The Bulwark Podcast - Tom Nichols: Sinking Into the Mire of a Longer War?

Episode Date: March 13, 2026

The Trump administration is preparing to deploy a Marine expeditionary unit to the Middle East along with more warships. But that development was not Hegseth’s highest priority at his Pentagon briefing. His first order of business was attacking the media—even before mentioning the six fallen service members who were killed in a plane crash supporting the war in Iran. And while the administration may have finally narrowed down its reasons for launching the war alongside Israel, it hasn’t discussed the risks of the operation, or why it doesn’t seem to have an issue with Putin helping Iran in the fight. Plus, JD is skeptical about the war but won’t tell Trump to his face, oil prices are soaring while Russia cashes in, and don’t forget that the Department of Homeland Security is still down shut down while our country is at war.Tom Nichols joins Tim Miller for the weekend pod.show notes Tom on 'victory disease' in The Atlantic  French news channel with a split screen of bombs and Trump dancing Tim's playlist Tickets for our LIVE show in Austin on March 19: TheBulwark.com/Event

Hello and welcome to the Bullwark podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller. It is Friday. So we have the Commerginly One staff writer at the Atlantic, Professor Emeritus at U.S. Naval War College. His books include The Death of Expertise. It's Radio Free Tom Nichols. How you doing, Tom?

Hey, Tim, how are you? You know, caveats included. I'm doing, alright, tough loss for the Honey Badgers, the girls basketball team I coach last night, one point loss. I didn't really agree with the refs' foul call at the end. And no one cares about that except for me, but now the listeners of this podcast have to care.

Well, they can still win if Mike Pence has the courage to him. That's true. I want to go through the latest with the war. I'm just going to run through some headlines, then we'll tick through them one at a time. The U.S. KC. 135 refueling aircraft went down in Iraq earlier this week. All six crew members aboard are now confirmed deceased. Oil prices are teetering around $100 a barrel.

The F.T. says that U.S. has burned through years of munitions since starting the war, including Tomahawks, the Navy's going to be feeling the pinch for years. Axios says that Trump claimed in a call with his G7 allies that Iran is about to surrender. He simultaneously said nobody knows who is the leader, so there's no one that can announce surrender. That's a paradox I want to get to. Hague Seth had a presser this morning. He opened it by criticizing CNN and saying he's excited for David Ellison to take over, and he said that Hamini, the new Supreme Leader, is wounded and likely disfigured.

So that's the run of show. I want to start with the surrender paradox, because I guess that's how Trump thinks we get out of this war. How can we know that they're about to surrender if we don't know who the surrenderer is? We can't. And also, surrender to whom? You know, like, surrenders require handing over power to somebody. It's not a generic surrender term. I mean, I suppose.

I surrender. You know, he could be. saying that they're about to exceed to my main demands, okay, but that means they're still going to be in power. It means that they're, you know, they're still running their own country. I mean, Trump has a pretty expansive notion of the word surrender. I think you and I have done this so long. We kind of qualify as Trumpologists or, you know, Trump experts. But you notice that when he gets into trouble with something, he starts to kind of rely on. little verbal crutches, you know.

Is there going to be a health care plan? We're looking at it very strongly. Two weeks and you're going to see something you've never seen before. It's going to be amazing. It'll be the best thing that was, you know, it's almost like it's, you could press a little button on the back of his head that says, you know, spiel 36A. And I think that's becoming this.

I saw him last night there was a clip of him. It's going very well like nobody's ever seen before. When you hear stuff like nobody's ever seen before, then you know he's anxious. So I don't know what surrender would mean at this point. I don't think he does it either, but I think it's a word he's going to say because he's trying to sell that. He's trying to market it to the people that are telling him he needs to wrap this up. He maybe is thinking of the Celine Dion song. Or cheap trick.

Yeah, cheap trick. Sorry, was that before your time? Well, I know that cheap trick existed, but I don't. What is the song? What would be the song? What's the relevant song? You see, back in the day, when we used to crank the phonographs, Cheap Trick, one of their most famous songs, it's called Surrender.

Surrender, yeah. I know this song. The Cheap Trick guys, I'm Googling this right now. The cheap trick guys were kind of handsome back in the day. They didn't have a nice look. Anyway, it's hard to do a transition from that into my next topic, so we're just going to do a straight pivot, which is the deaths. We don't exactly know, I guess, what happened with this plane over a rock.

now we're up to 14 American casualties in the war. There's a French casualty yesterday as well. I don't know how that's going to be received in Europe. Adam Kinsinger was kind of ranting about this particular plane on social media, and this kind of just predates Trump, but how like bailout is not an option on this plane if you get into trouble for various reasons. And so the military should have been dealing with that. We're putting aside like the specifics of that critique.

Like, I think the broader critique is just, you know, for all the talk of like the war fighters, there seems to be kind of a lack of care about focusing on their safety. I mean, this was brought up very briefly in the Hague South Press Conference today. Much more time spent complaining about CNN. I don't know that I'm going to point the finger at Central Command and say they're not taking care of their people. I would say the question you have to ask is, whatever we're doing worth the risk of all the things that can happen during a major military operation, including accidents, you know, during both Gulf Wars. I mean, you had people that were killed in the theater with, you know,

jeeps flipping over, you know, kind of things. You know, car accidents, people falling downstairs. I mean, anytime you deploy people, somebody's going to get hurt doing something. Now, this is interesting, I don't know enough about the, you know, Kinzinger's complaint to say that, you know, the plane is poorly designed or they've made poor choices. What it looks like or what the initial report seemed to look like is there was some kind of collision in mid-air, which, you know, when you've got big refueling tankers flying close to other planes, you know, that kind of thing can happen. The bigger question is, is all of this risk,

military risk from, you know, enemy action, the risk of trying to do complicated things like refuel airplanes and, you know, combat zone, is this worth what the president wants to do? And that would be an easier to question if we knew, you know, what it is. I saw last night the White house shot off one post and said something about, it's like destroying Iran's mission, one objective, you know, success. I'm like, so we went from like 10 to six or seven to one and a fairly achievable thing. And the objective now, I guess, is depleting their military, I guess, is what they're saying it is now.

