Morning Joe - President Trump to Leave for China Summit Today

Episode Date: May 12, 2026

President Trump to Leave for China Summit Today To listen to this show and other MS podcasts without ads, sign up for MS NOW Premium on Apple Podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The National Signing Day, think of this, the press conference in 2023 shortly after joining Indiana. Kurt, who's Kurt? Kurt Signetti. Where is Kurt Signetti? Huh? Oh. Come here. Come here.

Kurt Signetti has turned out to be, I believe. Who's Kurt? I think the first lady's here. This is happening a lie. Kurt was my first crush in school. Kurt, really? Well, listen, he's doing pretty well up at Indiana right now. All right.

Sounds wisely back then. Yeah, I guess a little lost yesterday while hosting the Indiana football team, not realizing the championship winning coach was right beside him. Well, he was working so hard throughout the day. I'm sure he was a little tired by then. You get tired when you work hard. Hours earlier in the Oval Office, Trump appeared to be. resting his eyes

multiple times during a maternal health care event. Well, though, Lamere, to be honest, he was resting his eyes in between making threats to Katie Britt. He was, and I enjoy the official White House response. This picture, the image here,

went viral. And the White House response was, he's blinking, you moron. That's an exact quote from their Twitter account. He's blinking you moron. That's a very long blink. That's the longest blink I've ever seen. Look at that. Hold on. Close. Still blinking. Still blinking. Not a lot of rights and access to health care to talk about.

So maybe he fell asleep. You know, the thing is, everybody's entitled to sleep. And, you know, I like sleeping. Yeah. And sometimes you close your eyes. You're in, you get tired. But you remember, sleepy Joe? Yeah, I sure do.

Remember Joe Biden goes to a memorial service in Hawaii? And he closes his eyes for about three. seconds and a lot of people thought it was because he was sad at the, the tragedy there. And Trump's people just went absolutely crazy. Sleepy Joe, Sleepy Joe. This isn't the first time he's appeared to taking a catnap in the Oval Office. So again, you know, Reagan did it. People do it.

Okay, that's fine. But you can't and you can't just go on and on and on about Sleepy Joe, Sleepy Joe, Sleepy Joe. And they still do it. even more in the White House than your predecessor did? Yeah, they lost their minds at that moment back when Joe Biden was president. And what we're seeing here is with increased frequency, President Trump seems to be blinking at great length. On camera. Very long blanks.

On camera in the Oval Office in front of a lot of people, which is raising some questions about him and his age and such. But you're right, he's certainly in 2024, then Donald Trump, before he was back in office, raised the questions about Joe Biden. He has one ability I don't have. He sleeps. He can sleep. This guy goes on a beach and he lays down on one of those, you know, six ounce, they weigh six ounces and you can't lift it. But he has an ability to fall asleep while on camera. He can lie down on one of those things.

And in minutes, he's stone called out. How does he do it? And he's got cameras, he's the president. So they have cameras on him. And then they show him sleeping on the beach. Yeah. You'll never see me sleeping in front of Canada. Well, Andrew Schultz chortling there. He's now seen the errors in his way. Gee, thanks.

Express some regret. It looks really tired. But, you know, and it goes also to, like, again, all you ever heard, Sleepy Joe, Sleepy Joe, Sleepy Joe, or the Biden crime family, the Biden crime. Because Hunter made $50 off of NFTs or $2,000 or maybe from Burris. or whatever it was called, you know, maybe he made, you know, $3 million fee, maybe he made $2 million. We're now talking about the Trump family at least clearing $3, $4 billion. And so, you know, people say, well, it's legal, it's legal.

Well, we don't know if it's legal or not. We don't know what quid pro quos were there and what weren't. And so, again, our point's not going to Donald Trump sleeping in the White House. our point's not going to the billions of dollars. It's going to the sheer hypocrisy of followers who literally went on saying, sleepy Joe. We've had somebody even sleepier in the White House now. The Biden crime family where we're talking about maybe a couple million dollars versus

four billion, five billion maybe. And then thanks Biden. For gas prices at, you know, we showed clips of Republicans freaking out over gas prices at $3.25, $3.25, $350. And we're at $4.50 now. So again, these things happen. We're at a war. But the hypocrisy of Trump followers, the hypocrisy of people who are speaking on his behalf, it's just, I mean, are they stupid? It's like, there is video. We see what you said last year and the year before. We see what you said about Iran. We see what members of Donald Trump's family said about.

