Raging Moderates: A Shaky Ceasefire (ft. Rep. Jim Himes)

Speaker 1 Support for this show comes from Nordstrom.

Speaker 1 Cooler temps are here, so it's time to level up your wardrobe at Nordstrom. You'll find the best cold weather must-haves, including thousands of styles under $100.

Speaker 1 Shop hand-to-toe cozy from faves like UG, All Saints, Nordstrom, Skims, the North Face, and more. Plus, free shipping, free returns, and quick order pickup make it easy.

Speaker 1 In stores or online, it's time to go shopping at Nordstrom.

Speaker 2 Support for PropG comes from Aura Frames. Aura Frames makes it easy to stay connected with friends and family no matter where they are.

Speaker 2 Now you can send photos straight from your phone right to an Aura frame. Just plug it in, download the free Aura app, and connect to Wi-Fi.

Speaker 2 For a limited time, you can visit auraframes.com and get $45 off Aura's best-selling Carver matte frames, named number one by Wirecutter, by using promo code PropG at checkout.

Speaker 2 That's A-U-R-A frames.com, promo code PropG. This exclusive Black Friday Cyber Monday deal is the best of the year.
So order now before it ends.

Speaker 2 And you can support the show by mentioning us at checkout.

Speaker 3 Adobe Acrobat Studio, so brand new.

Speaker 4 Show me all the things PDFs can do.

Speaker 5 Do your work with ease and speed.

Speaker 4 PDF spaces is all you need.

Speaker 3 Do hours of research in an instant.

Speaker 4 Key insights from an AI assistant.

Speaker 6 Pick a template with a click. Now your prezzo looks super slick.

Speaker 7 Close that deal, yeah, you won. Do that, doing that, did that, done.

Speaker 8 Now you can do that, do that with Acrobat.

Speaker 3 Now you can do that, do that with the all-new Acrobat. It's time to do your best work with the all-new Adobe Acrobat Studio.

Speaker 9 Welcome, Raging Moderates. I'm Scott Galloway.

Speaker 10 And I'm Jessica Tarlev.

Speaker 9 Okay, Jess, in today's episode of Raging Moderates, we're discussing the aftermath of Trump strikes in Iran. and how we got to a ceasefire and then how we didn't.

Speaker 9 First, we're fortunate to have Congressman Jim Himes, the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, joining us to break down the latest developments.

Speaker 9 Representative Himes, I very much appreciate you being here. Welcome to the show.

Speaker 11 Thanks for having me.

Speaker 9 So why don't we just start off with your view of the state of play here? Can you break down the latest developments in the Middle East for our listeners?

Speaker 11 Yeah, well, we're in a real roller coaster ride, right?

Speaker 11 We heard of the ceasefire last night, and then apparently the ceasefire was violated, and the president got very, very angry on social media. And now we may or may not be on a ceasefire.

Speaker 11 Look, a couple of big picture things that we shouldn't lose sight of. Number one, we went into a war in the Middle East without any congressional deliberation.

Speaker 11 And that is not according to the law, either the Constitution or the War Powers Act. And it's also not very smart, right?

Speaker 11 And, you know, an awful lot of people are saying, well, presidents have done this forever. And that, you know, fair enough.
That doesn't make it okay.

Speaker 11 And I'm a big believer that Congress ought to actually abide by the Constitution.

Speaker 11 But the other thing I would point out is that, you know, Bill Clinton sending limited, you know, cruise missile strikes into Somalia or a president putting a few ground forces on the ground in Syria is not playing anywhere near the order of magnitude of what it means to take an offensive strike in an area where you have 40,000 troops, where things go wrong, gasoline prices could go to $6 or $7 a gallon.

Speaker 11 This was an instance in which there should have been some consideration. Now, where are we?

Speaker 11 Thank God that it would appear that from a tactical standpoint, the military strike was successful in as much as it created a lot of big explosions and everybody got home safe.

Speaker 11 What we don't know, and this is the question of the day really, is whether this meaningfully set back Iran's nuclear program.

Speaker 11 I can't get into details for obvious reasons, but I see absolutely no evidence that this did anything other than slow the Iranians' role a little bit, a little bit.

Speaker 11 And so in the coming days and weeks, we're going to grapple with the possibility that the Iranians are still in a position to do a pretty quick breakout for a nuclear weapon.

Speaker 11 And what is going to be the Israeli response to that? And what is going to be the American response to that, if in fact, that turns out to be true.

Speaker 10 Vice President J.D.

Speaker 10 Vance sat down with Brett Baer on special report on Monday night, and Brett asked him about this and said, well, aren't you concerned about the fact that they were able to relocate the 60% enriched uranium that it could fit in?

Speaker 10 I think it was 10 trunks of cars. And because President Trump seemed to be telegraphing a lot of what was going on, that they were actually given enough time to be able to do that.
And J.D.

Speaker 10 Vance basically poo-pooed it and said, that doesn't really matter.

Speaker 10 I assume your assessment is that it does matter that they were able to get the uranium out and that they could start their project over, essentially?

Speaker 11 It's inconceivable to me that somebody with the brains of J.D. Vance would say that if the Iranians were able to get all of their 60% enriched uranium out, that that wouldn't matter.

Speaker 11 That's just insane.

Speaker 11 Obviously, if they retain that 60% uranium that they have and some centrifuges, and it's very, very unlikely that these raids obliterated, to use J.D.

Speaker 11 Vance's word, all of the centrifuges, it's not hard for the Iranians to refine this to weapons grade. And then it's not hard ultimately to cobble together a nuclear device.

Speaker 11 So look, I am sad to see, but not surprised, that J.D.

Speaker 11 Vance and senior members of this administration are using words like obliterate, which again, I have seen nothing to suggest that that verb, you know, is in any way applicable here.

Speaker 11 And again, that raises very serious questions because what do the Israelis do if it turns out that we simply move to the right a little bit, a month or a weeks, the ability of the Iranians to break out a weapon if they choose to do that?

Speaker 11 And by the way, what about the fact that now if you're an Iranian regime member, as awful as you are, you're also smart enough to know, gosh, the whole negotiations thing was never real.

Speaker 11 The president tore up the one thing that slowed the Iranians, the JCPOA, and he allowed the Israelis to start bombing in the middle of a negotiation.

Speaker 11 So, if you're an Iranian regime member, you say, okay, we tried that route. Now, you know what we're going to do? We're going to do what North Korea did.

Speaker 11 We're going to do what Pakistan did, is we're going to go underground, and the world is going to learn about our progress when we actually test a device. And at that point, guess what?

Speaker 11 There are going to be no more military attacks on Iran. That, to me, is the really kind of horrifying scenario here.

Speaker 9 So Representative, so if the president had come to Congress and sought congressional approval and laid out exactly in very detailed plans what he was planning to do, the ordinance, the armaments, the risks, the upside, the downside, would you have voted yes or no and why?

Speaker 11 It's sort of hard to answer that hypothetical question because there would be all sorts of other questions you would need to answer, like what we've been sort of alluding to.

Speaker 11 Okay, Okay, we can make very big explosions in ventilation shafts in Fordo and Natans, but what else? What else? What do we do if the 60% uranium is in a warehouse somewhere, as it may very well be?

