Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov - Did Trump Already LOSE the War in Iran? (ft. Ian Bremmer and Dan Senor)

Episode Date: March 25, 2026

Three weeks into Trump’s war with Iran, is anyone actually winning? Or are we watching a conflict spiral with no clear endgame?  Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov sit down with Ian Bremmer (president of the Eurasia Group) and Dan Senor (former policy advisor to Mitt Romney, and the host of the “Call Me Back” podcast) for a real debate on the war.  They talk about whether or not the U.S. has a strategy for either meaningful victory or enduring peace, the consequences the war has had on regional stability and on Trump’s political base at home, how our actions in Iran have affected the country’s standing in other global conflicts — like the Russia-Ukraine war, and in Venezuela. Plus: what it all means for the global economy, oil prices, and our experts predict how things could unfold from here. Follow Jessica Tarlov, @JessicaTarlov Follow Prof G, @profgalloway Follow Raging Moderates, @RagingModeratesPod Subscribe to our YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@RagingModerates Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Once upon a mundane morning, Barb's day got busy without warning. A realtor in need of an open house sign. No, 50 of them. And designed before nine. My head hurts. Any mighty tools to help with this plight? Aha! Barb made her move. She opened Canva and got in the groove.

Well, creating Canva sheets. Create 50 signs fit for suburban streets. Done in a click, all complete. Sweet! Now, imagine what your dreams can become. When you put imagination to work at Canva.com. When WestJet first took flight in 1996, the vibes were a bit different. People thought denim on denim was peak fashion, inline skates were everywhere,

and two out of three women rocked, the Rachel. While those things stayed in the 90s, one thing that hasn't is that fuzzy feeling you get when WestJet welcomes you on board. Here's to WestJetting since 96. Travel back in time with us and actually travel with us at westjet.com slash 30 years. In communities across Canada, hourly Amazon employees can grow their skills and their paycheck. by enrolling in free skills training programs for in-demand fields. Learn more at aboutamazon.ca. I would argue right now the momentum is shifted

and that Iran is winning and that this has been what I call arguably the greatest snatching defeat from the jaws of victory in recent geopolitical history. So my gosh, we are, what, 25, 26, days into this war, it is, you guys are talking like it's over. You guys are talking like it's over and the U.S. is walking away with its tail between its legs. We're at war with Iran. I think everyone

basically understands that, even if not everyone for political reasons, wants to say it out loud. We're in war with Iran. It's funny because you could say the same thing about Russia and yet Trump clearly disagrees and has acted in ways that shows he disagrees for reasons that he thinks are aligned with America First. And when Trump himself is telling the American people that this is going to be easy, it's going to be over, there's going to be no cost, don't worry about it. The president is driving the messaging of we don't need to be patient. We don't need to because this war is going to be easy and it's going to be out. We're going to be done. And he failed. Welcome to Raging Moderates. I'm Scott Galloway. And I'm Jessica Tarlow. So I'm really excited about this. Today we're doing something a little bit

different. And that is, I actually really enjoy, I like Pierce Morgan, and I've been on the show a few times, but after watching it, sometimes I'm on a shower. And at the same time, occasionally I watch CNN's show with Abby Phillips, which I think they should rename I Feel Stupider, where they basically have someone come on and say something really fucking stupid and then have a bunch of B-League progressives get outraged. God, I'm falling into the same trap here. Anyways, I wanted to bring on two people, who have sometimes similar views, sometimes don't, and have a really thoughtful conversation, and especially about the war in Iran.

And I couldn't think of anyone better or two people that I not only respect, but I like a great deal and we'd call friends. And that is Dan Cino, our host of Call Me Back, and Ian Bremor, president of the Eurasia Group, and obviously my partner in crime here at Jess Tarloff. Our goal here is simple. We want to cut through the noise,

figure out what actually is happening in this war, what it all means for the U.S., the global economy, and what comes next. So let's set the table. Trump says the U.S. is in very strong talks with Iran and has delayed potential strikes, but Iran is denying that any negotiations are happening, accusing the U.S. of trying to calm volatile energy markets. I would agree sending false flags so we can engage in massive insider trading, but that's just one theory. At the same time, there are reports of indirect back-channel communications through intermediaries, including Jared Kushner and Steve Whitkoff involved, but those appear to be early stage and focused on de-escalation, not resolution.

There's also new reporting today that Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman, MBS, has been encouraging Trump to continue the war, seeing an opportunity to remake the region. Meanwhile, the fighting continues to escalate across multiple fronts, U.S. and Israeli strikes in Iran, Iranian retaliation, and ongoing conflict in Lebanon. And the global stakes are increasing quickly. Oil prices have surged. The straight of Hormuz is still partially blocked, and the death toll has now crossed 2000. I just tried to provide some context. One, where do I have this wrong? And what nuance would you add or different pieces of information would you inject to try and set the table for our conversation? Ian, kick us off.