Donald Trump will never go to Iran, Kamala Harris Hill. We see what J.D. Vant said. Donald Trump will never go to Iran. That's the difference between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. You'll get us in a war with Iran. I mean, the hypocrisy is it comes so fast that people don't stop and just show how ridiculous they were a year ago, how they were either lying or they're just hypocrites.

Yeah, I think it's not that they're stupid. I think it's that they're shameless. I think that's the superpower from President Trump and so much of his inner circle. And you add to the list of the things that they, you know, they accused President Biden of doing, that they are now doing exponentially more so. The use of the presidential pardon, another one,

the number of times where they would criticize the previous administration for things, and then they would do it on steroids. And we're seeing that time and again. And their followers, again, just blindly like, a cult, their followers just going along going, oh, well, it's different. Yeah, it is different. It's exponentially worse now.

You're talking about $4 billion maybe dollars versus, you know. The Trump, there have been reports that the Trump family, the sons have openly discussed, wanting to be the richest family in the world by the time that the Trump administration was over. And that they have been so used to, though, to receiving friendly media coverage from certain conservative outlets that they won't be shown. Their followers, their supporters won't see these images. or, you know, they're able to simply assert their own reality and say, you know, I don't believe at it, you know, and they're used to that cult-like following, you know, a cult that would perhaps

build a giant golden statue of its leader on a golf course. You know, and I want to bring in right now, Jim Vanda High. Jim, you talk about the misinformation that they wallow in. We were, Mick and I were at a dinner party recently, and we had somebody going on. Lovely group. And on, lovely group of people, but had somebody going on. on about those damn Democrats and COVID and going on and on attacking somebody at the table who was a scientist, you scientists, this, why COVID, the results were the same for states

that remained open the whole time and states that had restrictive COVID guidelines. Well, that's just an absolute total why. If you look and see 14 of the top 15 states, if you're looking at deaths per capita from just about every measurement, 14 to the 15 states that had the highest deaths per capita were states that voted for Donald Trump that were far more relaxed. And, you know, the one exception was New Mexico. And so again, it's like there is, there's, like Jonathan Lemire said, there's just an absolute shamelessness, whether you're talking about Sleepy Joe or gas prices or the Biden crime family. I mean, it just goes on and on. I mean, the incentives in politics to stand by your man are intense.

And then you have that amplified by all these information bubbles, like you said, we'll filter out the bad stuff, filter in the good, the positive stuff. But there's two things that are true at once. Coming off of that Indiana, those state-based races last week, where the president intervened and knocked off some very conservative Republicans, his hold on the party is as tight and as mesmerizing as it's ever been. And so he is probably still at peak Trump power with his specific party. However, at the same time, there's this fascinating graphic that the economist is running that breaks down his approval rating by every single state.

There's only three states in the country, I believe, where he's not underwater, where a majority of people, including in places like Texas and Florida, have an unfavorable opinion of him. Well, that comes from Democrats, obviously having an unfavorable opinion. his numbers with independents are just terrible. They're horrendous across the board. And then little by little, not many, but you start to see some Republican chipping away. Not much, and I wouldn't expect that much decline. Because you live in a 50-50 country, people pick a team,

they want to stand by their team until the end. But those things really add up. And whether the president's sleeping or not is probably the least of his problems right now. He's got two big problems he's staring at this week. What the hell is he going to do in Iran where it feels like he really is boxed in? And then he has to go to China and he's bringing our business leaders there.

