School of War - Ep 275: Michael Baumgartner on Marco Rubio’s Speech and the Future of Europe

Episode Date: February 17, 2026

Rep. Michael Baumgartner of Washington State’s 5th Congressional District joins the show to give his key takeaways from the Munich Security Conference. ▪️ Times 01:34 Getting to Munich 05:22 European attitude   14:20 AOC and recalibration   17:50 Germany returns 23:59 Rubio’s speech 30:23 Ukraine   39:22 Iran and a “good” deal Follow along on Instagram, X @schoolofwarpod, and YouTube @SchoolofWarPodcast

Last year on School of War, in the aftermath of the Munich Security Conference of 2025, we had Stephen Cockkin on the show to break down what J.D. Vance's barn burner of a speech meant for the future of the transatlantic relationship. Well, it's a year on, and Marco Rubio has given the big speech at Munich from the American perspective this year. We're going to talk about that today with our guests, Michael Baumgartner, a congressman who's on the scene in Munich, and also on the conversation about Iran that's playing out there, about Russia, and many other things besides. Let's get into it.

Thanks for joining the School of War. I am delighted to welcome to the show today, Michael Baumgartner. He is a congressman representing Washington State's fifth congressional district. Before coming to Congress, he was a state senator. He's been a diplomat. He served in Iraq with the United States State Department. And we are talking to him now in Munich, where he has been attending the Munich Security Conference. Michael Baumgartner, thank you so much for joining the show. Aaron is great to be on. I'm a big fan of School of War and it's fun to be on the show. You had a little difficulty getting out there to Munich, as I understand it. Yeah, that's right. So I was the only House Republican at the Middick Security Conference because the day before we were supposed to leave, the House decided to pull the plug on the CODEL. So I'm a, the CODEL is an official congressional delegation. I'm a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and was one of the members invited to attend. But because there is a budget disagreement, so there's a partial budget shutdown on the Homeland Security budget. The House rules did not allow us to attend. Ironically, it did allow.

the Senate to attend. And so I made a split second decision when I was in D.C. to still come in any event. So I personally purchased my ticket and took a very uncomfortable middle row seat trip with a kid kicking me along the way via Iceland. And so when we pulled in, there was about six U.S. government planes on the tarmac, but I was the only House Republican member who made it. There are about five House Democrats that did, including Nancy Pelosi and AOC. But it was a great trip and I'm glad I came. Well, you know, Congressman, it is the People's House, so, you know, the middle seat seems appropriate on some level. Yeah.

And then you, so I understand you've been staying with essentially an old Iraq buddy there. Tell us about that. And tell us a little bit about your service in Iraq, actually, before we come up to Munich. Sure. Yeah, ironically, one of the ways that worked for me to come is actually the senior U.S. diplomat in Munich is an old Iraq buddy of mine. The Council General here, Jamie Miller, he and I were in Baghdad for the Iraq Surge. I was working in an office called Joint Strategic Planning and Assessive.

J-Spaa, and Jamie was working in the Plittal section of the embassy. And Baghdad was really the focus of the surge, and we worked together to put together an interagency team designed to suppress Iranian-backed insurgent groups in Baghdad, particularly in the kerosene of the fuel sector. So there's a group called Jaisal Mehdi, which was a group of not very nice guys in doing bad things in Iraq and Jamie and I worked together on that issue. So really the best part of the trip for me being in Munich was to catch up with Jamie. It was in a wonderful, wonderful conference, it did not hurt that I actually had a place to crash since my official congressional delegation hotel room was pulled.

So let's talk about the conference. We did an episode a year ago about the last Munich Security Conference, though not with a correspondent on the scene, I have to say. So you are an improvement in that regard. But we had Stephen Cochin come on the show and talk about Vance's speech and sort of the impact it had with the Europeans. We're a year on now, a lot of water under the bridge between the Trump administration and the Europeans in that year.

I feel like I've lived like, I don't know, five years of foreign policy in the last year, maybe. It's a unique feature of both the first and second Trump terms. And, you know, we can pick on any number of comments to sort of hook this to. I read the German Chancellor Merz's speech to the conference with great interest. And the basic premise of the speech was the old world is over. Here, in fact, I can even read. I'll just read the text because I have it here in front of me. This conference bears a somber motto under destruction.

This motto likely means that the international order, which rested on rights and rules, is on the verge of being destroyed. I fear we must state it even more clearly. This order, however imperfect it was, even at its best, no longer exists in its original form. You're on the ground. You're talking to the Europeans. Is that Merch's just speaking for himself? Is that a more widely shared attitude? What was the European attitude going into all this before Marco Rubio's speech?

