Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov - A Shaky Ceasefire (ft. Rep. Jim Himes)

Episode Date: June 25, 2025

Scott and Jessica talk through the aftermath of the weekend’s airstrikes in Iran — the lack of coordination in the lead-up, differing accounts of the damage, and confusion about a ceasefire. They���re joined by Rep. Jim Himes, Ranking Member on the House Intelligence Committee, to discuss possible consequences for Iran’s regime, citizens, and nuclear capabilities. Plus: Trump publicly lashes out at Israel, Iran, and… one of the hosts of Raging Moderates. Follow Jessica Tarlov, @JessicaTarlov.  Follow Prof G, @profgalloway. Follow Raging Moderates, @RagingModeratesPod. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

School's out, the weather's getting warmer, and you know what that means. It's sleepaway camp season. It's never been the case that the majority of American children went to summer camps, but summer camps came to assume a really important place in American popular culture. If most of us didn't go to camp, why are we so obsessed with it? That's this week on Explain It To Me. New episodes every Sunday, wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, this is Peter Kafka. I'm the host of Channels, a podcast about what happens when media and tech collide. And this week I'm talking with John Gruber, a long-time

Apple blogger who has found himself in a feud with Apple. John Gruber Honestly, and I'm not trying to lack humility here, but I feel them deciding not to do my show this year is a total win for me and was a huge loss for them. That's this week on channels, wherever you find your favorite podcast. Scott Galway Welcome to Raging Moderates. I'm Scott Galway. Jessica Charloff And I'm Jessica Charloff. Scott Galway Okay, Jess. In today's episode of Raging Moderates,

we're discussing the aftermath of Trump strikes in Iran and how we got to a ceasefire and then how we didn't. First, we're fortunate to have Congressman Jim Himes, the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee joining us to break down the latest developments. Representative Himes, I very much appreciate you being here. Welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. So why don't we just start off with your view of the state of play here? Can you break down the latest developments in the

Middle East for our listeners? Yeah, well, we're in a real roller coaster ride, right? We heard of the ceasefire last night, and then apparently the ceasefire was violated, and the president got very, very angry on social media, and now we may or may not be on a ceasefire. Look, a couple of big picture things that we shouldn't lose sight of. Number one, we went into a war in the Middle East without any congressional deliberation. And that is not according to the law, either the Constitution or the War Powers Act. And it's also not very smart, right?

And an awful lot of people are saying, well, presidents have done this forever. And that, you know, fair enough. That doesn't make it okay. And I'm a big believer that Congress ought to actually abide by the Constitution. But the other thing I would point out is that, you know, Bill Clinton sending limited, you know, cruise missile strikes into Somalia or a president putting a few ground forces

on the ground in Syria is not playing anywhere near the order of magnitude of what it means to take an offensive strike in an area where you have 40,000 troops, where if things go wrong, gasoline prices could, you know, go to six or $7 a gallon. strike in an area where you have 40,000 troops where if things go wrong gasoline prices could you know go to six or seven dollars a gallon this was an instance in which there should have been some consideration now where are we thank God that it would appear that from a tactical standpoint the military strike was successful in as much as it created a lot of big explosions and everybody got home safe what we don't know and this is the question of the day really, is whether this meaningfully

set back Iran's nuclear program. I can't get into details for obvious reasons, but I see absolutely no evidence that this did anything other than slow the Iranians' role a little bit, a little bit. And so in the coming days and weeks, we're gonna grapple with the possibility that the Iranians are still in a position to do a pretty quick breakout for a nuclear weapon. And what is going to be the Israeli response to that? And what is gonna be the American response to that?

If in fact, that turns out to be true. Vice President, JD Vance sat down with Brad Bayer on special report on Monday night. And Brad asked him about this and said, well, aren't you concerned about the fact that they were able to relocate the 60% enriched uranium that it could fit in? I think it was 10 trunks of cars.

And because President Trump seemed to be telegraphing a lot of what was going on, that they were actually given enough time to be able to do that. And JD Vance basically poo-pooed it and said that doesn't really matter I assume your assessment is that it does matter that they were able to get the uranium out and that they could Start their project over essentially

It's inconceivable to me that somebody with the brains of JD Vance would say that if the Iranians were able to get all of their 60% enriched uranium out that that wouldn't matter. That's just insane. Obviously, if they retain that 60% uranium, they have and some centrifuges, and it's very, very unlikely that these raids obliterated, to use JD Vance's word, all of the centrifuges. It's not hard for the Iranians to refine this to weapons grade. it's not hard for the Iranians to refine this to weapons grade. And then it's not hard ultimately to cobble together a nuclear device. So look, I am sad to see, but not surprised, that JD Vance and senior members of this administration are using words like obliterate. Which again, I have seen nothing to suggest that that verb is in any way

applicable here. And again, that raises very serious questions because what are the israelis do if it turns out that uh... we simply moved to the right a little bit a month or weeks the ability of the iranians to break out a weapon if they choose to do that and by the way what about the fact that now if you're in iranian uh... regime member as awful as you are you're also smart enough, gosh, the whole negotiations thing was never real. The president tore up the one

thing that slowed the Iranians, the JCPOA, and he allowed the Israelis to start bombing in the middle of a negotiation. So if you're an Iranian regime member, you say, okay, we tried that route, now you know what we're gonna do? We're gonna do what North Korea did. We're gonna do what Pakistan did, is we're gonna go underground and the world is gonna learn about our progress when we actually test a device. And at that point, guess what? There are going to be no more military attacks on Iran.