Sure. Well, first of all, very happy to join all of you. I also, I think this is a very thoughtful group and people I generally like, which is always nice. So it made it easier to say yes, don't know how much we're going to agree on here, but that's fine. I think that the big news, as I see it over the last couple of days, has been Trump's unilateral escalation that he's going to blow up all of Iran's civil energy production capability, grid capability if they don't open the straight. And everyone understood that that was an utterly disastrous idea because the Iranians would likely be able to take out, for example, desalination plants that would cause mass panic and exodus in the Gulf and would be likely to do so.

The Iranians did not back down. They did not open the strait. And Trump himself said, okay, I'm not going to do that. So that's kind of the big news. Is that finding a, an off-ramp, no, but it certainly is recognition for the first time by Trump that full-on straight escalation is probably going to cause greater danger for him than he wants to experience greater backlash. Look, the Saudis definitely, and I think the Emirates too, they are increasingly prepared, not just do they want the United States not to stop, but to continue to degrade Iranian capabilities, but they've been having conversations about getting directly involved in the war themselves. The Saudis involved in the fighting, the UAE, maybe taking a couple contested islands

between Iran and the UAE. That's, that, both of those things might happen over, over the coming weeks. That's different from the UAE and the Saudi saying, we want you to go full on, take the oil and Karg Island regime change. I'm not, I'm not hearing that. I'm hearing particularly make sure you get the ballistic missile capabilities, all of them. You know, make sure you do something about the nuclear capabilities. Like, deal with that. Like, we don't want to have to get back, keep getting back to this every few months because this is very vulnerable for us.

Now, I will also say that in Trumplandia, not only is this kind of war becoming more unpopular among his base, though it's still over, it's still on balance popular. But it's also, I mean, he is now hearing from people internally that, hey, let's really, let's have a pause. Let's have a pause. Like J.D. Vance, my understanding is bringing a 30-day pause suggestion to Trump. The thing, let's see if like in the conversations we're having with the Iranians, let's see if we both accept that. And then we can talk the markets down for a while. and by the way, we don't have the ground troops ready to go for all of the military options

you're thinking about, and they won't be in place until like April 6th, 7th anyway, the latest being sent from San Francisco. And I have no idea how Trump's going to respond to that. But the fact that conversation is happening implies that there is more scope for at least calming this down for now, even if we're very, very far from a potential ceasefire. So I think that's what I'm watching very carefully now, whether they end up having conversations in Pakistan, which look increasingly likely at this point, who is directly involved? I suspect it would be the foreign minister, not Kalabov. It'd be too risky for him to actually go and leave. But we'll see. We'll see where it goes. It is definitely moving very fast. And obviously the danger for the global economy is really

high, a lot higher than I think people have been presuming over the past weeks. And Trump is going to have to deal with that. It's going to deal with the consequences. This is going to be from a domestic perspective. This is going to be, I think, unpopular, irrespective of what the outcome is in the next few days and weeks, given that there isn't regime change and Americans are going to be paying for it economically at home. Well, I've been seeing similar reports as Ian on different proposals that are being presented to President Trump. I would caution that counsel, skepticism about any of these reports. Simply to say, I'm not saying there aren't different people proposing different things to Trump, but if we've learned anything about Trump, is that he talks to a lot

of people and who he talks to and what they're proposing is typically not a signal as to where he is heading. He keeps everyone guessing. He maintains optionality. You'll recall in June of 2025, two weeks before the operation against Fordo, he was deep in negotiations and there was all the press speculation that what he wanted was some kind of negotiated out with with the regime in Iran and then boom he joined the Operation Midnight Hammer fast forward to February negotiations are going on Kushner and Whitkoff are there the Omani foreign minister says there's stuff happening and then there we go end of February beginning of June epic fury so I think reading into what game Trump is playing with negotiations on negotiations off negotiations on again this person

heard him say this, this person's presenting that. Who knows? There are about four to five people in Trump's orbit that actually know what's going on. And I would say maybe that circles even smaller than that. So that's the first thing. The second thing I would say is, you know, Scott, you're like kind of, you try to set the table, like, where are we? What do we know now versus what we knew a week ago, two weeks ago, a month ago? I would say the two big developments. I mean, Ian, what's going on with the Gulf states and their interest in what appears to be finishing this and not pausing and not leaving a wounded regime in place is a very interesting development.