Well, I think, you know, the Europeans know. that they're in a tough spot. You know, they have pretty anemic growth on their economy. They have real problems with their electrical grid. They have a demographic challenge, and they have militaries that really are capable at the moment, and they're going to be expensive to upgrade, and they don't really have a industrial base necessary to do that. So they're starting from a challenging spot right now, where they've allowed themselves to get into a challenging spot. And, you know, going into the music security conference, I think one of the things I learned here is that the Greenland episode, as I'll call it, with President Trump's essential threats or a desire to say the desire to take Greenland

and then walking that back a little bit after some negotiations. You know, they really shook the Europeans more so than I think I or most members of Congress would have realized before coming out here. So that's kind of the scene setter for things in the issue. Now, it's interesting that you talk about the German Chancellor using those words. I was at a small group dinner with him on Friday night before Secretary of Rubio's speech and with a number of European heads of state and leaders. And in my comments to them, I talked about representing my voters

and specifically pointed out that rules-based international order doesn't mean anything back home. And then I talked about, you know, the extent that you want, and I think Americans do need to team with Europeans to tackle the most pressing global security challenges. But if you want to use a language that responds to my voters, it's not that. It's things like shared culture, military force that can project, and those sort of things.

And it was interesting that I was pleased to find the Secretary General of NATO enthusiastically giving me a thumbs up as I was making this comment to the German Chancellor and the other leaders. And then it very much mirrored what Secretary Rubio himself said the next day at his comment. So, yeah, Europe definitely has some work to do. But I think they took the Secretary's comments optimistically and surprisingly enthusiastically. Well, I want to come to Rubio's speech in a minute because it was, I mean, I think in its way, just. as kind of spectacular as the Vance speech was a year ago. And so in a minute, let's let's talk about that or talk about what he actually said. But just sticking with the Europeans for a moment, you know, I mean, you make the point that

Greenland really rattled them. I kind of get it for a few days there. There really was a lot of these would be my words, not yours, but a lot of pretty hot rhetoric coming from the president and from the American side of things that, you know, I've always been of the view that, you know, if you're trying to understand, you know, what a foreign leader intends to do, you should probably just listen to what they say. Well, if you were listening to what President Trump was saying, I can see why they were concerned. And like, I have been paying close attention to President Trump for a long time. So I have this instinct sometimes of assessing

or discounting or moving things around maybe in a different way than they do, not following my own advice on just listening to what people say. So when the Europeans are thinking about the future of the world in sort of a pessimistic sense, you know, what does the world look like to them? What's your impression? Do they see it as a post-American world? What is this new structure of things that they think about when they're worried? Well, I think it varies. And of course, here at the security conference just kind of set the scene. You know, there's about four to five times as many military leaders, political leaders, and business leaders that can fit all crammed into two small small hotels. And so actually in the conference room, it's restricted. It's a very small

main ballroom, extremely small. So there's only a limited amount of people that are actually allowed in the room. And most of the time, people are just bumping into each other, having coffees, having bilateral side meetings, and then sort of catch them. So it's sort of a revolving thing. In terms of what the Europeans think, you know, I met with some senior German government elected officials. And my questions to them were, you know, what do your constituents want? Because, of course, I always think about the people that I work for, you know, in my voters that I represent in eastern Washington. And we talked specifically about nuclear energy. And I said, look, you know, just I don't understand. I think most of us in America don't understand that

Germany made this decision to weaken its electrical grid, taking nuclear off the table, which they really need, and going into pretty unworkable solar and wind is the backbone of their economy. How could you do that? Why did you do that? What was the decision making that went on to that? You know, and he talked about the green movement and how it came through their base. It still is what their voters want right now, but they're evolving. And we talked about small modular nuclear reactors, which data centers in the U.S. are using, is that a possibility for the Germans, you know, moving forward? And he said that they were, and that was viewed differently. So again, I always like to start with the voters and think about the folks that they work for on these issues. And then,

you know, I also say some of the business leaders, you know, were different than some of the political leaders, you know, things like there was real credit given to Donald Trump in some private conversations for essentially kicking the Europeans in the butt. And if but for Donald Trump, there would not be this real move to secure them, secure themselves. You know, of course, I would have loved to have Angela Merkel back here, who was, you know, previously looked at as kind of the preeminent global leader in that European experience and a lot of arrogance and I would say smugness about the Merkel approach before the Russian invasion of Germany. So I think it's an evolving thing. I did say on the Greenland point, you know, I don't have a

inside details on this, but I did talk to some fairly prominent folks on the European business side that seemed to have a pretty good sense that we as Americans and through President Trump, Secretary Rubio, may have actually gained some things in the Greenland negotiation, some things I have not yet heard about. So that was some of the chatter on the sidelines that there was actually from the Trump negotiation standpoint. There may have been some additional measures granted to the and additional European activities promised. So it may have been, may have been an advantageous discussion as well, too. So, yeah, I wouldn't seek to speak for the entire European psyche,