Maybe. You know, depleting the number of missiles and their Navy, you know, like that's kind of what they're falling back on now. That's what Marco was saying. but it's like, okay, well. What happened to rise up? Your day of liberation is an hand, which I never thought was a good idea

unless we were actually going to support that, and I didn't think we ever would because, you know, it's a big place and we don't have any forces on the ground. And so, you know, all the other stuff is now falling by the wayside, terrorism and the nuclear program and regime change. I guess Chris Murphy came out of a briefing

and said all that stuff's gone. There's no more regime change talk. It's not really about the nuclear program. And what I suspect they're doing is retconning. Now they're saying, well, this was always about this one objective. We did it brilliantly mission accomplished, which might be the best and face-saving way out of this for Trump at this point. Even if that is the face-saving way out of it,

I mean, he's in a real briar patch right now. You know, like even if they did say that they did that and turned around immediately, it's hard to make the case that that trade is worth it. You know, a dozen plus American troops dead. We're depleting our own munitions. As I mentioned, that FT report and our own preparedness for an actual threat, somebody that was actually threatening to us. We'll get into Russia.

It's been the biggest gift to them. And all of this to, like, deplete the Iranian Navy. Really? Okay, great. Were we worried about the Iranian Navy? It's a plan that they're going to be. I'll get me started about the Iranian Navy. We're just taking their ships across the Atlantic.

Atlantic. Like, who cares if we got rid of the Iranian Navy? People have been yelling at me for three days that the U.S. Navy couldn't have forced the surrender of an Iranian frigate, in which case maybe, you know, we ought to be thinking about a refund. But I think it is presumptuous of us to say, is it birthed at this point? Because I don't think that really helps the grieving of the families. Sure. I meant it in a broader sense, not about it gives their life. Yeah, I mean, I get was this level of effort, including the deaths and the risk, worth it. And I think I will try to be as fair to his supporters as I can that they would say,

listen, Iran is off the board as a military player for years. Their nuclear program has been set back years. They know now that we're just going to mow the grass anytime we feel like, because, you know, there used to be this kind of unspoken, you know, we're not going to reach out and touch Iran. We don't want to whack that hornet's nest. Well, we've done that. And so, you know, that this is, you know, that this is a much reduced, much less dangerous Iran. No, no, no, it's important to steal, man, what a positive art case would be. Right. So let's do that.

Let's say that that is true. Let's say that that happens, that Iran is off the board. Okay. So simultaneous to that, let's look at what's happening with Russia. Like, Ukraine is helping us with the drones in Iran because we didn't prepare for the Shahad drone attacks. And so Ukraine's helping us. But meanwhile, we're easing sanctions on Russia because of the oil market fallout.

and Russia is like cashing big time over this war. So like would it have been worth it to say, hey, we're going to sideline Iran for five years. And in exchange for that, Russia is bringing in- Those two extra armies in Kempchatka. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, seriously, though, like Russia's got two billion more dollars now just already that they can use, like they were depleted. And now they're going to get to, what's the opposite of depleted?

Replete. It's pretty clear that this team didn't think through, never mind the second. and third order effects. They didn't think through like the first order effects. Right. This will be, you know, if there are still war colleges after this crew at the Pentagon is done, this will be a case study at war colleges forever because they just, you know, they were constantly caught by surprise. What? They can mine the Straits of Ormoos? What is this witchcraft? You know, every war game, every scenario always begins with the assumption the Iranians are

going to do that kind of stuff. they script wrote a whole scenario in which we smack them hard, we kill the Ayatollah, and they brown out their britches and they say, we give up, you know, please come, we greet you as liberators, you know. And that was never going to happen. And so once all that went to shit, then they had to figure out, well, what are we going to do now? Well, let's just keep hurting them and keep blowing stuff up. You know, Trump did this post the other day. Well, the price of oil is good for us because we're a big oil producer.

No, saying that we make money off it because Americans are going to have to pay for $4 a gallon gasoline, you know, that's a pretty desperate thing. And it means that the Russians are making money off of it. And it means that we've had to, you know, admit that we can't control events in two places at once. And it means that we didn't really think about consulting with all of our allies. There's other stuff going on in the Gulf. A dozen countries.

I mean, what are we up to? now about how many countries have been hit by the Iranians. You know, we look like a weak ally or an opportunistic ally, because now we're saying, hey, maybe if we get a little help around here, well, you know, should have thought of that three weeks ago. We're obviously now not only helping out the Russians, your point about oil is well taken, but we're also not confronting them about some of the mischief they've been up to about helping the Iranians and potentially feeding them intelligence.

And, you know, Steve Whitcustle, well, they've told me they're not doing it. I'll take them at their word. Well, congratulations. You know, Steve, you are the first guy to take the Kremlin, to take Vladimir Putin at his word. So it's just a mess all around. And the opposite. Actually, it's not just that we're not confronting them.

