The Daily Beast Podcast - MAGA Civil War? Trump Can’t Find Iran on the Map!

Episode Date: June 19, 2025

James Carville joins Joanna Coles for a bracing tour through the foreign policy civil war inside MAGA—and why it could tear the coalition. As Israel and Iran square off, so do Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon, and Tulsi Gabbard versus Trump, Pete Hegseth, and Mark Levin. Carville breaks down the long-simmering ideological rift now boiling over, and why Trump’s strategic confusion—especially in the Middle East—is dangerous not just for Republicans, but for global stability. He explains why Trump “couldn’t find Iran on a globe,” how Tucker’s pro-Russia leanings go back decades, and why Americans aren't nearly scared enough about what’s coming. Plus: what Carville says is the real cost of Republican loyalty to Trump, and how Democrats can seize this moment—if they’re smart. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

How do I pose this delicately, but I'll try. Trump has no idea of what he's doing. You could, and I guarantee you that Tucker Carlson or Steve Bannon or any of these people believe that if you pointed to a globe and you said point to the Middle East, Trump will have no idea what it is. I'm Joanna Coles. I'm the chief content officer of. the Daily Beast and this is the Daily Beast podcast. I hope you're either listening or watching

possibly on YouTube and we're about to talk to James Carvel. Before we do, I wanted to address the hundreds, thousands of comments actually that you left us on YouTube. I now know that it's Senator Alex Padilla. I know that. Brits always have struggles with French and Spanish words in particular, but I've got that right and I'm sorry that I got it wrong first time round. And secondly, many of you loved the Art Deco background that I have. It's just the hotel I'm staying in. I wish I could say it was my boudoir, as someone referred to it. It's not my boudoir, it's a hotel room.

But there's so much stuff going on in the world right now. Who better to talk to than our favorite elder statesman, the national treasure of democratic politics, none other than James Carvel. James, was that a glass of red wine I just saw? I do it. I'm having it. I am. I don't blame you. Where are you? I'm in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.

Oh, fabulous. Okay. James, so as Israel and Iran appear to be battling it out, Somaga seems to be battling it out. You've got Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon, Tulsi Gabbard on one side. You've got Donald Trump, Mark Levin, Pete Hexerth on another. What do you make of this? Is this the beginning of something serious with? in the macamusement. Right. Well, first of all, thank you. And your question obviously deserves some serious consideration.

So I'm going to try to do this. I think this rift has always existed below the surface. I mean, I've done Tucker Carlson for a long time. I've done TV with him. I've spent time in the green room with him. I've done speeches with him. I generally do not comment on Tucker, but this is a pretty consistently held view that Tucker's had over a long period of time. I mean, Ted Cruz, the interview that Tucker put up, I mean, Ted Cruz is like a fool.

And he kind of was. And I don't, I certainly don't, I think Tucker's kind of passivist instincts are been there for a long time. but I interviewed Val Nasser today. And you got to know what Iran is and exactly who you're fooling what. This is a pretty advanced country with some pretty sophisticated people and sophisticated engineers. And, you know, I guess I'm neither a hawker or do on that, but I know your enemy. You better be sure where you deal with it. This is not a rock ball, long shot.

Right. And Ted Cruz failed to know what the popular. of Iran was he failed to note the tribal breakdown was when Tucker asked him. Do you think this split, which may have been under the surface and is now coming to the surface, can become difficult for Trump to manage? Well, you got to lay that over the Ukraine problem, of which the Tucker in Bannon wing, I don't get into internal right-wing politics. tend to be much more pro-Russian than in that there's a very,

and among self-described conservatives, that's a substantial number that support the Ukrainians. So these are two kind of seizures that exist on the right, and they both kind of foreign policy things, and I think they both signal a different approach. I mean, we've kind of grew up with Brent Skullcar, from Jim Baker, kind of Reagan interventionist model of Republican policy that is this. It's, you've identified something that is not likely to go away anytime soon.

So, James, you've known Tucker Carlson a long time. Why is he pro-Russia? Well, I've known him, and I've really tried to make it a policy of my personal. I just don't come here. I kind of miss to tell you, truth, he was a good friend, and the circumstance conspired where we don't socialize it much anymore. You know, I think this is something like I say, this is pretty consistent with green rum conversations in 2002.