The two others is I think there was a consensus among analysts, among political players in the U.S. and in the West from right to left. There was a consensus that Iran had nuclear ambitions before this war, had nuclear weapons ambitions before this war. There was a consensus that Iran is behind a lot of bloodshed

of Americans and others in the West, right? There's no, no one disputed that, how we, how we dealt with that, how we restrained them, how we deter them. That was open for debate, but whether or not Iran was responsible for the slaughtering of a lot of Americans, Americans in uniform, innocence was not disputed. I do think there was not a consensus on Iran's non-nuclear military capabilities. I think people said, oh, Iran is saying the range of their projectiles, their missiles, the right, can't go farther than 2,000 kilometers.

That's what they've said. and we just kind of got to stay on top of them and continue to reach, you know, JCPOA-like accommodations with them, and they won't spring out of that. And what we've learned in this war is they have been lying, like really lying, and that is, I think it shouldn't be a surprise.

It's a surprise to many. When they hit Diego Garcia, there's a wake-up call that, wait a minute, they have capabilities that they've been hiding and lying about. They're not necessarily about their nuclear weapons capability, but they can just be as terrorizing to the region and to Western interests. And I think that is a whole new wake-up call.

And if we head into negotiations, unlike the JCPOA, you can expect that the non-nuclear weapons capabilities will be a big part of the negotiation. Super interesting what you guys have said so far and so thankful that you could join us. I know schedules are crazy. I want to talk about what success looks like because Scott and I have been obviously talking about over the course of the last month and trying to make room for the potential of what could go right. And, you know, my politics are very clear. I'm not, you know, a big fan of Donald Trump and this felt, you know, rushed and all the reporting around the pressure that Netanyahu was putting on Trump to do it on his schedule versus what might have been best for the United States, et cetera, was clouding my vision of this. So could you guys talk a little bit about what a mission, a commoner?

not necessarily in the Bush sense, but really a feeling of success for us looks like. And quiet those, I guess, who are saying, or maybe amplify, if that's what you agree with, those that are saying there is no way that we can actually degrade their capabilities, that this won't crop up again and this will have to be a recurring nightmare that we come back, or they will, to your point, Dan, have these ballistic missile capabilities again in a year or two, and then, you know, we're back home and either have to go back or we leave our partners in the Gulf with a huge mess again. I think that the Israeli leadership and the American leadership have two different measures of what is success, Jess, what should be the focus? There is some overlap, but they do have two different measures of success.

which is to say, I think Israel's experience is Iran has been a menace to Israel, to the region, to the West, to the world, and there's no negotiating with this regime. The regime has to go. Now, how it goes and what replaces it is open for debate and obviously is a subject of discussion within the Israeli leadership. And the Israeli leadership is not explicitly saying success or failure is determined. based on regime change, but that's effectively where they're at. Whereas the American leadership, I think Trump in particular, is open to that if it doesn't require a long, drawn-out,

multi-month war. He's also open to a version of Venezuela, right? Delsi Rodriguez. Who's our Delsi Rodriguez? You know, it's not regime change instead as Neil Ferguson is going to term. It's regime alteration. Can we just alter the regime into one that's much more manageable and that we can deal with? So that's, you know, I think if Trump could accomplish that, and I think so far it appears it's going to be harder to do that than many thought, but if Trump could accomplish that, that would be success. Where I think there's overlap between the U.S. and Israel is, as you suggest, that just the degradation of the capabilities. We may not agree entirely on the outcome, but let's just make sure that whatever Frankenstein emerges from this war in Tehran in the form of a regime or post regime, they simply. don't have the capabilities to wreak havoc. So let's just literally, which is what they've been doing, they've been taken out their naval capabilities. They've been taken care of a lot of their offensive

capabilities and their defensive capabilities. And really now what they're trying to do, especially the Israelis, is taking out the whole industrial base that supports the production of missiles and drones. And so just systematically take out the menacing weapons infrastructure of Iran so that even if there is not regime change to something much more constructive and responsible, at least whatever exists will not be able to pose the threat to the U.S. and Israel at the end of this. And by the way, on that front, we can get into a conversation about the straight. And on that front, though, I do think they're making a lot of progress. And I think Trump doing what he's doing right now with this with negotiations, I'll wait a few days. It's buying him time.

If you look at the military operations that are happening day to day right now, it's these taking out the industrial base that supports weapons production in Iran is still happening right now, even though Trump is talking about negotiations? Do you think that that can be an enduring solution or is it a question of in a few years when you have a theocracy? I mean, Deli Rodriguez isn't an Ayatollah, right? She's just a girl. Not yet, Jesse. Give her time.