but I do like to start with what other voters think and how are their elected officials revolving to that. And finally, on that, just that point, I would say the conference ended. Well, we come back, but I just touch to this again, the conference kind of wrapped up with what I would say, the traditional European nimbi-pimbi lefty kind of weenie view of the world, which I was surprised that, kind of the pre-current era. And it was very much, the conference ended with some politicians talking about, well, this is all temporary from the United States. And what we really need to do

is to go back to a global wealth tax that funds bigger social states. And soon enough, we'll be able to do a global carbon tax and really tackle global warming. So again, was not consensus in the conference in terms of the real threats and challenges that we're trying to meet as well. I mean, without going into the weeds on the different policy issues, you just cited, I mean, the notion that, I mean, right wing or Republican administration in America is no doubt temporary and the pendulum will swing as it always does. But, I mean, I've been paying attention to Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, and then Donald Trump again. And to be quite frank, the notion that the U.S. European relationship is going to on some level be recalibrated. is a constant amongst those administrations. And to your point, or what the Europeans were saying to you, yeah, Trump has been the most aggressive

and he's been the most aggressive of the four of them. But the notion that actually this is all going to pass and some sort of blend of traditional Atlanticism and robust pursuit of the liberal world order is going to come back, I mean, it's possible, I guess. I did see some kind of left-wing, extremely progressive sort of isolationist tending foreign policy commentators. actually criticizing AOC's remarks, which I thought was kind of amusing. So this is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, firebrand, progressive, your colleague, firebrand progressive congresswoman from New York who did a, you know, I guess it was an interview

or something at Munich. And, you know, a lot of her rhetoric was very sort of traditionally liberal in this sense. It was about alliances, it was about this. And she was being criticized from the left on this. I was struck by that. So I guess it's possible a president at O.C could renew transatlanticism. But I don't know. There's some other.

possibilities it seemed to me to be just as likely. Well, I think, you know, obviously you can find everything, you know, everything here. It's a conference. People are making comments and many of them are, you know, American political leaders and European political leaders with their own domestic audiences. You know, Jonathan Martin from Politico was doing a series of interviews with likely Democrat contenders for president, including, you know, Mark Kelly and others. And you can very much see them speaking to their base. You know, I listened into a few of those conversations. But I would say in the grown-up conversations, like the private dinner that I had with the chancellor and the European leaders, I think they were very focused on real problems of the day, which was the threat

for Russia, and then underneath that, the electrical grid and the industrial capacity to build the weapons systems and the military that are needed to meet that threat. And so I think the top guys were really focused on that in the private conversations more so than the politically consumed public discussions. Yeah. You know, having just sort of asserted that on some level, recalibration seems to me to be inevitable. One, there's three years left of the Trump administration. So three years is a long time to work with. On another level, again, I detect a kind of bipartisan desire for recalibration, just disagreement over what recalibration means and maybe some disagreement over the ultimate role of Russia in that recalibration. But there are things about it that give me pause, even though

I'm fairly certain it's happening. And I'm just going to go back to Merz's speech to highlight this. So I guess I'm happy he did this because I have a I don't know a kind of knee-jerk negative reaction to the tradition of German statecraft which let's just say that the contributions of Germany to global order over the course of the last couple hundred years have been mixed so Chancellor Mertz says great power politics in Europe is not an option for Germany partnership based leadership yes hegemonic fantasies no we Germans will never again go it alone that is a lasting lesson from our history etc etc I mean on the one hand good I'm pleased I'm I'm pleased to hear that the Germans are skewing hegemonic desires. It hasn't worked out well in the past. On the other hand, the fact that he has to say it aloud, I think, points to something, and not to beat up on the Germans. I mean, I'm being a little bit harsh. But with a diminished, let's say that the recalibrated American role one way or the other,

however it shakes out, means that there is more responsibility on the Europeans for their security, less American hard power in the region. Again, I detect bipartisan, non-Trumpie, bipartisan. sort of energy in that direction and the Europeans are coming around to realize that it's real. I do worry about the reemergence of European politics in the traditional old sense. And here you have Mertz basically saying we reject that, but the mere fact that you say you have to reject it, you know, these countries are, they're re-arming or they're trying to at least. They're talking about it at least.

They're trying to solve their own problems. And I do think about a world five years from now, 10 years from now in different European countries, the polls are very serious about their own security, they wake up and they start to think, well, gosh, maybe our interests aren't actually perfectly aligned. And I worry about that future. Well, I think one of the key determinants is going to be what kind of industrial base do they build to create the modern military that do they need? And what it's unclear is yet. And one of the things that I talked about with a number of folks is, are they going to make a rational set of decisions for an integrated military system amongst themselves?

and a system that's integrated with the U.S. or are they all going to build armored personnel carriers, you know, 36 different ways? Are they all going to build tanks and aircraft and drones? And that's kind of some of the hard decisions that they're going to have to make because they can't afford to do 30 different versions of these weapon systems.

