Bulwark Takes - 5: Tim, Sarah and JVL React to Iran Firing Missiles at U.S. Bases

Episode Date: June 23, 2025

Iran officially retaliated today after the U.S. bombed nuclear sites in the country over the weekend. Tim, Sarah and JVL reacted to it live and chatted further about Lisa Murkowski and the NYC mayoral race.

Hey, we're live. Hey, we're live. Hello, everyone. I am JVL here with my best friends, Sarah Longwell and Tim Miller of The Bulwark, a quick live show because we have... Okay, bear with me. We have really good news because Iran has fired a bunch of missiles at an American military base Now let me explain why that's really good news

Iran Back channeled to Qatar and said hey, we're gonna fire some missiles So, you know, just make sure everybody's undercover because we don't want anybody getting hurt the Qataris Pass that along to America. Presumably none of our troops at the base in Qatar will be, will be injured by this. Most of the missiles appear to be shot down. Uh, allegedly Iran used only the same number of missiles that were used by the U S in their strike, their strike operation Midnight Hammer.

And the world thinks this is such good de-escalatory news that oil prices dropped 4% on word that Iran had attacked American military bases. So, you know, that's just how geopolitics works these days. It's all extended kayfabe. So, you know, that's just how geopolitics works these days. It's all extended K-fabe. And I mean, I don't know how you guys personally I'm relieved. I think this is great news for America. Good news for the world. Pretty happy about it. But you are looking at me like I'm an insane person, both of you.

No, I'm not. I don't mean to look at Julie. I mean, that might be my natural face with you. I'm not. I don't mean to look at you like I mean, that might be my natural face with you. I'm not sure why. Actually, resting insane face. Resting insane face. No, I mostly think that's right. Although, you know, I don't know, there's some Bahrain like they might go to some they might do kayfabe and some other places and so I don't want to count our chickens in the sense that somebody could still get hurt. Dropping bombs is a messy business but it does look like they are giving people a heads up. People they are shooting the missiles down and nobody's getting hurt and so it's an

interesting it's interesting from a face saving move. If everyone knows it's a face saving move, how much face are you really saving? Is a question I would have for Iran. But if this is where the escalation ends, that would be great. That would be great. I am interested in JBL in your triad today about the lie, but sorry. Can I just chime in on the face saving thing really quick? JBL's take about this because the same thing I was wondering, which is wouldn't it have been more face saving for the Ayatollah to have been like, you guys don't even know what's coming. All right. We're planning some stuff back here and boy, it's really going to be, you know, these Americans,

these awful Americans and Zionists, they're really going to get it in a couple of months once we get our shit. You know what I mean? Wouldn't that have been more face saving than just doing once again a limp missile attack? This is the exact issue. You didn't mention this. This is literally the playbook of the Soleimani attack where the US took out General Soleimani and then Iran gave warning to Iraq in that case, gave warning

that they were going to be shooting missiles at the American base. It didn't harm anybody really. There were some like injuries. There were some traumatic breaks and injuries. Yeah, traumatic stress and injuries. Trump was like some people got some headaches. Yeah, that's right. And that was totally Trumpian and horrible that he did that. And that might happen here. I noticed one of the things that nine of the 10 missiles were intercepted. So, we don't really know everything. We're doing this live. We should caveat that. But it's similar to that. In which case, yeah, I guess I just don't,

I don't get it. I really, I don't get the point of it, frankly. I don't know if you have any thoughts on that. Okay. I mean, I think I can explain this. One assumes that the point of this is to mark, to lay down a de-escalatory marker, right? And that is, Iran believes it is their strategic interest to de-escalate at this point. This is one way to do that. And another way, another thing to consider is that this is largely for internal domestic consumption.