Yeah. Yeah. She's only been in there for, you know, of a couple months. But is this doomed to repeat as so much of what goes on in the. Middle East. You know, the Israelis have this term that they use mowing the lawn, which has basically been the essence of their policy with regard to Hamas, ironically, over the last couple decades, which is they are never going to get, this is pre-October 7th, they're never going to get into a long, drawn-out, full front of war against Hamas and try to eliminate Hamas. Obviously,

that attitude changed after October 7th. So everything between basically 2005 and 2000, October of 2023 was Israel mowing the lawn. Every couple of years, 2008, 2012, 2012, 2021. And I mean, every couple of years, there were these skirmishes between Israel and Hamas. And what Israel would say at the end of any of these operations is, I mean, unofficially, they'd say we've mowed the lawn. They've been degrading their capabilities. They can rebuild their capabilities, and we'll have another skirmish again. I'm concerned, and I think this is where you're going with your question, that that is where we're heading with Iran. Yes.

So is it better than doing nothing? Yes. If we seriously degrade their capabilities and then Israel or the U.S. or both have to go back in in a few years, well, if that gets us some semblance of quiet and it sort of reigns in Iran's ability to threaten the region and threaten us, that's better than doing nothing. But I do worry that it's going to, to your point, wind us up back in a situation where Israel or the U.S. or both have to keep mowing the line. Dan is focusing on the part of this

that is going the best for the U.S. and Israel so far, which is that the military, the conventional military capabilities of Iran are being very significantly degraded, very significantly. The naval capabilities, the ballistic missile capabilities. They had more than the Americans had believed going in. It's taken longer time than they thought it was going to take

but they are making that progress. That is the positive side of this. You cannot stop there, right? I want to add two components here that make me feel less, less upbeat about what is happening and what the future will bring. The first component is that while it is true that today, the United States and Israel have different thoughts on regime change, Trump was kind of hopeful that this was going to go to regime change.

I mean, he was the one that said, you know, we're going to rescue the Iranian people. He was the one that said at the beginning, Iranian people take your government. And then a few days ago, he's like, well, I understand why they're not taking their government because they're going to get blown up. Those are two different things, right?

So the fact that it is more likely than not, that the regime that is going to continue to be in place is a brutal, repressive regime, and that the people that will suffer the most before the war, during the war, and after the war will continue to be the Iranian people is a loss. maybe, you know, I'm not saying a lot of Americans or Israelis care that much about that,

but we should. And it matters. So that's one component. The second component, which is the other side of this, is that although Iran's conventional military capabilities have been significantly degraded, their economic capabilities today are a lot higher in terms of leverage and position over the strait than it was before. And they're making a lot more money from exporting oil. Now, this is coming from the same Trump administration that hammered repeatedly the Obama administration for the palace of cash that they were able to get as part of the JCPOA, the Iranian deal. And now, because Trump is so focused on we need to make sure that we get as more much oil out as possible, he's allowing the Iranians to sell their oil at a premium to

non-Chinese sources. The Indians just agreed. Reliance just bought that oil at a $7 premium 110 to $120 a barrel. And the Iranians, the estimates are they going to end up making like $14 billion on the back of that. And that's if the sanctions that have been lifted snap back in 30 days. And no presumption that's actually going to happen with the same regime. And we know what they're likely to do with the money because the regime hasn't been removed. And so that's a real problem.

And where I see this going is I think there have been two big places of major overreach that have been unilaterally brought by Trump on the Americans internationally. The first was Liberation Day, China. The United States puts tariffs on every country around the world using IEPA, which they didn't really have the legal right to do, as we've seen from the Supreme Court. A lot of countries very, very concerned about that, back down, say, Mr. Trump, what can we do? We'll cut a deal with you. The Chinese don't. The Chinese say, actually, we've got real leverage, our leverage, even though you're a bigger economy than we are, our leverage is critical minerals.

And we will take the pain because we can outlast you. We are more patient than you are. We can take more pain than you will. And as a consequence, we're going to force you to the table and we're going to have more influence. And I've seen that happen. Over the last year, China has more leverage with the United States now in bilateral dealing

because the Chinese showed the Americans that they are more prepared to take long-term economic pain than the Americans are or than Trump is. And I think that what the Iraq is, Iranians have just shown on the Strait of Hormuz is a similar strategy, much smaller scale, but Iran is saying, yeah, we're a lot less capable than you are. Militarily, you just blew us up. But we believe that we can outlast you and that you're going to taco eventually because

we can cause more pain and we can handle all the people you're killing. We can handle all the conventional military strikes because we can stop these tankers from going through. Now, we don't yet know how Trump is going to respond to that. We don't know. Maybe he's going to use these troops and he's going to take coastal areas and take islands in the strait and eventually take Karg Island. And maybe that'll work for him. Maybe in the medium to long term, the U.S. will control Iran's oil and the strait the way they control Venezuela. Maybe that's what Trump wants. But that's enormously risky. It might not work. It'll cost immensely economically. And it's to lead to a lot more Americans getting killed. He'll make the decision. It's Trump's decision.