I mean, but maybe you can remember Crossfire, which was Paul, myself, Bob Novak and Tucker, we were probably the most anti-Iraq war show on television. In fact, many people think that's why I got canceled because we're just sitting by the party line we've been given on Iraq. I don't know, but I do know actually Paul and Bob Novak and myself were against him. Again, in Tucker, as I recall, came out for it for it for it for like two and a half weeks. And he said it was the biggest mistake he ever made. So, and, you know, look, isolationism and intervention have been part of, you know, the U.S. political debate for a long, long time. Remember, it was particularly intense during the lead up to the late 1930s and laid up World War II.

I mean, it was a huge isolationist movement in this country. And to some extent, it still is. And by the way, we have had disastrous wars. in Iraq and Afghanistan. So it's not like he can say, well, these people are just off base that don't understand the world. They would suggest to you that they understand it well and the less we're involved in and the better off we are.

I'm just giving you that point of view. I'm not for one minute suggestion that I agree with it. But it's a point of view that they really hold. And they've been pretty consistent on it. Donald Trump seems uncertain yet as to what he thinks should happen in the Middle East. what are you sensing from what he's saying so far, which is he won't say one way or the other? How do I pose this delicately, but I'll try?

Trump has no idea of what he's doing. You could, and I guarantee you that Tucker Carlson or Steve Bannon or any of these people believe that if you pointed to a globe and you said point to the Middle East, Trump would have no idea what it is. All right. So he doesn't, he's never given a iota a thought to this. He knows not one piece of history about the region, about the adversaries, about who's this. He is a, he's just, he's massively ignorant.

And I don't know that anybody would really dispute. I mean, some of the MAGA people would say, oh, you know, he's naft to negotiate, he's the closer or some kind of nonsense. But I don't think Trump even knows where the Middle East is. So, I'll be honest with you. So, James, how nervous should we be about this? I mean, this is a very serious situation. I'm sitting here in the south of France, somewhat in a luxury bubble.

But there is enormous concern in Europe that this is going to. to lead to one of the scenario. Where are you in the south of France? Because I love it a part of the world. Oh, I'm in Cannes. I'm at the Cannes. Okay.

Okay. All right. Great. But there are people here from all over the world. Right. And there's enormous anxiety that this is, as we know, one of the scenarios that the Pentagon used to use as a possibility for the beginning of World War III.

How frightened should we be if, as you're right, Donald Trump doesn't actually know how to pick out Iran on a globe? I've traveled a lot this year, and I hadn't been there, climate, but I've been the London parish. And I get stopped on the street. I mean, of course, it's like in Mayfair, is half of them Americans, or eight or into six and Paris as every other person. You see, and there will they come up to me, weirdly coming?

And it's Mr. Carville, I'm really scared. And you know what I say? you're not near scared enough. If you knew more, you would even be more scared than you are. And you have every, anybody does. Anybody, you know, particularly in the West, but it's just the kind of world I grew up in is where are you and I grew up in. Everything we've kind of done about, I think, rest is, you know,

the European Union and the United States. had, you know, remarkable history and provided for a remarkable way of life, a remarkable sense of political freedom. And it came at about a very difficult price. I don't know. I'm going to be wrong. Post-second world. A lot of trouble to get where we are.

And it's all at risk. It's literally all at risk. And we have a buffoon in the most important job in the world who has no respect for any laws, any international order, anything that has bought about a prosperity and a freedom that's frankly been unmatched in the history of the world. And with a boar gasket.

You should be there. I mean, look, enjoy the wonderful climate and the Mediterranean. And by me, one of my favorite references, a place at a single little town called St. Paul Duvant, which is right up in the mountains. And I'm very far from the coast, called Lacombe Doar.

And if you ever get a chance, ago. It's a very fragrant and, yeah, you know, I love that place. That's a very luxurious restaurant. Oh, yeah, well, it's kind of outside and smelled like trees. And yeah, but it is. You're right. It's not a McDonald's, you know, it's not a McDonald's, but it's a great little town.

But at any rate, all of those things that you're enjoying right now that people have thought about and bled and constructed and your whole trading system, it's all at risk. Don't kid yourself. It's no guarantee it'll be here in a year or two. And again, you cannot overestimate the sheer ignorance of Donald Trump. It's impossible. When you say you can't guarantee that it would be here in a year or two, what scenario do you actually think is possible that would bring it to an end?

Oh, no. So we lose any sense of constitutional. water in the United States. People right now are forging new trading agreements. If you look at what happened in the G7 in Alberta, you know, he storms out of there because no one wanted to make a deal with him in the world is starting to learn. And this is not good for the United States. They can live without us. We just thought the world just wanted our market so bad. They wanted our movies and our airplanes and they wanted our aircraft carriers to be patrolling. And and they wanted a strong dollar, and maybe they'll move to a different system.