So they have to show we still control the military. We still have the ability to unleash a bunch of missiles if we want to. We're in charge here. Nobody go getting any ideas. Yeah. Sort of though, but like when all your missiles get shot down, you do no damage. Do people buy that? It doesn't feel very strong. Well, especially when you've said, I mean, when the point is that you're doing it for face saving and you're like, not, you're really not trying to hurt anybody. Now, it could be that

they don't have the capability for anybody. One of the things we've seen with the way Hezbollah fell apart. Right. But this is, you know, one of the ways you keep some strategic ambiguity about that is by saying, oh, yeah, hey, we're fall apart. Right. But this is, you know, one of the ways you keep some strategic ambiguity about that is by saying, oh yeah, hey, we're just, you know, we're doing this. We're doing this to, you know, so you guys know that we see you. We got eyes on you. Also, internally, I think it's looking at their strategic profile.

Yeah. We also figure out, focus on ourselves and the incompetent clown we have running our country. It's important to remember there and the incompetent clown we have running our country. It's important to remember there's an incompetent clown running the counterparty here and that he also, he's older than Joe Biden and has a huge propaganda ministry that is stronger than Fox on his behalf, right? So that environment is important to understand. I have here John Hudson is a good reporter on this stuff. Says that Iran's Supreme National Security Council says they destroyed the American airbase. So that's going to be the word inside the country. And some people might believe that, other people will suspend disbelief and pretend to

believe it so as not to run afoul of the the government and that is the nature of an authoritarian state. Well, I got some breaking news for you guys. It could be that this attack was actually an elaborate head fake for their real retaliation, which is that the bulwark.com web page is down. Oh no. So they seem to have launched some, I mean, I can only assume that this is a result of Iranian cyber attack and that the missile barrage was meant to distract people from what their cyber teams

were doing with the neocon warmongers at the board. Who watched that? Can we wrestle with something that I want to talk to you guys about? That's what we do here. I know, I know. So I read Bill Crystal, our our guy Bill Kristol's take this morning in Morning Shots,

and I've got like a bit of a bone to pick with it. But it's interesting, I spent all weekend reading about Iran, really trying to understand it, trying to figure out how I felt about it. And I would say where I landed, I'll just lay it out for myself, is if we have done real damage to the nuclear sites in Iran and we have run what appears to be a pretty professional

mission, it's not clear we obliterated these sites, but even if we did a lot of damage to them, if we did significant deterrence to them in the future trying to build nuclear capabilities, that to me net net seems good. Like I'm not so like my TDS is strong but not so strong that I don't can't see a good thing when it happens. And so Bill was laying out sort of some of this case for why And so Bill was laying out sort of some of this case for why it's good. In there, though, he did something that I can't I don't think is right, but maybe maybe this is my tedious, which he sort of suggested that that it's because Trump had a glimmer or a short term burst of an expression of American interests.

And that that drove him to make this particular move. And I would say this is a little bit more like blind squirrel finds a nut every now and then, where really what this is, is Trump being led by Israel, him doing what Bibi wants him to do however because Iran is is a bad is a bad regime like and has been trying to get nukes it is true we don't want them to get nukes and so like it's good that we took them out but the idea that Trump did it out of some American interest versus Trump being like I want to be a

guy who drops bombs on people. And actually, let me just tell you people who thought I was going to be a peacenik for you, I was lying, because I like strong Trump. And so like, Bill was giving him like, I thought some deference that was not due to him. Anyway, that's about how I see it, but I'm interested in what you guys think. Yeah, I think you missed a key fact. I think Trump is an old man that watches a lot of cable. This cable network of choice, Fox, is still pretty representative of the vestigial militaristic elements of the Republican Party, and that he was watching his favorite Fox commentators on his favorite stories talk about how great of a job Israel is doing and how awesome Bibi and the Masad

are. And he was like, I want to get in on that action. I want that story to be- Why aren't they talking about me? Why aren't they talking about how good I'm doing? I think it's like, basically, maybe one centimeter deeper than that. I think that's about what was happening. That's my assessment. Yeah. In fairness to Trump, I don't think at the end of the day, it ultimately doesn't matter why he did it.