And God forbid if he goes there and we look weak. And the Chinese smell weakness. And when they smell weakness, they know how to exploit weakness. If he comes out of this week and we're still dealing with Iran, which we will be. And if it looks like the China trip was not successful or we're not treated like a dominant superpower, whenever you start to get that as a president, it happens slowly. It doesn't happen overnight. But when you start to get that whiff of weakness, people start to sense that.

people here and people overseas. And I think that's the danger. He's not maybe completely there yet, but I think they're very well aware that that's out there, that's in the ether. And once you get that, that makes it really hard

to govern and to project strength that you need in situations like trying to figure out a way, out of what's happening in Iran. And on those two things, staring at the president today, President Trump says the ceasefire with Iran is on, quote, life support,

referring to the latest Iranian counter proposal, which he calls a piece of garbage. and the Speaker of Iran's Parliament wrote on social media yesterday that the country is prepared for all options, adding, quote, our armed forces are ready to deliver a lesson teaching response to any aggression.

They will be surprised that as he gets ready to meet with the leader of China. Let's bring in columnist and Associated for the Washington Post, David Ignatius. David, so much to talk about the China trip, what's happening with Iran, what's also happening with Russia and Ukraine. Just an extraordinarily fascinating time

where two powers right now being humbled by asymmetric warfare. I want to start, though, with your reaction to Robert Kagan's article yesterday that suggested that unless, and we've said this from the very beginning, we never know. Nobody knew in 1988 that the Soviet Empire

would collapse in 1989. It did. So perhaps this Iranian government will do that too. But barring that, Robert Kagan says that Donald Trump has already faced his checkmate in Iran, and this is what Kagan writes. President Trump likes to talk about who has the cards, but whether he has any good ones left to play is not clear. The Trump administration hopes that blockading Iran's ports will accomplish what massive force could not. It's possible, of course, but a regime. that could not be brought to its knees by five weeks of unrelenting military attacks is unlikely to buckle in response to economic pressure alone. Even if Trump were to carry out his search to destroy Iran's civilization through more bombing,

Iran would still be able to launch many missiles and drones before its regime went down, assuming it did go down. If this isn't checkmate, it's close. Any resolution other than America's effective surrender holds enormous risks that Trump has not so far been willing to take. Those who glibly call on Trump to finish the job rarely acknowledge the costs, unless the U.S. is prepared to engage in a full-scale ground and naval war to remove the current regime and then to occupy Iran until a new government can take hold, walking away now,

would seem like the least bad option. David, Robert Kagan is not. a shrinking violet yesterday. Many people commented, hey, and this is coming from the biggest neocon or the biggest imperialist that writes. You know, he is far

from a shrinking violet. But yesterday, he talked about this could be one of the most devastating losses in recent American history. So Bob Kagan, as you say, is as strong, a pro-defense writer as you find among prominent commentators.

And his article hit, I thought, like a sledgehammer yesterday, was just so powerfully stated. And he essentially is saying that Donald Trump is facing the prospect of defeat for the United States in Iran due to poor strategy, poor planning, that his choices either lead him much further down into a war that he may not win, or to concessions of a sort that will leave the U.S. for many, many years,

much less powerful and reliable in the Middle East. You could see in Trump's own actions yesterday, a measure of what Kagan is talking about it, and this almost palpable frustration he was expressing that the Iranians had only offered him garbage and his peace effort that he really has believed in was on life support, And the reality is that Trump now faces two very bad choices. He's in a stalemate that's getting more and more difficult to sustain.

He's trying to choke out Iran through his blockade of Iranian ports. At the same time, Iran is trying to choke out the United States and his allies by blocking oil exports from the Gulf. And it looks like the Iranian chokeout may be working more quickly. and the U.S. choke out on Iran. And that's his biggest problem. He made a bet that his negotiators could somehow split the Iranian regime, find more moderate, pragmatic people to deal with. They thought that they had begun that in Islamabad

when they met with the Iranian House Speaker, Kali Baf. But since then, it's clear that the hardliners have gotten stronger and stronger in Tehran, that the moderates that Trump was hoping he could make a deal with have gotten weaker relatively. Their latest response that has made Trump so angry basically offers nothing. The Iranians assert sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuzes indefinitely. So you can see why Trump feels he's really got his back against the wall. It's costing him politically. Kagan in his article is saying, really, the wisest course may be for Trump to fold his hand.

And that's, again, a measure of how bad it is that a very hawkish columnist says, you know what? The only way out of this one is just to say, didn't work, pull back, don't waste any more money going deeper in the quagmire. The problem is there. He leaves with Iran with control of the strait. He leaves with Iran stronger as far as building the nuclear program than they were under Barack Obama. More anti-American.

