Bulwark Takes - Tim, JVL, and Katie Couric: Trump, Iran and Manosphere Drama

Episode Date: March 12, 2026

In a special live edition of Bulwark Takes, Katie Couric joins JVL and Tim Miller to take on some of the biggest and most interesting stories of the week including the breaking news today out of Michigan where a suspect is dead after ramming a vehicle into Temple Israel synagogue, the latest on the Iran war including the first comments from the country's new supreme leader, what Kash Patel is up to at the FBI and more. Katie also digs in with the Bulwark crew on her latest TV obsession.

Hey, everybody, what's up? Welcome to a very special edition of Bullwork Takes. I'm Tim Miller. I'm kind of excited, I guess, to be here with JVL. It makes me a little more excited to know he's a little nervous. And we are, we're bringing in another special guest. I'm improving as a host. I've been practicing, been working my chops.

But, you know, I'd still like to aim higher. I'm still trying to get better and better. I'm trying to learn from the best. And so, you know, we're hoping to do this today, maybe a little bit more. It is our good friend, friend of the board, Katie Couric. I'm going to pass the host chair over to her, thank God. This is so exciting. We'll watch and learn, Tim.

I love taking notes. Got my notes app out right now. Well, listen, I had so much fun with you on election night. And when I had an opportunity to just do this weekly catch-up with the two of you today, I jumped at the chance because huge, huge bulwark fan. I watch you guys, I read you guys, I pay attention to what you say and the things you're talking about.

So I'm really grateful to be able to be a part of this conversation and you're right, since I have a little more experience, Tim, emceeing things than you do. I thought that I would be sort of the maestro of this little get-together. Danielle's blushing. I feel like Sarah meeting Pete Buttigieg. There's a guy. Well, I'm very excited because,

because JBL's kids apparently knew who I was. And I said, is that from Shark Tank? How do they know me? And he said, no, it's from auto-tuning the news. Yeah, from the Gregory Brothers, the great Gregory Brothers band. And I have to apologize because I have a bloody nose. Oh, no. Well, you guys, I've had this terrible cold for about the last 10 days,

and I've been blowing my nose nonstop. So perfect timing. It's starting to bleed. Is it toilet seat? I have my toilet paper. This is a very classy operation. I love that. You and our FK, we're doing some blow off the toilet seats.

So I may have to go like this for some of my hosting duties. That's okay. I should actually be. You just shove it up there and just leave it dangling. Yeah, I don't, I think, no, I'm not going to do that. That's going to make us weekly or something, JVL. Nobody on that. Nobody in the internet would ever screenshot that.

Well, that is something I've never had to worry about. that if I did something embarrassing, it would make us weekly. That's interesting. Life goals, Tim. Yeah. Anyway, well, listen, hopefully we'll keep it under control. And maybe I don't know what I'm going to do. But let's talk first on a serious note about this terrorist attack at the synagogue in the Detroit

suburb of Bloomfield Township, West Bloomfield Township, right? The guy rammed his car into a synagogue. He was apprehended. He was killed, actually, by the authorities. How worried are you all about an increase in terrorist attacks here at home, given what's happening in Iran? Go for, J.V. I mean, not super worried, but reasonably worried, especially for my Jewish friends, because, you know, I live in the New York City area. And, you know, like a lot of the larger synagogues, there's always a police car parked out front because they need to have security and protection.

And, you know, I am not super concerned about it. Iranian drones crossing the Pacific and hitting California. Right. Well, they were reportedly going to do that. I read that yesterday. Yeah. But I am reasonably concerned just about like upticks and anti-Semitic attacks, you know, not even organized just because, you know, there are things happening in the world and

the world is full of crazy, terrible people. I guess I would just add to that like, you know, obviously the risks of this are higher. I mean, it's just it's added to a lot of the different potential. unintended consequences for starting this conflict. You know, it could be Iranian, could be a crazy person looking for an excuse. And we saw it in Austin. I don't know a lot about that guy at this point, I guess, but he had a shirt that had the Iranian flag and had other kind of radical language in a sweatshirt.

And then you had the Gracie Mansion attack. Yeah, you had that. And then, you know, you've seen this across the region now in the Middle East, like a lot of People in Iraq are upset. You've seen like anti-American protests there. You've seen stuff at the embassies in various countries. Italy, I think, it was today or yesterday. So, you know, when you, like, there is always going to be a counter reaction when you do something like this.

And it doesn't really seem to me that there was a lot of thought put into the potential risks that could come following this attack. and it doesn't seem like we really have the top guys in charge. I mean, look, there was this New York Times article on all the people that left the FBI who were experts in various things. We fired the Iranian counterintelligence experts. So, you know, I was not an intelligence person. I don't have a ton of visibility into how many, you know, plots are foiled by the experts inside, you know, our federal agencies, but it's not zero. And they've hollowed this stuff out. And we've got cash running the show.

show now, you know, I think it's legit. And the rise in anti-Semitic targeting, I think, is also very real. Well, and there's just overall, I would say the, you do not have an overabundance of confidence in the competence of the people running things. So, you know, so Katie, the, oh, they might attack California with drone's story from yesterday. So Carolyn Leavitt puts out a statement today in which she is demanding that ABC retract that because she says, to be clear, no such threat from Iran to our homeland exists, and it never did. Okay, but that does run counter to things that the president has said as justification for the war. You don't look at this and you think, is anybody who's in charge here?