If his motives were impure, so be it, if it's a good result. It isn't clear to me that the results is gonna be all that good, is the thing. I mean, first of all, we do have the fact that the President of the United States and the Secretary of Defense lied to the American people this weekend by claiming that the final blow had been delved

to the Iranian nuclear program and that it had been totally and completely obliterated. We can now know. The night it happened. Similar to the Iranian misinformation. Honestly, I know. Yeah, no, in a weird way. Yeah, we sat there and we were like, how does he know it was obliterated? It just happened.

Like, where is the where are the reports that so it looks like as the reports come in, probably not obliterated, but damaged. So it's unclear as the reports come in, probably not obliterated, but damaged. So it's unclear how serious it was. So, damaged, unclear how seriously. It is absolutely clear that our intelligence agencies have absolutely no idea where the 400 kilograms of like mostly English-speaking is. That's disturbing that our intelligence apparatus doesn't have any idea where the most important thing is. They didn't touch the... so they seem to have probably damaged or blown up a lot of centrifuges,

but they didn't touch the facility which builds the centrifuges, so they can just build more. I mean, if you are looking to understand how big of a blow does this represent, it looks like, in the worst case, a few months, in the best case, like maybe a year or two. It didn't set them back 35 years. Did not seem to set them back 35 years. Again, things are still coming clear. We don't know yet. But from what it looks like, it looks like that's the range we're looking at. And that's again, I will take that. So long as the costs were reasonably low. And if this is where it all ends, right, if it ends with these missile strikes, then the costs were pretty low, right? But I don't know, like the people that's a problem, isn't it? Yeah, yeah.

My biggest take on this is very bulwarky, which is that the people making the maximal maximalist case were totally wrong on both so far on both sides, right? Like like the people that were doing the chess beating, we eliminated, you know, all the nuclear nuclear materials. So it's an easy clear win for Mr. Trump, all the desert. People making that argument have already been proven wrong, based on what you just said and what the reporting is about the status of their nuclear program. People are like, well, this is, I was watching just in the last hour, as the Iranian missiles

were coming through, the Tucker Carlson wing of the party, you know, on social media, the Candace Owens, I saw literally Candace Owens, not the Candace Owens wing, Candace Owens, like World War Three, it's happening quicker than I thought, it's all disintegrating. I'm like, that's not really the case so far. I think that there remain risks, which is me and Bill hashed this out, folks can watch this on YouTube, it will be posted in a little bit where I just still fall on the side of it was too risky. And there are asymmetric risks now that we have that we didn't have last week, necessarily,

like people who, it's lone wolves that are radicalized, Iranian proxies that decide to act either with Iranians encouragement or otherwise in Iraq and other places going after our folks. So like all those are short-term acute risks we really didn't have besides kind of the baseline level of constant terror risk last week. And for me, it's like, well, I don't feel like this was worth it. And then in addition to my concerns about Trump's leadership, but yeah, I think it's pretty it's pretty kind of amusing that we've gotten to a place in our political discourse where everyone immediately retreats to the maximalist view of things. And just so far, in this case, it hasn't really borne

out. Yeah. And I would say, going back to something that I said on Saturday, that as things unfold, I believe it more and more, which is it is a strange feeling to distrust the American government in these scenarios. Like I haven't been in a situation before where I would just say, oh, the American intelligence or what the president of the United States is telling us. Now, I mean, obviously it's not the first time

we've been here, like, I mean, you could take weapons and mass destruction and whatever, but at least there, I didn't think that the intent was to lie. Like, they had bad intelligence ultimately. I, you know, whatever, I don't want to relitigate that. Well, maybe, maybe it's under the line. But so maybe it's the president himself this time is like,

and all the people he's appointed like I trust Nobody, I don't think they're lit and they don't listen to their briefings It's like what pete hegseth goes out there and briefs us I have I have no faith that anything we're being told is correct And that's that's a new feeling of just being like yeah, I don't trust the american government does give glory to god Yeah, sure. I really think that that is we love you. We love you guys. Okay, so I guess we can put a pin in this and say so far, pretty okay scenario, not the worst case. If it turns out that the Iranian

nuclear program is set back even like six to nine months, that'll be pretty good, right? Worth the trade, worth doing. I mean, no, sorry, not worth the trade for me for six to nine months. I have to object to that. Three years worth it. If we pushed it back enough so that Trump is gone by the time they're enriching, oh, that's then that's a fine deal for me. Six to nine months, Iran doing it and then feeling like they need to butch up. That's not that's not a win for me. Just want to say, yeah, fair.