That is. That is. And a more rationalist. radicalized regime for a regime that was already radicalized. That is a massive historic loss that as Kagan says, strengthens China, strengthens Russia, strengthens all of America's enemies, strengthens Iran. It would be an absolute nightmare. You know, you couple this piece, this Atlantic piece with your Atlantic piece, where you wrote in great detail about how Donald Trump is bored with this war, he wants to move on.

But that's the thing about Quagmire's. You can't move on. Him coming home is a nightmare. And as Kagan points out, if you want to do this right, which Donald Trump will not do, if you want to change the regime, if you want to get rid of the nuclear material, if you want to achieve your goals, you're going to have to put troops on the ground. And that's just never going to happen. All those things were known before.

And all those things were known before by... Every single one. Anybody that actually has studied this for more than five minutes, I do. I hear this talk about Iranian moderates. That literally has been a running joke in foreign policy circles since 1979. Oh, we're going to find the Iranian moderates to help us out of the Iranian hostage crisis. Oh, we're going to find the Iranian moderates to help us here. Oh, we're going to find the Iranian moderates to help us there.

There are no Iranian moderates. we have been looking for Bud McFarland, again, went over with a birthday cake and a Bible looking for an Iranian moderate in 1986, trying to bring peace, trying to get some hostages back. They don't exist. They've never existed. And Lindsey Graham should have known that. Pete Higgseth should have known that. Benjamin Netanyahu knew that, but he wanted to sucker Donald Trump into this war. And Donald Trump should have known that. But he didn't. None of them knew it. I guarantee you, General Kane knew it. I guarantee you, General Kane knew it. I guarantee you military people knew it, but we have here the same situation we had in Afghanistan and Joe Biden. All of Joe Biden's military people told him don't leave Afghanistan without at least a couple of thousand troops in there. They all told him not to do it. He did it anyway. It was disastrous. Donald Trump, all the military people didn't want, they knew what was waiting in Iran. He went anyway. He ignored him. Thought it was going to be a quick two-week excursion and he was

going to come back. It's not. It's Iran. And again, this is like, we've known this since night. Anybody that studied this has known this since 1979. If he had talked to anybody in the CIA that worked the Iran desk for more than five minutes, that wasn't one of his hacks that would say, yes, sir, yes, sir, yes, sir, yes, sir. They would have said, Mr. President, don't do it. It's just not going to end well. They're going to close off the straight. And then they're going to have a chokehold on the world economy. Iran is not Venezuela and the assumption that it was at the beginning of this conflict and the mistakes that were made initially, not bringing in allies. Can I stop you really quickly just right there? David Ignatius said every day on this show, Mr. President, Iran is not Venezuela. Every day, David Ignatius warned the president on this show. Iran is not Venezuela. Don't do it.

And I've written extensively in the last few months that Trump liked that comparison, thought. the U.S. military was invincible. And again, the military has done its job effectively. But it's a different situation. They didn't bring in allies. Trump ignored the warnings about the straight of Hormuz. And now he is balked in. He's bored, yes, but he's also bored and frustrated because he doesn't see a way out of this. He wants to move on to the next adventure, the next storyline in his presidency. He wants to go to Cuba. He wants to focus things, you know, the midterms are approaching, but he can't. He is, he is stuck. You know, yesterday we did see some real frustration from him. You know, he has obviously extended the ceasefire repeatedly, even though Iran has ignored his

deadlines. They've called his bluff. You know, AIDS say it's a possibility that hostility is resumed, but Trump doesn't want to do that. And if it does, it's a bombing campaign, what targets are they left to hit beyond civilian targets that would constitute a war crime? You know, there has been, the Pentagon I reported a month ago, has had plans on his desk for very small operations, whether it's Karg Island or to go after the nuke material. He doesn't want to even do that either. And certainly there's not going to be a full-scale invasion. And Joe, the Robert Kagan piece also makes this point that America has lost, you know, or had some bad outcomes in military operations in recent decades. Vietnam, Iraq, of course. But both of those, he said, U.S. was relatively able to recover.

