these people are disguised or shrouded from public view. And they are still quite effective at driving home an agenda. In fact, I would assume they will win absent pushback. Oh, they'll definitely win absent pushback. Oh, 100%. Yeah. That's why I wanted to interview you. Yeah, they're still hegemonic. And even if they're a minority government, so to speak.

Yeah. And I, and I, I'm, because I'm, I've spent my life in the media. I'm very kind of fixated on their enablers, their agents in the American news media. And one of them who's working, has been working for years on their behalf, on behalf of Permanent Washington, the foreign policy establishment, every bad idea, is Jennifer Griffin at Fox, the Pentagon reporter, who is now, you know, basically texting, Domino, is that the?

Michael Domino. Yeah, is, you know, running around on behalf of, you know, her sources at the Pentagon doing their bidding, trying to torpedo these guys because the permanent staff doesn't want to be challenged on anything. And, okay, you know, there's a role for that kind of behavior. It's called lobbying. Right.

But it's a little crazy that like a supposed news reporter would be acting like that. I'm not guessing. This is a fact. She's doing that right now and has been doing that kind of thing for as long as I've been paying attention, like a couple decades. How does that continue? Yeah, I don't know her personally, but what I will say is the role of most Pentagon reporters has always struck me since I've done this as extremely hierarchical.

I mean, it- What do you mean by hierarchical? It almost felt like the reporters worked for the Pentagon. Well, of course they- Yeah. So, I mean, in any place that I've worked that had a Pentagon correspondent. And that was the only way you stayed in the room. And- Isn't this a democracy where we have civilian command of the armed forces and the entire federal government works for the population of the country, its voters, its citizens, its constituents, shareholders? No. No.

There's no sense of that whatsoever in Washington at all. Yeah. It's like, what are you doing here? I think it's fast moving. I mean, you didn't see criticisms or skepticisms of the military from the right until the very last few years, including from the new president, including from organs of conservative media. I think it started with Mark Milley, but also the sort of... Well, some of us were at it before that. I know, but in public opinion... It was considered a fringe position. It's not fringe.

Yeah. You know, I just refer you back to the pivot point in American politics in my lifetime, which was the 2016 debate in Greenville, South Carolina, where Donald Trump, home of the highest percentage of military veterans of any state, famously, and Donald Trump came out against the Iraq war and all the dumbos at the channel I work for and in Washington are like, oh, he's lost it now. He'll never get the nomination. He's offended all the veterans. And of course, all the guys whose lives were destroyed fighting these wars are

not on behalf of the United States, not to the benefit of the United States. They were filled with many emotions, frustration, shame, rage, sadness, and they immediately...

knew what he was talking about. And no one in D.C. knew what he was talking about. I think he overperformed his polling. He was insane. He was polling a certain... He was ahead. And the Bush family came in. That's when... It was the last stand for Mr. Jeb in February of 2016. And George W. Bush campaigned finally for Jeb. And it was like, we got to keep him in the race. We're going to make our stand. And he did...

the big fat mistake that is Iraq debate. And I think Trump is up 10 or 15. I think he won by over 20 in that debate. Don't quote me on that, but it was something like that. It was right before the primary. It was there. It was over the polling. So like, not only did he not go down and still won, he went up and then clearly triumped. That was the moment when I was just, you know, whatever his flaws, I was for Trump because here was a guy telling a real truth, a hard truth that no one wanted him to tell Trump.

And was rewarded for it. And I just felt like that was, that's consistent with my principles and beliefs, which is you ought to tell the truth and a healthy country rewards people who tell the truth, not people who lie. There's a cynical bet though, I would say that, and it's,

It's a cynical bet on Trump, and it's a cynical bet on Americans, and it's a cynical bet on Republicans and independents. Let's use the actual language of center-left or left-wing media. It's a cult, and once the cult leader leaves, we can just go back to 2005 and...

Implant the same old free trade, open borders, endless neoconservatism. And actually, the people that are driving the opposition to these selections in the Pentagon agree with President Trump's critics in spirit and in words.

And in practice, you know, if that's an interesting analysis, I mean, it's like MSNBC level dumb person analysis, but it's also like a real analysis. And there is a sense in which devotion to Trump has a religious quality to it. I mean, that's undeniable. I was just in D.C. for the inauguration. I can confirm that. And there are a lot of reasons for that.