I mean, I would say if you want to take a bigger step back. The problem with kicking the can down the road as a strategic paradigm is that it does reinforce to Iran that they have to get a nuke. Right? I mean, this is not dissuading them and being like, hey, you know, there are ways to get what you want without becoming a nuclear power. This sort of thing does reinforce actually the only protection anybody has in this world is nukes. And so you have to get them out of the fight for it. Like, look how we're treated versus North Korea kind of mindset. Yeah.

Yeah. All right. You guys had one talk about Lisa Murkowski, one of the great statesmen of our time. And I have no idea. I'm coming to this cold. Yeah. So you didn't know, but this is this is a segment for you, though, because you have long kind of been like, why doesn't Lisa Murkowski switch sides? Why doesn't she caucus with the Democrats? And I've always been, um, like, right, not going to happen. Uh, and it's, you know, and it's a lot of the other side is worse. She doesn't feel like a Democrat,

but she's got a book coming out. And in it she talks about the fact that not only has she been approached a number of times to switch sides, but that she has also considered it. Now, I haven't read the book or seen the real excerpts, but the fact that she's considering it, I have more and more, I actually now believe that someone like Lisa Murkowski, the

Dems should lobby extremely hard to get her on side. Like she is being forced into positions all the time that she doesn't want to be and she just won't have to vote with Republicans on confirming Kash Patel. Like she is more often a reliable vote against them which means the incoming for Lisa Murkowski if you vote against Trump, is like she must be taking, talk about getting radicalized. I don't know how many MAGA voters she probably hears from who say the kinds of things that probably make her be like, you know what, I'm not sure this is my team anymore. And the more that Trump does implement his policy vision,

tariffs and other things, my guess is that she's feeling increasingly alienated from what the Republican side is in a way that is more acute than it might've been two years ago during Joe Biden's term. And so I would just make an earnest pitch to Democrats to make, if she is remotely if she is like remotely open to it, that is a, that is valuable. Go get Lisa Murkowski.

Jay Bl, before you talk, I want to tell you, I want to give you an exact quote from her about why she ultimately has not decided to make the change that I'm interested in your take. She says, ultimately she more closely aligns with the GOP on policy than the Dems. More closely aligns with as her assessment. Did she do a pro and con list? It seems it kind of felt like a free trade and good classical architecture in federal buildings. I look, I mean, I think it would be the right thing to do to simply not be part of the Republican

Party. On the other hand, from her perspective, to switch and lose your committee assignments and not be able to deliver for your state, which then really does risk that seat going to Cletus von Ivermecten. That's true. That's risky. Right. risk that seat going to Cletus von Ivermectin. That's risky, right? I would say you probably don't wanna switch unless switching puts you in the majority.

Well, hold on a second. Here's what I think has changed about it. I should have said this out of the gate. She just got elected, right? And she is also hitting an age where running for another term after this starts to get pretty wobbly. And if you were gonna make a switch, now would be like, I agree, she because voters, the reason that Lisa Murkowski wins, I've done a lot of focus groups in Alaska about this. They know they vote for her in part because she's got juice. They know she's got juice. In fact, they're much more attuned to that than any other state knows about their senator and

what kind of money they get so much welfare from the rest of us. So that's right. But I think that for her personally right now, the statement of leaving, I actually think one of the things that would hurt her the most I bet when she says more policy aligned I find that actually difficult to believe now with what the Republican Party it's more that She is in a position to get things for her state that nobody else is and I Don't know if I were her and I didn't have to face another election Or very likely didn't. It's just