Well, the whole thing has a who's on first feeling, doesn't it? From the very beginning, whether you were listening to various rationales for the attack, whether, you know, timetable of the attack, I think the administration isn't exactly working in lockstep. And I think they're not the most disciplined messengers. So it doesn't surprise me that Caroline Levitt said that. And I know that Gavin Newsom just a few minutes ago assured Californians that they weren't in danger of a drone attack. And the other hand, a doomsday plane apparently was flying around over Fresno. So I think everyone is feeling a bit more anxious than they were.

prior to this attack and prior to Operation Epic Fury. I mean, in the Bush years, we had the colors, you know. And so I do think that the color threat would have gone up. Oh, right. You know, if we were still doing that. Gosh, I forgot that. I wonder if they are. Well, let's talk about what's happening in Iran

because I'm really curious to get your take on so much of what's transpiring. And there's so much to talk about. Now, we finally heard from Junior. I guess he's probably not called Junior. in Tehran, but the new leader is a man named Mojit, I can't say his name, Mojtaba Kamene, who was the son, the 56-year-old son of the Ayatollah Ali Khomeini.

And we hadn't heard from him. We've heard rumors that he had some lacerations on his face, that he had fractured his foot. People were wondering, is he alive? Is he too afraid to come out in public? Is he afraid to be targeted? But he did deliver a message to State TV, read by an anchor basically doubling down on the sort of the theocratic messaging of the regime.

So it doesn't seem as if this replacement is going to be any less hard line than the one that was there before. And if anything, JVL, it sounds like it's going to be more hard line. And this guy is sort of not, you know, saying the same is going to hold. Yeah, the big thing about this is that Iran has just passed a stress test, right? So, you know, autocratic regimes are, they tend to be very strong but very brittle. And, you know, so the advantages you get in an autocracy are that you have top-down control. You can do things reasonably efficiently. You can insert a lot of power.

But the weakness is that, you know, the structures don't have the ability to really flex and bend. They'll break and snap apart. Iran, previous to last week, had only ever had two rulers in the post-revolutionary period, and they have now made it through a transition period from one ruler to the next. That's always a fraught moment in any autocracy, and they successfully endured, A, the decapitation of their regime, and B, the transition of power. Those are pretty big hurdles for the regime to have successfully mounted, and they have now successfully closed the Strait of Hormuz.

This is like the top, if you go back and look at Iranian doctrine, this is the thing that they've been developing for 30 years ever since you were in Iraq war. What would we do if Israel and the United States came for us? And the big weapon they have is the controlling the flow of oil through the strait. They've succeeded in getting that closed. From their perspective, they're absorbing a tremendous amount of punishment. And they're taking a lot of body blows. But they're achieving their strategic objectives. And so I think they probably feel reasonably good about their position just from the perspective of the regime, right?

And so, you know, when you think about these things just from a geopolitics perspective, what do they care about most? They care about preserving the regime. Well, they're in pretty good shape to do that. And so they look like the type of, they look like they believe that at some point soon, the America is going to come to them and be asking them to deal. Can I add one thing to that? I think that Israel also feels like they're achieving their geopolitical objectives right now, right? Because if you're Israel, you're looking at this and you're like, well, and the ideal situation would be that there was a transition of power, a regime change. If you have a less hostile leader to something that looks about like whatever, Jordan or whatever.

That was a stretch goal, you know? I think that they would like that, right? If there's chaos, though, and there's infighting for Israel, that's a win, that's superior to the previous. situation. And in the situation, if they had now, if status quo kept and, you know, the regime stayed in power, you had a new leader, but their military capabilities are, are lessened significantly. You know, we've taken out a lot of missile launchers. You're taking on the other, you know, the type of material they have to attack Israel with, like their finances, like their ability to fund other terror groups is diminished. Like, that's a win for Israel, right? It's not ideal. It wouldn't be

their ideal situation, but you could understand why they would want that because the threat to them was actually imminent and serious, you know, imminent but serious. And so, you know, from there, from both of those perspectives, you can understand why they'd feel not happy about what's happening with the war, but like that the strategic imperatives are being met. What about us? At the same time. What are our strategic? We don't have any strategic comparison. Ours aren't being met. It seems like to me, you guys, it's like a waiting game. So they might have taken, they might have really weakened Iran's capability. Not so much.

I mean, it still has some nuclear capabilities. They haven't been able to get to, but conventional weapons and some of the things you mentioned, Tim. But Iran has some things up its sleeve, which I think the U.S. or Israel maybe didn't anticipate these autonomous drones. I think we have a picture of one. They're like $30,000 a pop. they can produce them in huge numbers and to shoot and they can do pretty significant damage. And to shoot them down, you need a Patriot missile that costs millions of dollars,

$30,000 per drone, like $3 million, I could be wrong, but something like that per Patriot missile. We have a limited supply of these things. So they have those that are everywhere. Then they have these mines, I guess, that they've lined. Nobody really knows how many mines have been put in the Strait of Hormuz, but those are incredibly dangerous to ships passing. Plus they have air power that they're attacking ships like that Thai ship. So I feel like they may have been significantly weakened.

And of course, their leadership decapitated, if you will, whatever military term you want to use. But they still have some things that they're able to do to prolong the conflict. And it seems to me they want to prolong it as, long as possible to JVL, to your point, so that the U.S. will say, okay, we're going to stop now. Do you see that as a potential thing to just like drag this out until the U.S. almost runs out of defensive weapons? No, I mean, I think the, look, wars aren't predictable.

Anything can happen. I think the most likely endgame for this is Trump realizes he has to get out. And so he has to go and bribe Iran to, in order to get a deal that he can then use to declare victory. And so what you'll have is you have both sides declaring victory. Iran will say, look at this. We stood up to Israel and America. We survived. We are now getting XYZ.

XYZ is probably something like easing of sanctions and the ability to sell oil in the international market, et cetera, et cetera. Trump will say, look at that. it was the biggest most hugely strong war in the American history. They said it couldn't be done, but we did it. And Iran will exit, the regime will exit in a stronger position than it was months ago when there were tens of thousands of people on the streets trying to topple it. Why do you think that? Why do you think they're going to be stronger?