Speaker 11 But let me not try to entirely dance around that question, and I'll tell you what my bias is. All I've got is history to go on, right?

Speaker 11 And the history of our military interventions in the region in my lifetime is pretty darn bad, right? We took out Muammar Gaddafi.

Speaker 11 Libya Libya is now a chaotic dystopia. We know the story of Iraq, where we empowered Iran and lost 4,400 troops in our efforts there.

Speaker 11 And of course, we don't need to talk about Afghanistan to know that that's not something.

Speaker 11 So anyway, my point obviously is what do I have to go on other than the history and the question of whether we have been successful in achieving our strategic aims in the region?

Speaker 11 And the answer to that question is pretty much generally no.

Speaker 11 So let me just say, facts matter, but I would have had a very, very strong bias based on our history history of ending up with outcomes that none of us would have either predicted or wanted when we get involved militarily in the Middle East.

Speaker 10 I understand, you know, we can't get in a time machine and we can't go back and do this differently. So we are where we are today.

Speaker 10 And I saw former Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, was out in the New York Times with an op-ed saying that he thought the strike was a mistake and he hopes it's a success. Can you talk us through

Speaker 10 what you think a success looks like at this point? Do you think there is any chance at an Iranian and Israeli lasting ceasefire?

Speaker 10 And Donald Trump did float the idea of regime change just over Truth Social a couple of days ago. Do you think that that is still any part of the conversation?

Speaker 11 Well, yeah, I mean, your question is not too hard to answer.

Speaker 11 And just because I'm concerned, as you might imagine, I can envision and even accept the possibility that, yeah, you know, the Iranian people might finally do what the Argentine people did in 1982 when it turned out that the dictatorial generals that were governing them couldn't even even defend the Falkland Islands.

Speaker 11 And the Argentine people said, guess what? If you bunch of generals can't even keep us safe from a country that's 12,000 miles away, out you go.

Speaker 11 So wouldn't that be amazing if the Iranian people had the capacity and the will to finally overthrow this truly evil regime?

Speaker 11 Again, I'm not sure the United States should be in the business of promoting that kind of regime change because we don't have a very good track record.

Speaker 11 But oh my god, what an amazing outcome that would be. And look, it's possible.
It's possible.

Speaker 11 It would also be amazing if the administration and the Israelis would say, okay, Iran, you're probably in your weakest point in a generation. Let's now sit down at the negotiating table.

Speaker 11 That's a little bit of a hard sell, right? Because if you're an Iranian regime member, you say, oh, really? Now we're going to sit down at the negotiating table.

Speaker 11 And if you don't like what we do, you know, we get another B-2 flight over our nation. So that's a hard sell, but I wouldn't completely rule it out.

Speaker 11 The problem is, if we had two hours to do it, we could talk about gasoline prices at $6, about dead American soldiers and sailors, about missiles, about terrorist cells activated in London and Rome.

Speaker 11 We could talk about the possibility of destabilization in the region and the fact that the Jordanian king, who's really, really important to us, sits atop a powder keg and that, you know, real volatility could result in regime changes in other places like Jordan, where it would be a catastrophe for us.

Speaker 11 So anyway, let's acknowledge that there could be a good outcome here. It's just, you know, you'd have to go and get the odds from a bookie.

Speaker 11 You know, how much do you bet on the best case scenario coming out of the Middle East?

Speaker 9 Representative, I worry that as someone who's a Democrat and is committed to retaking the House and the White House, I worry that as always, we figure out a way to come across as incredibly weak.

Speaker 9 And that is we're angry that they didn't come to us, as you should have, for constitutional bypass the Constitution. That now seems to be the norm, almost a given.

Speaker 9 And not enough conversation around whether or not this was the right move.

Speaker 9 And I want to applaud you for actually addressing the question, but let's steel man this a little bit because you brought up some issues.

Speaker 9 The price of oil, it looks as if right now the oil markets have yawned and don't believe that this threatens oil prices.

Speaker 9 At the Strait of Hormuz, if in fact it is compromised, it'll hurt India and China more than it would hurt us. We're fairly energy self-sufficient.

Speaker 9 That Khomeini, at 85 years of age, leading a theocracy that has had its hands cut off, is on the brink of collapse, and this might tip it over into collapse, and that we are not planning, as far as I can tell, to put boots on the ground.

Speaker 9 We're just always remiss to take a victory lap. We're kicking Russia's ass.
It feels like Iran's air defenses are down because of the brave work of the IDF.

Speaker 9 And we have demonstrated that we spend $800 billion for a reason and that we have armaments that no one else has, and that the capacity to get closer to a bomb, we know they didn't get any closer.

Speaker 9 We know that they're further away. We just don't know how much they're further away.

Speaker 9 Isn't this potentially, or most likely even, something that will be looked back as America exerting its power in a thoughtful way and that the Democrats were more focused on procedure than actual outcomes?

Speaker 11 Yeah, well, you know, okay, fair point, Scott.

Speaker 11 And, you know, I really like when we're talking about military activity and war and our troops to not collapse into a consideration of the politics of this.

Speaker 11 But you ask an interesting question to which I would say these things can break either way.

Speaker 11 You know, if we were having this conversation in the early first decade of the 2000s and talking to Hillary Clinton, and Hillary Clinton says, you know, we Democrats make the argument that you just made, we Democrats always end up looking weak.

Speaker 11 So I'm voting yes to give George W. Bush the authority to go into Iraq.

Speaker 9 Great analogy.

Speaker 11 At that moment in time, I'm not sure Hillary Clinton thought to herself that it is that vote, this hawkish vote, because I'm afraid of looking weak, that is probably going to be the single largest factor that an unknown state senator from Illinois named Barack Obama is going to take me out as the presidential candidate of 2008, right?

Speaker 11 So I think these things can turn on a dime. And look, let's not be silly about this.

Speaker 11 If the best case scenario happens and the regime falls and the new regime or the new government says we're never going to mess around with uranium or nuclear weapons again, yeah, you know, we will have gotten very lucky.

Speaker 11 And I'll be sad because you say process.

Speaker 11 You know, to me, abiding by the Constitution is not just a reversion to process. It's actually something that every two years I raise my hand and swear to do.

Speaker 11 So I'm sort of a little sad that I would say, well, we're having a process argument because I think the Constitution is worth defending.

Speaker 11 But anyway, my larger point is that in these sort of situations, you're right. You know, there is a political implication.
But again,

Speaker 11 if you were thinking purely politically, would you have said, yeah, let's take that Gaddafi guy out. Yeah, let's

Speaker 11 try to nation build in Afghanistan because we've got the best capabilities everywhere. In retrospect, you would say, boy, pretty ugly political position.

Speaker 10 I want to stay on the politics issue, but frame it in a little bit of a different way because it's been reported that Democrats were not briefed about the strike ahead of time, including yourself and Senator Mark Warner, both the ranking members on the Intel Committee as members of the gang of eight.

Speaker 10 That is something deeply concerning to me that the Republicans feel like they're just going to go it alone.

Speaker 10 Can you talk about whether that's true, the implications of that, and if there's any chance that we can make foreign policy, which has historically been a space that could be fairly bipartisan, return to the norm or at least get a bit better than it is right now?