Trump continues to like finger wag, Zelensky. Be like, oh, Putin wants to come to the table. It's Zelensky that doesn't want to come to the table. And the whole thing is insane. Right? We are allowing them to now help stabilize their teetering economy, you know, while they're a legitimate threat and there, you know, some conversations about like what else they have planned with Russia, potentially targeting other Baltics, NATO states.

Right. Like, that's like a real risk, at least for your, or European allies. Yeah. And Russia is fucking with us in Iran. And we're like lecturing Zelensky with the Ukrainians. Like, have you said thank you to us yet? It's like, what? Putin right now is, you know, like,

like Alan Rickman and Diehard, where he says, you were hoping for a miracle, Theo, I give you Donald J. Trump, you know, which has just rescued them on multiple levels. While things are going very poorly for them in Ukraine, I mean, who does a hundred dollar barrel oil benefit? Well, you know, that's a pretty short list. If we were trying to steal man the case to say, all of this is worth fit for what? And Trump's answer seems to be, or depending on whose, you know, his surrogate is at any given moment, well, it's better than a nuclear bomb. Okay, it's, I will grant that. You know, if you really had evidence that they were about a week away from 10 nuclear bombs, I'd say, well, I guess all of, but then go big. Then you have to really go big. Then you really do have to

occupy the country. You have to go, you know, North Korea times five, you know, but they're not making any of these cases other than I really thought I could just do a Venezuela in a place that isn't Venezuela. A thoughtfully built wardrobe comes down to pieces that mix well and last. That's where Quince shines. Premium fabrics consider

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And I promise you will. Now available in Canada, too. Don't keep settling for clothes that don't last. Go to QINCE.com slash the bulwark for free shipping and 365 day returns quince.com slash the buller. You wrote about this, let me mention Venezuela, like this victory disease. It's just so stupid on its face that you have to start to like grapple with. Okay, like Trump is obviously stupid, but he's also kind of cowardly and, you know,

you got to say what you want about him. You never have to hand it to Trump, but his political instincts, been good enough to get elected president twice, you know? And so like, how could you do something that is so like politically stupid in this moment? and that you get to theories of, oh, corruption or blackmail. I reject all the blackmail theories. Like, nobody has any blackmail on Trump that could be worse for than in the worst case scenario in Iran could be. So maybe it's corruption.

You're offering that it's just like hubris, it's victory disease. Like, he got high on his supply. A lot of it, I think, I mean, he thinks that they're going to be like statues built to him as the great liberator. I think people have been whispering that in his ear for a while. You know, why do you think he's talking about Cuba? You know, I am going to be not just a war president. I'm going to be the guy that sets the world right.

You know, no more of this pussy footing around. Damn it, you know, it's time for the dictators to tremble. For guys that supposedly hate neocons, that is the neocon project on the whole jar of steroids. That is neoconning beyond the neocons' wildest dreams is to just run around the world, setting things right. I guess. I kind of fought with Sagar about this point, too. I feel like we need a different term. I called it jingoism because it's not like he wants the statute to him, right?

Like he doesn't want freedom for the Iranian and Venezuela and Cuban people, really. It is a little different. True. Although, you know, the whole project is we're going to bring real American value, whatever the hell it is he's saying it. You're right. In his case, it's absolutely that. You know, Lindsay Graham and the rest of him, who knows?

I mean, Graham was spoiling for a war, you know, for a long. time, but you would think his base would say, listen, whether it's for your glory or some kind of whacked out neocon project, this is all the stuff you said you weren't going to do. And that does raise the issue of his political instincts finally failing him. This war has never been popular, except with his base, which, you know, his base just decides, what did he do today? Tell me what I have to support and I'll support. It's a lifestyle brand. They would do it up. You know, it's the people who like the new album by their biggest fans like their new album because they are programmed to like their new because they can't say anything bad about.

The kids call this Stan culture. Stam, yes. They have a pop artist that they're a stand. No matter what the pop artist does, they're going to fight, argue on their behalf on the internet. And that's what it is. It's just the politics of Stan culture.

We used to call that a cult of personality, but yes. Well, the victory disease thing that you said was right, you know, I do think. But it's hubris, but it's also, I think, you know, it is corruption. I think it is. You know, we all get rich. I go to my statue, ribbon cutting.

people throw flowers. I mean, I also think he's not well. I think this is a not well old man who does not, is not making good decisions. I mean, I think, I'm sorry, I would be making a lot of the same criticisms of the war and its conduct if Trump were 55 instead of 80. But I also think, you know, again, there's something clearly wrong with the president. There has been for a long time. They're not leveling with us about his health. And I don't think, I think his cognitive issues have made it that he can't really think things through. Can I bring up the shoes? Because, you know, this weird thing where Trump made everybody walk around in floor shimes that don't fit them. And the reason I bring this up is because the additional problem here of hubris, victory disease, vanglory, corruption is all compounded by the fact that there's nobody in that room who's going to say, Mr. President, we really have to talk about this. You know, maybe this isn't a good idea. Maybe we ought to change course here. Maybe we ought to think about that. Maybe we ought to anticipate the following things. I'm sure General Kane, among other military folks, tried to raise these things.

But you don't think that a guy clomping around in daddy's shoes is going to say, sir, this is a bad idea? Your Secretary of State or your, of course, there isn't a National Security Council anymore, but, you know, as your guy, I'm telling you, they're going to mind the streets, we need to think about that, we need to think about some alternatives here. No, it's death of Stalin stuff. It's all, yes, you know, good, good, masterful move, sir. Let's give a specific example of that, a specific person who's in the clown shoes, you know, who is, who's regressing to, you know, back when his mamma dressed him in Appalachia.