And the system that we live on has been very beneficial to the United States. They've been very beneficial to Western Europe, been able to enjoy protection from the United States. And, you know, we went to a lot of trouble. We had NATO. We had the European Union. And people say, well, gee, man, that's expensive. That's complicated. Yeah, you know what's really expensive and complicated or European land war?

Try that. See, you want to try something that doesn't turn out well? Oh, let's take 1918. Let's take 1943. It didn't go very well. And we established something to stop that. We're losing it. And then you got the Putin, you know, trying to gobble up territory on, you know,

the eastern side of the European Union. It's going on right now. James, this is a good chance for you to have another sip of wine. We're just going to take some messages. And we're back discussing all things with James Carville. So, James, do you think that Republicans who voted for Donald Trump, who claimed that he doesn't want war, he doesn't like war, do you think this is what they bargained for?

You know, I see, like most politicians, the first thing that they're looking for is political survive. And you cannot survive in profit as an elected person in today's Republican Party without showing groveling fidelity to Donald Trump. And these Republican voters demand that. I mean, I'm in Louisiana way of Santa Cassidy. He's a very nice man. I know him.

He's a physician. He voted to impeach Trump. And he was forced to go along with Bobby Kennedy. Senator Cassidy knows Bobby Kennedy's giant fool. And, of course, we see the entire vaccination. One of the greatest health advancement in the history of the world of vaccinations. More people will battleize as a result of vaccination than any other single health intervention that ever existed. It's not even close.

we have a sample size of a billion people been vaccinated or something. You have been vaccinated, I've been vaccinated. You know, we're all having come, and we don't have smallpox, and we're all walking around. Great, great. I mean, how regressive and stupid can you be to turn you back on the greatest health intervention in the history of medicine? That's what they do it. Why did Senator Cassidy, in the end, vote for Bobby Kennedy? as a issue. Yeah, he wanted to be reelected. He's now drawn to, I can't tell you to people, the Republican

that are going to get some idiots, because I don't know that, but they certainly express support for idiotic things. And the only way that he can survive is they split the vote sufficiently enough and maybe he could sneak in like that. I don't know, but he's, I don't think he's going to there were one re-election. And I think he gave up a lot in terms of his reputation, the way people looked at him and thought he was, well, you know, everybody I know knows Senator Cassie. People like him. His wife is quite popular. Louisiana. It's like any other culture when you know people. But the guy's just, you know, it's the whole, you know, throughout literature, you make a bargain with the devil, and it never turns out right.

Right. It never turned out right. You know, if only you give me these temporal things and I'll have, it always blows up in your face, and that's as old as literature. It seems particularly odd that a doctor would have voted for Bobby Kennedy, Jr., too, especially, I know that he took extra time to talk to him, and he sort of made the appearance of, you know, interviewing him at Great Lent. But of course, as you say, he's fired everybody on the vaccination committee and hired his own group of people.

Oh, it's, you know, and it's, in some sense, since Cassie's had done some honorable things in his life, you know, well, kind of respected. And this is what he's going to be remembered for. This is going to be, you know, Bill Cassie, Carla, your senator, who cave to Bobby Kennedy and Donald Trump. Yeah, that's not a great legacy. Yeah. So, James, how do the Democrats exploit this moment, this Republican Party? Thank you for asking the money question here. Right now, if you look yesterday in Virginia, it was historic turnout in Democratic primaries.

We didn't have a governor's race. and I think people are leading the resistance as it well should be. And I don't think the Democrats are going to be in total position. I mean, they're certainly going to exploit the big, beautiful bill of which no one likes. And I think that the resurgence Democratic Party will really be complete when we get a presidential nominee who has the ability to speak across the entire party and people that support it. So I don't think we can rush this. I really don't.

But the good news is we've got so many goddamn talented candidates out there. And we just we just got to trust that we have, for whatever reason, we probably have more talent right now. We have it. Look at how strong our candidates are in New Jersey and Virginia. I mean, these are remarkably strong. under any cycle, eminently well qualified,

eminently sensible, eminently bright people that are going to be the face of the Democratic Party. And it's not going to be a bunch of poohas running around, do something, charge. You know, it's silly crap that you see

it's become part of democratic politics. We got some real leaders covered and that's going to matter. So, James, we had Governor Newsom on the podcast, last week. And we got an enormous amount of support for him on the comments on YouTube afterwards. And obviously Donald Trump handed him a national platform when he brought in the National Guard to Los Angeles. How would you assess his performance?