They have to logically pick a variety that integrates. What we want to work with them on is Americans, I believe, is the system that continues to integrate with ours. and that's where you're going to see the strength of the relationship. Really where the rubber meets the mode are different than just with the rhetoric. So I think the industrial base and the power grid that fuels it are really where a lot of the focus needs to be.

Because, you know, you're right. We as Americans, as you know, the old saying about NATO was to keep the Americans in and the Germans down and the Russians out. I think that's how it used to be. You know, it used to be a feature of the system that they were not capable and not the bug. And now we're trying for something different, which to have them be capable enough that we can deal with our own budgetary issues and military procurement issues at home will face another threats globally, you know, particularly China in the East. So I'm not sure America yet has consensus on exactly what we want from the Yelik, European military, but we know we don't want what we have now.

We need more capability than we're seeing from them. Yeah. And I agree with that, of course. I mean, that is, that is, that is, you know, impossible to refute. position. I'm just saying, Congress, maybe, you know, two cheers for German rearment. Maybe not a full three cheers. Just just two cheers. Now, I will tell you that we had dinner last night in the, the municipal palace here in Bavaria. And the Bavarians are very proud of their peacemaking tradition. And apparently, one of the reasons Bavaria stayed intact as a state, this is what I was told, was that they had originally backed Napoleon. But then they, as Napoleon marched into Russia, they cut ties with Napoleon.

The Saxons did not, and that's why Saxony got split up. But Bavaria, in their own psyche as a state or independent kingdom, thought they were a place of negotiation, peacemaking, and alliance building. So maybe it's the Bavarian aspects of Munich and this conference that they're looking to. Maybe so. And your points about the grid and just the structure of the defense industrial base and who builds what and who sells what to whom, those being kind of hard factors, olding European. holding European countries together. That's really interesting and worth reflecting on. Let's, let's talk about the Secretary of State, Mark Rubio. I mean, he was the big American splash this year. Vice President Vance was last year. Did you manage to be in the room for the, the Rubio speech?

I was. I was. I thought it was a great speech. You know, what I thought was notable when he, when he walked in, you know, I stood up to clap and Senator Lindsey Graham stood up to clap. And my old Harvard professor, Graham Allison, stood up to clap. And I didn't see anybody else stand on their feet to applaud. There were people sitting and applauding, but no one else was standing. And then, of course, by the end of the speech, the entire room stood up. And I thought that was pretty strange because I thought it was a very tough love speech, you know, that Secretary Rubio really got into the Europeans at the start about, you know, it's not theoretical ideas or philosophical concepts that take people to war or cause common defense. You know, it's shared

culture and heritage and real national interests that do. But when I think the Europeans liked about the speech, particularly on the back of being so unsettled by Greenland, was that, you know, Rubio was very diplomatic. I would say even Reagan-esque, the way he talked about the shared history of the U.S. and in Europe, and a very kind of warm, and the tone was very embracing towards the end of the speech. And that certainly, I think, framed up for the Europeans, you know, sort of their sentiment that America still wants to be in an alliance with Europe to face shared global challenges. And I think just even if a lot of some of the substance, I think, was quite similar to what Vance said a year ago. But I think the tone was different would be one of my

takeaways. Yeah, no, this is exactly what I wanted to ask you back, because I didn't watch the speech. I read it. And when you read it, it's even maybe, I don't know, it's possibly it's even more clear that it was not. I mean, it was, it was tough, tough love is certainly one way to put it. I mean, And it was quite conservative as well. I mean, he attacked sort of, I can't remember his exact phrase. So he had some pejorative phrase for people who are focused on climate issues. Climate cult is what he said. Climate cult.

There it is. Climate cult. So it is quite right wing, quite tough on the Europeans, quite tough on liberals and liberalism. And sort of the poor Frank Yama was invoked yet again because, I mean, I really do wish people would actually read the book. It was a really interesting book. But indeed, history did not end. And it was silly that anybody thought that it did.

So Fukuyama comes in for his time in the barrel again. It was a tough speech. And yet, yeah, I mean, the response was diametrically opposed to the response to Vance a year ago. I don't think it's just, you know, Stockholm syndrome in a year of getting used to the idea. I think, and it maybe it is just style. You're right. Rubio ends with this sort of very warm, rhetorical kind of series of flourishes about the sort of enduring bonds of U.S.-European relations.