Nobody knows, as Dan said, but he also might back down. And I think it's wholly plausible that he will back down as he has with the Chinese because he understands that ultimately declaring a win is better than what ends up following from all this. I don't have a strong, I certainly don't have a crystal ball. And I agree completely with Dan that ultimately Trump is keeping his own counsel on this. It's not going to be what J.D. or Marco or Ratcliffe come in and tell him or suggest, and what they suggest will only be a piece of what they're telling their people they're going to suggest because with Trump, they're like, yes, sir, how high, sir. But I do worry that even though Iran's capabilities have been seriously degraded,

there are other big issues that will persist on the back of where we are, where we're likely to be coming out of all of this. So, just a couple things in response to Ian. One, he mentioned a second, And you mentioned a second time the deployment of ground forces, or troops. I just think we should establish just for the audience what you and I are talking about when we refer to these troops. Because I think people hear this now and they think Iraq, you know, 2003, 2004 and beyond. And it is not that. It is not that, right? Right.

So, what, 7,000 troops total, right? Yeah, exactly. So in the lead up to the Iraq war, we had the equivalent of the naval and air power assets that we have now in the region for this war. But the one other thing we had in the lead up to the Iraq war was a quarter of a million troops. We do not have that in the region. And wisely so, by the way. Iran is about four times the size of Iraq, and it's about, you know, more than double the size in terms of population. Iran's population is more than double the size of Iraq.

So we're not sending troops to occupy Iran. There may be some targeted operations, like the targeted operations like the Marine Expeditionary Force that is going to probably wind up there on the coast there to deal with the hits on the tankers by the drones and these boats and the mines. So it's very targeted, small number. I'm not saying it's not a risk. It's not a form of escalation. And obviously, as Ian said, there's a risk to lives,

even if the total number of forces deployed is smaller. But it is not some massive ground operation. That's the first thing. Second thing. The Iranian people have been courageously fighting against this regime at various points over the last couple of decades in ways that we in the West don't pay enough attention to and deserve extraordinary respect and support and should have called for presidential support

and presidential acknowledgement to put a spotlight on it. In 2009, there was a big uprising in 2018. In 2022 was a big uprising. The Iranian people have been taking to the streets and risking their lives against a regime that was brutal and strong. And I would say, I agree with you, Ian, that this. whatever's left of this regime, if it remains in power, will its intentions will be to be brutal and perhaps even more strident and more, you know, than what, if you can believe that,

than what the Iranian people have had to deal with. But one big difference is, I think they will be weaker, right? The principal tools and instruments of repression in Iran are being weakened every single day as a result of what the U.S. and Israel are doing. They're taking out the commanders and the infrastructure and the bases of the besiege domestic security force. They're taking out the leaders and the infrastructure and the personnel of the IRGC. Now, as you know, the history of uprisings and when they're successful and when they're not, we always get it wrong. No one ever sees it coming.

Who knows? You know, everyone was anticipating that Kiev would fall, you know, after 72 hours when Russia invaded Ukraine. Everyone was saying that the Taliban, you know, would never fall after the U.S. went into Afghanistan after 9-11. I mean, the intelligence community didn't see the fall of the Soviet Union. Did anyone see Assad's fall coming? No, absolutely not. So getting it right is very hard to anticipate. There's a whole flywheel of what has to be in place. But I got to believe if the Iranian people have this history of taking enormous risks to challenge this regime, they probably will be more inspired

to do so when they see that what is left of this regime is a shadow of itself as a result of what the U.S. and Israel are doing right now. And it may be easier for them to do something about that regime than it was just a few months ago. We saw what happened just two months ago. Over 30,000 Iranians were slaughtered in like a couple of days. Who knows what their capabilities will be now, A, and B, who knows what the morale is of the personnel in these institutions that do the repression in the country will be after so many of their colleagues and supervisors have been killed. My fear is that this Iranian government, as much as it is being eroded and hit militarily, they are showing a lot of capacity because of what they're doing in the strait and because of the

money they're making. So again, I think that there is a give and take there. And this is not, if Trump had a uniform strategy that was, we're going to do everything possible to ensure that this regime will be degraded, then I'd feel more comfortable with what you're saying. I don't think that's true at all. If you aren't already, make sure to subscribe to our YouTube page to stay in the loop on all the politics news. Let's take a quick break. Stay with us. Whether it's with your besties or date night, get to all the hottest concerts with Go Transit. Go connects to all the biggest entertainment venues and makes it affordable with special e-ticket fares. A weekend pass offers unlimited travel across the network on any weekend day or holiday for just $10. A weekend. A weekend.

group pass offers the same weekday travel flexibility from $30 for two people up to $60 for five. So no matter what day of the week, Go's got you covered. Find out more at go-transit.com slash tickets. Getting ready for a game means being ready for anything, like packing a spare stick. I like to be prepared. That's why I remember 988, Canada's suicide crisis hubline. It's good to know just in case. Anyone can call or text for free confidential support from a train responder anytime. 988 Suicide Crisis Helpline is funded by the government in Canada.