Speaker 11 Yeah, look, I'll absolutely acknowledge that there are

Speaker 11 issues with congressional consultation, right? I mean, Scott didn't ask this specifically, but implied it, which is, hey, what if we have a four-week debate over this attack?

Speaker 11 At that point, haven't the Iranians completely hidden all their uranium? That's a fair point, right?

Speaker 11 And we could have that argument. And maybe you would think about things like informing small numbers of members of Congress, gang of eight, leadership, whatever you want to do.

Speaker 11 So there's a reasonable argument to have there, but it does stop at the law, right?

Speaker 11 You know, just because something is hard or inconvenient doesn't mean that you could violate the law or the Constitution.

Speaker 9 I keep saying that.

Speaker 11 It's not just process.

Speaker 10 It's the law.

Speaker 11 But yeah, I mean, one thing is unambiguous, Jess, which is that letting Republic, letting members of your own party know, but not letting the opposition know is a sort of ugly innovation of the Trump administration.

Speaker 11 And look, it's sort of dumb, too, right? Because now if this thing goes horribly wrong, which it could, politically speaking, yeah,

Speaker 11 you, Mr. President, own this.
And by the way, the four or five Republicans you chose to reach out to own it as well.

Speaker 11 And, you know, we've got the political defense of you didn't even, I read about this on Twitter, you know? So anyway, that's a pretty ugly new new innovation

Speaker 11 from this administration.

Speaker 9 Aaron Ross Powell, Representative Himes, is the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee. You're just privy to color in detail that the general public and the media isn't.

Speaker 9 And one of the things that struck me about this attack, or specifically the aftermath of the attack, is whether it was Iraq or Afghanistan or expelling

Speaker 9 Hussein from Kuwait, regardless of the success or lack thereof of those interventions. The next day, we had

Speaker 9 big

Speaker 9 nations with substantial armies weighing in in support, that there was clearly a lot of groundwork laid to say that, all right, we support this.

Speaker 9 It was clear that we're not acting alone, that we might be the leadership and have the biggest military in the West, but we are, in fact, hand in hand with the West.

Speaker 9 And one of the things that was so striking here and so disappointing was that the only nations that commented on this the next day were the Chinese saying, there they go again, making the world more unstable, and Russia mocking us for not diminishing their nuclear capabilities to the extent we were bragging.

Speaker 9 The lack of alliances, the lack of support, this go-alone arrogance to me was so distressing and something that the public didn't discuss.

Speaker 9 As somebody who is obviously in conversation with our allies, both in open formats and behind closed doors, can you speak a little bit to, one, do you buy the thesis that we don't have the support we typically have?

Speaker 9 And two,

Speaker 9 what you're seeing across our alliances around this type of activity.

Speaker 11 Yeah, I mean, not surprised, right? We know that the Trump administration, you know, doesn't put much, to put it mildly, value on our allies or about acting together.

Speaker 11 But these interventions that we've talked about, some of which didn't go very well, almost always involved us working with our allies, just because practically that's a good thing.

Speaker 11 And also because we care that we speak as the West and not just as the U.S. So George H.W.

Speaker 11 Bush, when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, famously spent weeks working the phone to put together the coalition that ultimately was successful in removing Saddam Hussein from Kuwait.

Speaker 11 And, you know, the famous coalition of the willing going into Iraq with us. Again, I think we can look back on that and say, gosh, that didn't work out quite the way we had hoped.

Speaker 11 But, you know, George W. Bush did do the work to get our NATO allies and others.
Even in Libya, we were operating under the auspices of NATO. So that's generally a good idea.

Speaker 11 It gives credibility and it gives us, to be fair, on the margin, some operational capacity that we might not otherwise have on the margin.

Speaker 11 So, you know, when you take action like this, it's always a good idea for no other reason than to hear what the Brits and the, you know, others have to say about how we can do this well.

Speaker 11 But this is not, of course, the

Speaker 11 way this administration thinks about taking action abroad.

Speaker 10 Aaron Powell, and it's interesting timing. The president is on his way to the NATO summit in The Hague.

Speaker 10 He definitely wanted a big win coming in since everybody is pretty mad at him about tariffs and the general state of the world. How do you think this is going to play out over the next couple of days?

Speaker 11 You know, I can't emphasize enough how

Speaker 11 much

Speaker 11 the facts on the ground matter to the answer to that question.

Speaker 11 Again, on one extreme, maybe the Iranian people finally say we've had enough and they, you have both the willingness and the capability to overthrow this hideous regime.

Speaker 11 In which case, we're all going to feel good. On the other extreme, of course, is

Speaker 11 continued Israeli attacks on Iran, Iran claiming that they're violating the ceasefire and Israel would do that because they realize that we probably haven't significantly damaged the nuclear capability and now we're back to a shooting war in the Middle East.

Speaker 11 Or again, my... My worst case scenario is the quiet scenario.
It's not bombs going off or missiles landing in Bahrain. It's the Iranians go dead quiet for six months.

Speaker 11 And seven months from now, there's a test of a nuclear device.

Speaker 11 So, you know, where we land on that spectrum of, you know, magnificent to horrible is going to have a lot to do with how, you know, to Scott's point, the domestic politics play here and the way the rest of the world thinks about it.

Speaker 11 Now, let me make one last point here, because I think those of us who are interested in international affairs should be self-reflective.

Speaker 11 This is a point of humility.

Speaker 11 If you had told me two years ago that Israel was going to be able to largely take out Hezbollah, to assassinate Hamas leadership in downtown Tehran and basically crush their leadership and disable the Iranian air defenses, whatever, 40, 50%, I would have said that's overambitious.

Speaker 11 And so let's not be overly biased towards the pessimistic here. What the Israelis, whatever you think about, you know, its wisdom or its justice, what the Israelis have accomplished

Speaker 11 since October 7th, and I set aside their activities in Gaza when I say this, militarily against Hezbollah and militarily against Hamas in Iran has been,

Speaker 11 let's just say, nobody I think would have put a big bet on that outcome.

Speaker 9 Just along those lines, Representative, if you think of us as having four enemies, loosely China, North Korea, Iran, and Russia, I would argue China's not an enemy.

Speaker 9 It's the Americans when we have a competitor that gets too successful. We think of them as an enemy.
I think of of them as a competitor. So that lose Russia, North Korea, and Iran.

Speaker 9 I mean, we are, quite frankly, kind of kicking ass and taking names. I mean, I think Russia and Iran are just not in the same place they were 24 months ago.
And just a pointed question.

Speaker 9 Hasn't the Ukrainian Army and the IDF, quite frankly, been doing the West's dirty work? and kind of kicking ass and asking questions later?

Speaker 9 Don't we owe, as someone who's on the intelligence committee, with

Speaker 9 exponentially more budget, exponentially better equipment, haven't they demonstrated the kind of confidence and courage that has advanced our objectives and made us safer?

Speaker 9 Don't we owe Ukrainian Army and the IDF a huge debt of gratitude?

Speaker 11 I would separate those two questions. You know, everyone thought Ukraine was going down.

Speaker 9 Yeah.