That, to me, is the really kind of horrifying scenario here. So, Representative, so if the president had come to Congress and sought congressional approval and laid out exactly and very detailed plans what he was planning to do, the ordinance, the armaments, the risks, the upside, the downside. Would you have voted yes or no and why? It's sort of hard to answer that hypothetical question because there would be all sorts

of other questions you would need to answer, like what we've been sort of alluding to. Okay, we can make very big explosions in ventilation shafts in Fordow and Natanz, but what else? What else? What do we do if the 60% uranium is in a warehouse somewhere, as it may very well be? But let me not try to entirely dance around that question, and I'll tell you what my bias is. All I've got is history to go on, right? And the history of our military interventions in the region in my lifetime is pretty darn bad, right? We took out Muammar Gaddafi. Libya is now a chaotic dystopia. We know the story of Iraq where we empowered Iran and lost 4,400 troops in our efforts there and of course we don't need to talk about Afghanistan

to know that that's not something. So anyway, my point obviously is what do I have to go on other than the history and the question of whether we have been successful in achieving our strategic aims in the region. And the answer to that question is pretty much generally no. So let me just say facts matter,

but I would have had a very, very strong bias based on our history of ending up with outcomes that none of us would have either predicted or wanted when we get involved militarily in the Middle East. I understand, you know, we can't get in a time machine and we can't go back and do this differently. So we are where we are today. And I saw former Secretary of State Anthony Blinken

was out in the New York Times with an op-ed saying that he thought the strike was a mistake and he hopes it's a success. Can you talk us through what you think a success looks like at this point? Do you think there is any chance at an Iranian and Israeli lasting ceasefire? And Donald Trump did float the idea of regime change just over truth social a couple of days ago. Do you think that that is still any part of the conversation? Well, yeah, I mean your question is not too hard to answer and just because I'm concerned, as you might imagine, I can envision and even accept the possibility that yeah,

you know, the Iranian people might finally do what the Argentine people did in 1982 when it turned out that the dictatorial generals that were governing them couldn't even defend the Falkland Islands and the Argentine people said guess what if you if you bunch of generals can't even keep us safe from a country that's 12,000 miles away out you go so wouldn't that be amazing if the Iranian people had the capacity and the will to finally overthrow this truly evil regime again I'm not sure the United States should be in the business of promoting that kind of regime change because we don't have a very good track record.

But oh my God, what an amazing outcome that would be. And look, it's possible. It's possible. It would also be amazing if the administration and the Israelis would say, okay, Iran, you're probably in your weakest point in a generation. Let's now sit down at the negotiating table. That's a little bit of a hard sell, right? Cause if you're an Iranian regime member, you say,

oh really, now we're going to sit down at the negotiating table. And if you don't like what we do, you know, we get another B2 flight over our nation. So that's a hard sell, but I wouldn't completely rule it out. The problem is if we had two hours to do it, we could talk about gasoline prices at $6, about dead American soldiers and sailors, about missiles,

about terrorist cells activated in London and Rome. We could talk about the possibility of destabilization in the region and the fact that the Jordanian king, who's really, really important to us, sits atop a powder keg and that, you know, real volatility could result in regime changes in other places like Jordan, where it would be a catastrophe for us. So, anyway, let's acknowledge that there could be a catastrophe for us. So anyway, let's acknowledge that there could be a good outcome here. It's just, you know, you'd have to go and get the odds from a bookie. You know, how much do you bet on the best case scenario coming out of the Middle East? Representative, I worry that as someone who's a Democrat and is committed to

retaking the House and the White House, I worry that as always, we figure out a way to come across as incredibly weak. And that is, we're angry that they didn't come to us as you should have for constitutional bypass the Constitution. That now seems to be the norm, almost a given, and not enough conversation around whether or not this was the right move. And I want to applaud you for actually addressing the question, but let's steel man this a little bit because you brought us some issues. The price of oil, it looks as if right now the oil markets have yawned and don't believe that this threatens oil prices. If the straight of

horn moves, if in fact it is compromised, it'll hurt India and China more than it would hurt us. We're fairly energy self-sufficient. Khomeini at 85 years of age leading a theocracy that has had its hands cut off is on the brink of collapse. And this might tip it over into collapse and that we are not planning as far as I can tell to put boots on the ground. We've just always remiss to take a victory lap. We're kicking Russia's ass. It feels like a runs air defenses are down because of the brave work of the IDF. And we have demonstrated that we spend $800 billion for a reason and that we have armaments that no one else has. And that the capacity to get closer to a bomb, we know they didn't get any closer. We know that they're further away.

We just don't know how much they're further away. Isn't this potentially or most likely even something that will be looked back as America exerting its power in a thoughtful way and that the Democrats were more focused on procedure than actual outcomes? Yeah, well, you know, okay, fair point, Scott. And you know, I really like when we're talking about military activity and war and our troops to not collapse into a consideration of the politics of this. But you ask an interesting question to which I would say these things can break either

way. You know, if we were having this conversation in the early first decade of the 2000s and talking to Hillary Clinton and Hillary Clinton says, you know, we Democrats makes the argument that you just made. We Democrats always end up looking weak. So I'm voting yes to give George W. Bush the authority to go into Iraq. Great analogy. At that moment in time,