And that's J.D. Vance, the vice president. Politico says this morning, someone links to Politico, who knows who? Maybe J.D. himself. I don't know. Someone texted Politico. It was a text. Vance was skeptical as worried about success and just opposes the war on Iran. A senior Trump official texted to Politico.

That's intriguing. You know, where a week and a half in and the vice president is on background, yeah, on background to a newspaper saying, I don't know about this. Do we think he's going into the Oval and saying that to Trump? in his clown shoes? I sure don't. And I think this is why you pick somebody

like J.D. Vance for VP. You completely humiliated him. He called you possibly America's Hitler. He had to grovel to get back into your good graces. He had to pretend to be friends with your idiot son.

He had to talk about how brilliant you were and how wrong he was and how he went to Yale and he was so stupid and he didn't know anything. But this reality TV guy, he knew everything. And he saw everything.

He's a great genius. And J.D. just had to humble himself before this great genius and now put on the exact shoes that he wants. And now he's not so sure about the great genius's choice in Iran. But do you think he's telling him that to his face or do we think that he's texting Politico? The ob was going to add to that list and laughing at, you know, all kinds of racist crap in front of your Indian wife and children. One of the first things I thought was with Politico was, oh, great. Well, now we found Bridge Colby's burner phone. I wish I could take credit for this joke,

but I think it was Dan Dresner who posted on X, something like, thank God, Bridge Colby isn't here to see this, you know, or something to that effect. So, you know, there's clearly a group of people that are probably freaking out here. You know, the guys that actually thought seriously about foreign policy really thought we were going to pivot to Asia and, you know, take on the Chinese and all that stuff. And in fact, man, you know, the Chinese are probably have, you know, binders to use an old expression,

binders full of notes about what's going on in Iran and learning all kinds of interesting lessons. But, I mean, what's he going to do? He's been the invisible man. There was that really humiliating picture at the start of the war. Do you remember this where, you know, all the tough guys were in Mar-a-Lago and, you know, president's got his hat on and they're in this little pillow fort that they've made of a, you know, of a skiff, a skiff with rafters, as somebody pointed out, for those of you that are not hip to stuff like this, you know, a skiff is a compartmentalized place where you can, that is

electronically secure so that, you know, you can't bring in like Apple watches or your cell phones or any of that and nobody can hear you. It's a place to discuss and examine classified material. And this was done with like drapes in a room that had like a rafter ceiling. I mean, It was just so on brand for this bunch. But I digress. The humiliating picture I'm thinking of is... The kids table. And, huh?

Yes. Meanwhile, at the children's table, J.D. Vance and Tulsi Gabbard are digging into their lime jello. You know, and discussing... They're animal crackers. You know. They're goldfish. Bunny grams.

You know, and you can tell I have grandchildren. I have got boxes. of Bunny Grams laying around all over the place. But, you know, they're discussing important matters of state with J.D. Vance, Tulsi Gabbard, the professor and Marianne, and all the rest. And that's it. I mean, it was, you know, it's funny, but it's not funny. I mean, first of all, you're launching the biggest war in 20 years. Maybe you ought to be in Washington. I don't know. I'm just, I'm spitball in here. You know, maybe that's why we built this situation room. And, you know, you shouldn't be

trying to launch a gigantic war in the Middle East from a golf resort in Florida. But I'm old-fashioned. You know, I'm just one of those old-fashioned guys that thinks that you want to be near the Pentagon and the State Department and the Situation Room and all of the nerve center of communications. But, you know, throwing up some blankets around the steam tables at the buffet works, too. You know, that's always a way to go. But J.D. Vance wasn't there is the point.

Yeah. I always like to give people a little something to just a little skipping their step for the weekend on the Friday podcast. I'd come up with one thing. And so here's just something to think about. My first instinct agree in the political story is that J.D. is going to try to get away with this. Like the JD is going to be like, it wasn't me. You know, I'm the one true Scotsman, the true America first person.

You can trust me. You can count on me. And maybe that could have worked if you as the vice president for a different president. But how do you think that that will go over with Donald Trump? As long as Donald Trump is on this mortal coil, J.D. Vance, will never be able to utter a single word of critique to him, besides in private to his friends of Politico, because you can't run for president in 28

while saying that, oh, yeah, the boss did some really stupid shit in Iran, and I disagreed with him. Just ask Kamala Harris how easy it is to run against your own boss. It was pretty hard for Kamala with Joe Biden, who has his own issues and a lot of evidence that he, at least behind the scenes, was being a pain in the ass to her, frankly, and criticizing her.

Which I'm sure Donald Trump would never do to a running candidate. That's what I was like. Joe Biden was calling Kamala's people. And Kamala sometimes would be like, hey, why are you distancing from me? You shouldn't be distancing from me. But Donald Trump is going to be on whatever AI social media he has in 2028 being like, this fat idiot loser. He has no idea how great our victory.

was in Iran. Like it's just it doesn't work with Trump. Sorry, JD. JD's got a lot of other problems starting from the fact that people just don't like him. So, you know, he's going to need Trump to be, to put his hand on him and say, this is my, this is my chosen one. The problem is on that score is that there's some evidence that Trump's walking around saying things like, you know, Marco, Marco seems to be this drunker guy. You know, so it's almost like the favored son status is passing over to Marco, to Little Marco, which I never, I mean, it's just, what world were we living in? I understand politics make strange bread fellows. I wasn't born yesterday. You know, the first time I saw George Bush and Ronald Reagan on a stage together, I said, oh, this, this is a mixed marriage, you know,

but my God, it's another thing entirely to see, you know, which of these two guys that hated Trump is going to do better at getting his endorsement? And I suspect, it's going to be Marco because he's just been the more, in that sense, the more loyal. And we're useful. I mean, that's the other thing is that Trump has gotten a lot of mileage out of Marco Rubio in terms of top cover and getting actual work done. And, you know, one of the things that I think is really profoundly amazing about this administration is how much Trump doesn't rely on his own cabinet for anything.