But, you know, there was a. a demand in there, which is that we want a future with you, but it has to be on a new, perhaps renewed basis. Well, it was interesting that the speech, the start of the speech, you know, there was a couple of the U.S. of our senators sitting right near me as well. And when, when Rubio used the phrase climate cult, Sheldon White House got up and walked out, you know, and muttered in disgust. I think this comment was, I've heard enough. And then, of course, you know, by the end, it was an entire room of Europeans standing up in a plonnie. But Secretary Rubio was very, if you listen to it or you read it, he said he talked about unfettered

immigration being completely unworkable and, you know, that Europe needs to knock that off. He talked about the shared culture specifically, which to me, you know, as a Republican, what I really heard in that was, one, a needed lesson for Europe, needed comments, but also it, to me, it sounded like Secretary Rubio speaking to Republican-based voters as well, too, in his comments about culture and immigration and celebration of culture, not apologizing for culture, being proud of the West. And he talked about the great cathedrals and the great works of art. And I very much thought about the speech when I was walking around the Bavarian Palace for dinner last night because it was the best of what we celebrate when we think of Europe,

you know, and the proud Europe rather than the apologetic in weak Europe. So, yeah, it was tough love. And hopefully, and maybe it gave the Europeans a sense that there was much the way Donald Trump, they either outwardly or privately, but gradually appreciate Trump for getting them from less than 2% of spending on GDP on military, that now above 2% and working towards 5%, you know, maybe in some ways for the Europeans, the fact that they have Secretary Rubio in such a demanding, but inspirational way, I would say, saying that this is the pathway forward. Maybe it's something the European leaders can point to with their own, own politicians. But yeah, I think our real, I mean, I probably had at least 10 or 15 of the

attendees say, wow, that was so much different than J.D. Vance. And I thought to myself, was it really, you know, but it was certainly more on style and path forward than it was on substance. I'm going to go out on a little bit of a limb here and offer a pocket analysis of the substantive difference between the two speeches. And I'm, you know, this is my analysis. I'm curious your take. I mean, there's obviously a tone difference and that goes without saying. But I don't want to be too demeaning to the Europeans and say, you know, you can just butter them up with some frilly language at the end, and then they'll clap no matter what you actually say substantively. Here's where I would assess the substantive difference to be.

Because they're both Vance and Ruby were quite hard on the Europeans. But the substantive difference was, and I don't have Vance's speech in front of me, so unfortunately I can't quote it. But there was like a paragraph or two in it a year ago where he's talking about free speech and how the Europeans have been bad on free speech, which frankly is just a fact. I mean, there's no, I mean, if you take the American perspective on free speech, the European generally speaking are coming up short, to include in some shocking ways, depending on where you look.

And the way Vance framed it when he talked about it, he made this analogy to the Cold War. And he talked about how, you know, there was one side in that war that sort of stood up for free speech, et cetera, et cetera, right? And there was another side that was bad. And, you know, dot, dot, dot. In other words, sitting here in 20, then 2025, the good guys and the bad guys from my perspective is the vice president of the United States has flipped. And that, I mean, that's slightly putting words into his mouth.

That was the clear implicated, that was the clear logical trend of that part of the speech. And so that's my take on the difference between the two speeches, which overlap tremendously in substance, was that the Vance speech was an ass chewing and the Rubio speech was a pep talk, ultimately, even though they both contained a fair amount of fairly critical content. Because the Vance speech, and they also this dangled, the Vance speech kind of dangled Russia in a way that was, well, it got attention for sure. And the Rubio speech doesn't really. The Rubio speech, Russia doesn't really come up by.

I mean, it comes up implicitly in the sense of trying to get peace in Ukraine. China definitely sort of haunts the speech. Yeah. China came up over and over again. But anyway, that's my take. I'm curious, I mean, feel free to respond to that. But also, I am curious about just where China fits into the conversation about everything that's going on in Munich.

Let me say, I think it was notable that Vice President Vance applauded the speech of Rubio, you know, on social media. And those two seem to have a great working relationship as well, too. So multi-parts of the own Republican coalition on things. I think to the credit of advancing our national security goals. You know, that I had met with the, right after Rubio was the Chinese premier, and I was looking forward, I know it was Chinese premier with the Chinese foreign minister, but I had met with both of them. When I was back in the fall, I was the first House Republican to go to China since 2019.

No members of the House had gone to China since 2019. I went with a bipartisan delegation, and I was the only Republican that went back in the fall. I was looking forward to hearing that, but as I was waiting, One of our U.S. senators said, hey, come with us. We're going to go do something interesting. And that was when we went and I went to the small group meeting with President Zelensky. So I didn't actually hear about the Chinese. And so of the where I spent my time and my efforts on talking to folks, even though I think people acknowledge China is the big deal, I was more interested in looking at internal European issues, the war in Russia and other things. So I don't have a great perspective on the overall view of China other than it lingers there. here over Munich. So I'm asking about a couple of hot issues that were discussed at the conference, both just for your thoughts and the atmosphere at the conference, but also for your own thoughts. One, of course, Ukraine.