You know, I think a lot of voters feel like Trump is the only person who cares about them. He's their only option. And so they're on board regardless because where else are they going? And I think that's true, A. And B, I think that's a reflection of like how badly the leadership of the country has failed. People will take anything other than that. But I also think saying true things out loud changes history.

I think that's the lesson of history. The only people who actually change history are not the ones who marshal the biggest armies, but the ones who speak the truth out loud. I think it's a holy act. I think it's a transformative act. And all of history is the story of that act, actually. And sometimes it, you know, it takes centuries for the consequences to unfold, but they do. It's inevitable. It changes everything once you... That's why there's such a

almost a crazed attempt to shut down people from speaking. Why speaking? They don't care about violence. They care about talking because they understand correctly that that's what matters over time, right? So once Trump has said all this stuff...

There's kind of no going back. No. Do you think? I mean, that's my view. I don't know. No, I don't agree with the cynical bet. I think it's a bad bet. Yes. Which is why the tactics are increasingly hysterical. Hysterical. And marginal. But we're robbed of like a real debate. I mean, I don't know. You know, if you think it's so important to kill the leaders of Iran...

And get into a full-scale war with a real country, which Iran is, which is part of a real coalition. They won't say full-scale. They'll say that the Ayatollah has to go. It's very important to use as scary words as possible. Ayatollah, the Mullahs, the Islamic Republic emphasize, you know, and again, like...

basically the bin laden who's dead runs a country even though these different ethnicity and a different religion and so it doesn't really matter you're stupid and uh we need to do this again and like i they won't say an invasion but uh again some of the people pushing uh this stuff didn't say an invasion in 1996.

they softened the ground for it. But where's the debate on it? I guess that's the point. There wasn't a debate. I mean, it's a little harder here too because on the question of Russia, it's been surprisingly effective for them to just dismiss all criticism as sponsored by Putin. Like, you don't think it's a good idea to prop up the Zelensky government. You're a Putin puppet or whatever. Right.

You want someone to do so many... Can you really call a white American Christian guy a puppet of the mullahs? Probably not. I don't think that works, right? Does it? I guess they're trying it with Steve Witkoff. You're a tool of cutter.

Oh, so you're referring to, so... The Shiites. I just don't think as a rhetorical matter, it's quite as easy to... Should we address the actual allegation? Yes. So, I mean, so Wyckoff, I believe, took his real estate firm, took some sort of investment from Qatar. Okay. And so, first of all, I would say, the rhetorical...

Throughout the Trump entourage, a lot of them have worked with Gulf states. And as far as I can tell, the real estate business is rife with investments from Gulf states. And then additionally, as far as I'm aware, this is hardly that man's worth. Well, the domestic, I mean, you can't buy an apartment in New York because there's so much Chinese money in the residential real estate market. So like-

Okay, so the argument is what? You're only allowed to invest in your own country's real estate? Okay, let's start here. Let's ban foreign investment in our real estate markets. Oh, no, that's anti-capitalist. Just the whole thing doesn't make sense. What are they saying? What?

well i mean with the katar argument specifically i mean i think it's an unusual place it was supposed to be the eighth emirate so it is separate from the uae um it is uh the most conservative of those emirates i would say at least in terms of the government um they have a perspective uh they spend money on media they spend money on press junkets uh they have an influence operation no question

But the idea that this small jetting, you know, LNG dependent, you know, peninsula controls U.S. foreign policy hook, line and sinker, top to bottom, if you think that,

I don't think you're extremely curious. I mean, I do think it's worth having an honest—I've never seen one, there never has been one—but an honest conversation about foreign influence on American policy. Sure. I think that's a totally legitimate topic. And, you know, we've kind of done a lot of lying and pretending, for example, that Russia has, like, undue influence over American foreign policy. It's absurd. But why not have that conversation? Are there foreign countries that exert influence on American policy? Yeah, for sure.

Whose interests supersede those of American citizens when, you know, in the minds of policymakers. And, you know, there may be some of those. How would we rank Qatar, you know, in terms of its influence? Maybe not in the top three. Yeah, no. Right. So, just having lived in D.C., this whole conversation is like so infuriatingly false and just silly. Mm-hmm.

I mean, are they running intel operations against us? There's a lot of Qatar surveillance in Washington. A lot of Qatar agents running around the Willard Hotel. I don't think so. Maybe. Very well disguised.