He runs out like his business. He's got this kind of main guy. He's got Susie Wiles. He's got Miller, who's like the minister without portfolio walking around. And J.D. Vance and Pete Hegseth and the rest of them are all kind of kept away from, you know, anything really breakable. All right, y'all, you know that we are plant gays in our house. But did you know that fast-growing trees is America's largest and most trusted online nursery? with thousands of trees and plants and over 2 million happy customers.

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we're in with Marco because I could always spot a squealer. And he was a squealer. Let's go down the list of squealers to the Secretary of Defense, the Reforms Neocon. Pete Higgseth's press conference this morning. I mentioned a couple of things. I just want to play a couple of clips. One, this was how he started the press conference, his media criticism, and then he was addressing concerns about the Strait of Hormuz.

Let's listen. Yet some in this crew in the press just can't stop. Allow me to make a few suggestions. People look up at the TV and they see banners, they see headlines. I used to be in that business. And I know that everything is written intentionally. For example, a banner or a headline, Mid-East war intensifies,

splashing on the screen the last couple of days, alongside visuals of civilian or energy targets that Iran has hit because that's what they do. What should the banner read instead? How about Iran increasingly desperate? The only thing prohibiting transit in the straits right now is Iran shooting at shipping. It is open for transit, should Iran not do that.

Okay. So Iran is increasingly desperate, and the Strait of Hormuz is open, if not for the Iran shooting missiles and drones and bombs at the boats going through it. So that's the Secretary of War's take on the state of play. I did a TV segment last night where we were talking about all the kind of shit posting and meme generating that they're doing. And listen to Hagsuff and you realize just how. how juvenile, how adolescent,

how winy little kid, you know, it all sounds. Like, well, the straits are open, sit for those meanies shooting. Well, then they're not, then be an adult, man. Say, look, you know, we have a problem. Straits are, you know, Iran is men of saying, we are taking action.

We're going to deal with this. Instead, it's all kind of trying, and Trump does the same thing. Trying to manifest things into being. You know, don't say that the war is, intensifying. Say Iran is desperate. When things are blowing up all over the Gulf, the war is intensifying. A normal adult person would use that language and call it denotative, you know, that it's not emotional language. It's not fake. It's a thing. Iran is desperate. You know, you're a writer. I'm a

writer. We know that's a headline says, oh, are you mind reading? Right? The first thing an editor would say to you, you read their minds, you know they're desperate. You've met the Ayatollah. The last that the Ayatollah, the only thing this new Ayatollah has put out has been basically boiled down to three letters. GF.Y. Are they desperate? Do you have evidence, Mr. Secretary? Can you show us? Can you give us a real briefing instead of a kind of a morning, you know, bitch fest or airing of grievances or a daily festivist? Bring out a board. Show us, tell us why you think the headline should be Iran is desperate. You know, give us some numbers. Give us some disposition. forces here. Show us what's what. I went through the first Gulf War in Washington. Went to these

briefings all the time with my boss, U.S. Senator, you know, this isn't hard to do. Second Gulf War. People were embedded. You had daily updates. You knew exactly what was going on. These guys come out and say, quit writing stuff. Well, that's not an answer. That's not, that's not an adult. I mean, I really am missing, you know, guys in gray suits saying, good morning. Here's the situation. This is what's happening. This is why your sons and daughters are in mortal peril. This is what we're doing about it.

These are the objectives they're going to attain. And instead, you get a guy who comes out every morning and makes it about him. And, you know, why are you all being mean? Yeah. I mean, while we're spitballing headlines, you know, I mean, one other thought might be six more American troops dead former talk show host turned Secretary of War

whines about TV Chirons that might be another one I don't know because that's something that happened and it would be perfectly accurate that's what's going on it happened exactly that way oh they don't like the TV Chiron

it's like you kind of have some pretty serious matters here oil prices are skyrocketing your troops are dying and are being injured maybe the TV Chiron isn't your top concern if you're the secretary of war right now. But you're a TV host, so. But after that rally last night, it seems like, you know, the French actually did a split screen. I love it. I don't know if you saw this. The French TV did a split screen of, you know, giant fireballs erupting during strikes at that moment as they split

screened with Donald Trump, who was doing his thing, you know, on the stage with a little weird old guy dance that he does with his, yeah. And, you know, it was like, oh, oh, Jesus Christ. I mean, what are What are we even doing here? The part about, you know, those chyrons are intentionally written. Really? I thought they were just refrigerator magnets. It's like, how else would they be written besides intentionally? Intentionally.