Speaker 11 And what Ukraine has managed to pull off has been nothing short of epic, especially in the context of our wavering support, where we get sort of partial credit for helping the Ukrainians.

Speaker 11 And the lesson that has come out of that war is hopefully being learned by dictators everywhere, which is that when you're on someone else's land, even if you have overwhelming firepower, you're going to have a hard time.

Speaker 11 A million casualties in Russia right now.

Speaker 11 Now, Putin doesn't care about that, but hopefully the other dictators around the world who are thinking about a Ukraine-like incursion are taking that a little bit more seriously.

Speaker 11 And again, I just, I won't repeat myself, but what the IDF achieved against Hezbollah,

Speaker 11 what the IDF achieved against Hamas and Tehran and what they achieved against the Iranians is pretty spectacular.

Speaker 11 I'm putting an asterisk on that because too much of what we see happening in Gaza right now should not be happening.

Speaker 11 There is too much humanitarian suffering and civilian loss. And I do think that over time, the IDF will need to grapple with that.

Speaker 11 But the last answer on your question question about the IDF, Scott, is again, it really matters how this ends.

Speaker 11 And Middle East experts will tell you, you sometimes don't know the answer to the famous question, tell me how this ends in the Middle East for a couple years.

Speaker 11 So again, I'm not going to beat this dead horse too much, but a regime change and a giving up of the nuclear weapons, wow, incredible. But there are a lot of other scenarios.

Speaker 11 And until we know which door gets opened, I think it's a little early to celebrate or to say that the IDF has been doing our dirty work. Look, again, let me just say it again.

Speaker 11 If the Iranians give up their nuclear weapons or, you know, let us all hope for regime change, remarkable, but we just, we're not there yet.

Speaker 10 Congressman Himes, thank you so much for your time. It's invaluable that you could join us.

Speaker 11 Thanks a lot. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 9 Yeah, Congressman, you're thoughtful and direct. You're in the right seat.
It makes us feel good that you've decided to do what you do.

Speaker 10 And Scott rarely says that to anyone that we talk to.

Speaker 11 So I'm just just chuckling because I'm not sure that thoughtful and direct is actually in the job description of a member of Congress.

Speaker 10 But okay, I'll take it. It should be.

Speaker 9 Keep on, keeping on. Right on.
Thanks, Representative.

Speaker 10 Thank you for your time.

Speaker 11 All right. Take care.
Thank you very much.

Speaker 9 Okay, let's take a quick break. Stay with us.

Speaker 2 Support for the show comes from Upwork. You're the CEO of your business.
You're also the CFO and the IT department and customer service. It's time to find some support.

Speaker 2 Upwork Business Plus helps you bring in top quality freelancers fast. It gives you instant access to the top 1% of talent on Upwork in fields such as marketing design, AI, and more.

Speaker 2 All ready to jump in and take work off your plate. Upwork Business Plus takes the hassle out of hiring by dropping trusted freelancers right in your lap.

Speaker 2 Instead of spending weeks sorting through random resumes, Upwork Business Plus sources and vets candidates for skills and reliability.

Speaker 2 It then sends a curated shortlist of proven expert talent to your inbox in just hours so you can delegate with confidence.

Speaker 2 That way, you're never stuck spinning your wheels when you need a skilled pro and your projects don't stall. Right now, when you spend $1,000 on Upwork Business Plus, you'll get $500 in credit.

Speaker 2 Go to upwork.com/slash/save now and claim the offer before December 31st, 2025. Again, that's upwork.com/slash/s-A-V-E.

Speaker 2 Scale smarter with top talent and $500 in credit. Terms and conditions apply.

Speaker 3 Adobe Acrobat Studio, so brand new.

Speaker 4 Show me all the things PDFs can do.

Speaker 5 Do your work with ease and speed.

Speaker 4 PDF spaces is all you need.

Speaker 3 Do hours of research in an instant.

Speaker 4 With key insights from an AI assistant.

Speaker 6 Pick a template with a click. Now your Prezo looks super slick.

Speaker 7 Close that deal, yeah, you won. Do that, doing that, did that, done.

Speaker 8 Now you can do that, do that, with Acrobat. Now you can do that, do that.

Speaker 3 With the all-new Acrobat. It's time to do your best work with the all-new Adobe Acrobat Studio.

Speaker 13 With the Spark Cash Plus card from Capital One, you can earn unlimited 2% cash back on every purchase. And you get big purchasing power.
So your business can spend more and earn more.

Speaker 14 Stephen, Brandon, and Bruno, the business owners of SandCloud, reinvested their 2% cash back to help build their retail presence.

Speaker 12 Now, that's serious business.

Speaker 14 What could the Spark Cash Plus card from Capital One do for your business?

Speaker 15 Capital One, what's in your wallet?

Speaker 14 Find out more at capital one.com slash spark cash plus. Terms apply.

Speaker 9 Welcome back. Chess, what did you think of Representative Hines?

Speaker 10 I loved him.

Speaker 9 You loved him.

Speaker 10 I'm a big fan of his, and I appreciate also that he comes on Fox, which not every Democrat does, but having the chance to hear from the ranking member on the Intel committee is really special.

Speaker 10 And I thought he did a lot of things that are different from how many members did, but

Speaker 10 he was open to criticizing himself and the party.

Speaker 10 He talked about moments of humility and he was also able to, I think, thoughtfully reflect on a best case scenario coming out of this and then also to prepare us for what he's afraid of.

Speaker 10 I thought it was a very well-rounded approach to a very fast-moving situation that carries a lot of danger to it, frankly. What did you think?

Speaker 9 The more I'm exposed in the last

Speaker 9 10 years, I had never, I don't think other than occasionally, you know, when I took my sister to Washington when she was in college and I would just walk into congressional offices and meet with some aid,

Speaker 9 I had no exposure to elected representatives. And in the last 10 years, I've had a lot, mostly because I want my money, to be honest.

Speaker 9 Money's nice. Yeah, money's access.
And so I have access to a lot of elected representatives. And I am consistently impressed by what thoughtful, intelligent, patriotic, committed people they are.

Speaker 9 And it bothers me how lazy people are to constantly shitpost our government, believing that everyone's corrupt and nobody's smart. There's a lot of really, really impressive people who give up.

Speaker 9 You know, a guy like that could easily be running a private equity firm, clocking a shit ton of money and at Bezos' wedding this weekend. And instead, he chooses to, you know, be in D.C.

Speaker 9 trying to sort through this shit. So I'm,

Speaker 9 you know, I'm always impressed or consistently impressed to the upside by these individuals. So back to the issue at hand.

Speaker 9 Trump announced what he called a complete and total ceasefire between Israel and Iran. The truce was supposed to be phased in over 24 hours, but already it's showing signs of strain.

Speaker 9 Israel reportedly struck a radar site near Tehran after claiming Iran violated the ceasefire first.

Speaker 9 And behind the scenes, Trump is said to be furious with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, pressing him on a tense call on Tuesday morning.

Speaker 9 So we went from bunker busters to a ceasefire in less than 48 hours, and now the ceasefire is already cracking.

Speaker 9 Any sense for what changed behind the scenes to make this deal happen in the first place, and it's already falling apart?

Speaker 10 I'm not sure how much of the deal was really together or how much it's fallen apart, actually.