Because I think they're going to wind up leaving this in a, they succeeded in killing all those people. be we have then stirred up I would say a bunch of internal people who may have been on the fence with the Iranian regime who now look and say, hold on you just blew up our whole neighborhood, you killed all these girls and children and civilians

maybe that all the propaganda we've been hearing about how dangerous America in Israel is was correct and C I think they're likely to get something out of it on the back end economically I think sanctions are likely to be lifted and they're going to wind up with a

better deal than they would have gotten before the war when they were negotiating. And all these things have momentum, right? Like the, the Hamanian regime before was dealing with all the protesting the streets. They were also weakened. They were weakened economically. They were weakened militarily. You know, like obviously Israel at least, and it seems like us too, you know, had internal anti-regime assets that were, you know, helping us identify. where these people were, they're able to take them out so easily.

So like that, and that I think underscores like how opposite the reality on the ground was toward to like the pitch for why we needed to do this now. Like Iran was in the regime was not at its most threatening to us. If anything, you know, like you could imagine a counter pitch. I don't think it would have landed with the American people, which is like these guys are so weak. Like now is the moment to go take them out and who knows, maybe we could. can get a better leader out of this. But that's not the pitch that anybody made. And so, you know, just back to what JVL was saying about how the regime could end up being stronger,

like it's not that high of a bar to clear to be stronger. The regime was about as weak as it had been in a long time. But it was also the pitch, I was going to say JVL wasn't the pitch that we had all these leaders in one place and this intelligence. And this was a once in a lifetime opportunity, not to mention that the conventional weapons threat against Israel was imminent. That was another big argument, right? That does seem to be an argument that the Israeli officials made to the Americans. Who knows whether or not it was true. I mean, Israel clearly wanted to walk American power into the conflict.

They succeeded in doing it. You know, honestly, look, the Iranian regime is a terrible, horrible regime. And the things they've done over the last 47 years or whatever to their people, not to mention, like lots of other people in the region, just awful. You could have sold me a few months ago as the protests were really starting to take off in the northern provinces. Oh, boy, these guys look weak. If you establish a no-fly zone and carve out room here for popular protests to gather force, then you target the Iranian leadership. Like, you maybe could have sold me, hey, there's a real chance to accomplish regime change there.

if you had done it a little with a little more foresight. Instead, what we got was, hey, baby says that we can get everybody right here, but we got to do it right now, right now, right now. Come on, let's go, let's do it, let's do it, let's do it. You know you want to do it, let's do it. And, you know, with... When Blinken said he made that same pitch to Obama. Tony Lincoln said that.

That's not like a conspiracy podcast that said that. Tony Lincoln said he made basically the same pitch to Obama 10, 15 years ago. Yeah. So, I mean, I just, again, I am not averse, like, theologically to trying to topple the Iranian regime. It just doesn't seem like there was ever actually a plan in place. And honestly, it's not even clear that it was ever really the goal. It's like, who knows?

To topple the regime. Yeah. You know, it's so interesting. I just interviewed David Petraeus, who I got to know during the Iraq War. We walked around Fallujah together. It was very interesting during the search. if you all remember when they added tens of thousands of troops. And I was really surprised when he didn't think that we had any responsibility other than to bomb the hell out of Iran.

I want to play the question I asked him and just get your reaction on the backside. JBL is a big surge guy, so we'll go to him first. What about regime change? What about Colin Powell? Do we have a nice? You break it. you own it, right? Well, in this case, we're not on the ground, so we don't own it.

They own it. Who's they? The Iranians. So you're saying that the United States and Israel have no responsibility in terms of what replaces the current theocracy. And how do you usher in a more stable, saner, if you will, Iran, if basically you're just blowing the place out, up and then getting the hell out of Dodge? Well, you're not in Dodge, to begin with. The objective of this operation, I read them to you, really. Again, is to take down some of the regime leaders, the air and ballistic missile defenses,

the missile program, the drone program, the Navy regime forces, infrastructure, and so forth, and any of the remnants of the nuclear program. I mean, does it surprise you that there was so little thought put into what comes next? I mean, I shouldn't be surprised. I am anyway. You know, you think to yourself, I can't believe that monkey is going to fling his crap at the way. Oh, no, I guess he did it. Look, he did it again.

It's always amazing to see him do it. Petraeus, that was such a weird interview with you. It was. I was so surprised. Why did he do it just because your old pals? It was kind of, you didn't force him to do it, right? No, I asked him. I was interested.

and sort of comparing Iraq to Iran and what happened there. And I had so many questions. He filibustered, the first answer must have been seven minutes long. It was insane. And he said complex questions, you know, can't be answered in a soundbite, basically. And he seemed, it almost seems like he was advising the White House on some aspect of this war. and I thought he was going to be a little more critical and a little more detached. But I think he wanted to really support the military.

And I think he doesn't like to talk sort of about the political ramifications and the political equation that goes into, you know, an operation like this. But I have to say, I was surprised how sort of in lockstep he was with the administration. Yeah, such a damn. He was steel manning everything. Right? He was steel manning everything. You know, it's like, I just read you the four goals that were their objectives.

Well, I'm, there's been like 17 objectives. I know. The four objectives that you think that you can support, right? And it just depends on which day, what time and which person in the administration you're asking as to what the objective is. And the weirdness of him, he even, you asked him something about, you know, well, but Trump is saying one thing. then saying another, he was like, well, many times it can be of huge advantage to try to to be unpredictable. It's like, oh, come on, buddy. Yeah. This is a weird, weird. And I didn't have time to ask him, did the administration properly prepare the American people as they did

with it? Remember the buildup to Iraq? I mean, it was months and months and months. And I said, and then of course it got congressional authorization. But, you know, he talked, his answers were so long. And then at half hour, he was like, I got to go. And I was like, wait, don't leave me. I have so many more questions. Here's the thing. It isn't just him. I mean, you're seeing a lot of this on like CNN and stuff too.