I'm not sure Hillary Clinton thought to herself that it is that vote, this hawkish vote, because I'm afraid of looking weak. That is probably going to be the single largest factor that an unknown state senator from Illinois named Barack Obama is going to take me out as the presidential candidate of 2008, right? So I think these things can turn on a dime. And look, let's not be silly about this. If the best-case scenario happens and the regime falls and the new regime or the new government says we're never gonna mess around with uranium or nuclear weapons again, yeah, you know, we will have gotten very lucky. And I'll be

sad because you say process. You know, to me, abiding by the Constitution is not just a reversion to process. It's actually something that every two years I raise my hand and swear to do. So I'm sort of a little sad that I would say, well, we're having a process argument because I think the constitution is worth defending. But anyway, my larger point is that in these sorts of situations, you're right, you know, there is a political implication. But again, if you were thinking purely politically, would you have said, yeah, let's take that Gaddafi guy out. Yeah, let's, let's, you know, try to nation build in Afghanistan because we've got the best capabilities everywhere. In retrospect you would say

boy pretty ugly political position. I want to stay on the politics issue but frame in a little bit of a different way because it's been reported that Democrats were not briefed about the strike ahead of time including yourself and Senator Mark Warner both the ranking members on the Intel committee as members of the gang of eight. That is something deeply concerning to me that the Republicans feel like they're just going to go it alone. Can you talk about whether that's true, the implications of that, and if there's any chance that we can make foreign policy, which has historically been a space that could be fairly bipartisan,

return to the norm, or at least get a bit better than it is right now? Yeah, look, I'll absolutely acknowledge that there are issues with congressional consultation. I mean, Scott didn't ask this specifically, but implied it, which is, hey, what if we have a four-week debate over this attack? At that point, haven't the Iranians

completely hidden all their uranium? That's a fair point, right? And we could have that argument, and maybe you would think about things like informing small numbers of members of Congress, gang of eight, leadership, whatever you wanna do. So there's a reasonable argument to have there, but it does stop at the law, right?

You know, just because something is hard or inconvenient doesn't mean that you can violate the law or the Constitution. I keep saying that. It's not just process, it's the law. But yeah, I mean, one thing is unambiguous, Jess, which is that letting Republicans, letting members of your own party know, but not letting the opposition know is a sort of ugly innovation of the Trump administration. And look, it's sort of dumb too, right? Because now if this thing goes horribly wrong, which you could, politically speaking,

yeah, you Mr. President own this. And by the way, the four or five Republicans you chose to reach out to own it as well. And we've got the political defense of, you didn't even, I read about this on Twitter. So anyway, that's a pretty ugly new innovation in this, from this administration. Representative Himes is the ranking member

on the House Intelligence Committee. You're just privy to color and detail that the general public and the media isn't. And one of the things that struck me about this attack or specifically the aftermath of the attack is whether it was Iraq or Afghanistan or expelling Hussein from Kuwait, regardless of the success or lack thereof of those interventions.

The next day, we had big nations with substantial armies wang in in support. There was clearly a lot of groundwork laid to say that, all right, we support this. It was clear that we're not acting alone, that we might be the leadership and have the biggest military in the West, but we are, in fact, hand in hand with the West. And one of the things that was so striking here and so disappointing was that the only nations that commented on this the next day were the Chinese saying,

there they go again, making the world more unstable, and Russia mocking us for not diminishing their nuclear capabilities to the extent we were bragging. The lack of alliances, the lack of support, this go-alone arrogance to me was so distressing and something that the public didn't discuss. As somebody who is obviously in conversation with our allies, both in open formats and behind closed doors, can you speak a little bit to, one, do you buy the thesis that we don't have the support we is obviously in conversation with our allies, both in open formats and behind closed doors. Can you speak a little bit to, one, do you buy the thesis

that we don't have the support we typically have, and two, what you're seeing across our alliances around this type of activity? Yeah, I mean, not surprised, right? We know that the Trump administration doesn't put much, to put it mildly, value on our allies or about acting together.

But these interventions that we've talked about, some of which didn't go very well, almost always involved us working with our allies, just because practically that's a good thing, and also because we care that we speak as the West and not just as the US. So George H.W. Bush, when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, famously spent weeks working the phone to put together the coalition that ultimately was successful in removing Saddam Hussein from Kuwait.

And you know, the famous coalition of the willing going into Iraq with us. Again, I think we can look back on that and say, gosh, that didn't work out quite the way we had hoped. But, you know, George W. Bush did do the work to get our NATO allies and others. Even in Libya, we were operating under the auspices of NATO. So that's generally a good idea. It gives credibility and it gives us, to be fair, on the margin, some operational capacity that we might not otherwise have on the margin. So when you take action like this, it's always a good idea, for no other reason than to hear what the Brits and others have to say about how we can do this well.

But this is not, of course, the way this administration thinks about taking action abroad. And it's interesting timing. The president is on his way to the NATO summit in The Hague. He definitely wanted a big win coming in, since everybody is pretty mad at him about tariffs in the general state of the world. How do you think this is going to play out over the next couple of days?

You know, I can't emphasize enough how much the facts on the ground matter to the answer to that question. Again, on one extreme, maybe the Iranian people finally say we've had enough and they, you know, have both the willingness and the capability to overthrow this hideous regime, in which case we're all going to feel good. On the other extreme, of course, is, you know, continued Israeli attacks on Iran, Iran claiming that they're violating the ceasefire,

and Israel would do that because they realize that we probably haven't significantly damaged the nuclear capability, and now we're back to a shooting war in the Middle East. Or again, my worst-case scenario is the quiet scenario. It's not bombs going off or missiles landing in Bahrain. The Iranians go dead quiet for six months and seven months from now there's a test of a nuclear device. So, you know, where we land on that spectrum of, you know, magnificent

to horrible is going to have a lot to do with how, you know, to Scott's point, the domestic politics play here and to the way the rest of the world thinks about it. Now, let me make one last point here because I think those of us who are interested in international affairs should be self-reflective. This is a point of humility. If you had told me two years ago that Israel was going to be able to largely take out Hezbollah to assassinate Hamas leadership in downtown Tehran and basically crush their leadership and disable the Iranian air defenses, whatever, 40, 50 percent, I would have said that's over ambitious.