Speaker 10 A ceasefire is, in a lot of ways, I know it sounds like a final thing, but it's a moving target constantly and it ebbs and flows. And I'm still hopeful that we will be able to get to one.

Speaker 10 I don't know what that looks like in the long term because some people just can't be friends. And I think Israel and Iran are two of those kinds of some people.

Speaker 10 But I remain optimistic. I think part of what got our hopes up is that we have a truth, social, happy president that feels that he can post through a foreign policy crisis.
And that has some benefits.

Speaker 10 I think the transparency to some degree is good. It has some negative effects, like the fact that we had to send

Speaker 10 a decoy fleet and the real fleet to try to throw Iran off the scent because Donald Trump was posting through the entire thing.

Speaker 10 And that's something that you don't want to see from the commander in chief. But I went to bed very hopeful.
It was ceasefire news.

Speaker 10 I woke up this morning, the ceasefire is off, and maybe it's back on. This was as President Trump was boarding to head to The Hague for the NATO summit.
And I hope something good can come out of this.

Speaker 10 But I was struck by, and it was interesting that Congressman Himes has introduced this resolution. He wants us to follow the Constitution.

Speaker 10 And he did have a defense for why this was different than actions past presidents have taken. And also said past presidents shouldn't have done these kinds of things without authorization.

Speaker 10 So at least it was a bit of a nuanced take. But I was struck by what German Chancellor Murs said about it.
And he said, there is no reason to criticize what America did at the weekend.

Speaker 10 Yes, it is not without risk, but leaving things as they were was not an option either. I think that that speaks most accurately to how I'm feeling in my heart about what happened.

Speaker 10 I understand the American Intel community did not have the same assessment as the Israelis.

Speaker 10 The Israelis are obviously closer to it, but I'm fundamentally concerned that it seems like Bibi Netanyahu is now our DNI.

Speaker 10 That's a dangerous place to be in, but so is having Tulsi Gabbard as your DNI. Also dangerous.
But we know that past presidents have tried and failed to stop Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Speaker 10 I know that they should have stayed in the JCPOA, that we were slowing their enrichment development by a lot.

Speaker 10 I also know we had to give them money that was used to fund terrorism, and that's not a good outcome either.

Speaker 10 But Merz's comments really struck me, and I do feel it was unsustainable to let things just keep going on, as it were.

Speaker 10 And at this particular moment, and I like that you brought it up to Congressman Himes,

Speaker 10 because of the work of the Israelis and the Ukrainians, the allies of the Iranians, like the Russians, are unable to help them.

Speaker 10 They have been so utterly decimated between going after Hamas and Hezbollah and the Russians that we have an opportunity with a weak axis of evil to do something really important for the safety of the region and the world.

Speaker 10 And that was the opportunity that I saw.

Speaker 9 Yeah, I thought that was really well put.

Speaker 9 I mean, again,

Speaker 9 self-hitting Americans, we can never actually take credit or give credit where it's due. And that is, if Russia, specifically the perception of Russia's fierce fighting force, was intact,

Speaker 9 I don't think we could have done this. No.

Speaker 9 Or I don't think we would have had the balls to do it because we would have been worried they'd be arming their proxies in Syria with surfaced air missiles that could take out B-2 bombers.

Speaker 9 One of those B-2s going down and then a bunch of Iranian kids jumping on the wings of B-2s would be a really bad image for us.

Speaker 9 And we would have been scared that Russia's long arms would be within reach, or this would have been within the grasp of Russia arming Syrians or potentially arming or helping or supporting Iran.

Speaker 9 And the way I see this is the following. I'm very much in favor of this.

Speaker 9 I've never understood how far-right Republicans can be isolationist and then vote for a $200 billion increase in the military budget from $800 billion to a trillion such that we don't have a bigger budget than the next 10 biggest nations, but the entire world.

Speaker 9 It's like, well, what's the point? Canada's not going to invade Buffalo anytime soon.

Speaker 9 When you spend $800 billion on our military, you are making a decision to get off of your heels and onto our toes and project power and deliver violence to other places in a very imperialist, aggressive way to represent our interests offensively and proactively.

Speaker 9 And that's what this is. And I don't, I think we're looking at the wrong metric.
I understand that we want to diminish their nuclear capability. But for me, the outcome here is the following.

Speaker 9 I think the IRGC or the Islamic Republic has been a cancer, an occupying force, has very little support amongst the Iranian people.

Speaker 9 I think two of the biggest unlocks, and as a dork, I think one, overthrowing or nudging the Venezuelan government over the edge so it's that we're even more energy independent, Venezuela has more oil than Saudi Arabia, and two, seeing the Islamic Republic come to an end.

Speaker 9 I think that would be one of the most accretive actions for the 45 million women in Iran that in terms of actual, if we really do give a flying fuck about human rights. and stability in the region.

Speaker 9 And I've always thought Iran and America could be incredible allies. That, you know, I've said this before, the Iranians I know are more American American than Americans.

Speaker 9 So I see this more as while they're kind of, quite frankly, down and out to hopefully tip over the Iranian people to give them the confidence to perhaps not overthrow this regime, but create their own regime change.

Speaker 9 You can't create regime change from the outside. You can potentially inspire it.
And that's what I'm hoping. That's what I'm hoping this was.

Speaker 9 The other thing that comes out here for me, or the observation, is there's a reason that business people make such shitty presidents.

Speaker 9 It's easy to believe that you call the two CEOs of companies and you can do this and say, okay,

Speaker 9 hey, Steve Jobs, it's Bill Gates. We're not going to hire each other's employees.
Stop it. I forget.
One of them called the other and said, stop hiring my employees. Yeah.

Speaker 10 I remember the story, but I don't.

Speaker 9 It was Steve Jobs and

Speaker 9 it was the guy from Google. Anyways, you're not supposed to do that, but they can call each other and handshake and then send out an email to all the key people and boom, it's in place.

Speaker 9 Ceasefires don't work that way. You've got to give it time.
You've got to phase it in. You've got to relay information to your service-to-air missile battery commanders.

Speaker 9 You've got to have checks and balances, means of observation, ensure that the entire command chain is on board with it and you need to phase it in over weeks, if not months sometimes.

Speaker 9 But to believe that, oh, it's like a business deal. And if I get the two top guys to agree to it on the phone with me, it's going to happen.

Speaker 9 It's just so incredibly naive that this thing was going to hold. I don't think there's ever been a truce where someone has called and said, oh, agree to it.
Okay. I got your agreement.

Speaker 9 And then you go out and announce it.

Speaker 9 Folks, geopolitical truces don't work that way. There's too many moving parts.
There's too many.

Speaker 9 The IRGC right now isn't even able to communicate with its different portions of its armed services right now because they're afraid to use the internet for fear that the IDF uses it as a signal code to drum strike them.

Speaker 9 So for, again, for Donald Trump to think he can come in and say, oh, you own the Plaza, I own the Hilton. We're going to stop trying to poach each other's employees and get the CEOs to agree.

Speaker 9 That's not how this works

Speaker 9 in the Middle East. And then the final observation is our director of national intelligence.
I mean, I see three legs of the stool here.