Right. And it didn't really change their standing in the world. He argues that this loss will, that this loss will weaken us as a global superpower because China will see this and take advantage, because our influence in the Middle East will be reduced. He thinks this will have far greater consequences. A war in Iraq toppled Saddam Hussein caused chaos in Iraq, did not cause chaos in the world economy. And with the surge, it was very unpopular at the time. By 2009, we saw a more stabilized Iraq. And I think most people, if you said, would you rather have an Iraq in 2026 with Saddam Hussein

or with who's there now? people would say who's there now. That doesn't mean it wasn't a grave mistake. It was a grave mistake going in. But the consequences weren't cataclysmic. A loss in Iran would have cataclysmic outcomes. And that's why every America needs to be worried about this and to be worried and hope that we find a way out of this. I know. Let's take a pause from this for a moment. Take a look at some of the other stories making headlines this morning. All right, House Democrats will hold a field hearing in Palm Beach County, Florida, as part of the congressional investigation into the late sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein. It will include testimony from Epstein survivors and witnesses in the investigation.

We'll have a live report from the ground there in the fourth hour of morning, Joe. The Supreme Court has extended a freeze on new restrictions of Mitha Pristone, allowing the abortion medication to continue being prescribed by mail. Justice Samuel Alito has continued to, the pause until 5 p.m. Eastern this Thursday after two drug makers asked the court to restore access to the pills through the telehealth and mail delivery system. Alito's move provides a reprieve for pharmacies and clinicians trying to provide care amid the latest legal battle over accessing the medication as the court continues to deliberate over how to resolve the matter. And British Prime

Minister, Kier Starrmer, is facing growing calls to... resign after his labor party suffered sweeping losses in local elections across England, Scotland, and Wales. Last week, more than 70 labor lawmakers have publicly demanded Starrmer step down, and several junior aides resigned in protest yesterday. Even some of Starmor's own senior cabinet ministers have urged him to quit, and this morning one minister resigned. David, really quickly, a lot of people thought Starmor was going to be a technocrat who would get things done for labor. We're not a rabid ideologue, but somebody that could get things done. He seems to be neither.

Stomber's failure is a stunner. It is. He had an extraordinary majority in Parliament. After years of such chronic failure by the Tories that really felt that Britain was ready for something different, ready for a strong labor prime minister. And Starmor has proved the opposite. my British friends initially were just scratching their heads, wondering, why doesn't he use this enormous majority to do the kind of reforms that Britain so obviously needs? Now they're just on the point of giving up. And it's unfortunately a lesson for all of Europe about the difficulty of making sensible centrist policies work. It's not going well in France. It's not going well in Germany.

and it's certainly not going well in Britain. Heggseth, Starmour is still in power, but he's increasingly hanging on by his fingertips. I know I did that because it's the next story and prompt. There you got. Still ahead on morning, Joe. Defense Secretary Pete Hagseth is heading to Capitol Hill this morning for hearings. With House and Senate lawmakers, we'll have a preview of that.

Plus, we'll be joined by Democratic Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona after Heg Seth accused him on Sunday. Monday of blabbing about a classified briefing, didn't he? The blabbing was actually quoting Heggis. Yeah. Also, we'll get publicly a Jim Vanda High's new piece on how Americans are becoming more addicted and money hungry and how artificial intelligence is playing a role in that shift. And as we go to break, a quick look at the travelers' forecast this morning from Accuethers. It's cold out there this one. Bernie Raino, fresh and chilly. Bernie has it looking. Mika, bright and sunny today.

Little chilly this morning, cold this afternoon. Your exclusive vacuum with a forecast, 62 degrees in Boston, 67 New York City, near 70, Washington, D.C. Watch out, a couple of showers in a gusty thunderstorm around Chicago this afternoon. Wet across Florida, there's going to be delays across the Florida Peninsula, sunshine, Dallas, Oklahoma, City, Kansas City. Travel delays, watch Florida other than that. Green means good. To help you make the best decisions and be more in the note, download the action. Uweather app today.