And so let's not be overly biased towards the pessimistic here. What the Israelis, whatever you think about its wisdom or its justice, what the Israelis, whatever you think about, you know, its wisdom or its justice, what the Israelis have accomplished, you know, since October 7th, and I set aside their activities in Gaza when I say this, militarily against Hezbollah and militarily against Hamas in Iran, has been, let's just say,

nobody I think would have put a big bet on that outcome. Just along those lines, Representative, if you think of us as having four enemies, loosely China, North Korea, Iran, and Russia, I would argue China's not an enemy. It's the Americans. When we have a competitor that gets too successful, we think of them as an enemy.

I think of them as a competitor. So that leaves Russia, North Korea, and Iran. I mean, we are, quite frankly, kind of kicking ass and taking names. I mean, I think Russia and Iran, kind of kicking ass and taking names. I mean, I think Russia and Iran are just not in the same place they were 24 months ago. And just a pointed question, hasn't the Ukrainian army and the IDF, quite frankly, been doing the West's dirty work and kind of kicking ass and asking questions later? Don't we owe, as someone who's on the Intelligence Committee, with

exponentially more budget, exponentially better equipment, haven't they demonstrated the kind of confidence and courage that has advanced our objectives and made us safer? Don't we owe Ukrainian Army and the IDF a huge debt of gratitude? I would separate those two questions. Everyone thought Ukraine was going down. What Ukraine has managed to pull off has been nothing short of epic, especially in the context of our wavering support, where we get sort of partial credit for helping the Ukrainians. The lesson that has come out of that war is hopefully being learned by dictators everywhere, which is that when you're on someone else's land, even if you have overwhelming firepower,

you're going to have a hard time, a million casualties in Russia right now. Now, Putin doesn't care about that, but hopefully the other dictators around the world who are thinking about a Ukraine-like incursion are taking that a little bit more seriously. And again, I just, I won't repeat myself, but what the IDF achieved against Hezbollah, what the IDF achieved against Hamas and Tehran and what they achieved against the Iranians is pretty spectacular. I'm putting an asterisk on that because too much of what we see happening in Gaza right now should not be happening. There's too much humanitarian suffering and civilian loss. And I do think that over time, the IDF will need to grapple with that. But the last answer on your question about the IDF, Scott, is

again, it really matters how this ends. And Middle East experts will tell you, you sometimes don't know the answer to the famous question, tell me how this ends in the Middle East for a couple years. So again, I'm not gonna beat this dead horse too much, but a regime change and a giving up of the nuclear weapons, wow, incredible. But there are a lot of other scenarios and until we know which door gets opened, I think it's a little early to celebrate or to say that the IDF has been doing our dirty work. Look, again, let me just say it again, if the Iranians give up their nuclear weapons or, you know, let us all hope for regime change, remarkable, but we just we're not there yet.

Congressman Himes, thank you so much for your time. It's invaluable that you could join us. Thanks a lot. Thanks for having me. Yeah, Congressman, you're thoughtful and direct. you're in the right seat. It makes us feel good that you've decided to do what you do. And Scott rarely says that to anyone that we talk to. I'm just juggling because I'm not sure that thoughtful and direct is actually in the job description of a member of Congress, but okay, I'll take it. It should be.

Yeah, keep on keeping on. right on. Thanks, Representative. Thank you for your time. All right, take care, thank you very much. Okay, let's take a quick break. Stay with us. The Chevrolet employee pricing event is on now. Get a big cash purchase discount of up to $11,300 on the 2025 Chevrolet Silverado LDZR2 and Silverado HDZR2.

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This week on Net Worth and Chill, I'm joined by Bobby Burke, the interior design mogul and Queer Eye star who transformed his passion for home design into a multi-million dollar empire. From starting with nothing and sleeping on friends' couches to building his own furniture line, opening multiple retail stores and landing his breakthrough TV role, Bobby shares how he turned personal struggles

into entrepreneurial gold. Stay within your budget. If you have to pivot because prices have went up for tariffs, if you don't have the money to increase your budget, don't. Listen, wherever you get your podcasts or watch on youtube.com slash your rich BFF. Welcome back. Jess, what did you think of representative Hines?

I loved him. You loved him. I, I'm a big fan of his and I appreciate also that he comes on Fox, which not every Democrat does, but I loved him. You loved him. I'm a big fan of his, and I appreciate also that he comes on Fox, which not every Democrat does. But having the chance to hear from the ranking member on the Intel committee is really special. And I thought he did a lot of things

that are different from how many members did. But he was open to criticizing himself and the party. He talked about moments of humility, and he was also able to, I think, thoughtfully reflect on a best-case scenario coming out of this, and then also to prepare us for what he's afraid of. I thought it was a very well-rounded approach

to a very fast-moving situation that carries a lot of danger to it, frankly. What'd you think? The more I'm exposed in the last 10 years, I had never, I don't think other than occasionally, you know, when I took my sister to Washington, which was in college, and I would just walk into congressional offices and meet with some aid, I had no exposure to elected representatives. And in the last 10 years, I've had a lot, mostly because I want my money, to be honest. Money's nice. Yeah, money's access. And so I have access to a lot of elected representatives. And I

am consistently impressed by what thoughtful, intelligent, patriotic, committed people they are. And it bothers me how lazy people are to constantly shitpost our government, believing that everyone's corrupt and nobody's smart. There's a lot of really, really impressive people who give up, you know, a guy like that could be easily be running a private equity firm, clocking a shit ton of money and add Bezos' wedding this weekend.