Speaker 9 Kinetic power, which we demonstrated in spades, which I'm a fan of. Two, alliances, we fell down.
It's embarrassing.

Speaker 9 And one thing I don't think the media is observing is that Britain, France, even the kingdom didn't come out with direct statements of support.

Speaker 9 Both Bushes would have made sure that would have happened. Obama would have made sure that would have happened.

Speaker 9 Biden would have made sure that happened such that this was a move from the West and from democracy, not just from Trump. And then the third thing is competence.

Speaker 9 And who the fuck are we supposed to believe here?

Speaker 9 We have a director of national intelligence stating that they aren't any closer to a bomb, and then Trump directly contradicting his director of national intelligence.

Speaker 9 We have secretaries Hegseth and Rubio stating that we are not pursuing regime change. And then we have Trump saying, in all caps, make

Speaker 9 Iran great again and saying he's in favor of regime change.

Speaker 9 No one knows what is going on here.

Speaker 9 Who on earth is actually going to report? on what has happened? Who has the credibility? What institution?

Speaker 9 What experts are going to be able to put out any credible evidence one way or the other of the level of damage or lack thereof of these facilities?

Speaker 9 Because we now have the fucking bad news bears running the government. You don't even know who to believe.
They can't stay on message. They're not consistent.

Speaker 9 The military, thank God, still demonstrates more competence than any organization in history. But we have a president who does not understand

Speaker 9 this is not a business deal. The truces between warring nations take weeks, if not months, to implement, and there has to be a series of checks, and they have to be wound down incrementally.

Speaker 9 They can't happen overnight.

Speaker 9 And when you announce them, like you want to take a victory lap because it's some big deal or something, you are setting yourself and a nation up for embarrassment and failure.

Speaker 9 And the level of incompetence here is starting to seep into everything this guy does. Your thoughts.

Speaker 10 Well, it also speaks to why he tore up the nuclear deal in 2018 without a solution of what we were going to do instead.

Speaker 10 I mean, the numbers are staggering in terms of the increase in enriched uranium going from under 4% to 60% and adding an extra 100 kilograms at least to the stockpile.

Speaker 10 And we don't know what will happen with their nuclear stockpile and how they'll rebuild. And the timeline that Congressman Himes was giving was startling to me.
where he said six or seven months.

Speaker 10 And so if the Intel community's assessment was that they hadn't made a final decision as to whether they were trying to build a nuclear bomb, and I know that Jon Stewart is a very funny guy, but he's also a very serious guy.

Speaker 10 And everyone should check out the montage that he had on the show last week of Netanyahu saying the bomb is coming, the bomb is coming. And it's over the course of the last.

Speaker 10 20 years saying that we're at that 90% level. Remember that graphic that he showed on the floor of the UN? And our Intel community says that that isn't the case.

Speaker 10 That doesn't mean that Iran isn't a danger. That doesn't mean that Iran isn't the largest state sponsor of terrorism.

Speaker 10 That doesn't mean that Iran isn't responsible for killing innocents all over the Middle East and also Americans. When the IRGC threatened to activate sleeper cells in the United States,

Speaker 10 I completely freaked out because I'm sure that they have them here.

Speaker 10 And we could be in scenario. I'm in Washington, D.C.
right now as we're speaking. And I'm walking around thinking, what could happen to any of us? I live in New York City.

Speaker 10 Great place to do a terrorist attack. They've done it before.
So all of that is deeply concerning to me.

Speaker 10 To the point about the Yahoos that are in charge, it does feel like Donald Trump isn't really listening to anybody else than Bibi Netanyahu.

Speaker 10 And I sound like a bit of a broken record about it, but he has essentially supplanted everybody else. His intelligence is the intelligence that the United States trusts.

Speaker 10 Donald Trump, I think, doesn't understand how good Bibi is at doing his job. This is how he's managed to to stay in power for this long.

Speaker 10 This is a man that is staying in power so that he can stay out of jail. And he has Trump wrapped around his finger.
He can get him to trust the Israelis over the United States with the drop of a hat.

Speaker 10 And that's what we're seeing here. You noticed DNI Tulsi Gabbard out of the frame when Trump came out to make his address after the strike was carried out, said, you know, total and complete success.

Speaker 10 Tulsi was not standing behind him. It was just Heg Seth Rubio and J.D.
Vance. So clearly, that's the imagery that he wants to project forward, that Tulsi has nothing to do with this.

Speaker 10 But the New York Times, who has done some incredible reporting and what's been going on behind the scenes, shows a very insular group that's informing him and the fact that we are hand in glove with the Israelis every step of the way.

Speaker 10 They're our strongest ally in the region. Both of you and I are strong supporters.

Speaker 10 And I was very appreciative that Congressman Himes also stipulated that the situation in Gaza is very different than what we are talking about here.

Speaker 10 But you essentially have a president that is all but going it alone. And he

Speaker 10 has a bit of a toddler sensibility about how things should happen. Like I want it and I want it now.

Speaker 10 And that makes sense looking back at the way that he's conducted. his business deals over the course of the last 50, 60 years.
But it's very different when you're playing in the big leagues like this.

Speaker 10 And he seems to be completely myopically focused on how do I get that Nobel Peace Prize? How do I get that Nobel Peace Prize?

Speaker 10 And ending the Iranian nuclear program is certainly a good way to head in that direction.

Speaker 10 I wanted to bring this up because you talked about politics a bit during the interview.

Speaker 10 And I saw so many Democrats just reflexively opposing this, not even willing to consider that there might be merit to it or even going so far as to praise what the Air Force was able to pull off, which was absolutely incredible.

Speaker 10 And I feel like there's this strong argument that Democrats can be making, or frankly, people who are just observing what's going on about how Joe Biden governed and the foreign policy moves that he made that.

Speaker 10 set Trump up for success in this moment. And I really wish that we could have a broader contextualized conversation about foreign policy.

Speaker 10 We didn't just like wake up on January 21st of 2025, and that was the beginning of all of this.

Speaker 10 And there's so much that went on over the course of the last four years, from weakening Russia, what Israel did using our weapons, the Ukrainians did using our weapons, President Biden allowing this to happen that has provided for hopefully what is a good result.

Speaker 10 And I'm very focused on that. And I think that there is to some degree a victory lap that the Democrats should be able to take on this.

Speaker 9 Okay, let's take a quick break. Stay with us.

Speaker 17 Sometimes, the difference between success and failure comes down to one chance encounter, or following a counterintuitive instinct, or ignoring conventional wisdom to make a bold decision.

Speaker 17 Like when the founders at Palo Alto Networks wanted to redefine cybersecurity for the modern age.

Speaker 19 Everybody thought we were crazy. Nobody would use the cloud for cybersecurity.

Speaker 17 Or when mobile gaming giants Supercell could only rewrite the rules of the industry after failure in the company's formative stages.

Speaker 18 Many of the best things we've learned have actually come through failures.

Speaker 17 These are all examples of Crucible Moments, turning points in a company's journey that made them what they are today. Hosted by Sequoia Capital's Rolof Boto, Crucible Moments is back for a new season.

Speaker 17 With stories from Zipline, Stripe, Palo Alto Networks, Supercell, and more. Subscribe to season three of Crucible Moments.