Like, what are you talking about? I mean, our country's doing that. Are they hacking the Pentagon's mainframes? I don't think, oh, China's doing that. Yeah. Right. Okay. So, yeah. But making the allegation though, it's a kind of armor though. It makes you seem informed. It makes you seem like a sort of a spy master. You know, like I know something you don't. Yeah.

I'm more serious, quote unquote, than you. Everyone traffics in that nonsense. Yeah, yeah. Like, let's not have a conversation. And it's very anti-democratic, small d. Of course. It is not agreeing to disagree. It is not saying we have different values and, you know, shaking each other's hand and walking out of the room. It is shutting down the spirit of the system. Well, so that's exactly the complaint that I have.

And that's the problem that I have with Barry Weiss. It's a problem I have with Jen Griffin. It's the problem I have with Washington Post. And just so much of the media coverage of foreign policy is based on insinuation. And like the cruelest sort of character destroying insinuations that you're not loyal to your own country. And I'm sure- They reach for the biggest sword. Oh, they go, man, they go right for the face. And-

i just think that that's beneath a great nation like ours i think it's beneath any decent person to behave like if you have evidence that someone's selling out his country tell me what it is but to start with that to accuse steve wickhoff of being a tool of cutter it's like so over the top i just feel like it's important to call out to people doing it and say you're disgusting we're not listening to you anymore you have no influence except that that you project through aggression and threats and like

We're not playing along anymore. I think a lot of it is effective in Republican politics. Yes. Because, you know, so you were there for the inauguration I observed a week ago. And, you know, I've always observed that...

is usually when I meet someone from a red state, like a deep red state, Oklahoma or Alabama, it's often their first time in Washington, D.C. Yes. It's very like Roman province, visiting Rome for the first time. Totally. I'm here from Gaul. Yeah. Show me around. Yeah. And...

Versus I would say blue state America actually has a lot, the coasts have a lot more familiarity with DC. - Yes. - Back and forth, report access, et cetera, et cetera. So when they hear the argument going on in the Capitol, there's actually a defacto trust

there that might be not as much there on the Democratic side. There's actually a more jaundiced cynicism on the Democratic side, so it's less effective. They assume that the, despite it all, despite all of the failures that you've announced, that you've reported on fairly tirelessly, they assume that the people in D.C. know what they're doing. And I'm not sure that's the greatest default assumption.

Well, I mean, I think the track record is pretty, speaks conclusively. I mean, look, respectfully to the president, I mean, Donald Trump,

again, is the only US president who was not a general or a former statewide official or federal official to get the presidency. And with all due respect to the new president, a healthy country doesn't elect something like that. It had that level of outsider. That level of outsider could only exist within a polity that was deeply sick.

And I think he knows that. I think he recognizes that. And the fact that the Capitol doesn't imbibe that lesson, I think they're imbibing a little bit more, but it's like, I mean, it's still bizarre. 10 years on, I mean, Trump, June 2015, so June this year, 10 years of Trump, longer than Obama at this point, the Trump era,

In spirit, in length, it's like, well, maybe there's something wrong with this country. But it's like a 5% recognition. It's not a 95% recognition. I think national, I mean, first of all, I agree completely. And I wrote a piece at the very beginning of this whole saga almost 10 years ago. Donald Trump is shocking, vulgar, and right. Yeah, he's winning because you failed. It's simple, you know.

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Anyway, I don't think D.C. gets it, but I also think at this point Trump is the most powerful president certainly since Roosevelt. Interesting. And the potential for, you know, achieving his promises is really high.

America has greater problems in its head since the Great Depression, maybe even bigger than it had then. And we have a chance to address them, probably not solve all of them, but make some headway on things that could help Americans, sealing the border, stopping the chaos, just taking a breather so we can figure out how to fix the country.

And the only thing that could derail that is another foreign war. We can't do it with this stuff. It is an actual choice. It's an actual choice. We cannot do the border if we do the Middle East. So you had, what, 200,000 people a year dying of drug ODs and no one said anything about it? And endless lectures about Ukraine? And it's no disrespect to the Ukrainians, who I really feel sorry for.

But like, that's so unbelievable that that happened. It's like a bad dream. And now we've woken up from the dream and we have this chance to

And I'm sorry, I just, you know, with respect to Barry Weiss and Jen Griffin, you can't do that to us again. It's just not going to go without a fight this time. We have to reorient toward our own interests. That's no disrespect to any other country, to our allies who we wish well and will help to the extent we can, but like the idea that we're responsible for all these other countries when we're dying here, right?