And instead he chooses to, you know, be in DC trying to sort through this shit. So I'm, you know, I'm always impressed or consistently impressed to the upside by these individuals. So Back to the issue at hand Trump Announced what he called a complete and total ceasefire between Israel and Iran The truth was supposed to be phased in over 24 hours But already it's showing signs of strain Israel reportedly struck a radar site near Tehran after claiming Iran violated the ceasefire first. And behind the scenes, Trump is said to be furious with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, pressing him on a tense call on Tuesday

morning. So we went from bunker busters to a ceasefire in less than 48 hours, and now the ceasefire is already cracking. Any sense for what changed behind the scenes to make this deal happen in the first place and it's already falling apart? I'm not sure how much of the deal was really together or how much it's fallen apart, actually. A ceasefire is in a lot of ways, I know it sounds like a final thing, but it's a moving target constantly and it ebbs and flows. And I'm still hopeful that we will be able to get to one. I don't know what that looks

like in the long term because some people just can't be friends. And I think Israel and Iran are two of those kinds of some people. But I remain optimistic. I think part of what got our hopes up is that we have a truth social happy president that feels that he can post through a foreign policy crisis. And that has some benefits. I think the transparency to some degree is good. It has some negative effects, like the fact that we had to send a decoy fleet and the real fleet to try to throw Iran off the scent because Donald Trump was posting through the entire thing. And that's something that you don't want to see

from the commander in chief. But I went to bed very hopeful. It was ceasefire news. I woke up this morning, the ceasefire is off, and maybe it's back on. This was as President Trump was boarding to head to The Hague for the NATO summit. And I hope something good can come out of this. But I was struck by, and it was interesting, that Congressman Himes has introduced this resolution. He wants us to follow the Constitution. And he did have a defense for why

this was different than actions past presidents have taken. And also said past presidents shouldn't have done these kinds of things without authorization. So at least it was a bit of a nuanced take. But I was struck by what German Chancellor Mers said about it. And he said, there is no reason to criticize what America did at the weekend. Yes, it is not without risk, but leaving things as they were was not an option either. I think that that speaks most accurately to how I'm feeling in my heart about what happened. I understand the American intel community did not have the same assessment as the Israelis.

The Israelis are obviously closer to it, but I'm fundamentally concerned that it seems like Bibi Netanyahu is now our DNI. That's a dangerous place to be in, but so is having Tulsi Gabbard as your DNI, also dangerous. But we know that past presidents have tried and failed to stop Iran's nuclear ambitions. I know that they should have stayed in the JCPOA, that we were slowing their enrichment development by a lot. that they should have stayed in the JCPOA, that we were slowing their enrichment development by a lot. I also know we had to give them money that was used to fund terrorism, and that's not

a good outcome either. But Merz's comments really struck me, and I do feel it was unsustainable to let things just keep going on as it were. And at this particular moment, and I like that you brought it up to Congressman Himes, because of the work of the Israelis and the Ukrainians, the allies of the Iranians, the Russians, are unable to help them. They have been so utterly decimated between going after Hamas and Hezbollah and the Russians that we have an opportunity with a weak axis of evil to do something really important for the safety of the region and the world. And that was the opportunity that I saw.

Yeah, I thought that was really well put. I mean, again, self-hating Americans, we can never actually take credit or give credit where it's due. And that is, if Russia, specifically the perception of Russia's fierce fighting force was intact, I don't think we could have done this. Nope.

Or I don't think we would have the balls to do it because we would have been worried they'd be arming their proxies in Syria with surface-to-air missiles that could take out B-2 bombers. One of those B-2s going down and then a bunch of Iranian kids jumping on the wings of B-2s would be a really bad image for us. And we would have been scared that Russia's long arms would be within reach, or this would have been within the grasp of Russia arming Syrians or potentially arming or helping or supporting Iran.

And the way I see this is the following. I'm very much in favor of this. I've never understood how far-right Republicans And the way I see this is the following. I'm very much in favor of this. I've never understood how far-right Republicans can be isolationist and then vote for a $200 billion increase in the military budget from $800 billion to a trillion such that we don't have a bigger budget than the next 10 biggest nations, but the entire world. It's like, well, what's the point?

Canada's not going to invade Buffalo anytime soon. When you spend $800 billion on our military, you are making a decision to get off of your heels and onto our toes and project power and deliver violence to other places in a very imperialist, aggressive way to represent our interests offensively and proactively. And that's what this is. And I think we're looking at the wrong metric. I understand that we want to diminish their nuclear capability.

But for me, the outcome here is the following. I think the IRGC or the Islamic Republic has been a cancer. An occupying force has very little support amongst the Iranian people. I think two of the biggest unlocks as a dork, I think one, overthrowing or nudging the Venezuelan government over the edge such that we're even more energy independent,

Venezuela has more oil than Saudi Arabia, and two, seeing the Islamic Republic come to an end. I think that would be one of the most accretive actions for the 45 million women in Iran that in terms of actual if we really did give a flying fuck about human rights and stability in the region. And I've always thought Iran and America could be incredible allies that, you know, I've said this before, the Iranians I know are more American than Americans. So I see this more as while they're kind of quite frankly down and out To hopefully tip over the Iranian people to give them the confidence to perhaps

Not overthrow this regime, but create their own regime change. You can't you can't you can't create regime change from the outside You can potentially inspire it and that's what I'm hoping That's what I'm hoping this was. The other thing that comes out here for me, or the observation is, there's a reason that business people make such shitty presidents. It's easy to believe that you call the two CEOs of companies and you can do this and say, okay, hey, Steve Jobs, it's Bill Gates.