Jim Vanda High, your latest piece with Mike Allen for Axius, is titled Scaling Sin. And in it, you write about what's behind the rise of vices in the U.S., including gambling, cannabis use, and internet pornography. Tell us more. Yeah, I don't mean to be a scold, but if you look at what's happened at the national level and you look at what's happened at the state level, and it's happened very slowly and bit by bit, But suddenly, if you're a young person, you can bet on anything, not just sports. You can bet on anything from your phone.

You can invest in anything from your phone. You can get not just porn. You can like manufacture your own porn on your phone. And then you can, in most states, go and get weed that's probably 50 times as powerful as a weed when we were young. And little by little, you put those things together. You start to see why that there's a surge in the behaviors that flow from doing those three things. And I don't think anyone set out to necessarily scale sin, but little by little, we're all Las Vegas now. And if you're a state, you're at this heavy incentive to allow it because there's a lot of tax revenue that flows from it.

And it's been kind of bipartisan. It's not just a Republican or a Democratic state that's doing it. It's both sides. And you take something like, especially pornography, and you look at you take these new technologies where, you know, you see this massive explosion of people utilizing these technologies to create, you know, seemingly real pornography scenes using real people, but augmenting it with technology. And so you've got all these new things that younger people in particular are having to deal with on top of all the stress of just being young. And I don't know that society has even thought that deeply about it because there's so much

other stuff going on like the stuff we talk about on the show. Except this is all devastating to younger Americans. Pornography is devastating to younger Americans, gambling, devastating to all Americans. Again, early, training them to gamble on everything is devastating. And something that's always been a major concern. And I've sounded like a scold for years. In fact, I think I wrote an article in Politica when you were there about marijuana. And this idea that for young people, it's harmless.

And if you try to talk about the dangers of massive marijuana use when your brain is developing, when you're a teenager, when you're your 20s, you know, people are like, oh, we for madness, man. Yeah, yeah, I saw that movie. You look at science now. The New York Times is saying it's anything. The New York Times is saying that cannabis is anything, but harmless for young minds.

It causes incredible problems, especially for teenagers, especially for people in the early to mid-20s. And yet, what message are they getting? It's fine. It's legal. So I guess it's okay for me to do. And it kind of happened overnight, right?

Things that were completely illegal. And something that would have been, like, you would never be able to talk about it in public is now commonplace. And I'm not saying you have to regulate this stuff out of business. I am saying that it's interesting that we've done this, and we've not done any education to younger people about the consequences of gambling, the consequences of pornography, the consequences of pornography, the consequences of smoking weed that is exponentially stronger, I think, than most people realize.

And any common sense person would be like, obviously, that's going to have some effect on people. Just like now we're suddenly realizing that, hey, if you drink a lot of booze, it might not necessarily always be great for you. We weren't even told that when we were young. So these new things happen, but they're kind of happening all at once, and it's happening to a generation that is so phone fluent. They're used to just sitting at home, looking at other people, and now they can not just look at other people. they can access all of this from their couch without ever leaving home. And so at the very least, you think you would want your young people being taught how to use these technologies sensibly, understand the downside risk of the things that we were taught

at young age. You probably shouldn't do this. Here's why you shouldn't do it. I think a lot of people don't hear that, and you're starting to see it in the numbers. Yeah, and Jim, this devastating for all younger Americans, but especially men. You look at porn. You look at gambling. you look at weed.

I mean, it's young men who are disproportionately impacted by this, and it's causing a real crisis. Yeah, I don't want to be one of those, hey, you damn kids, like, stop doing that. But one of the things you should watch is anyone just spent a little time looking at what they're called up. It's kind of okay if you do tell, like, 18-year-olds, a 19-year-olds.

Yeah, you know what? You should probably lay off the gambling. You should probably lay off the cannabis. You should probably lay off the porn. it's going to have long-term impacts on you while your brain is developing. These are people that you, you know, sometimes you wonder whether you should even trust them with car keys, let alone all of this. There's a great documentary. I think it's on Netflix about the Manosphere that people should watch or you should go follow some of these young men that young men follow who just glorify,

treating women like crap, doing drugs, gambling on everything, trying to maximize your look by doing things that have not been medically cleared. Like, that's the stuff that gets fed into kids' brains. And again, just being aware of it and teaching kids that, like, you need some proper, like, digital hygiene to be able to navigate what is a really wild world. And I just don't think anyone's getting that almost anywhere now. All right, Jim Vanda High with the quote of the morning. We are all Las Vegas now. Great. Thank you.