Speaker 17 New episodes are out now, and you can catch up on seasons one and two at cruciblemoments.com, on YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Listen to Crucible Moments today.

Speaker 17 Avoiding your unfinished home projects because you're not sure where to start? Thumbtack knows homes, so you don't have to. Don't know the difference between matte paint finish and satin?

Speaker 17 Or what that clunking sound from your dryer is? With thumbtack, you don't have to be a home pro.

Speaker 20 You just have to hire one.

Speaker 17 You can hire top-rated pros, see price estimates, and read reviews all on the app. Download today.

Speaker 5 Every day, millions of customers engage with AI agents like me. We resolve queries fast.
We work 24-7 and we're helpful, knowledgeable, and empathetic.

Speaker 5 We're built to be the voice of the brands we serve. Sierra is the platform for building better, more human customer experiences with AI.
No hold music, no generic answers, no frustration.

Speaker 5 Visit sierra.ai to learn more.

Speaker 9 Welcome back. It's going to be, I mean, first off, and maybe we can play the clip.
You know what?

Speaker 21 We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don't know what the fuck they're doing. Do you understand that?

Speaker 9 For the president to come out and say these guys have been at war so long that they don't know what the fuck they're doing,

Speaker 9 as someone who's fond of expletives, the president should not be making them. President of the United States, that just diminishes his authority and respect.
And also,

Speaker 9 what I believe happened here, and let me,

Speaker 9 I think this was a good idea, but that doesn't mean the strategy and the incentives here don't reflect poorly. on the current leadership.

Speaker 9 I believe the only reason Trump did this was because he looked at Netanyahu's dick and thought, wait, I want some big dick energy of my own.

Speaker 9 I think this was seen globally as such an extraordinarily competent, aggressive, and courageous move, what the IDF was able to pull off in Iran, that he wanted to jump on the metal podium and say, look at me,

Speaker 9 which is the wrong reason to do this, even if it was the right tactical maneuver. And what seems clear to me is Bibi Netanyahu thinks he's on top.

Speaker 9 He can do whatever he wants, and that the president will go along with it.

Speaker 10 He's right.

Speaker 9 So essentially, you know, Middle East policy right now is being run by the superpower there, and the superpower there is Israel.

Speaker 9 And then the really dangerous thing about all of this is that Israeli leadership wants to be on a war footing, whether it's the right thing or not. He's on a war footing trying to stay out of jail.

Speaker 9 And that is his only chance of staying out of jail is to get people to rally around the flag because they are at war.

Speaker 9 And I believe that that is why we continue to pulverize Gaza beyond what is needed and what is humane.

Speaker 9 And that he is very excited to go into Iran because he realizes the only thing standing between him and jail is the rallying around the flag that happens when you're at war.

Speaker 9 And that is a frightening place to be when you have

Speaker 9 a place as unstable as the Middle East and you have a nation with nukes. So this is a very, as is everything in the Middle East, this is a very complex, upsetting situation and

Speaker 9 where we will see, I think, unintended consequences. And right so far we haven't.
It looks as if Khomeini's response has been performative. Yeah.
You know, the missile barrages into American bases in

Speaker 9 Qatar and I believe in Iraq have so far been totally ineffective. I think he even gave the heads up to.

Speaker 10 And then you had Qatar helping with brokering the ceasefire of last night. So

Speaker 10 Qatar working with us, essentially, to make sure that things can simmer down.

Speaker 11 Right.

Speaker 9 So it looks as if it was basically performative, such that Khomeini can say to his people, I'm tough, I respond, but not risk escalation. And if it stops there, then great.

Speaker 9 Then everyone can take, Israel and America can take a victory lap.

Speaker 9 But I think the president's inability to appreciate that strength and greatness is in the agency of others, not having our traditional allies around us supporting us with intelligence and with

Speaker 9 perceptual support, if you will, ensuring that the world knows this was an action of the West, just not from a guy who demonstrates incompetence, an intelligence apparatus that seems totally sclerotic and bipolar, don't know who to listen to, don't know what they're meaning.

Speaker 9 And then the thing that, you know, as supporters of Israel, I think is really concerning right now is when he comes out and says they don't know what the fuck they're doing and I'm angry at Israel.

Speaker 9 That's language and a statement he says to Bibi privately on a secure phone. He doesn't say it on the West Lawn because all that does is embolden Israel's enemies.

Speaker 9 Khomeini has a lot of different options being presented to him.

Speaker 9 And when Trump says that Israel doesn't know what the fuck it's doing and leaks discreetly or overtly a real dissatisfaction and frustration with Israel.

Speaker 9 He is emboldening Israel's enemies to take more aggressive and bold action than they might otherwise.

Speaker 9 So, you know, fighting with your allies is bad. Fighting without them is worse.
When you have allies, you put on a unified front, even when it sucks.

Speaker 10 Aaron Ross Powell, yeah, but I agree with you. I want the President of the United States of America to behave like he's the President of the United States of America, but this is Donald Trump.

Speaker 10 And the American public pick this consciously.

Speaker 10 And they probably like that they have somebody where they can see what's actually going on behind the scenes or what he perceives to be going on behind the scenes, that this is the most transparent administration in American history, as I'm told regularly.

Speaker 9 I spoke to two Democrats last night who are running for president, who haven't officially announced, but take my calls and call me because it's obvious they're running for president.

Speaker 9 And I said the opportunity here is to come out and say, I agree with the action. I don't support the president's policies.
I don't support how he's gone about this.

Speaker 9 He's injected more risk into this than he needed to, but I support the actions. And it's important that we rally around our military and the flag and the president in a time like this.

Speaker 9 Because, again, I think the Democrats have fucked up here.

Speaker 10 Totally. Well, it's the reflexive no.
And I mean, maybe we'll hear from those two later in the day, but so far, I haven't really seen that.

Speaker 9 Well, the only one who's done it is Fetterman.

Speaker 10 Well, that's, I assume he was not the one who called you last night.

Speaker 9 Federman has basically come out and said, you know, look at the action, not the politics. And a lot of people on the phone, I go to the same place.

Speaker 9 Whenever the far left and the far right agree on anything, that means we're at negative 40. Negative 40 is where Celsius and Fahrenheit meet.
It's inhospitable.

Speaker 9 Whenever the far left and the far right agree on anything, it's a really bad idea. Whether it's anti-vaccination or isolationism, whatever it is, you know it's a really bad idea.

Speaker 9 And when you have Marjorie Taylor Greene and AOC agreeing on something, it means you should probably agree with the other way. And they're both agreeing.

Speaker 9 You know, they're both spouting off, in my opinion, this isolationist, you know, in my opinion, very dangerous bullshit. And again, I come back to the same place,

Speaker 9 and I apologize I'm being redundant here. Why on earth are we spending the GDP of Argentina on our military? If we're not going to exert this kind of power?

Speaker 10 Well, we're always going to exert it. We're just going to complain about it.
Or some people are going to feign outrage and say, you know, we're not these people.

Speaker 10 And the truth is, is that we are fundamentally these people. But I just want to say on the Federman front, and while I agree with some of his positions, he's just completely lockstep with Israel.