And you've got all these people there at 8 o'clock in the morning saying, tell us about the six additional deaths. Why are these airplanes having a product? What happened? What are our operations seeking to achieve today? Because that was always, you know, in the other words to say, today this is you know where these are the following things that we can give you as of you know a 100 zulu this is where we are right um and instead it's like you know those kairons they're

intentionally written they want you to think bad stuff you you know and it's just come on man you're 45 years old we'll get to what's happening with our tomahawks after i have a list that's been provided to me of kairons that i don't i don't like from tv there's an interesting news i'm just coming across the pentagon is moving a marine expedition unit to the Middle East, as Iran steps up his attacks on the Strait of Hormuz, Hegsteth actually approved the request to move additional forces to the Middle East. So that kind of, you know, not to be just too pedantic about all this, but it does seem like the war is escalating in the Middle East. If we're sending more troops.

If you're sending a Marine Expeditionary Force, yes. Yeah. It seems like the Chiron was kind of fine, actually. Escalating seems correct. And maybe low-balled it a little bit. You know, if you're sending a Marine Expeditionary Force, let us try and do a service to the listeners here. Why would we do that? Are we really going to attempt to seize the Straits of Hormuz? Are we going to land a force? And actually, I mean, it's incredibly risky.

Just to throw this out there, there's some, and I don't want to pretend to be an expert on this, but there's like an island right in the strait that there was talking about a sea of capturing, you know, in order to have a base there to help people come through. So who the hell knows what they're actually doing like that. In the military blogs, I was reading there was some to, discussion of that. I'm not even going to comment on the wisdom of doing this because I'm not sure

what they're going to try and do if they're going to try and do anything. I mean, this could also just be another one of those things of, you know, kind of a kind of jumping out of the, out of the forest kneeling boo. Sometimes you signal by moving stuff around, right? Say, I don't want to do this, but I'm putting forces in place that can do bad things that you're not going to like. But none of this tracks with they're already beaten, they're already surrendering, they're going to surrender. This war's going to be over very soon. I mean, this is Trump basically sinking in the mire of a longer war

while trying to reassure the markets every day by saying surrender is near. You can only pull that trick so many times, you know, where the market finally just says, no, we don't believe you anymore. And oil stays at $100 bucks a barrel. And, you know, the Dow 50,000, those were good times, you know, not so long ago. And, you know, they're not going to keep. buying the reassurance. Ooh, 46-8.

Yeah, we're still a ways away. And on the gas price is just one of the thing. You kind of alluded to this, but they're now making the full pivot from, this is temporary. Prices are going to go back down to its good, actually. The prices are up. Chris Wright, Secretary of Energy. And it's going to be this way for a while.

Yeah, fortunately, the U.S. produces more oil than we can consume. We're a net oil exporter. So overall, for the U.S. economy, this isn't bad news. This is such a dumb argument because it just drives me right out of my seat here. Imagine if you said this about some other commodities. And it's true, right? The United States produces more wheat than it can possibly consume, right? Yeah. I mean, we subsidize corn so that we can turn it into, you know, gasoline. I say, okay, to say, look, wheat, corn, we have more than we can use. Don't worry. We're never going to run out. Of course,

a loaf of bread is going to be seven bucks. Right. I mean, you would just never say this about anything else. I mean, it's just inane to say, no, no, high oil prices are good. It's good for us. It's good for the Russians, you know, but it's not good for you. It's like good for job creation. Maybe here in Louisiana might be accidentally the only good thing that happens for Jeff Landry in Midland, in West Texas. Like, you know, there are a couple of places where they'll have a few more jobs, but I don't know that that's worth it. Right. I feel like Billy Bob Thornton has already drawn up the papers. Yeah, he's doing great. He's going to have an extra big house renovation in Fort Worth. but I don't know what that does for everybody else.

But now I've got to pull my old guy routine and say, children, I have been through an energy crisis. Okay. When I was a teenager, you know, the oil shocks of the early 70s. And what people don't understand is the first thing they're going to see are high prices of the gas pump, right? Now, I am of the age, I had to wait in line for gas. It would be fascinating to see that reaction among Mago World,

but I don't think that's, oh, I shouldn't say it's not going to happen. I don't think it'll happen. But what people don't realize is a petroleum shock increases the price of everything. Yep. You know, I mean, when I was a kid, not that these matter anymore, but the first one of the things I noticed, like record albums, everything. Why? Because they're made with petroleum products.

And as this oil shock went on, anything that required petroleum of any kind just got more expensive. Plastic food. Plastic. food, you know, certain kinds of agricultural products, you know. And this notion, well, let's just stay high for a while, and that's good for us because we make a lot of oil. Yeah, we sell it. But also, we buy it. We have to fill our tanks with it.

We have to buy other stuff. And it shows you, I mean, when you talk about chiron's, about desperation, that was a desperate thing to say. A couple other things are unintentional consequences I want to get to. The Gulf States thing, you reference this, early. earlier. This is another area I just, I don't want to feign expertise on, but I was reading Hussein Ibish on this. And, um, you know, this is just triggering my like small C conservative impulses, which is like when you do something big, when you have a big plan, you don't always know exactly like what is unexpected that could come out of that. There's been a lot of chatter

about the progress being made by Jared buying off Sharia law dictators in the Middle East, uh, to get them to be nice to Israel. And like, we've had to be. had normalization with some of these countries and the Abraham Accords and elsewhere. Okay, that could be good, normalization between Israel and Gulf states. I'm not again, obviously, you got to give credit we're due if progress is made. But we're starting to see now, this was a comment earlier this week, that Gulf states are now starting to view Israel as an agent of chaos equal to Iran. The war is far worse than the Gulf states feared.