No mas. Is that a radical position? That's my actual position in my heart. That's my actual position. I agree. But it's very upsetting, not only to leaders of some foreign countries. And this is not just the Middle East. We didn't even talk about Russia, Ukraine. But like, I mean, that perspective is obviously very, very relevant for extricating the United States out of the Russia-Ukraine war. And almost every European country

capital is unhappy with that. And, you know, you can have a conversation with a nice Danish person and you might agree on immigration or trade or wine. But you mentioned like, hey, I'm not really sure the United States should be underwriting quagmire in Ukraine. And like the conversation shuts down. It is stunning. Well, they're hell bent on suicide. The Western Europeans and not the Eastern Europeans or Central Europeans, but the Western Europeans have decided to kill themselves.

And it's almost like if someone's standing on a bridge or in a window of a skyscraper and you're trying to talk them back in, it's hard. And who knows why that happens? I think there's a supernatural element at work is my personal view. But whatever you think the cause is, that's what it is. You blow up Nord Stream, destroy the German economy, and you're not allowed to say anything about it in Germany? I don't know that we can help you at that point.

You know what I mean? Like if you're that intent on self-harm, that anxious to destroy your own civilization, make it impossible for your children to live there, then you're killing yourself. You can't help someone who doesn't want to help himself. Like go ahead and jump then. Kind of. That's how I feel.

But just from an American perspective, like all of this has been bad for us. There's no way to pretend otherwise except to launch into some airy moral lecture about dictatorships and Winston Churchill and Neville Chamberlain. Just shut up. Okay. The Churchill thing is really essential. It's just played out. It's played out. I mean, it's played out in... But there's a gamble that some of this stuff isn't played out though. I mean, there's a gamble that, I mean...

I think people have, this country has a generational problem, right? Generations don't cut along. I think that's fair to say. For good reason. Yeah. And I think there's just a bet that a lot of the voters that made the decisions in the 90s and 2000s

are dumb and don't care about their kids' future and, uh, we'll vote for the exact same thing. Clearly you don't. Yeah. Sorry. And we'll exert pressure on the new administration to do the same thing. And, uh,

I think there's a bet that the president is a desperate, cynical man who will do whatever it takes when he's pressured. And I think the early evidence is that it's untrue. I mean, I don't, I mean, the- The evidence is that Trump is less cynical than even his supporters thought he was. I think that's the truth. I mean, there's, do you want to discuss the Pompeo, Brian Hook stuff? Yeah.

I would. I was just reading the Barry Weiss editorial about how pulling Pompeo's... What did she say? I didn't read it. It's outrageous. It's a betrayal of Trump's promises. Is that what the free press argued? Yeah, that you can't, you're not allowed, you are required to pay for Mike Pompeo's security detail. And I will just say point blank as someone who has faced greater physical threats than Mike Pompeo, I can promise you that.

I, you know, if I have security, I pay for it myself. Like, wow, why does Mike Pompeo as a private citizen get to stick me with the bill for his security detail? Like, how does that work, Barry Weiss? And the point is that Mike Pompeo is a faithful servant of the kind of ideas that

She is here to push on the rest of us and therefore he will be defended at all costs. But like, let's just be honest about what's going on. Anyway, sorry. Yeah, I mean, details roll off. The government doesn't usually advertise it. Everyone's got a detail. Fauci has a detail. Yeah. Because he's in my dog park in Washington. I hear about it.

I think the interesting thing, so it's very easy to just glaze over Trump fighting with officials, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, and sort of the, the, the error example of this is Trump versus Bolton. And we can talk about that and it's fun, but it's, it's kind of over, right? Bolton's not in the mix and, uh, or at least with Trump and like, um, but he's still got bits of egg in his mustache and I don't have his cell anymore, so I can't tell him, but he needs to fix that. Yeah. I, so, um,

Pompeo and Hook. I mean, look. Tell us who they are. Yeah, so Mike Pompeo was the former Secretary of State, former CIA director, former Kansas congressman, former West Point valedictorian. Harvard graduate. Harvard law graduate. Ozempic user.