We're not gonna hire each other's employees, stop it. I forget, one of them called the other and said, stop hiring my employees. Yeah. I remember the story, but I don't. It was Steve Jobs, and maybe it was the guy from Google. Anyways, you're not supposed to do that. But they can call each other and handshake and then send out an email to all the key people,

and boom, it's in place. Ceasefires don't work that way. You've got to give it time. You've got to phase it in. You've got to relay information to, you've got to phase it in, you've got to relay information to your service to air missile battery commanders, you've got to have checks and balances, means of observation, ensure that all the entire command

chain is on board with it, and you need to phase it in over weeks, if not months sometimes. But to believe that, oh, it's like a business deal, and if I get the two top guys to agree to it on the phone with me, it's going to happen, it's like a business deal. And if I get the two top guys to agree to it on the phone with me, it's going to happen. It's just so incredibly naive that this thing was going to hold. I don't think there's ever been a truce where someone

has called and said, oh, agree to it. OK, I got your agreement. And then you go out and announce it. That just, folks, geopolitical truces don't work that way. There's too many moving parts. There's too many. The IRGC right now isn't even able to communicate with its different portions of its armed services right now because they're afraid to use the internet for fear that the IDF uses it as

a signal code to drone strike them. So for, again, for Donald Trump to think he can come in and say, oh, you own the plaza, I own the Hilton, we're going to stop trying to poach each other's employees and get the CEOs to agree. That's not how this works in the Middle East. And then the final observation is our director of national intelligence. I mean, I see three legs of the stool here, kinetic power, which we demonstrated in spades, which I'm a fan of. stool here, kinetic power, which we demonstrated in spades, which I'm a fan of.

Two, alliances, we fell down. It's embarrassing. And one thing I don't think the media is observing is that Britain, France, even the kingdom didn't come out with direct statements of support. Both Bushes would have made sure that would have happened. Obama would have made sure that would happen. Biden would have made sure that happened, such that this was a move from the West and from democracy, not just from Trump. And then the third thing is competence. And who the fuck are we supposed to believe here? We have a director of national intelligence stating that

they aren't any closer to a bomb, and then Trump directly contradicting his director of national intelligence. We have secretaries Hegseth and Rubio stating that we are not pursuing regime change. And then we have Trump saying in all caps, make Iran great again and saying he's in favor of regime change. No one knows what is going on here. Who on earth is actually going to report on what has happened? Who has the credibility? What institution, what experts are going to be able to put out any credible evidence one way or the other of the level of damage or lack thereof of these facilities? Because we now have the fucking bad news bears running the government. You don't even know who to believe.

They can't stay on message. They're not consistent. The military, thank God, still demonstrates more competence than any organization in history. But we have a president who does not understand this is not a business deal. The truces between warring nations take weeks, if not months, to implement, and there has to be a series of checks, and they have to be wound down incrementally. They can happen overnight. And when you announce them, like you want to take a victory of checks and they have to be wound down incrementally. They can happen overnight. And when you announce them, like you want to take a victory lap because it's

some big deal or something, you are setting yourself and the nation up for embarrassment and failure. And the level of incompetence here is starting to seep into everything this guy does. Your thoughts? Well, it also speaks to why he tore up the nuclear deal in 2018 without a solution of what we were going to do instead. The numbers are staggering in terms of the increase in enriched uranium going from under 4% to 60% and adding an extra 100 kilograms at least to the stockpile. We don't know what will happen with their nuclear stockpile and how

they'll rebuild. And the timeline that Congressman Himes was giving was startling to me, where he said six or seven months. And so if the Intel community's assessment was that they hadn't made a final decision as to whether they were trying to build a nuclear bomb, and I know that John Stewart is a very funny guy, but he's also a very serious guy. And everyone should check out the montage that he had on the show last week of Netanyahu saying the bomb is coming, the bomb is coming.

And it's over the course of the last 20 years saying that we're at that 90% level. Remember that graphic that he showed on the floor of the UN. And our intel community says that that isn't the case. That doesn't mean that Iran isn't a danger. That doesn't mean that Iran isn't the largest state sponsor of terrorism. That doesn't mean that Iran isn't responsible for killing innocents all over the Middle East. And also Americans, when the IRGC threatened to activate sleeper cells in the United States, I completely freaked out

because I'm sure that they have them here and we could be in scenario. I'm in Washington DC right now as we're speaking and I'm walking around thinking what could happen to any of us? I live in New York City, great place to do a terrorist attack. They've done it before.

So all of that is deeply concerning to me. To the point about the Yahu's that are in charge, it does feel like Donald Trump isn't really listening to anybody else than Bibi Netanyahu. And I sound like a bit of a broken record about it, but he has essentially supplanted everybody else. His intelligence is the intelligence that the United States trusts. Donald Trump, I think, doesn't understand how good Bibi is at doing his job. This is how he's managed to stay in power for this long. This is a man that is staying in power so that he could stay out of jail. And he has Trump

wrapped around his finger. He can get him to trust the Israelis over the United States with the drop of a hat. And that's what we're seeing here. You noticed DNI Tulsi Gabbard out of the frame when Trump came out to make his address after the strike was carried out, said, you know, total and complete success. Tulsi was not standing behind him. It was just Heg Seth Rubio and JD Vance. So clearly that's the imagery that he wants to project forward that Tulsi has nothing to do with this.