Zelensky came and spoke. Rubio alluded to it in his remarks as, you know, an accomplishment of the Trump administration to bring the parties to the table at least, even if we're not that yet there. You know, what's your impression of Zelensky's reception with the Europeans? And what are your own thoughts on where we are and where we're going based on what you're hearing out there in Munich. Well, I would point to some of Lindsey Graham's public comments about, you know, his view that there's not yet enough leverage on Russia, that there is not enough being done to get Putin actually to the table. Even if he's at the table, he's not really at the

table, that there needs to be a step change and pressure put on the Russians with regards to offensive capabilities of the Ukrainians to increase some pressure on Russia and also to really look at the secondary sanctions and impacts on the Russian economy. One of the folks that I ran into in the random ways that Muti Security Conference works, and I can't remember his name, but he was essentially the investor from St. Petersburg who had got the Magnusky, I think it's called sanctions, put on. But he had talked about, his plan, which he was circulating was, you know, there's eight refineries that refine Russian oil. And those specific refineries needed to be and their owners need to be targeted with very pinpoint sanctions,

and that would be the key to increasing pressure. You know, it has been, I think, discussed publicly that Majority Leader Thune has agreed to sometime the next two to three weeks, put forward a vote on secondary sanctions. Of course, the measure itself would simply reiterate that President Trump has the power to do this, and so, but it's one that Senator Graham talks about most significantly. So, I mean, that's what's being presented here.

you know, in my own view, yeah, I think a lot there needs to be additional steps taken to put some more pressure on Russia. I was in India last summer and it was right after President Trump had announced the additional tariffs on India. And the Indians were, for lack of a better term, confused saying, why are you doing this to us? We now have higher tariffs than you do on China. And we're supposed to be, you know, your friends. And what I told them, I said, look, I'm not speaking for the administration, but, you know, we're struggling right now. in Ukraine to bring that war to a close, we need to have all the help we can get. You're buying a lot of Russian oil at a discount price. What can you do, demonstrate to the United States that you're going to

be help solving the problem in Ukraine? And essentially, that's what's happened since then. You've seen those tariffs come down because there has been a reduction, not total reduction, but some reduction in Indian purchase of Russian oil. And I think those that are pushing the extra tariffs, the extra sanctions on its oil, look at that as being more positive. right now because the global oil price is lower than it has been in some time. And so its actual impacts on the global economy might not be as widespread. And of course, you know, just speaking, frankly, as a House Republican going into the midterms, you know, there is a, you know, what happens in the global economy will have impact on what happens in elections and who controls

Congress, you know, and so I'm not telling your viewers anything that doesn't get discussed in Washington, you know, the global economy and global growth are, are important. So does this lower oil price globally? Does that allow for some additional pressure to be put on Russia through its oil sector to try to actually get Putin to the table in a meaningful way? Same kind of question, but different country, Iran. I was just saying in a different conversation that I feel like I've been transported in a

time machine back to late May, early June, 2025, where there was all the this question about whether or not the Trump administration was going to do something about the Iranian nuclear program. There were there were negotiations with Iran. There was a lot of talk about diplomacy. The Israelis were clearly pulling us to intervene. And of course, rather spectacularly in June of 2025, we did with that strike operation Midnight Hammer in the middle of the 12-day war between Iran and Israel. Well, here we are again. A lot of what I just said feels like could apply right now. I know this was a subject of discussion there in Munich. Where are the Europeans on all this? And where are you? Well, there's a lot of subtext of the conference that there's a real possibility of something significant happening in Iran.

So, you know, President Trump, again, I think people look at what he did with Kossum Soleimani in the first Trump administration and what he did with Midnight Hammer last summer. And he certainly has a lot of credibility on this issue. I know that sometimes Democrats like to derisively talk about Trump as Trump always chickens out. And I said, well, Francisco Maduro wouldn't say so, you know, nor would the Iranian nuclear scientists that got 12 massive bombs dropped on top of them. So here's, there's a subtext there. You know, I think I think there's a strong confidence from speaking to people, including key Israelis, that the Iranian nuclear program was dealt a significant setback. But the Iranian ballistic missile program that can still reach out and touch folk across the region, that is being rebuilt in earnest and so exists in earnest. And the question that we have to ask ourselves,