Sorry, I'm just doing the whole CV here. Okay, right. And he was... I'm so bitchy. I'm so sorry that I said that. It's beneath me. I shouldn't have said that. The Bolton-Trump feud is old. The disagreement with Pompeo is potentially quite new. And so, by all available information, Pompeo was in the mix for Secretary of Defense, most likely, in the days after the...

So much so that his son, Donald Trump Jr., intervened in a sort of online campaign. And other allies within that milieu stopped both Pompeo and the former U.N. ambassador and South Carolinian governor, Nikki Haley, from getting administration posts. I had heard about that, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Pompeo... Patriotic Americans rallied, as they did in Boston in the 18th century...

To act on behalf of their nation. It's some personal risk, but they did it anyway. Unsung heroes. One of Pompeo's former deputies, Brian Hook, who ran something called the Iran Study Group and had various other portfolios and titles at the State Department. He's actually someone Pompeo inherited from Rex Tillerson, his predecessor. He kept him on. Brian Hook at...

various points throughout the transition in the last 100 days, was reported to be running the State Department's transition at some point, then was rumored, again, it's rumored, I don't post about it, I don't tweet it out, I don't write about it, but it was rumored to have been fired, very unclear. Trump, in the days leading up to him taking the Oval Office oath,

Issued essentially an enormous denunciation of fatwa against Mr. Hook. Extraordinary to say not only like, is this guy not in the mix? I hate him. And he said that. So that occurred. And then additionally,

Both Hook and Pompeo's security detail was removed in the last few days. I don't know that Brian Hook has served in government in four years. Why would he have a security detail paid for by taxpayers? Not an expert on who gets Secret Service details. But can I just, I just want to say... Actually, I can actually directly answer that. Yeah. So the key thing here is that there is an allegation, a belief, many in the intelligence community believes this.

that there were serious, credible plans by the Iranians to assassinate members of the Trump high command, as it were. So Trump...

John Bolton, et cetera, et cetera, in revenge principally for the Soleimani assassination. Because they've been creating a lot of terror attacks in the United States, you've noticed. Oh, no. No, that was in Tifa. And so that is the essential, that is the cause. I'm just going to have to scoff at all of it. I've heard a lot of this. The cause is belly for it. I hear this all the time. I think the key thing here is the critique on Trump

uh, always was he fired Bolton, but he didn't really understand why. So he just, he, he, he soured on the guy, but he didn't change any like policy. Uh, you know, he didn't learn this, this, this, this is the sort of, um, pedantic way of looking at the president. Um, but with the hook and, uh, Pompeo, uh, um,

removal from his inner circle. There is, I think, very credible evidence that Trump's personal grudges are now blending quite heavily with policy. He doesn't trust the Iran-Haq old guard. A lot of the Iran-Haq old guard think tanks struck out in getting transition officials and officials in this government.

And again, circled around this very unlikely Pentagon, helmed by a guy who has changed his life, it appears, in pretty severe ways over the last five years, both ideologically and morally, is this guy.

very new Pentagon that is now being targeted by all the usual suspects. And it is the biggest story in American politics that people aren't talking about. So if I could sum up what I think you're saying, it is that Donald Trump may have actually broken the grip of the neocons on Washington.

I mean, you control the Pentagon. You control the military. I mean, it's... It just seems like this is... Because there was always this question about Trump. Like, you get up and you give these speeches where you say, we don't want more pointless wars. I believe in peace through strength. Not a wuss. It's not Jimmy Carter. But like,

You know, you assert American power, but you don't embroil a country in wars that you can't win for no reason. It's a very moderate, sensible, common sense, I would say, view. So you say those things, but then you hire John Bolton. And the question is why? And Trump would say, I've heard him say, well, I hired Bolton. I beg your pardon. I hired Bolton because he's a lunatic. Yeah.

And he's a warmonger freak. He's obviously like watching war porn late at night and people can smell that on him. And so when he goes into a negotiation, he scares the crap out of everybody. And then I show up, you know, he's the heavy and I'm- He's the backup. I mean, I've heard Trump say that. And I didn't know if I believe that or not, but I'm starting to think that I should have just believed him because it sounds like Trump's actual instincts are what he says they are.

Yeah, I mean, the Bolton firing itself is, again, ancient history, but it's circled around an issue of policy. Oh, I remember. Yeah, so, I mean, Trump had invited the Taliban, which was then the outlaw, not government of Afghanistan, as it is today, to Camp David. Oh.