This spring performance auto group invites drivers to upgrade with confidence. From March 26 to 28th, the spring upgrade sales event offers a $1,000 upgrade credit toward any new or pre-owned vehicle. Plus trade evaluations across their network deliver maximum market value for your vehicle. With

competitive manufacturer rates and programs available, now is your moment to upgrade the performance auto group way. 39 stores, 23 brands, One upgrade event. March 26 to 28th, visit performance.ca. slash upgrade sale for details. Welcome back.

I just want to talk a little bit about an operational execution here. So I think there was real valid justification. There are no good wars, but there's just wars. And I was more hopeful about and saw the justification for at least what I'll call military operation. Air defenses are down, unique moment in time, a wobbly regime, the ability to further neuter connection and support for terrorist groups and proxies wreaking havoc all over the globe, take their munitions capability or production capability, industrial capacity for producing

weapons down, destroy their missile launch capability, perhaps topple, the regime, secure the nuclear sites. I think there was a lot of very valid reasons for why to do this, why now, and quite frankly, it feels like operational excellence with strategic incompetence. And I'll start with you, Dan. Where are we? Okay. No clear messaging. Hard for Americans to identify a set of objectives around what we're doing, why now, and when we're going to declare victory and leave.

Two, a disaster, in my view, for global opinion of Israel and Jews. Communications that I think have been errant and ignorant and misplaced. from the Trump administration and former Trump administration officials essentially saying that Israel is wagging the tail here, which I think is going to be disastrous for Israel over the long term, an inability to do any sort of scenario planning that didn't see the choke point of the Straits of Hormoz, which will likely put the world into a recession, inability even at the most basic level to extract Westerners or a plan for extracting Westerners out of the region. So hats off to the to the military.

military execution of U.S. and Israeli forces, strategic incompetence that I would argue right now, the momentum is shifted, and that Iran is winning, and that Iran has basically said, you know, the enemy gets a voice. They get a say in a war, and right now it feels like their voice is winning and that this has been what I call arguably the greatest snatching defeat from the jaws of victory in recent geopolitical history. Dan, I'll let you respond to those comments first. So my gosh, we are, what, 25, 26 days into this war. It is, you guys are talking like it's over. You guys are talking like it's over in the U.S. is walking away with its tail between its legs.

It's just, I think every, imagine if we were commenting on other very important wars, thinking about if World War II was being covered like this war, where every day there were a thousand tweets, tweets and posts and podcasts, analyzing, you know, hour by hour, every, you know, this person just met with FDR and FDR's mood is this. And, I mean, can I just, like, because I love what you're saying and it's important. I just want to add inject into it. Those were also wars that we bought into and that were sold to us. And this literally, everyone woke up and was like WTF is happening, except for, you know, people in the highest levels of government.

So don't, doesn't that affect the support? I actually think since World War II, you'll be hard pressed to find wars fought by the U.S. that weren't deeply wound up being deeply divisive in in American society, in American politics. So, but, but, but it almost, that doesn't matter. The point is, I take your and Scott's point, the, the, the president needs to do, be out there explaining and persuading every day, every week, what we're doing and what we're trying to achieve in a consistent way. I, I, you don't, whether or not that could unite the country, I'm dubious because I think

many on the left are rooting for failure in the war against the, Iran because they want Trump to have a political setback. And many on the right, but narrow, much narrow. It's far less. If you look at MAGA Republicans, the polling shows their overwhelming support for what Trump is doing. There's not this consistent across the board, Congress, the House, the Senate, people running for president, you know, they're just like rooting for failure.

So I don't know if that would have the effect in this environment, in this highly polarized, highly political environment. I don't know, Jess, if it would have the effect that we wanted to, but it still, we should do it anyways. The president should be doing it anyways because strategically we need to just be explained to the American public constantly what we're doing, first of all. Second of all, Ian said that the thing, you know, I laid out what is working and he laid out what isn't working. I do want to add the reaction of the Gulf states to me is really, really interesting. I have been following for some time. Relationships warming, cooling, maybe warming again,

then cooling again between Israel and the Gulf states. What we are seeing today, I have never seen before, where the chief of staff of the IDF is on the phone multiple times a day with his counterparts in Arab countries across the region, where Israel is fully integrated into CENTCOM with all these Arab states, where the Arab states, as you said, MBS and the Emirates and I think the Bahrainis are as pushing for as an aggressive response to how Iran has fought this. war as Israel has. And so that'll be very interesting to see when this war ends. But I think from Israel's perspective in the region, Israel is not feeling so alone. You know, after October 7th, they were feeling alone, last couple of years because the war on God's, they were feeling alone.