I think that some of the military commentator types, not our guy, Mark Hurtling, some of the other military commentator types do want to like grade this, you know, as if, you know, they are commentators in a sports match. And it's like, oh, hey, I mean, it is true that if you're just, you know, grading this on like who has eliminated more of the other sides military you know weapons and material and and missiles like we're crushing them right you know like we're winning 28 to three it's like the Patriots falcons super bowl like they're the Iranians are not you know where there are eight Americans that have died that's tragic I think like 1500 some odd Iranians have died depending on what reports you're looking at and so I think that from a military standpoint you know

what he said there, like those four goals of how we're going to take out their capacity on, you know, medium range weapons and their drone capacity and hopefully their nuclear capacity, like that might end up being true. And I circle back to kind of my original point is I understand why that would be an important objective for Israel, because that's a real danger for them. Like, none of those weapons are ever going to reach us. And so there's this question of like grading this, like it's a sports match on who is taking out who more or like it's a video, like a military video game.

about who's degrading the other side more. It doesn't make any sense in the American context, because we don't know why we're that. We don't know what victory looks like. And so taking out some of their missiles, like, who cares? I also think JV, I don't know if you do, but there's been such little discussion about the geopolitical ramifications. You know, not only with betrayists, but just in general with what comes next.

and how does this destabilize the region? And, you know, gaming out what happens with either a more hardline Iran or a different regime or any kind of diplomatic or political effort to try to form some kind of opposition to the current theocracy? I mean, it's just like there's no discussion about that. It's all about war games and video games and using these weird videos that are intercut with, you know, you know, Nintendo games.

We have an example. I think they just put one out today where they're interspersing war video with video games and, you know, wrestling matches and all kinds of weird stuff. It is so bizarre. And it seems so sophomoric, doesn't it? Lower. And you're like 16 when you're a sophomore. So I think it's like elementary school.

The world is run back to the world. Juvenile. Yeah. Yeah. It's a can imagine Eisenhower doing that? Right. Patton. Like it's crazy.

Absolutely crazy that we're going like, I guess we're speed running all the video game systems. We did, we've done Grand Theft Auto. We've done call of duty. We've now done we. Next up is I guess Switch. Maybe they'll do Switch 2 with Mario Card or something. I just, but here's a real question. Who do you guys think this is for?

Right? It's not, it's not for the enemy, right? It's not like wartime propaganda trying to demoralize the enemy to get in. It's not a sci-op in that way. Is it for domestic consideration? I got this one. I got that.

I know who it's for. If you look at the polls, it's interesting. Like the cross tabs of the polls of who supports the war. The kind of independent, Trump voting independents are not. happy with it with it um but then if you look at the republicans if you uh there's one poll that that broke them out between do you consider yourself a maga republican or a regular republican and one might think that like the maga republicans would be more hostile to this because like the whole point of

mag got originally was that it was a rejection of george w bush's neocan and globalist interventionism and that the regular republicans might be more for it because they were around for a rock one and they liked it. So you might think that. Wrong. The MAGA Republicans are like 95 to 4 in favor of it. And the non-Maga Republicans are like 70-30. And so what that tells me is that this stuff is for the nationalist Maga Republic. You need to give them a reason to be for this. Like you've been telling them for years and years, we're not going to do these stupid wars. You know, we're, we're not, I'm not dumb like those other presidents that cared about this stuff. And so to get them on board, you like got to give them something. I think what they're giving them is like rah-rah America. Hell yeah, we're killing the

bad guys, jingoism. And I think that that's who it's for. That's my... I think that's interesting because there is sort of this, you know, if you listen to Pete Hedgeseth and his slam poetry and you listen to sort of the way they are portraying this whole conflict, there's this very muscular, macho, you know, our soldiers won't let us get into a quagmire like the soldiers who were Iraq and Afghanistan. I saw Bill Crystal talking about this, which was so insulting to the military who served honorably and bravely. It's not their fault that the mission was not, you know, didn't lead to what they wanted it

to lead to and was in many ways for nothing or for not. But I just feel like it's just part of this, to your point, Tim, this rah, ra, manly, let's kick the shit out of the enemy and, you know, isn't this fun? And kind of the same same vibe as the Trump video of releasing excrement on the protesters for the No Kings Day. This kind of, I can't even, I don't even know how I would describe it. But, you know, I wanted to ask you about as a transition to Cash Patal because he is trying to prove his manhood, as we know, in some really crinchy ways, there was that locker room video with the U.S. men's hockey team. And now he is literally bringing in UFC fighters.

I don't know if you all saw this to train FBI agents. So is that more of the same, you think, appealing to this hardcore MAGA base with this super macho, like, let's get them. and when the men are men, and, you know. I've got something for you on this. You ready?

I just pulled it up. This is another Bill Crystal, two Bill Crystal shoutouts. Maybe like four years ago now, I was working on a project that didn't come to fruition, and Bill Crystal was like, have you ever read Umberto Echoes Er Fascism? And I was like,

I don't know, maybe in college or whatever, but I don't recall it. And he's like, you should reread it. And I said, okay. And so I was rereading it. And this, he echo like,

lays out the qualities. He tries to describe what the qualities of Mussolini's fascism are and how it's different from typical politics. And number 12 is the one that stuck with me. I just Googled it. Since both permanent war and heroism are difficult, the ur-fascist transfers his will to power to sexual matters. That is the origin of machismo.

The U.R. fascist hero tends to play with weapons. Doing so becomes an erstat's phallic exercise. That includes they also have disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of non-machismo sexual habits. That's what it's just that. It's like goes back to 1940. It's the same shit that they were doing in 1942. Having said that, this is not landing very well in the manosphere. We have a bite from Joe Rogan talking about this.

I think it was yesterday the other day before. Let's play it and talk about how this is playing with young men because apparently not very well, despite this this macho macho man attitude crazy i know it's going to be very high security and high stress and weird to have a fight at the white house in the middle of a fucking war i would hope the war will be sorted out by june but quite honestly i'm not confident that that's going to be the case no okay so i know you guys have read all the stuff about gen z men all the very same young men who seem to support Donald Trump in 2024, suddenly saying, hey, wait a second. He said no forever wars. He said no, you know, entanglements internationally. God, am I going to get drafted?