On 9-11. I just love the sound of it. So Trump invited the Taliban to Camp David. He did. He literally did that. I mean, I'm just reporting the facts here. It's a great sentence. So Donald Trump invited the Taliban. So tonight, who's coming for dinner tonight at Camp David? Oh, the Taliban will be here. Bolton was wiped out before this meeting never happened. But it was the instigating...

for the final breakdown of their relationship. I do think it's important, Kurt, to just recognize the inherent hilarity of a lot of, you know, it is, in addition to being grave and, you know, historically significant, it's very funny. It is funny. A lot of this stuff is very funny. It's sort of funny, yeah. Yeah, it's pretty great. Yeah. So, you're very restrained and businesslike and precise as a reporter should be, as an editor should be, but the story that you're telling, I think, I don't want to put words in your mouth, is a...

is a story of like real change. Yeah. Finally, we actually appear to be getting to like a foreign policy that puts America close to the center of the action. Yeah.

Is that what you're seeing? No. I mean, if he sees this through, this is the biggest presidency. Certainly, since Reagan, you alluded to FDR. I mean, it is moving the ship of state, and people are going to try to stop him from doing it. Yes. But they're not going to say that he's bad, though. They're going to go after— No one will ever say, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I just want to countersignal by saying I think what you're saying is true. I think it's real.

And I've never admired Trump more. I don't think I'm going to ask this around the Trump question, but this is like, America really needs this. It's just super important. And it's not radical at all. It's not attacking anyone or canceling our allyship with any country at all. It's just radical.

It's, you know- - Readjusting expectations for what we can achieve. - The reason that I started covering war on foreign policy principally is that the reality is that US domestic policy is a morass. It's impossible to get anything done. - Exactly. - Obama tried to do a healthcare plan. Six years in, they couldn't even get the website working. You know, the country's hard to govern. - Yeah. - But externally, the president is imperial. - He's God, yeah. - Quite literally the most powerful person on earth.

And if you want to burnish a legacy real quick, you do big things in foreign policy. You do shocking things in foreign policy. That's what all the Republican senators have figured out. You do surprising things in foreign policy. You're John McCain. Like, you're, you know, whatever. You've got a lot of problems in your personal and public life, but you can bomb around Eastern Europe and get treated like an emperor. Right. And feel like you're doing something. You're, you know, Jim Risch or Mike Rounds or some, like, U.S. senator nobody's ever heard of, even in his home state. Right.

But when you travel to Romania to tour a NATO base, people are like, oh, you know, Senator Risch is here. It's like... The foreign relations chair. Yeah. So... Right. Yeah, yeah. So that's a big motivator for our lawmakers, isn't it? Sure. Yeah.

For sure. I mean, yeah. I mean. You go to Idaho Falls and no one's like, oh, I can't believe you're here. But you know. It's Chairman Rich. It's Chairman Rich. It's like such an absurd. It's anyway, excuse me. Interesting. So, and I interrupted you because I can't control myself. Zero self-control. And get on the topic of pizza or neocons and I'm just out of control. Yeah.

Tell me your analysis of Trump canceling the security details for Brian Hook and Mike Pompeo. Well, he seems to have the authentic view that these people can afford it, especially with Fauci and especially with Bolton. He specifically flagged them. Yeah. And Pompeo, who's now running around being like, I'm actually a businessman. Yeah.

He's on a board of a Ukrainian company as well. Well, he's on, I think, more than one board, but he's certainly running around, including with people I know, saying, I'm really kind of a business guy. Look, I mean, so the Pompeo thing is supremely interesting because I, you know,

i think it's somebody who probably would have positioned himself to run in a major way had trump lost i think it's somebody who's not going to quit being president this is not an unintelligent man uh this is hale is smart this is yeah this is a real he's not dumb this is a real fighter um and uh i don't want to say he's part of the cynical bet crowd but he's making a bet that the trump thing will pass and i will be able to steamroll people like vance and he

and even rubio in the future because i'm more vicious and um in the meantime uh you know maybe make some money uh influence the debate et cetera et cetera and he's very impressive if you don't know i mean i mean like i mean if you don't come in with huge foreign policy convictions i think you and i do uh he can be very persuasive just for the record i had no foreign policy can convictions i don't think i'm ideological on the question at all i just

I think in general, our foreign policy should serve the nation. I am. I mean, so I think this was very interesting about some of these Pentagon picks, not to keep linking it back, but also the vice president. A lot of these people, my generation, the millennials, fought in these wars. Oh, yeah. And although the baby boomers forget it, we're now old, you know, and we grew up, and we're quite mad about it.