Speaker 10 He doesn't even acknowledge what's going on in Gaza as a humanitarian disaster. So John Fetterman is out on an island on his own.
when it comes to these kinds of actions.

Speaker 10 So we'll see what the mainstream of the party does. But I think it's totally an opportunity, again, to sound like a normal human being, to meet people where they are, and to rally around the flag.

Speaker 9 So, by the way, I almost forgot

Speaker 9 our little girl. I could not be more proud of you than if you were up reading the Torah.
Oh my God,

Speaker 9 Donald Trump personal attack

Speaker 9 on our very own, literally a badge of honor.

Speaker 9 Donald Trump came out and mentioned you by

Speaker 9 name,

Speaker 9 saying that on True Social, why does Fox News allow failed TV personality Jessica Tarlop to soil the five? Oh my God, you're ruining the five.

Speaker 9 Even Fox viewers who are about 105 and fucking crazy. Love you.
Love you. Literally love you.
Her voice, her manner, and above all else, what she says are a disgrace. You're a disgrace, Jess.

Speaker 9 So I hear television broadcasting while claiming the network is alienating MAGA supporters by giving her airtime regular. I could not

Speaker 9 be more proud of you. This is a big.

Speaker 9 I know you thought when I called you and said I wanted to do a show with you, you thought this is my big moment, but this is your big moment. Ladies and gentlemen, Jessica Tarlov.

Speaker 10 Soiling the five.

Speaker 9 There you go. What did you think when you saw that?

Speaker 10 It took my breath away.

Speaker 9 Took your breath away? Yeah.

Speaker 10 Well,

Speaker 10 he's posted about me before, but not quite as meanly.

Speaker 10 And

Speaker 10 I was just thinking, why aren't you busier? And then this was Friday early evening. I'm thinking.

Speaker 10 We started sending the B2 bombers left a few hours later. Like, you really should have been busier.

Speaker 9 Focused on you.

Speaker 10 Yeah.

Speaker 10 I mean he was watching the show and the Times has reported that TV coverage, specifically on Fox, has informed his view on getting involved and that he wanted to be part of the action, had a bit of FOMO when it came to what the Israelis were able to pull off.

Speaker 10 But

Speaker 10 it's something to have that happen. It's a very uncomfortable.

Speaker 10 feeling. Oh, okay.

Speaker 9 Hold on, hold on, hold on. Let me just break it down for you.
Yeah. This is the biggest.
I think this is arguably, other than, of course, meeting Scott Calloway.

Speaker 9 I think this is the biggest thing to happen to you because in the midst of

Speaker 9 probably the biggest geopolitical event of his career, he takes time

Speaker 9 to shitpost you, which absolutely means.

Speaker 9 Every senator and Congressman would kill to have the president call them out by name because when he disagrees with you, it basically means you're doing something right.

Speaker 9 And you are now more in his head than anyone who's running for president. He doesn't give a shit what Senator Schumer thinks or says.
He's not worried about Governor Newsom running for president.

Speaker 11 He's worried about you.

Speaker 9 I think this is,

Speaker 11 I'm very excited.

Speaker 9 I'm very excited. This made my day when I saw you.

Speaker 10 I was surprised not to hear from you, though.

Speaker 9 You know me.

Speaker 10 I don't like no text from Scott. I got some good texts.

Speaker 9 I don't like to talk to people.

Speaker 10 No, you don't. It's awful.

Speaker 9 Yeah, yeah, I don't like to talk to people.

Speaker 10 I feel desperate sometimes with the amount of times that I've texted to no response. Sometimes I get a thumbs up, but I'm like, I'm just going to keep doing it.

Speaker 9 I'm the Hermes of fake intellects in that it's all about scarcity. It's all about managing fake scarcity.

Speaker 9 I'm an elite university that rejects people more than I could to give the impression of some sort of value or scarcity. It's all.

Speaker 10 I'm going to defund you over that. It's not cool.

Speaker 9 It's all an act.

Speaker 9 And again, I wish I'd figured this out when I was in my mating years. Okay, I think we should end it there.
I think we're going going to watch Jessica Tarlov take a victory lap.

Speaker 9 I think we're going to see her on the metal podium living rent-free in President Trump's head because she is so articulate, so unafraid, so bold, so numero-cinco

Speaker 9 in the five, the most watched program in the world as one person who the president is listening to. It's not the Senate minority leader.
It's not Leader Jeffries. It's not Tom Friedman.

Speaker 9 Literally, the most important person in the world with President Trump right now is Bibi Netanyahu.

Speaker 9 Number two, ladies and gentlemen, running through the tape, collecting the gold, bronze, and silver of people shaping geopolitical conversations around the world.

Speaker 9 That's right, the co-host of Raging Moderates. If we are not number one this week, literally I am going to

Speaker 9 weep crocodile tears while listening to Megan Kelly. I'll be so upset.
This is a big moment for you, Jess. We're going to leave it there.
All right. Let's read us out.
That's all for this episode.

Speaker 9 Thank you for listening to Raging Moderates. Our producers are David Toledo and Eric Genikis.
Our technical director is Drew Burroughs.

Speaker 9 Going forward, you'll find Raging Moderates every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to Raging Moderates on its own feed to hear exclusive interviews with sharp political minds.

Speaker 9 You won't hear anywhere else. This week, Jess is talking to Congressman Greg Kassar, who I heard the president does not listen to nor does not care what he says because he is not Jess Darloff.

Speaker 9 Make sure to follow us wherever you get your podcast. You don't miss an episode.
Keep on soiling, my woman. Keep on soiling.

Speaker 10 Couldn't stop even if I wanted to. All right.

Speaker 16 Support for the show comes from Train Dreams, the new film from Netflix.

Speaker 16 Based on Dennis Johnson's novella, Train Dreams is the moving portrait of a man who leads a life of unexpected depth and beauty during a rapidly changing time in America.

Speaker 16 Set in the early 20th century, it's an ode to a vanishing way of life and to the extraordinary possibilities that exist within even the simplest of existences.

Speaker 16 In a time when we are all searching for purpose, Train Dreams feels timeless because the frontier isn't just a place, it's a state of being. Train Dreams, now playing only on Netflix.

Speaker 20 What do walking 10,000 steps every day, eating five servings of fruits and veggies, and getting eight hours of sleep have in common? They're all healthy choices.

Speaker 20 But do all healthier choices really pay off? With prescription plans from CVS CareMark, they do.

Speaker 18 Their plan designs give your members more choice, which gives your members more ways to get on, stay on, and manage their meds.

Speaker 20 And that helps your business control your costs, because healthier members are better for business.

Speaker 18 Go to cmk.co slash access to learn more about helping your members stay adherent.

Speaker 12 That's cmk.co slash accasing paperwork than actually closing, then it's time to consider using Smartsheet.

Speaker 12 Smartsheet is the intelligent work management platform that embeds AI-powered execution to drive the velocity of work.

Speaker 12 With AI-first capabilities, you can make work management your superpower, getting personalized insights, automatically creating tailored solutions, and streamlining workflows to elevate your work.

Speaker 12 Plus, this intelligence layer unites people, processes, and data, helping you tackle any work management challenge. Visit smartsheet.com/slash Vox.