the right thing to do. Like she must hate it dealing with these guys. And this goes to the fantasy scenario. Can everybody, everybody's down right now, you know, things are right. Can I give everybody just a fantasy scenario is what she should actually do. Like if it was not for, and I know this is fantasy politics, it's the West Wing, Sarah's going to roll her eyes, like, practically speaking, Bill Cassidy, Mitch McConnell are dead politically, not literally. They're dead. Like they're both Mitch, because he said he's resigning. Bill Cassidy is politically dead here in Louisiana. Susan Collins, I think is politically alive, but it's kind of a very, very challenging re-elect this time. She did the last time, but this time she's in the midterm cycle, which is going to make it very tough for her,

I think, to win. It isn't she just switch. You know what? Instead of switching, they should become independents. They should become independents. You're taking my point. The four of them together. So if the question is power for Alaska, it's like it's power and you want to actually wield legislative power. The four of them could go to Chuck Schumer and say hey We're gonna bail you got to make Lisa the Senate majority leader. That's part of the deal

we need all 45 47 essentially dams 45 plus Bernie and What's the same Angus? I Every time I bring that up anybody in Washington, like says that I'm crazy, but I don't, I don't really understand why all four of them could get what they wanted. They could all get what they wanted that way. And they're all kind of varying degrees of politically dead. So anyway, it's probably not going to happen, but I would just, if you know, Lisa Murkowski,

I'd put that little bug in her ear because that seems a little less scary than being like, I'm going to be a Democrat and then I'm a lame duck and I have no power and I'm in the minority. Why would I do that? It's like, here's the path to being not only in the majority, but maybe the Senate majority leader. And think about how great that would look on your little statue in Anchorage, former Senate majority leader, Lisa Murkowski. How about that? Yeah. The problem in that scenario is not Murkowski and it's not the Democrats. It's Mitch McConnell. Uh, and like probably Cassidy.

Uh, and, and like it's, so that's the fantasy part. The fantasy part is not her. Uh, but he could get back on behalf of his wife, Elaine Chao. He should. Well, this is where Mitch McConnell is like of all the people, give me a rank choice voting that involves a bunch of terrible people and Mitch McConnell. Cause I want to put him at the top. Just joking.

He is everything that's been wrong. And he's not redeeming himself with these like late in the game, no votes. This, the only thing that would ever redeem Mitch McConnell is this move, is this plan. Let's make it happen. Yeah, I guess, I guess, but what we will actually wind up getting is probably like Fetterman switching sides

and becoming a Republican, right? We won't actually get any of the Republicans who should be Democrats, none of them will move. Instead, we'll get a Democrat who should be a Democrat switching over and becoming a Republican, because that is the timeline we exist in. Yeah, I wanna give you a JVL. I think your agitation for Lisa Murkowski to not be with the Republicans

was always a good one. Your Federman instincts, man, have they gone south on you. I mean, in my defense, there was a health event. I mean, the guy had a stroke, right? JVL was right. Pre-stroke. This is, you know, I feel like everything should always be with the caveat of unless something terrible happens to their body health, right? Like you shouldn't have to add that. You know, you shouldn't have to say, do you think the stroke is why he's like this though? Yeah. Yeah. OK. I'm not sure about that. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

I'm not sure about that. I don't know like personality shifts post stroke is a thing that happens all the time. I am NOT a doctor. I was once 1 16th of the way to being a doctor. It's 1 16th of a doctor, but it I mean it seems pretty clear to me that something dramatic changed after he had a stroke. And so like, I don't know, I mean, Occam's razor, but right. That's all we get in the same way that we got like Christian cinema switching sides, right? This is, uh,

this is the world we live in. Everything goes the worst way possible. Very quickly. Like the Iran strikes so far. Like the Iran strike. Uh, we, we have the New York City mayoral primary tomorrow does anybody want to Say anything else before we go? Around walking once again of Manhattan yesterday. I'd like to once again Were you formally endorsing Tim people continue to attack me Folks that are that remain nameless, continue to attack me for platforming Zeron and asking him a

question. Zelnar Myrie is a great choice. You should rank her number one. Brad Lander, a little lib for my taste, totally fine. We'll do a great job. Number two, Adrian Adams, totally fine. Three, somebody to think about. Whitney Tilson, no chance to win. Capitalist though, night strong number four. So you've got a lot of options, New York. It's not too late. Zodon, I did think his campaign is like he's got to give credit where it's to. He's doing a great campaign.