And by the way, I feel sort of hopeless about my future. How come he's not responding to that? So talk about sort of the political ramifications of this, you guys. JBL, what do you think? I mean, I'm at a-am on this because I look at it and part of it, like, yes, echo and or fascism, the other part is like Cash Patel is like one of the make-a-wish kids, and he's just like, Donald Trump's election in 2024 has allowed cash to just like live out all of his childhood dreams. And one of them was to get to hang out with real UFC fighters at Quantico. And so what's a way to hang out with guys who probably wouldn't want to like hang out with them otherwise?

Well, I'll just give them honorary G-man badges and pretend that they're training agents, which, again, I'm sorry, if you know anything about either law enforcement or, you know, mixed martial arts is preposterous. Mix martial arts is like a highly technical discipline, which adheres to weight classes and rules and all sorts of stuff and point scoring. And when you're in law enforcement, that's not, those things are not applicable. Like when they're learning, you know, to fight in box and wrestle in law enforcement, it's much, it's much more central combat techniques. So what is this really about? It's about cash getting to live out his dreams. And for Trump to bring UFC to the White House is, I think he just, I mean, it's just like bread and circuses, I think. Like pure Caligula stuff.

It's interesting to see that Rogan is opposed to it. because like I understood Rogan being frustrated at the war you know because Donald Trump did like go on a show and says he wasn't going to do a war in Iran and so you feel stupid kind of actually you feel like you got fooled so I understand why he'd be mad and be against it but being against the MMA fight on the on the White House lawn is kind of like because Rogan takes it seriously right but but since

one right since yeah I mean maybe he can considers himself serious but right it's like he he's been part of the disintegration of the type of seriousness with which we used to expect from our politicians, right? Like, and leaders, you know? And so it's like, I was the, I hate to pick on Shane Gillis,

but I was watching because he's like probably the most normal of the Manosphere guys, but I saw a clip of him where he's like making fun of this, same thing. I'm like making fun of all these guys and they make a wish part and they're at the MMA thing and they act like they're tough and cool,

but it's like, guys, you're the FBI director now? Shouldn't you be, you know, getting bad guys and protecting? our communities, like, don't you have real work to do? And it's like, I don't think it clicked with any of them that they liked that, you know, Donald Trump was a good hang. Like, he was a better hang than Hillary, right? And so, who would you rather have a bear with?

And they liked that. But now, and now that he's in there and it's so insurious and it's comically insurious, you know, It's almost like there's some cognitive dissonance that hasn't quite been resolved yet for these folks, which is like, wait a minute. Maybe the good hang part was not what I should have been prioritizing. But anyway. But what is going to be the impact politically, you guys? I mean, the midterms are what, seven months away or something like that. Do you think that this is going to hurt Trump?

he's trying to get the MAGA base, as you mentioned, Tim, excited about this. But there are a lot of independents who are saying, hey, this is not what I voted for. You know, we don't even have health care in this country. And, you know, what do you see? And also, oil prices, right? Gasoline prices having increased. I don't know if that's going to be a short-term pain thing or if it's going to be temporary. but they do say that it could take weeks, even months to open up the Strait of Hormuz.

So this could have a serious trickle-down effect, not to mention grocery prices, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, are you hesitant to talk about sort of the impact of this for the midterms? I'm not. I'm more optimistic than JVL, I think. So do you want optimism first or pessimism? Let's have the bad news first. Okay, JV, I'll let you go. And then I'll follow.

I don't know that I'm, maybe you're more optimistic than I am. So I have been, you know, I do not have a Bloomberg terminal account myself because they're really expensive, but I have some buddies in finance. Hey, Jeremy, who have been sharing their stuff with me. And so I've been obsessing with all the oil futures curves. And, I mean, we are projected to be well over $80 a barrel out into July, June, like automatic. We were only 30 weeks away. I mean, think about there are about 30 weekends left between. By the way, that Barron's piece, James.

Maybe I'll said it could go up to $150 a barrel. Yeah, I mean, and, you know, at that point, like, I don't even know what the world looks like. You know, I mean, but as the, you know, Tim's got this landman line that he's been using, you know, you get near $90 a barrel and everything in the American economy has to readjust its prices. And this, if the war ended next week, it would still take several weeks to a few months to get. all of the logistics like, we have thousands of ships lined up. We have plants which have come offline, fertilizer deliveries to like Brazil, where they need to plant crops that are going to come mature in late summer. Those are already gone, right? So you've introduced this gigantic logistical cluster fuck into the global economy that even if you stopped it tomorrow is going to take

weeks and months to work itself out. And you're only 30 weekends away from the election. So I just, I don't know how bad it can get, but I can tell you it can't get much better. Like, we have a really hard cap on the potential upside for good news for the administration. And I just don't. So why are you pessimistic about the midterms? No, is what I'm saying. I don't think it may.

I just thought I mispredicted. You predicted my bit on Landman. I have so few bits. And so to get called out like that was kind of embarrassing. Sorry. But I thought that you were going to do the people are stupid. And they voted for Trump, even though the economy was good anyway. I thought that's where you were going to go.

So anyway, I here's, I'll just add. I agree with everything JBL said. Turns out we don't have a disagreement on this. But I'll just add on the campaign side of it. You can already see on the map like the way the map is expanding. You know, like you have in Montana, both Republicans in the House and the Senate drop out of the race. All of a sudden that race is like now on the map. It's not something anybody was talking about at the beginning of the year.

You look at that Nebraska independent race. I think a lot of people giving that a second look. Mary Peltola gets in. You have Alaska. So I think that six months ago, I would have said that the Democrats had no chance at the Senate. And I think it would have been in part because of like Democratic strategic incompetence and just like the map and the Democrats issues right now with. the demographics of the country and how the Senate map is biased towards working class white people.