It made life complicated politically for these Arab states the way Israel is fighting the war and Gaza. I supported that war, but there was no doubt that there was a very political, calculated response for many capitals in the Sunni Gulf. I do not think that is the case now. And if that has durability, if that has a shelf life after this war, I'm not so sure we're going to look at this as Israel so isolated. The last thing I'll say here is Walter Russell Mead has a very thoughtful piece in the Wall Street Journal today that like he said what I've been thinking. So even though I was thinking it, I do want to give him credit. He basically said the Hawks and the Dobs both got this wrong. Okay.

He says the Hawks underestimated how hard it would be, the Iran Hawks. The Iran doves overestimated how accommodating Iran the regime would be if we just worked with them in mechanisms like negotiations and the JCPOA. And the wake-up call, as I said at the beginning, for the Iran doves is there's no accommodation with Iran. So we're at war with Iran. I think everyone basically understands that, even if not everyone for political reasons wants to say it out loud. We're in war with Iran. It's a matter of when that war happens or whether it goes on and then off and then on again. at how we fight the war, how we explain the war,

but I don't think anyone could have any illusions that we are at war with Iran, and this war revealed it. It's funny, because you could say the same thing about Russia, and yet Trump clearly disagrees and has acted in ways that shows he disagrees for reasons that he thinks are aligned with America first, which is an important point that I want to make,

but let me address the first two first, which is that, you know, you said that it's only 25 days, and so the American people should show patience you're right, of course. But President Trump on the phone with the G7 leaders said that the war was going to be over within days and that the Iranians were about to surrender unconditionally. And when Trump himself is telling the American people that this is going to be easy, it's going to be over, there's going to be no cost, don't worry about it.

The president is driving the messaging of we don't need to be patient. we don't need to because this war is going to be easy and it's going to be out, when it be done. And he failed. He utterly failed because he thought it was going to be that easy. So that's why there's no patience. It's not because the American people can't handle it for the right reasons, war for the right reasons. American people can fight for the right reasons.

But this is, the president has not been communicating with his people truthfully or trustfully. And therefore, he has lost a lot of the American people on this and on other issues. So that's, that's a point. I agree. There's no question that, um, the, the, the level of Gulf alignment with the United States and Israel militarily and on intelligence in fighting Iran has become of necessity, but has become higher. That is, of course, very different with the way the Gulf states feel about what's happening in the West Bank right now,

but the way the Gulf states feel about what's happening on the ground in Lebanon right now. And those things are going to be problematic for Israel, in my view. And I also think that there's going to be big consequences for the Israelis long-term globally. We've already seen how much anti-Semitism was picking up before this war, that's obviously going to continue. I worry about that. Different story, longer point. The final point is on whether or not Trump is going to succeed in selling this war to the American people and the consequence it will eventually have it.

I think that Trump got the American people right in a lot of ways because he understood that Americans were sick of not having secure borders, said, I'm going to secure the border. and they were sick of being sold a free trade message without people investing more in U.S. manufacturing, so I'm going to do something about that. And his implementation was poor on both of those things in some ways. He over-egged it in tariffs and he over-egged it with ICE. But the baseline message he got the American people. He also got the American people with, I am sick and tired of Americans fighting for wars

that aren't actually in the primary interest of the United States. And he did that on Ukraine. I believe the United States should be supporting the Ukrainians. I do in a way that Trump does not, right? I believe it matters because the Russians invaded Ukraine. It's a sovereign nation, democratic. Russia's a dictatorship. We invited them to NATO. Our words should matter. I believe that, right? And then Trump unilaterally says, no, it's far away. It's thousands of miles away. The Europeans should spend all the money. We shouldn't spend any of it. And you know what? That's pretty popular among the American people. people. And, you know, I now see on on Israel, Iran, it's, this war is very popular in Israel, because, of course, you know, in the same way that's supporting Ukraine is very popular, like in Poland and the Baltic states and the Nordics, but it ain't popular in the United States. Why not? Because you've elected a president twice that said, we're going to stop doing this. And so, now, you might think that Trump is completely misguided in that message, but the point

is he's aligned with where the American people are going. It's you've forgotten about us. So stop this. Don't fight for you. Ukraine, don't fight for Europe, don't fight for Israel, don't fight for the Gulf States, don't fight for Taiwan, don't fight for Japan. Stop this. And I think that the longer this goes, yes, only 7,000 troops, but every troop matters. Yes, only $200 billion he's asking for in the special distribution for the Pentagon, but only $181 billion was spent on Ukraine over three years. And yet, Americans are like, why are you doing this when you're not taking care of me at home? And yeah, I don't think 4,000 kilometer lying about their ballistic missiles is a credible ex post argument for the average American Trump voter.