Thank you. Very much. You can read the new piece. Scaling sin. It's online now. Coming up, what happens when artificial intelligence, climate collapse, and global warming? War collide. That's the subject of the new novel by best-selling author, Retired Navy Admiral James Stavridis. I've missed saying that name. He joins us in studio with a preview of

2084. Morning Joe. We'll be right back. Trump was asked why he rejected Iran's counterproposal, and he said few words, but so many times. It was just unacceptable. You know, a lot of people say, well, does you have a plan? Yeah, of course they do. I have the best plan ever. But I have a plan. You know what I mean? It's a very simple plan. I don't know why you don't say it like it is. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. Very simple. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.

It's a very simple plan. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. But very simply, when they say, does he have a plan? Yeah, I have a plan. Plan is very simple. I have a great plan. But the plan is they cannot have a nuclear weapon. Yes, yes.

He has such a simple plan. In fact, the only thing simpler than the plan is the man who has it. You should... I mean, if that's the plan, that's going to be quite an effort. Let's just put it that way. And we'll talk to our next guest about that as well. Artificial intelligence, the climate crisis and war all collide in the brand new thriller, 2084. The fictional novel imagines a deeply divided world where nations along the equator bear the brunt

of climate change and are faced with an existential choice, resettle or die. That dilemma sparks a global war against more wealthy and powerful nations like the U.S. and China. 2084 is the third installment in the gripping novel of future war series. And joining us now, the co-author of 2084, retired four-star Navy Admiral James DeVritus. He's also the former Supreme Allied commander of NATO. MS now contributor, Mike Barnacle, joins the conversation as well. It's good to have you both, and Admiral, it's great to see you. Thank you. Wonderful to be with all of you.

Great, great, great to have you here. So Iran not having a nuclear weapon is not a plan, though it has been the stated intent of about seven or eight American presidents. But we are here where we are. David Ignatius, we've all been talking about Robert Hagan's piece yesterday, saying this is we're on the cusp of a historic defeat. If you're the chairman of the Joint Chiefs right now, when the president comes to you and says, tell me what I should do to get out of this quagmire,

what options do you give him? They're not great. I think there are three options at this point. One is throw up your hands, walk away. and simply say, this was all a mistake. That's disastrous American prestige. That obviously leaves Iran in charge of the strait with a nuclear weapon and empowered. So that's a bad choice.

It's a bad choice, but it's a choice. Option two, you double down, you triple down, like in Iraq, ding, ding, how did that all turn out? But this is when David Petraeus, when David Petraeus and George Shubby Bush are having the conversation, Bush says, okay, we'll double down. And Dave Petraeus said, nope, we're going all in. There's a difference. And so that's option two. You put ground troops and go all in.

By the way, that was, I'm just going to say it. I'm not going to even say qualified success. That was an unqualified success. Al Ambar calmed down. By 2009, Dexter Filkins was coming on our show. Correct. I said, I don't even recognize this place anymore. Yeah.

And so with that history, you could start to make that case, but no one wants ground troops, and that's really ground troops. So option three, where I think this ends up, is you continue your blockade, you break the Iranian blockade. You can do that with air and naval forces, and you continue to strangle the Iranian. economy. Here's the problem with option three if you're President Trump. You have this clock ticking over your head that the Iranians don't. It's called elections, gas prices, people are discomforted by all of this. So not a good set of options. If I'm Dan Kane and I'm advising the president,

I would probably say, let's put a little more on option three. Let's continue. Sometimes the best plan B is to try harder on plan A. And I think we're at that point because the other two options are so unpalatable. They're non-starters. So, and so if the president turns to you and says, how long is that going to last? If I don't care about midterm elections, if I'm okay with gas prices, going up to $6, how long do you think it'll take for plan C to work? months, but not years, as follows. We're all impressed with the Iranian's ability to take pain and to get through this moment, kind of like the Russians, you know, one day in the life of Ivan Denisovich kind of mentality. But there is a limit for them. Economically, you can break that

economy. I'd say in months, not years, but you've got to make that call if you're the president. You really want to be in this. And final thought, you've been throwing around. the Q word all morning, quagmire. I don't think we're in a quagmire yet, but I can see one from here. And that's the problem with option C. David Ignatius is with us in Washington. Has a question. David. Admiral Stravitis, the president leaves today for China, for an important summit, at a time when, as we've been saying, he's facing what looks increasingly like a no-win situation. There's bad choices ahead in the Iran War.