He's running a great campaign besides the way he handled that one question. But, um, I don't know. But we were talking in our, in our, and I think that there's going to be a shy Cuomo vote. I think there are people not telling pollsters that they are going to rank Cuomo and I think there's also, Cuomo is going to do the best of the types of people that don't answer their phones So I I that's I have no evidence of this

It's just a gut theory feeling that Cuomo will do better than these polls but maybe if I Pull it off. We do get a chance to have the the Republican and Hell's Hell's Angels Guardian Angels I think no Eric Adams. I think an Eric Adams re-election as the run wins is much more likely than people. Because then we have a four-way race. Yeah, but you split among the three Democrats and you end up with the Republican. I mean, all the three of the Democrats? Yeah, all the three of the Democrats.

Adams is a jumper, right? Adams is essentially a Republican. It's all insane. It's all insane. It's all insane. Here's what I would say. I am I'm getting a lot of people being like, you hate Zoran. And I'm like, you were pretty mean. You were pretty mean about him. I will say I can see why people would say that. No, it's fine. I'm just saying that's why it's not like people misinterpreted you. You were like, I don't like

that young man one bit. I don't like that young man one bit. I don't like that. I do not like his ideas. You asked to speak to his manager. I do not think they're, people, this is, shut up JVL cause people, some people have called me a Karen over this, which is. You're a Sarah.

You're not a Karen, you're a Sarah. Yeah, no, I do not want to speak to his manager. I think he is I said this the first time we talked about I think he is running an incredibly good campaign from a like young insurgent I know how to talk to people I'm Charismatic a lot of those things are the things that we would like Democrats to be I would like them to be those things without The the horrible ideas like without both the silly fantastical policy ideas. And here's the thing. And this was before we went on the show at that time. I

don't know if I said this to you, or maybe I did say it on the secret pod, but he didn't just whitewash it with Tim, the idea of globalize the Antifada, which he has, somebody had sent me some of his old tweets that had not been widely circulated in which he was celebrating the idea of a third Antifada. You know, like there is, this is a guy who has a, now, and again, I don't even know if I've ever like talked about my positions on Israel at length, but I am no friend to Bibi Netanyahu and this Israeli government. And the longer what happens in Gaza goes on, the more sick to my stomach.

It doesn't matter how I feel personally. I am against the way that Israel is handling the way it goes after civilians. And I think that they should be doing more to get civilian aid or allow civilian aid. And so it is not that I'm like one of these, like some of our old friends, people who think you can never hold Israel to account on anything regardless. I am broadly supportive though of their right to exist free from the terror that they experienced on October 7th.

And if you know what happened in the second Entafada, the idea that somebody would say globalize the Entafada is a fine thing to say is actually an extremely, it is an extreme statement, an extreme statement. And I have a couple red lines for politicians. Trying to overturn elections is one of them. Calling for widespread, like the violent overthrowing of an allied country as much as I might be

against the current government and some of the policies, I do find, it's not for me. It's like a red line for me. And so, I don't hate him, but I wouldn't rank him. Can I just ask one question of you guys? I mean this sincerely. What is the case for Zoran over Brad Lander? Like Brad Lander gives you,

if you are a progressive and you're a liberal, Brad Lander gives you a lot of that stuff, but he actually knows how the city works. Like so what, is it just vibes, right? Like, oh, Zoran's good hang, Brad Lander's an old guy. For the inner circle of DSA socialist types, they would say, well, it's because he's going to do these socialist policies that then when people who criticize him bring it up, they're like, you have Zoran derangement syndrome. He only wants the five test communist grocery

stores. He doesn't want all of them to be state run. I actually kind of land more Zoran on that during our conversation, he did feel like more like he was trying to experiment with lefty ideas rather than he wanted the overthrow of the capitalist system. But I think that the inner circle of DSA types, like think that he's really with them and he has to do some winking stuff to get people on board. Then there's another category of people who I'm very sympathetic to as well, who are genuinely excited about having a young, fresh face who shares some of their social views and have been beaten down by whatever you think about them, Hillary, Biden, Schumer, the Democratic elite.