There's plenty of blame to go around. They are still enraged against Iran, but they're dismayed at the decisions out of D.C. They're getting suspicious about Israel's regional ambitions. People are fleeing Dubai and Abu Dhabi for safety concerns. We don't know exactly what this is. I don't want to overstate it. But again, like something like this could have also other unintended consequences.

Maybe it just undermines the progress that was made. Maybe it's worse than that. It's a known unknown. Yeah. But the one thing we can know is that we didn't prepare for any of this. We didn't diplomatically lay the groundwork to go to our friends in the Gulf, even our friend of me in the Gulf and say, hey, this is going to get sporty. And we've got your back.

And we're going to try and protect you. And we understand that this is going to cause some problems. And instead, we just went cowboy and said, hey, you know, BB called. And we agree. And this is a good idea. And we're going to take out a run. And it's going to take just a few days. So everybody set tight.

Well, two weeks later, you start to accumulate the problems that you didn't think of ahead of time, that you didn't prepare the ground diplomatically. You didn't prepare the ground with your own people. You certainly didn't prepare it with friends overseas. I mean, MBS got a heads up because him and Jared are on a WhatsApp chain and all that. But for the rest of the rest of the Arab States, I don't know. Well, and, you know, thank God that our ambassadors are such top-notch talents now, you know, as Mike Huckabee and Charles Kushner. and, you know, the rest of this, this, you know, embarrassing group of basically culture warriors and internet trolls. Yeah, and people that paid off the Trump family.

There's another thing that we've seen. Everybody's accountable for their own behavior. So this is, I'm not trying to say that like, because we did this, we had these terror attacks. But we've seen this uptick now. We had the shooting in Austin, the guy had an Iran shirt on. We now at Old Dominion in Norfolk yesterday. shots are fired in an ROTC classroom, killing an Army Colonel Brandon Shod, wounding two other Army personnel.

The shooter was a former Army National Guard member who had some terrorist sympathies. Apparently, shooters shouted Alu Akbar. There's then this attack at the Temple Synagogue in West Bloomfield that rammed the vehicle into the building while preschool was in session. The driver, 41-year-old-Duist citizen from Lebanon, who lost several family members in an airstrike in Lebanon last week. So, you know, I mean, this is horrible. Like the uptick in anti-Semitism is we're seeing everywhere.

The risks, the threats to Jews in America are real. The uptick in terrorist activities here. Does anybody believe that they thought through all of that and, like, prepared for it and planned for it? And then we have experts and people in counterterror in charge. We fucking fired the Iranian counterterror team a week before the war started. Oh, we did all kinds of really smart things. We also shut off, just to go back to the international arena for him, And we also pretty much shut off the Voice of America Farsi service.

So, you know, good call there. You know, I don't want to be overly critical of anybody in counterterrorism because trying to stop these radicalized lone wolves is really hard to do. On the other hand, boy, would I feel better about this if we had a real director of the FBI instead of this, you know, jet-setting party boy, you know, who's running around the world having the time of his life. Bucket list stuff. UFC fighters will not be training FBI agents. Do we think that that's the best use of everybody's time and resources right now, having UFC fighters train FBI agents on how to do grapple moves in the ring? That one got me to the

point of I just had to tap out for a minute. I just said, this can't be right. I thought it was actually the onion. I'm not intended. Hand to God, Tim. I saw that and I said, that's kind of funny. You know, the onion's pretty good. And then I was like, oh dear God in heaven. It's real. And, you know, this is just complete madness. And at a time when, yes, you know, again, there are dedicated professionals out there trying to stop terror attacks. But it would be nice to have some seriousness from people at the top.

And these kind of terror attacks, especially if you haven't prepared the country, you know, one of the things that could have happened in Trump laying down the predicate for months saying, get ready for this. This is a thing we might have to do. And we're going to increase. our communication and our interaction with local and state law enforcement. And we're going to tell them, you know, when this thing starts, beyond your guard. And instead, you know, we get midnight videos of an old guy in a white hat saying it's a

most amazing thing and it never like, never saw it and they're going to surrender. It's like nobody wants to be the person to go out and just soberly and calmly tell the American people about the risks, the rewards, the opportunities, the dangers. it's all in part because this administration, the people in it are so insecure that they're terrified of appearing to be anything but completely in control, chest puffing and manly. I mean, you see it with Heggseth, you see it with the president,

and interestingly enough, you don't see it with Marco Rubio who kind of, you know, just trying to stay out of the frag pattern here and get some things done, apparently. But the ones that go out there, it's like, it's okay. We're adults. Americans are grownups. Talk to us. Tell us this was something we needed to do.

It's very important. Here's why. Here's the things we're going to do. And instead it's, everything's great. And no more of your chyrons. Well, and you mentioned the risks. And like, you know, when I was a little kid, my dad's investor, he taught me about risk benefit analysis.

Didn't really sink in as much as it should have during my teen years. But, you know, it was a good attempt at fatherly lessening. That's not kind of what I'm saying about the lone wolf stuff here. It's like you knew that would be an increased risk. Like you just knew it would. And you knew that the, the tensions are already really high and that there's a lot of anti-Semitic violence and threats already in the country. Right.

Like that was already happening. You went to war with a Muslim nation of 92 million people. You had to assume that there were going to be some dangers around because of that. And then, you know, you add into it straight to four moves, the cost going up for everybody. You add into it, the Arab state. You add into it the helping Russia. And I'm just tying everything together in this,

in the conversation that we've had, there was no concern or calculation or consideration at all of like the increased risks. There was no plan beyond Donald Trump's imagination. There was no plan beyond Donald Trump's kind of fever dream. Well, there's B and Bibi had a plan, but yeah, that we didn't. It looks like the Israeli and American plans might not be the same plan anymore. Yeah, clearly. If you only have one ally, you might want to be on the same page.