And it's a bipartisan thing. It's not just like a Democrat, you know, anti-Iraq war, indie music thing. It's like young Republican people hate it too. And they might hate it more.

actually, which is actually the interesting thing. And the Republican Party, frankly, under Trump, might be a vessel of anti-war sentiment far more effectively than the Democrats. I mean, I didn't see a lot of protests for the Ukraine war. The Israel stuff was pretty interesting. That was probably what was number one threat to Biden circa April. Remember that? For sure. But

If you look at the conversation online, if you look at the sentiments of younger conservatives, younger Republicans, the anti-war stuff is big and it is not going anywhere. And I think that also drives a sense of a timetable, which is we've got these older people in their 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s. They have a certain belief set. They're the people that voted for the stuff in the 90s and 2000s. And we get this stuff done now before the United States turns 90.

you know, on both parties on this stuff. And this was always, this was- So we can't afford it anymore and our allies pivot to China and sell even more defense technology to China. Yeah. I do think there, okay, so the backbone of support for these wars has been evangelicals. Let's just be blunt about it. It's everyone, you know, beats up on the neocons or whatever, these fervent intellectuals in Washington. But really the foot soldiers of this have been Fox News viewers who are not,

They're not intellectuals. They're just normal American patriotic, heavily evangelical people. And the truth is, I think a lot of them are beginning to recognize that their religion does not support this at all. It's really clear. Genesis 6, why do we have the flood? Why does God kill everything on earth? All the people except no one in his family, all the animals except the ones in the ark. Why does he do that? He spells it right out because they're committing violence. That's why.

So it's like the idea that, I mean, the Iraq war breaks out and all these preachers are like, no, no, no, really, we have to fight Islam and kill all these people. And that's what God wants. That's not what it says at all. And there's no mention of any specific secular government in the New Testament. Sorry, guys.

And I think a lot of Christians are beginning to realize this. It doesn't, because you're a Christian doesn't mean you have a specific political agenda at all. I don't think. But if your political agenda is like violence, that's prohibited. Sorry. And I, it's just, it could not be clear. It's on every freaking page. So I don't know the deception involved in this was just like mind boggling that these preachers could get up on Fox news and tell you that like, yeah, killing people is what Jesus wants. No, that's not true.

And I just feel among people I know a growing recognition of that. And I think it's a huge problem for the war lobby, which has used these people as its supporters. And you see it in the Congress. You know, I'm an evangelical and I'm for another war with somebody. No, you can't do that anymore. I'm hoping people are zoned out. You do think that? Yeah, I think they're hoping the country's old, tired, zoned out, can't oppose it. And they're hoping that these initiatives can be

To be replaced by what?

The same people who replaced Assad and Gaddafi and Saddam and the Taliban. I mean, I think, okay, I mean, to take the other side, I mean, the Assad thing is pretty close to the best case scenario of how that could have gone. I think in Iran it would go way, way, way worse. It's a much bigger country. It's hard to know. You're rolling the dice. You start killing people and things go sideways. It's pretty close to Iraq and Afghanistan combined.

Right? It feels that way to me. You have the capacity for major urban violence a la Iraq. You have huge cities. The Kabul's small, but you have that. And then additionally, you have the mountain element. So any outlaw

contingent can just flee there. I mean, and, and we learned this with our Southern neighbor. Right. Why is Mexico ungovernable? The mountains. You just, you just, you just fleet. I mean, the entire coastline. Right. Why is Kentucky ungovernable? Same reason. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so just kidding. No, no. I mean, it's, I mean, it's, it's hard to, it would be very, very, very difficult. And ask, ask Saddam Hussein. No, I tried to invade Iran and, uh, didn't work out for Mr. Hussein. A lot of things didn't. So, no, I, I agree. Uh,

Completely. Well, you have actually given me, I asked you to come for this conversation. It's late at night. I was very exercised about it. You were nice enough to come and we're in a hotel room in some city, but I thought I was going to be more depressed by the end, but actually I feel really heartened by what you said. Thank you for having me. Well, thank you for making me feel a lot better. Kurt Mills. Appreciate it. Thank you.

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