But Trump has fouled this up so bad. The Democrats, I think, have a real chance to take both houses of Congress now. And it's not really a lot of what they've done even. I mean, I think that they've nominated Peltola and Tala Rico, who were better than alternatives. So they've added a couple of states to the map. They haven't done everything I wish the Democrats would have done in my dream world to make to expand the map. but it's been pretty good. And so I just...

Platner. Platner, mania. Okay, we'll talk about that later. I keep getting trouble. We'll talk about that. Keep getting trouble on that. And so, you know, look, I think that you combine the people who are upset about the war,

who are in Trump's coalition, who are off. What people would just, like, what's the point of voting? I think a lot of MAGA voters will just be like, I'm, you're trying, you have to get me, I have to get excited about, John Hustead in Ohio. Like, you're a MAGA person. You don't know who this guy is.

He's a generic white guy that looks like an old school Republican. You're pissed about gas prices. You're pissed about groceries. You came in to vote for Trump in the first place. You're going to vote for John. You're going to take the time to go vote for John Hustead. I don't think so. And I think that a lot of the Democrats will be very excited to vote.

So I think that right now, you know, the map is expanding and things are looking worse and worse for the Republicans. I want to talk to you guys about Texas for a minute because I am obsessed with James Telerico. Have you seen the memes about him that if he like changed his look and grew a beard and put on a gold chain and they're like some AI pictures of him? I'll just send him to you. He looks very cool. Like you can make him look really cool. You know, he's got the pastor look, but it's like we gave him a full makeover. That's so funny.

Well, you know, he got my attention during the whole reapportionment. battle and I interviewed him, gosh, about a year ago. And I was so impressed by how eloquent he was and how measured. I love seeing him go on Fox News and basically embarrass some of those anchors because they weren't listening to what he was saying. He asked him a question. And I don't even know this anchor's name, but he just, he was totally flummoxed by the whole thing. Do you think James Tolariko has a chance? And do you think that Trump, John Cornyn, has recently been sucking up to Trump, hoping to get his endorsement. Kim Paxton, more MAGA than John Cornyn, really, I think, is, I mean, sort of more red meat.

What do you, do you think that Democrats could actually, when turn, flip, uh, the Senate seat in Texas? We're in Texas next week for our live shows. Oh, wow. We took a quick soft in Austin, thebork.com slash events. Are you getting Tala Rico to come do an interview? Maybe. Who knows? We'll have to wait and see. I have to come out to the shows. I'll be heading to Texas for that. The viewers, we haven't sell all the tickets before we tell you.

I think he has a chance. I think he's going to have to really, I think the primary kind of hurt him. And I think that like you really got to not. Yeah, well, because there's so little margin for air in a state like Texas. I mean, Trump won it by double digits. And you got to kind of figure out like everybody dogs, my boy Beto. But that first race he ran, he almost cracked the nut,

which was you have to simultaneously excite the base and you have to demonstrate to traditional Republican voters that you care about them enough that they either, you know, maybe decide not to go for the vote in the midterm or they, you win some over. And Beto did that. Like he traveled the whole state.

He was in Red, Texas a lot. He made a real big case to them. I remember that. I worry a little bit that the primary, you know, it creates some hard feelings with black voters. I don't know if that's, that's, that is sticky. enough, but it's just something to monitor. But Jaskin Crockett has been very gracious.

She has been great. And kudos to her on that. She's been great. And then, you know, you end up having all this focus on some of their, you know, more lefty cultural views. And that maybe turns off some of the red bread part of the state. I just think it made the task a little more challenging. You have somebody like Peltola in Alaska, for example, who I mentioned, who's like not a firebrand on any of that stuff, you know, and she's Fish Family Freedom. and that is maybe a little bit more of a logical path. So I don't know.

I think Texas might be a little tougher than some of the other red states, but he's talented. And I think that if he can manage to give a message to Trump voters and if he can get an assist by the economy tanking, maybe. Though I do wonder, Texas might be the place best suited to weather the economic storms ahead. I mean, I think that they're opening champagne bottles in Midland this weekend. And who is it going to be? Yeah, who is it good threat?

You're right about that. But who's going to be Ken Paxton or John Cornyn in the runoff? What is that next month, you guys? Yeah, it depends on how hard Trump goes for Corny's the answer. Like if Trump half ass endorses him, I don't know it's a guarantee he wins. Like if Trump goes down there endorses them, cuts an ad, makes a big deal out of it. Trump can drag anybody across the line still in Republican primaries. But he'd have to like really try, I think.

You disagree with that, JV? I don't I don't disagree I think that the incentives actually suggest that Trump probably won't do that he bails yeah it was like a trial balloon

and he saw what happened and it's like you know what what's he going to put himself out for for John Cornyn for John Cornyn he's got other things if you're Trump you think to yourself

why would I put anything of mine on the line for this guy who I don't ever really like Megalomania he likes to endorse would be like honest in the reason What about what he's doing to Thomas Massey in Kentucky? You know, he's going down there.

He's trashing him because I guess Thomas Massey had the audacity to speak out against him. What did Thomas Massey do any way that pissed Trump off so much? Epstein. Epstein. Yeah. Right. Yeah, it was Epstein. I think it's going to work, right?

He'll unseat Massey. I think you. Jim and I talked about it on the pod today. It's fascinating. It's the first real test of Trump in a Republican primary. Mary ever. None of these guys, they've never done what I've always, I've been begging some Republicans to do this for like 10 years, which is oppose them on something from the right and then stay,

try to fight him, stay Republican. Don't do, don't be Tim. Brian Kemp. Brian Kemp did it. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Brian Kempt did it in a state election. It's the only other one.

You're right. Yeah, yeah. And a federal, this is like a House or Senate election. You're right. That was a governor's race. In a House or Senate election, bucking him and holding line. Like Liz Cheney bucked him. and then kind of mailed in that house race.