I would ask you what you think the U.S.-China balance looks like, and whether, as you watched the president head to Beijing, you have greater concerns that war between the two countries is ahead, given the current course we're on, or whether you see those dangers diminishing. I see good news and bad news. I'll kind of start with the bad news, which is your point, David. This is sort of tilting the relationship is tilting China at the moment because we're so

caught up in this Middle East situation. And it's also, as Robert Kagan spoke to in his excellent piece, all of this kind of rings the bell of doubt all around in NATO, in Asia, everywhere. where doubts are accruing. So that balance is tilting. I think you'll see President Xi, a man in full will welcome President Trump. It'll be nice theater between the two of them. They'll kind of pretend to like each other for five minutes. Okay. But at the end of the day, that balance is kind of tilting toward China globally. So that's kind of the bad news. Here's the good news to your question about, are we headed into a war? I don't think so,

at least in the immediate term, because although she has built this big, brand new, beautiful, glittering military, he still wants to develop it, he wants to train it, he wants to globally operate it, and by the way, he's just gotten rid of about half of his admirals and generals. Now, you might say, David, that's good to get rid of admirals and generals from time to time, but when you're getting ready for a war, maybe not so much. So I think we've got some time here to get that U.S.-China relationship back in balance. Admiral, you've had quite a career in the global stage. Looking at it now, looking backward and from right now today,

the United States was viewed as predictable, dependable, and reliable by many allies across the globe. Where do we stand on those categories today? We're reduced, Mike. And this is exactly why I feel that tilt toward China. It's not a overwhelming sudden rise of China to take over the world. It's not that at all. We still have an incredibly powerful hand of cards here in the United States. Our economy, our agriculture, our innovation, our geography.

We've a lot. But that sense of doubt in the United States, your point, is rising. And it ought to concern us deeply. So, Admiral, let's turn to the book, 2084. Your third installment here. This one, as Meekin mentioned at the time, of the segment deals with the impact of climate change, displacement, shortage of resources. Talk to us about how you envision what that means for warfare. I'll give you three things that are

front of mind for me, and they kind of tie to what's going on in Iran in many ways. One is the rise of unmanned, the use of drones. Look at Ukraine, where the Ukrainians are building a million drones a month and killing a thousand Russians a day. That is big casino and a big part of this. So unmanned number two, artificial intelligence in the book, 284, we call it beginner's mind. It's the advice of an AI, I think Isaac Asimov and foundation kind of great minds advising humans. And then number three, it's the fragility of alliances. This trilogy starts with a war. in 2034 between the U.S. and China to the questions Jonathan and Michael are asking. But by 2084, the U.S. and China are allies. And so that churn of geopolitical alliance is a big

part of war and a big part of the novel. So we often hear about the divide between the global north and the global south. Is this where the dividing lines are? Yeah, that's what this book is really about. And at the end of the day, the wealthy global north has beaten up the South through climate, through economics. And so the South says, it's time for us. It's Indonesia, Brazil, Nigeria, by late in this century, those three nations are extremely populous, have a great deal of capability, and they're coming for reparations. And we're looking, and your book talks about it, the future of warfare. And right now, that's asymmetric warfare. Where are, Iran can tie down the United States.

Ukraine can tie down first and then possibly defeat Russia. And indeed, at the end of the novel, just to conclude on a more hopeful note, but by the end of the novel, a woman is planting grapes in Greenland. Okay. Okay, Cliffhanger, the new book, 2084, is on sale now. New York Times bestselling author, retired Navy Admiral James Tavridis. Thank you. It's so good to see you. And congratulations on the book. We appreciate it.