But the New York Times, who has done some incredible reporting on what's been going on behind the scenes, shows a very insular group that's informing him and the fact that we are hand in glove with the Israelis every step of the way. They're our strongest ally in the region. Both of you and I are strong supporters. And I was very appreciative that Congressman Himes also stipulated that the situation in Gaza is very different than what we are talking about here. But you essentially have a president that is all but going it alone. And he has a bit of a toddler sensibility about how things should happen. Like I want it and I want it now. And that makes sense looking back at the way that he's conducted his business

deals over, you know, the course of the last 50, 60 years. But it's very different when you're playing in the big leagues like this. And he seems to be completely myopically focused on how do I get that Nobel Peace Prize? How do I get that Nobel Peace Prize? And do I get that Nobel Peace Prize? And ending the Iranian nuclear program is certainly a good way to head in that direction. I wanted to bring this up because you talked about politics a bit during the interview, and I saw so many Democrats just reflexively opposing this, not even willing to consider that there might be merit to it or even going so far as to praise

what the Air Force was able to pull off, which was absolutely incredible. And I feel like there's this strong argument that Democrats can be making, or frankly, people who are just observing what's going on, about how Joe Biden governed and the foreign policy moves that he made that set Trump up for success in this moment. And I really wish that we could have a broader contextualized conversation about foreign

policy. We didn't just like wake up on January 21st of 2025. And that was the beginning of all of this. And there's so much that went on over the course of the last four years from weakening Russia, what Israel did using our weapons, the Ukrainians did using our weapons, President Biden allowing this to happen, that has provided for hopefully what is a good result. And I'm very focused on that.

And I think that there is to some degree a victory lap that the Democrats should be able to take on this. Okay, let's take a quick break. Stay with us. In 2001, Lindsay met a man named Carlo. About a week later, they went on a date. And almost 15 years after that, she found out Carlo had been keeping a secret. Did you just go through every single moment of your relationship, trying to see if you picked up on anything or?

Yeah, I didn't sleep for days. I ran over things again and again in my head. And part of me didn't really still believe it. It took quite a while to sink in. I'm Phoebe Judge. Listen right now on Criminal, wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back. It's going to be, I mean, first off, and maybe we can play the clip. You know what? We have, we basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they

don't know what the fuck they're doing. Do you understand that? For the president to come out and say, these guys have been at war so long that they don't know what the fuck they're doing, as someone who's fond of expletives, the president should not be making them. President of the United States, that just diminishes his authority and respect. And also, what I believe happened here,

and I think this was a good idea, but that doesn't mean the strategy and the incentives here don't reflect poorly on the current leadership. I believe the only reason Trump did this was because he looked at Netanyahu's dick and thought, wait, I want some big dick energy of my own. I think this was seen globally as such an extraordinarily competent,

aggressive and courageous move what the IDF was able to pull off in Iran, that he wanted to jump on the metal podium and say, look at me, which is the wrong reason to do this, even if it was the right tactical maneuver. And what seems clear to me is Bibi Netanyahu thinks he's on top. He can do whatever he wants and that the president will go along with it.

He's right. So essentially, you know, Middle East policy right now is being run by the superpower there and the superpower there is Israel. And then the really dangerous thing about all of this is that Israeli leadership wants to be on a war footing, whether it's the right thing or not. He's on a war footing trying to stay out of jail. And that is his only chance of staying out of jail is to get people to rally around the flag because they are at war. And I believe that that is why we continue to pulverize Gaza beyond what is needed and what is humane. And that he is very excited to go into Iran because he realizes the

only thing standing between him and jail is the rallying around the flag that happens when you're at war. And that is a frightening place to be when you have a place as unstable as the Middle East and you have a nation with nukes. So this is a very, as is everything in the Middle East, this is a very complex, upsetting situation and where we will see, I think, unintended consequences and right so far we haven't. It looks as if Khomeini's response has been performative. Yeah. You know, the missile barrages into American bases in Qatar and I believe in Iraq have so far been totally ineffective. I think he even gave the heads up. He did. And then you had Qatar helping with brokering

the ceasefire of last night. So Qatar working with us essentially to make sure that things can simmer down. Right. So it looks as if that it was basically performative such that Khomeini can say to his people, I'm tough, I respond, but not risk escalation. And if it stops there,

then great. Then everyone can take, Israel and America can take a victory lap. But I think the president's inability to appreciate that strength and greatness is in the agency of others, not having our traditional allies around us supporting us with intelligence and with perceptual support, if you will, ensuring that the world knows this was an action of the West, just not from a guy who demonstrates incompetence. An intelligence apparatus that seems totally sclerotic and bipolar, don't know who to listen to,

don't know what they're meaning. And then the thing that as supporters of Israel, I think is really concerning right now is when he comes out and says, they don't know what the fuck they're doing and I'm angry at Israel, that's language and a statement he says to Bibi privately on a secure phone. He doesn't say it on the West Lawn because all that does is embolden Israel's enemies. Khomeini has a lot of different options being presented to him. And when Trump says that Israel doesn't know what the fuck it's doing and leaks discreetly or overtly a real dissatisfaction and frustration with Israel, he is emboldening Israel's enemies to take more

aggressive and bold action than they might otherwise. So, you know, fighting with your allies is bad, fighting without them is worse. When you have allies, you put on a unified front, even when it sucks. Yeah, but I agree with you. I want the president of the United States of America to behave like he's the president of the United States

of America, but this is Donald Trump and the American public picked this consciously. And they probably like that they have somebody where they can see what's actually going on behind the scenes or what he perceives to be going on behind the scenes that this is the most transparent administration in American history, as I'm told regularly. I spoke to two Democrats last night who are running for president, who I haven't officially announced, but take my calls and call me

because it's obviously running for president. And I said the opportunity here is to come out and say, I agree with the action, I don't support the president's policies, I don't support how he's gone about this, he's injected more risk into this than he needed to, but I support the actions and it's important that we rally around our military and the flag and the president in a time like this. Because again, I think the Democrats have fucked up here. Totally. Well, it's the reflexive no. And I mean, maybe we'll hear from those two later in the day, but so far, I haven't really seen that.