and again, I'm not in the administration. You know, I'm a freshman member of Congress, I'll be one with a keen sense of interest in foreign policy. But, you know, the question is, you know, how do we leverage the current situation to advance U.S. interest? And, you know, if there was a way to get that ballistic missile program reduced significantly, that's what the key U.S. interest at the moment. It still is not clear, I think, to anyone what comes next if there is something, a change or a regime or a fall in Iran. And I certainly have no love lost for the Iranians, particularly given my service or the time I spent with State Department in Iraq and some of the things that they did there. So, but, you know, I guess the other thing I would just say, I don't think

it's disconnected from what happened in Venezuela. And there was a sense in my conversations with Secretary Rubio that the Venezuela plan so far is working very well. And that was to have coercive diplomacy with Venezuela and then to look at changes in their economy to incentivize better economic behavior. Obviously, Iran is a much more challenging problem set than Venezuela. You know, they're both very significant. And the administration has their hands full with a lot of different issues. But I think there's a lot of confidence of what's gone on in Venezuela so far. So could that be a for what does the next step in Iran? Yeah, it does seem to me that the fundamental logic of this moment, again, still quite

similar to last summer, even though, as you point out, the nuclear program is in much, the Iranian nuclear program is not what it once was at the moment. But there's, there is a deal, right, that, you know, maybe the most vociferous Iran hawks in the United States or Israel would not be happy with. But there is a deal that ends the nuclear program, that dismantles the ballistic missile program, And, you know, maybe you add a couple more things to that. And it's actually in its structure enforceable, verifiable, et cetera. And you could imagine, I mean, if the administration really came out with that deal and it was actually agreed to by real life Iranians who then, you know, lived up to it, you know, what are real Iranhawks supposed to say in response that?

Yes, it's unfortunate. The regime remains in place. Nobody really wants that. But, you know, a good deal would be a good deal. the problem, it seems to me, same as the problem last summer in terms of negotiations around the nuclear program, is the president, he can't agree, he could agree, but he shouldn't agree to a deal that has the superficial appearance of being good, but actually not being good, because he'll get hammered from critics in the Republican Party, if he does that. There are people who

will say aloud, look, this is actually not a good deal. So he needs an actual good deal, but the Iranians, they cannot bring themselves to do it. Like the Iranians who would agree to a good deal are not in charge of Iran. And that just, It's so if I were a betting man, it seems clear to me the way this is going to go again, just because the Iranians won't, I will be shocked if the Iranians agree to what the president would actually need them to agree to to to sell it back at home. That's just my take. Well, the mullahs that run Iran are a bit of a death cult, for lack of a better term.

They have a messianic view of their version of Islam and that it's going to spread across the globe. So we need to have a sober understanding of who's running the top levels of Iran and why this problem is so challenging. But, you know, I do have to say that I think the president's critics are really unfair and incoherent in terms of how they talk about the current moment in Iran. Because a lot of times when I listen to podcasts or read people of talking about D.C., in the same breath, they'll criticize President Trump for taking out Maduro, but then say, and it was illegitimate, but then say, well, why didn't you? you go all the way and go full democracy with things. And then they'll say, but isn't this moment terrible in Iran, we need to get rid of them. Why isn't the president doing something there? And of course, if you've been on the ground like you and I have in places like Iraq, you understand

that doing full-scale regime change and going bottom up is a heck of a lot messier approach or can be. And that's not something that America, I think, wants to get involved in at any level right now on the ground in Iran. Certainly I don't. But so I think, you know, the Venezuela, approach of what are key U.S. interests, how do we advance that U.S. interest in a lockstep, in a logical fashion that continues to present options that you can then decide from in a methodical way. You know, I think there are some steps that can be done there in Iran. But, you know, if you just look at the military assets moved into the region, you know, those give us options. Because what if there is something that happens next in Iran, it is likely very bloody and messy

because if that regime feels threatened, they're sending those missiles, those ballistic missiles, back into Israel and potentially across the region in the Gulf if their regime feels threatened. And so I think an approach like was done in Venezuela would be, if that were possible, that would be the best next reasonable step that one could take. And so, but again, it is a challenge. But again, just based, given this a podcast on what at Munich Security conference, I was, interested to see how much side chatter there was about something like that. Congressman Michael Baumgartner, you represent Washington State's fifth congressional district,

served in Iraq. I should also say, forgive me, I left it. You also served in Afghanistan. Yeah. In Afghanistan, I was a contractor run by state. So I was embedded to an Afghan government counter-a-cotics team in Al-L. So still run by I-N-L, but I would say worked in Afghanistan and served in Iraq because I was a fish state part. But, of course, the best time of my part about my time in Helmut Province is I met my wonderful. wife Eleanor there and always say if Bob Gardner can find love and Helmut province Afghanistan, all things are possible. So keep hope alive, but I appreciate that. What period of time were you in Lashkar got? So I was in Baghdad in 07 and 08 and I was in Lashkar in 2009. I actually spent