Like, let's just be honest. Like, she didn't really try that hard in that house primary, right? And then most of them retire. And so, my girlfriend. My girlfriend. MTC retired, yeah. Massey's sticking it out. And if Massey could, I don't think it's a 0% chance Massey could hold on.

And if he does, that would be, yeah. Well, what about, you know, Andy Bashir, obviously, extremely popular governor in the state. So, I mean, if that's any evidence that, conservative voters or Republicans can cross lines in Kentucky, maybe they'll, maybe they'll appreciate. Plus that the Epstein issue is such a interesting. And they have ran. There's so much crossover, right, in terms of, you know, the Marjorie Taylor Greens of it all. So a lot of those voters in Kentucky may appreciate Thomas Massey, right? Even if they're MAGA for standing up for the

Epstein survivors. His district is kind of interesting, too, because it's Kentucky. but it's like he's like the Cincinnati suburbs. He's got a little bit, the parts that are in Kentucky. So you have a little bit more of the college educated kind of. I don't think it's a, I think he could potentially survive. It would be delicious if he did. But JBL, you think that he's in trouble. I mean, I think it's at best a coin flip, but I haven't seen it.

I'm sure he has some internal polling. I haven't seen it. It would be nice to be survived. Well, we were going to talk about my Gavin Newsom interview, which we'll do another time because I almost feel like that. That's really in the future in terms of talking about 20, 28 and candidates. So we wanted to end. Just tell me what you thought of about him, though.

You know, 30 seconds on what you thought about him? Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. First of all, I really liked him. I thought he was, you know, we talked a lot about his book. And so his sort of origin story, his father abandoning for all intents and purposes, the family when he's three years old. His mom had to work multiple jobs. He had this weird kind of duality in his childhood with his father,

you know, was kind of a consigiliary to the Getty family. And so he had exposure to this great wealth. And yet his mother is, you know, humping at three jobs, trying to support his sister and himself. He had severe dyslexia as a kid. That was really interesting. He was much more humble than I. anticipated. I did have this whole conversation with him because I've been in L.A. for the last

six weeks. So, of course, whenever I see people or meet people who have friends out here, I ask them, what do you think of Gavin Newsom? And rarely do they have much substantive criticism? This is what they always say. And I said to him, Governor, what do you think the one word people use when I asked them about you? And he said, resilient? I said, no. Slick? I said, slick. Everyone says you're slick. And I thought he handled it pretty well. I said, you know, is it your hair gel? You know, can you deslicify yourself or it's just you're too polished? But I thought he was pretty self-aware and surprisingly self-effacing. I made fun of the best is yet to come. You know, Kimberly Gilfoyle. We kept talking about we had to do other podcasts to talk about these little

bar issues. You know, I think that I did ask him a pretty tough question about California, about the budget ballooning and what has it gotten him. And obviously, some of the bad things about California with the highest poverty rate and the schools, Dick Christoph's article about, you know, worse than Mississippi. And, you know, he's pretty good with the combat. I don't have this intimate knowledge of California public. policy to be able to say, well, wait a second.

But I thought, do you want to hear the soundbite real quick? Do we have time? Or do you want to do that? We'll do that another time about California. People should go over there to the Katie Kirk and watch the whole thing. My Gavin thing is, just in one sentence, is I think that this problem isn't slickness. The question is, how does he avoid what I call the Kalmala conundrum, which is that the progressives and liberals think you're a corporate chill and that the centrist think that

you're a California liberal? Yeah. You want the opposite. He is kind of a man without a country that way, isn't it? Yeah, two words. Gigga, Chad. You giga, Chad. You just chad people.

Gigga, Chad. You just chad the whole. Alpha, alpha male. You're just like, you frame mock. You're frame mock the whole electorate. Okay, you're going to have to explain to me what you guys mean by that. Because I have no idea what you're frame mugging us right now. So you don't have to know what it means to do it.

Okay, good. Well, you'll have to explain that to me offline. All right. So we wanted to end with talking. talking about my current obsession, which is Love Story, which is on Hulu, Ryan Murphy's latest extravaganza. You know, it's been interesting for me to watch because I did the last TV interview with John F. Kennedy Jr., and we actually have a clip of that,

so you guys can just look and see how truly, ridiculously handsome he was. So go ahead and roll that, you guys. Come from a political family. I think there was a lot about popular. politics and the life of politics, especially for young children, that she thought was heady stuff and that it was better to have a sense of who you are in your own place in life before you really took that on. So that kind of healthy skepticism, I think, was an important part of her parenting and probably made my sisters and I life easy.

Right. Yeah, because, I mean, if you look at a lot of political families and a lot of families who grow up with the incredible glare of this spotlight that you all have, and you see you and your sister, you think, God, they're remarkably well-adjusted or seem to be. You know, who knows, God. But, you know, I think it's a real tribute to your mom that you all turned out to be really nice, productive people. Well, thank you.

She would be glad to hear you say that. She took a lot of pride in being a good mother. Talk about frame-mogging. Wow. I have a two-second story about this. So it's slightly before my time. I spent 25 years the weekly standard with Bill Crystal. In a weird confluence of events,

I best knew JFK Jr. as the editor and publisher of George Magazine, which was a very cool, glossy political magazine. I was on the cover, JPL. Were you on the cover? Oh, my God. Yeah. So that.

Do you have that? I don't know. I don't think my, we, I should have had it ready. They can effort that while I vamp. Oh, I got it. So it came out a year before the Weekly Standard. And while Bill Crystal was trying to set up the Weekly Standard and get it going,

JFK Jr. came down to the offices just to like sit down with them and like give him some lessons learned. Like, you know, very, very. Really? Unbelievably gracious. And the story about this is that like every woman who worked at the what was becoming to the weekly standard came in dressed like they were going to breakfast to Tiffany's or something. They were all like, you know, it was very much magazine. People just dressed like magazine people like this basically.