Well, the only one who's done it is Federman. Well, that's I assume he was not the one who called you last night. Federman has basically come out and said, you know, look at the action, not the politics, and a lot of people on the far, I go to the same place. Whenever the far left and the far right agree on anything,

that means we're at negative 40. Negative 40 is where Celsius and Fahrenheit meet. It's inhospitable. Whenever the far left and the far right agree on anything, it's a really bad idea. Whether it's anti-vaccination or isolationism, whatever it is, you know it's a really bad idea. And when you have Marjorie Taylor Greene and AOC agreeing on something, it means you should probably agree with the other way.

And they're both agreeing, you know, they're both spouting off, in my opinion, this isolationist, you know, in my opinion, very dangerous bullshit. And I again, I come back to the same place. And I apologize, I'm being redundant here. Why on earth are we spending the GDP of Argentina on our military? If we're not going to exert this kind of power, we're always going to exert it, We're just gonna complain about it. Or some people are going to feign outrage and say,

we're not these people. And the truth is, is that we are fundamentally these people. But I just wanna say on the Federman front, and while I agree with some of his positions, he's just completely lockstep with Israel. He doesn't even acknowledge what's going on in Gaza as a humanitarian disaster. So John Fetterman is out on an island on his own when it comes to these kinds of actions. So

we'll see what the mainstream of the party does. But I think it's totally an opportunity, again, to sound like a normal human being to meet people where they are, and to rally around the flag. So by the way, I almost forgot our little girl, I could not be more proud of you than if you were up reading the Torah. Oh my God, Donald Trump, personal attack on our very own, literally a badge of honor,

Donald Trump came out and mentioned you by name, saying that on True Social, why does Fox News allow failed TV personality, Jessica Tarlov to soil The Five? Oh my God, you're ruining the five. Even Fox viewers who are about 105 and fucking crazy, love you, love you, literally love you. Her voice, her manner and above all else,

what she says are a disgrace. You're a disgrace, Jess. So I hear. To television broadcasting while claiming the network is alienating MAGA supporters by giving her airtime regular. I could not be more proud of you. This is a big, I know you thought when I called you and said I wanted to do a show with you,

you thought this was my big moment, but this is your big moment. Ladies and gentlemen, Jessica Tarlov. Soiling the five. There you go. What did you think when you saw that? It took my breath away. Took your breath away?

Yeah. Well, he's posted about me before, but not quite as meanly. And I was just thinking, why aren't you busier? And then, this was Friday, early evening, And I was just thinking, why aren't you busier? And then, this was Friday, early evening, I'm thinking we started sending, the B-2 bombers left a few hours later. Like you really should have been busier.

Focused on you. Yeah, I mean, he was watching the show and the Times has reported that TV coverage, specifically on Fox, has informed his view on getting involved and that he wanted to be part of the action, had a bit of FOMO, when it came to what the Israelis were able to pull off. But it's something, to have that happen,

it's a very uncomfortable feeling. Oh, okay, hold on, hold on, hold on. Let me just break it down for you. Yeah. This is the biggest, I think this is arguably, other than of course meeting Scott Callaway, I think this is the biggest thing to happen to you. Because in the midst of a, probably the biggest geopolitical event of his career, he takes time to shitpost you, which absolutely means every Senator in Congress,

it would kill to have the president call them out by name because when he disagrees with you, it basically means you're doing something right. And you are now more in his head than anyone who's running for president. He doesn't give a shit what Senator Schumer thinks or says. He's not worried about Governor Newsom running for president. He's worried about you.

I think this is, I'm very excited. I'm very excited. This made my day when I saw this. I was surprised not to hear from you though. I was like, no, tax term, Scott. I got some good texts. I don't like to talk to people. No, you don't.

It's awful. Yeah, I don't like to talk to people. I feel desperate sometimes with the amount of times that I've texted to no response. Sometimes I get a thumbs up, but I'm just gonna keep doing it. I'm the Hermes of fake intellects in that it's all about scarcity.

It's all about managing fake scarcity. I'm an elite university that rejects people more than I could to give the impression of some sort of value or scarcity. It's all an act. I'm going to defund you over that. It's not cool. It's all an act.

And again, I wish I figured this out when I was in my mating years. OK, I think we should end it there. I think we're going to watch Jessica Tarlov take a victory lap. I think we're going to see her on the medal podium, living rent- free in President Trump's head because she is so articulate, so unafraid, so bold, so numero cinco in the five, the most watched program in the world as one person who the president is listening to. It's not the Senate minority leader. It's not Leader Jeffries, it's not Tom Friedman.

Literally, the most important person in the world with President Trump right now is Bibi Netanyahu. Number two, ladies and gentlemen, running through the tape, collecting the gold, bronze, and silver of people shaping geopolitical conversations around the world. That's right, the co-host of Raging Moderates. and silver people shaping geopolitical conversations around the world. That's right. The co-host of Raging Moderates. If we are not number one this week, literally I am going to weave crocodile tears while listening to Meg and Kelly. I'll be so upset. This is a big moment for you, Jess. We're going to leave it there.

All right. Let's read us out. That's all for this episode. Thank you for listening to Raging Moderates. Our producers are David Toledo and Eric Gennikis, our technical directors, Jew Burrows. Going forward, you'll find Raging Moderates every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to Raging Moderates on its own feed to hear exclusive interviews with sharp political minds you won't hear anywhere else. This week, Jess is talking to Congressman Greg Kassar, who I heard the president does not listen to nor does not care what he says because he is not just Arloff. Make sure to follow us wherever you get your podcasts. You don't miss an episode. Keep on soiling, my

woman. Keep on soiling. Couldn't stop even if I wanted to.