Christmas at 2007 in Baghdad and arrived in Kabul on Christmas, 2008 and then got sent down to Lashgar and 2009. We were just up and down the road from each other in 2009. I got there in 2009 and was in the middle of Helmand Province. And at one point was probably, I don't know how far Marja is from Lashkarga. It's not far. It's like 20 kilometers, something like that. But it was a long 20 kilometers in 2009 and 2010. A real garden spot.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, lovely. Lovely at every season of the year. I think the desert out to the west of the Helmand River is, someone will fact check me if this is wrong. But I have it in my memory that it's the Dastimargo, which I believe is literally the desert of death. So the tourism bureau is also leaning in pretty heavily to draw up interest there. That's right. But, you know, some of your viewers I think are listeners that probably read

Missioners book, Caravan, which gets down into some of that territory in the book. But yeah, it is breathtaking in its own way. But I knew I was an interesting place in Afghanistan when the Afghans from other parts of the country were like, wow, you're going to Helmand? Never a great sign. I haven't read that book. That's actually a good recommendation. and Missioner's Caravan.

It's in its Afghan. Oh, you got to read it. I'm embarrassed to have never heard of it. Yeah. You know, and there's the boss fortress. So I don't know if you ever got just outside of Lash. There's these ancient ruins of this civilization where the Helmand Orgadale rivers met. But it's in the book Caravan by Mishner.

And, you know, what I remember about going down there was one of the nice things that would be in a contractor is you can kind of do what you, you know, you're, there's some downsides to it for sure. But you have a little more freedom on some things. And so, you know, I had been down there for most of a year and never seen. these famous ruins are actually, one of the Afghan currency actually has a picture of this arch there. I'll send you a photo of it when I get a chance. But in any event, I wanted to go see it. And so we just loaded up a group of guys and our security forces and went down there and saw it. But when you went down there, it was on a very, very bumpy USAID built and funded road.

And the reason the road was so bumpy was because whoever had been working there for USAID had been worked in Bolivia and decided that the Afghans to create work needed to They learned Bolivian stone road building techniques. And, of course, as you went down this extremely bumpy Bolivian-style road, the Afghans rode their tiny little motorcycles on the side of the road in the desert, you know, which was, I mean, God bless everybody that was in Afghanistan, but that was just sort of one of those many stories you hear about the American development and war effort where you just think yourself, who in the world thought they needed a bumpy

Bolivian stone road rather than a road that they would actually use. But anyway. It. My own experiences with USAID were also, well, I would just say my enthusiasm was, was limited after the fact when we had a team come down to Marja not long after the coalition seized it back from the Taliban. And look, there's a lot of, a lot of work to be done there, especially in the agriculture front. I mean, there's a lot of, you know, if you were going to really pursue this counterinturgency strategy with real vigor, then there's a lot of work to be done here. And we went out for a walk around our position in Southern Marja and there was

sort of gunfire. It was a gunfire in the distance. It was, it was. It was a gunfire in the distance. It was, I don't think we were actually directly attacked, but we went inside the base and they all looked at each other and sort of nodded and got back in their vehicles and left. And that was the last I saw them. They did not return. I was like, well, guys, what did you think it was going to be like here? That wasn't even that bad. That was just somebody else shooting at somebody else, you know, 500 meters away. That wasn't even us. Well, one of my, one of my interest in Congress is trying to help create the capability for more expeditionary and counterinsurgency function within our civilian side of things, particularly the same. State Department because, you know, when I look back at the Corps program or some of the things that happened in Vietnam, there was a little bit more, by the end of Vietnam, there was a more robust civilian side of things. And as state and USAID have turned into more contract everything out, contract managers, that skill set, you know, has gone away. And I just think we're going to have, you know, America has a discussion for another day, but America has learned and forgotten

counterinsurgency on multiple occasions that are probably doing in the process of forgetting again. And even though I think that's going to be the more of norm of things. But I would just say my own, you know, the fact that the State Department officer in charge of my program could not visit my program at Lashkar because it was too dangerous, so they decided to contract it out, side of kind of illustrates some of the challenge that we have in terms of capability and governance structures that we need to deal with these problems. Congressman Baumgartner, it's been a fascinating conversation. Thank you so much for making the time when you're on the road there in Munich. I hope you'll come back on School of Wars sometime. I hope so, and I hope

Next year, I'm not the only House Republican that gets to come to me to security conference. Actually, maybe next year, Aaron, if I get to come back, you can come with me and we'll do a podcast in place. Or I'll smuggle you and we'll get you in there, right? Well, we'll do. I think a school of war booth on the sidelines of the MSC is not a terrible idea, actually. I appreciate it. Well, we can least set you up in the German beer hall down the road, you know, so we'll figure out so anyway. Thanks for having me on.

It's been a pleasure.