But when John John was going to be in the office that day, everyone came in and like cocktail dresses and pearls and just. Have you been watching at JVL? No, I haven't. I just saw that. Oh, there's a camera. Oh, my goodness. You've got the little press thing in your door.

Is it a Charlie Chaplin thing? No, it was sort of like, you. You know. Newsman. That's a newsman. Exactly. Why everyone fears Katie Couric, L-O-L. That's so far.

It's true for us. Timothy McVeigh. Rush Limbaugh losing his bite, if only. Yeah. I saw the Darrell Hannah op-ed about it. That was my first. And I just immediately, again, I don't know anything from anything here, but my sympathies were automatically with Darryl Hannah.

Yeah. I think they did her dirty in this series and really treated her unfairly. And as she said, It was sort of the needing to have some kind of villain to play against Carolyn Bessette. And I thought they were pretty unkind to Caroline Kennedy, too, made her seem really cold and judgmental. And yeah, having said that, I mean, it's eye candy. It's fun to watch. It's kind of a trip down memory lane in the 90s pre-internet.

And, you know, it's fun to look at the clothes and the fashions. I think the actor who plays JFK Jr. looks very much like him. Oh, wow. Yeah. I know. All right. So here's my disagreement.

Sarah Pigeon, less so to me. Carolyn Beset, I always describe her looking like kind of like a Medigliani painting, kind of interesting and different, but somehow really beautiful, but very unique looking. And Sarah Pigeon, I think, is more traditionally, classically beautiful. But go ahead. No, this is so interesting. I just want to hear you talk about this. I'm going to give one sentence about the show.

I know nothing. Like, I was a child, so I don't know these. I've loved it. Don't rub it in. For the drama. Sorry, I didn't mean it like that. I've loved it for the drama. But my impression, not knowing these people, is that like the JFK Jr.

guy just doesn't have the it, like the it factor that the real JFK Jr. does. Like, literally, I was blushing just watching you talking to him for one second. And I love Sarah Pigeon. She's amazing. I got like the character. Again, I don't know Carolyn Bissette. I could have, I would have, I knew nothing about it. Like the show, I've learned everything.

Calvin Klein and I would have spelled their name wrong. Like, it just wasn't my. So to me, this is like I'm learning about these people in a way that's different from whatever they're, you know, like the two-dimensional view I have about John John and the Kennedys. So I am kind of interested. So you have a opposite of view. Like, you lived this. I mean, literally, you interviewed him.

So how does it feel real? Does it, are there other things that they're getting right or wrong? I haven't read the book. it was based on, which came out a couple of years ago. You know, I think a lot of license was taken with their story, obviously. Did they get the essence of their relationship, perhaps? It feels a little creepy and voyeuristic. But I think it's, I think they were so beautiful, honestly.

It's just kind of fun to watch really, you know, ridiculously good-looking people. What about Ethel? What about Ethel? Did you ever interview Ethel? No, but... Her character on the show is so interesting. She says, severe, again, something I know nothing about.

She says, she's just here on the show. I felt so bad for her about over our... I went to look to see when she died. I was like, did she at least die before RFK Jr. did this nonsense and sadly? No. Is he in the show? Yeah. No.

He, his character isn't in the show. At the dinner, isn't he? he's at the dinner. Oh, yes, you're right. You're right. You're right. Tatiana, my watch one episode with my daughter and Tatiana's a little girl is in it. My daughter started crying because, you know, she was, she, my daughter went to Yale at the same

time Tatiana Schlossberg was there. And she was just so crushed by, you know, her death at 35. And they do portray Tatiana as a little girl with Caroline in the park. Yeah. And it's sort of heartbreaking. But I don't know. I think it's been interesting. You asked about Ethel Kennedy.

One of my very closest friends was Ethel's secretary at Hickory Hill. And she told me, I said, was Ethel Kennedy that horrible? And she said, well, she did make me cry a lot. So I guess she was tough. I guess she was tough. But what she clearly resented and who knows, it makes sense was that. you know, I think in one line doesn't she say Tim something like I could

wear a green dress and nobody would look at me they would all still be looking at at Jackie and you know the quizzing people about politics at the dinner table I was like that is going to be I'm stealing it from Ethel and I'm a grandpa I'm like that is going to be me it's like come to dinner at the house I'm doing we're doing a news quiz

before I thought that was so rude so rude to her and I was mad at him for not signing her up for breakfast too you know he was kind of a lunkhead in some ways. And I don't think he fully appreciated how clannish the Kentless. I'm acting like I know this, but how planish the Kennedy scene and how, you know,

how difficult it was to integrate into that whole world. Well, I'm, I promised you a hard out. Oh, thank you. I could. We showed on the whole hour on this. I know. The series isn't over. Maybe we can just do it when the whole series is over.

Yeah, because I have some funny stories about how I got that interview with JFK Jr. Good tease. I'm going to follow up on that. But I just want to remind everyone, just because while we're here with your audience, I have my Substact show coming up in an hour. And I'm going to be doing a lot more on Iran with Richard Haas. And we're going to be talking about the Epstein files to get everybody up to speed on Substacks. So if you want to join me. And so enjoy Texas, you guys.

When is the live show? Dallas Wednesday, Austin Thursday. Dallas is sold out, Austin. still got tickets. Go to the book. And where do you have these events? In Texas, it's at the Paramount. At Austin, I mean, it's at the Paramount, which is like downtown.

I get off 6th Street. I've done, I've been there. I forget where we're at in Dallas. In Dallas, I forget the name of the place, but it's where Lee Harvey Oswald was hanging out at the movie theater. Oh, my God. Really? Yeah.

I had no idea. Now we kind of just brought it full circle. He did. In a very sick way. I didn't want to say it. Okay. Anyway, you guys, thank you guys so much. This was really fun.

Let's do it again. I'm going to go take care of my bloody nose. Please. Thank you for fighting through it. We'll see you. Good to see you. Bye.