Just as a diplomacy lesson here. And in the meantime, and I have to just point this out, in the meantime, Pete Higgseth is going after the war college, America's war colleges. There are a bunch of people out there on social media who think that I'm going to get fired from a job I retired from three years ago. We wouldn't want people learning anything in the military. But talking about things like risk analysis and linking operations to strategic goals,

it's like these are all the things we're not doing right now. And you want to, you know, shit can, And the only people that are actually, that are actually teach the military how to do that, it seems like a bit of a distraction when, you know, you probably ought to be briefing the country on why two airplanes hit each other over the desert. Last thing, we're a month now tomorrow from the DHS shutdown. And, I mean, I think that probably the least important outgrowth of all this is that people have to wait a long time in TSA lines at the airport.

these are all real things. Like, you know, commerce still has to happen. People still have to go places. They have to see their family. They have to go do, you know, work trip. Like the idea that we've had bomb threats at airports in Kansas City, you know, that our TSA agents are getting paid, public servants are not getting paid. And it's at a time when we have like real threats to Homeland Security.

And we're in this shutdown because the government wants to keep the option to have masked thugs roaming the streets going forward. They're not keep the option. They want to continue to have messed thugs roaming the streets. And so they're going to let the Department of Homeland Security be shut down for a month during a war. Symphony has a tantrum to not actually do something that most Americans want done. I want to give a shout out to the TSA for a minute because everybody hates them.

The TSA workers, God love them. I appreciate you. You're doing a fucking terrible job. That's what I was going to say. Yeah, no. It's been 25 years. I don't know why we're taking our shoes on. still. The shoe bomber wasn't even very good.

But it's not their fault. It's not their fault. And when the TSA guy, well, I fly a lot, when the TSA guy says, I recently had to take my shoes off because they had metal on them or some damn thing, right? And, you know, and so they were like, sorry. And I was like, listen, it's okay. You know, you got a job to do. Because, you know, the other thing that happens is if a terrorist

ever does get on a plane again, the first people who are getting blamed are those guys. And, you know, I think it's just a lot of security theater. And I don't feel less safe now that DHS has shut down. I felt less safe when it was open and Corey Lewandowski was running it. But again, it would be nice to see adult leadership, you know, at the top of the government during a war. And instead, it's like, it's like Delta House or something. I mean, it's, you know, Pluto and D-Day are in charge of security and because they didn't think about all this stuff. I guess that's what we keep

coming back to, Tim, is the DHS shutdown, Russia, oil prices, the straits of... You know, this all should have been gamed out. They should have been doing nothing but having meetings all day saying, and then what do we do? What are our options here? That's how it's done. You know, that's the process. I've been to some of those things. And they just didn't do any of it, which tells you, you know, again, not only that the

president's instincts failed in, but they're not being very good stewards of American national security. that they've put us in a very dangerous situation. I will steal man it one more time. Maybe for good reason. Maybe for some, I know, I saw that. Really? Don't you give me that look, young man?

I know, I, you know, maybe for some reason that will become clearer when the smoke clears. I don't think so. But I can't be the guy constantly making the case that the president refuses to make. Okay. What you're saying is nice for the TSA agents. I have to tell you, just doing a lot of, like a personal assessment. Like six out of ten times, I go over out of my way to be nice to the TSA agents because

it's a shitty job and I understand it and it's not their fault. Three out of ten, I'm doing Ujahee breaths, you know, and just calmly trying to get through without getting upset. One out of ten, maybe I'm a little rude when you're touching my dick in the year 2026, like 25 years after 9-11, I don't have an underwear bomb. on and I just, I think some of this is a little much. But it's not that person's fault, but sometimes I have to, you have to keep telling yourself that.

So I'm going to try to improve. You're inspiring me to try to improve to get up to seven out of ten times being nice. We've all run into a bad public servant. There are a couple of TSA agents. I certainly would nominate for throwing off the jetway, you know, because they seem to enjoy that job a little too much. They should get paid, though. They should be getting paid.

It's insane that they're working right now without paychecks. It's insane. 90% of the people, and maybe it's just because we have a really lovely little airport here in Rhode Island, but 99% of the time I find that they are professional. And if you really want to feel, maybe we can end on a lighter note, if you really want to feel some sympathy for the TSA guys, just stand there for a moment and watch what people do,

you know, where they walk up and they say, do you have an ID? A what? You know, a driver's license. A what, no? Oh, maybe. hold on. These people that are like 40 years on, you want to say, is this your first day at the airport? Is this like a field trip? You know, or, yes, ma'am, that, you know, 16 ounce jug of water can't bring that on. Why not? Because you just can't and we're just not going to, you know, and then it's like the comedy routine, right?

They open up their soon case and take it out, you know, a bazooka and a, you know, barrel of gasoline. I mean. It's like, okay, these can't. Like, have you never been to an airport? You're right. 25 years later, we're doing stupid things. But 25 years later, how many of these people don't freaking realize how to walk through a line at an airport? I mean, for Christ's sake, you know, so there's plenty of blame to go around. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk. Thank you, as always, to Tom Nichols. Everybody, you have a wonderful weekend. We'll take you out with a little cheap trick. And we'll see it back here on my time. Monday with Bill Crystal. Bye.