There's a lot of young college-educated people in New York that want somebody to be very excited about who came of age after Obama. There's not really been anybody since Obama that young Democrats have been excited about. I'm sympathetic to that. They're excited about that. And then I think there's another category of people that for the case for them is that Cuomo is so awful and I'm stuck with this guy. And then I think there's another category of people who don't quite understand really

what his platform is. And Cuomo is awful, to be clear. Yeah, Cuomo's horrible on personal and policy grounds. Yes. He's awful across the board. Your point before, and I think my point too, is that there was like, for some reason, we didn't make this choice, that it would come down to Zoran and Cuomo. New Yorkers appear to have made that choice. There were plenty of

other- And some rich people who circled the wagons around Cuomo, who deserved condemnation, by the way. There's some rich business types. Cuomo has a ton of money on TV, and like, they could have circled the wagons around the millions of other New Yorkers who are capitalist that are Democrats and could have opposed Trump and they chose to circle wagons around Cuomo. And that was a big problem too. Yeah, so I'm sorry I'm mad about your choices, New York, but I am indeed. I think that for the greatest city in the world, we should be able to do better than this. And so for people yelling at me that like, why aren't I in love with Zora?

I'm like, I'm sorry, I'm not. He's a democratic socialist. I am a moderate capitalist. Like, yes, not going to find this with me. I know you say that New York should be able to do better. Historically speaking, they haven't. I mean, it's been a generation. Do you ever think you'd look back on Bill de Blasio and be like, man, I wish we could

have another Bill de Blasio. I don't look back on Bill de Blasio that way, but I've looked that way on Bloomberg. That first Bloomberg term. Was good. That first Bloomberg term looking good. Ed Koch, Koch, Mayor Lindsey, he did a good job back in the 70s. Mayor Lindsey did a good job, I think. I'm so I've been told. I don't know.

I like that we can laugh and we can only have this part of the discussion because things looking okay. Cause we live in the topsy turvy world. Oh far stop jinxing it. JVL. Yeah. An Iranian airstrike on an American military base is a good thing. Um, hope that everybody is okay

We got one more thing where you gotta go yeah god our rent our own personal Iranian supreme leader has put out a statement And letting you know you in particular That you are wrong about the fake news you are the fake newsVL. The sites were totally destroyed and everyone knows it. And the, uh, Allison Cooper of fake news, CNN, and he lists Johnny Carl, ABC lists all the, he's gonna watch a lot of TV, all of the people on TV that he doesn't like. He wants to see how his big bombs are flying. So why isn't, why why is has he not fired

raisin cane? Because raisin is the first person who said, you know, I understand everybody's interested in BD use but you know, battle BDAs battle damage assessments. But you know, we can't do that right now. It's gonna take time. Like, why didn't Trump fire him then? I think know the answer to that, JBL. Yeah. Well, because he has a cool nickname.

No, because he has a cool nickname and he wants to do propaganda and make Alison Cooper and Johnny. Oh, wait, it just, it just occurred to me that that's Anderson Cooper, that that's a homophobic nickname. Oh, it's a homophobic nickname. It took me a second. Who is Alison Cooper? It took me a second. You were flipping Alison Camerata.

I had Alison Camerata in my mind. Yeah, so there you go. That's why JBL, because he couldn't make a homophobic joke about the head of his military. So he's going to attack CNN instead, I think is the answer. So there you go. Good luck, America. Good luck. See you guys.

What a great show.