I don't. I just don't. You and I can have a very intelligent, pointy-headed conversation about like, you know, grand strategy and realpolitik and what it means for America long term. But I'm talking about like what got Trump elected. This did not get Trump elected. Absolutely not. And I think he's going to pay. Among Trump voters, I really think that there's a tendency among many of us to fixate on a handful of very loud, high volume, self-appointed evangelists for the MAGA right and listen to the things they're saying and overinterpret what that means where the Trump electorate, where Trump's coalition is. The reality is if you look in poll after poll after poll, CBS just came out with a new poll. it's over 80% Trump voters well over 80% support what he's doing support what he's doing in Iran

I'm telling you I think it won't be I'm not saying I'm not saying it is right now but I but the support is high I think there is this tendency Ian to to think about decisions in war and national security particularly post 9-11 in the last couple of decades in very binary terms

so we either think of of war as endless war if we get involved we'll never get out If we get involved, it's quagmire. So that was the characterization of Iraq and Afghanistan. Or it's do nothing. Yes, there's bad things happening around the world, but our only option, the only responsible option is to do nothing.

Obama draws the red line in Syria, 600,000 people are slaughtered, many more permanently displaced, and we do nothing. And he uses chemical weapons, and we do nothing. And so those are like the two extremes. I do think where Trump is, is this possible model of a third way, which is not saying we're never going to use military force, but if we use it, we are going to be very targeted, very surgical,

and we're not going to get ourselves bogged down. Now, we'll see how this goes in Iran. He's been doing this a number of times over the last year in various parts of the world, most recently, obviously Venezuela at the end of the year, but, and obviously in Iran in June of 25, we'll see where this lands in that. But we are, my only point is we are so far from Trump violating the core commitment from his campaign in terms of how he would conduct national security. I'm not saying it can't get bad and we could go on some kind of detour, but we're just not there now.

I just want to add, you're definitely right. I mean, it's 80, 90 percent in some polling in terms of support for this. But when you mentioned boots on the ground, it plummets. And you are seeing it show up in other ways of judging the president, like how they think about him on the economy, how they think of him on immigration, you know, he's paying attention to issues that affect me over 70 percent say he's not focused on that. So, you know, it's manifesting in different pockets. Here's where we are. Can't secure nuclear stockpiles unlikely to register regime change without boots on the ground.

There are amphibious warships. There are Marines being deployed. 60 seconds or less. If no one has a crystal ball, Ian, you go first. What do you think happens here in the next 30 days? On balance, I think it's really close. call, I think he does actually deploy these ground troops because he feels like he needs to do something more on the nuclear side, and because leaving the straits this vulnerable to the Iranians is a really

bad place to put the Gulf states and to eventually, and to put the global economy. So is it take cargo and traded for opening the or securing safe passage through Hormos? What do you think it looks like? If you do that, all I'm saying is you take Karg and the Iranian, the likelihood that the Iranians respond in really damaging ways as high. So maybe in part, the decision on taking card comes to how much they think they've really degraded Iran. So even if they want to, they can't do that much damage in return by the time they get there.

Again, this is, it is really hard to make a call on this, but we're talking about really big stakes. Dan? I think this war will probably go approximately, approximately 60 days from when it started, which means we still have a few more weeks. I agree with Ian. I don't think, well, first of all, I don't think negotiations are going to go anywhere. A, and B, I think Trump still thinks he has some tools in his toolkit that he can use militarily before he wants to wind things down. And I will say that I just want to come back to something Ian said. He talked about

Russia and Ukraine, and I agree with him. There are four major threats to the United States today. China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran. Three of those four have a capability that makes it a nuclear capability that is. It makes it very hard for the United States to ultimately confront them. Iran doesn't have one yet, and it wants one. And I think they are going to wind up coming out of this much farther from that reaching that goal than they were three weeks ago. Scarily enough, I believe we are early days. And so Ian and Dan, thank you so much for your time. I hope you'll come back and we can do this again. It was, I loved it. And to have you together was super valuable. It helps that Ian and I are friends.

Dan Cienor, Ian Brannmer, thanks very much. Jess, thoughts? I love civil disagreement. I do it for a living, though sometimes it's way less civil than what we just saw. I thought they brought really important points to it, and I'm better prepared for the five today than I was when we started. So thankful for that conversation. What about you? Yeah, I think we as a society are desperate for a thoughtful civil conversation that softens the beach where you're willing to listen because

you're not focused on them basically calling each other idiots. And also, I just have a lot of affection for both of them. I think they're good men and smart, and I learn from both of them. And I disagree with both of them on a lot, but I just always come away smarter. Anyways. Good luck on the five. Good luck on the five. I'm going to use that mowing the lawn thing with the Israelis.

That's important that they have signed up to continue to do these kinds of things. And the question is whether we are going to sign up to continue to do these things to keep the region safe. Have a good show. Thank you.