He's been given the greatest gift that a politician can have. he's got a staggering good foil and he's handled it very well. I mean, look, this was his kind of moment and the sun shined on him and he made hate. And I think his performance through all of this has been very determined, very on point. And I think he's increased his profile quite substantially as well. all to this. I really do. And everybody sees this. There's a Paul by, he's a Paul about Trump, you know, basically trying to do away the state of California, which is, you know, it's an amazing thing. I know it's right. Japan is a very successful nation. Okay. I think

they have 125 million people. California is a staggeringly successful state. Let's say they have 45 million people. Their GDP is higher than Japan. It's the fourth largest GDP in the world. So this idiotic California bashing, which is just what it is, idiotic, which I'll be so lucky, is to be able to be honest with you. It's the greatest system of higher education ever devised by any place anywhere in the world. There are more patterns that come out of there for a capital probably than most any place

in the world. But he was given an opportunity and he made good use of it. I admire him and congratulate for that. Donald Trump, among other things that he said over the last couple of days, has said that he wants the VA hospitals treating veterans not to treat veterans who aren't married and to avoid or if they want, they can choose not to treat veterans who are Democrats. I'm not sure how they would know that. Which seems even for Donald Trump to be a pretty off the wall statement. And I'm just, I'm just, you know, curious as to what you make of it. You got a week?

No, you don't. Someone tried to distill it as much as I can. There are 17.6 veteran suicides a day in the United States. How many? 17.6 a day. That's terrible. The most sacred contract that any government can make is what it's soldiers and sailors. Look, you come in, we're not going to pay you very much.

You're more likely to get hurt or injured or have something bad happen to you in during this and most other people. But what we're going to do in exchange for that is we're going to give you good health care, good benefits. We're not going to leave you in a large. And of course, Trump, the couple bone spurs himself, has no idea using these soldiers on Saturday afternoon to his own sort of glory. It decides that he's going to pick and choose what veterans get what.

You know, during the 19th campaign, one of the big honors that I got is we did an event with the Tuskegee Airman. Oh, yeah. It was this very famous squadron of black pilots in World War II. I don't know, but my sense is most of them were Democrats, you know, about a reception. He was some of the most honorable people that we've ever had in our country. And the fact that how do you determine if you registered Democrat? I mean, I have no idea what he's talking about.

But Donald Trump is a man of no cooos, no upbringing, no sense of curiosity, who doesn't have the remotest idea of what service. By the way, why would he give me any veteran anything? He told General Kelly that they were all fools. Right, suckers and losers. Yeah, suckers and losers. So you cannot, we don't have the time and I don't have the time and I don't have the vocabulary to say what a wretched person this guy is.

I think you do have the vocabulary. It's a family podcast. You mentioned the parade, the big birthday parade. Do you think he was wounded by the protests, the No King's protests in 2000 cities across America? I mean, the between four and six million people who turned up to protest peacefully? I think he was more wounded by. the parade, you know, didn't turn out like he thought it were. And he thought there would be messers of people.

The soldiers were clearly, so you're a soldier, and they call you, and maybe you're stationed in North Carolina somewhere, and you've got to come to Washington for your weekend. You've got to show up five hours before the parade. It's a Saturday in June. All right. You got to dress up. in uniform. You got to march, I don't know how many miles. You know, very happy about it.

And for what? Not to engage in enemy, not to do anything. I mean, it was a 250 anniversary United States Army. It did. And of course, Trump makes it all by himself. And you can see that these youngsters were not particularly enthusiastic about being there. I haven't been, I guess I was a Marine, not a soldier, but I wouldn't have liked having to go. march around or a Saturday afternoon the clarification of some idiot jerk but then I think I don't blame them for the way they felt.

So the No King's protests that took place in 2,000 cities across America. Donald Trump has now said he wants to target a lot of those cities and use ice to double down on those cities to go after what he claims are illegal immigrants and criminals.

Is that plausible? Is one, unable to actually get that done? I don't know. He might. They might be there with facial recognition and God knows what and, you know, nefarious people. Or who knows? We could have people like dimeing each other out and say, well, I know Johnny he was there or I know Melissa and she spoke at it. And could they use the IRS to target that person? Could they try to revoke their passport? I don't know. Could they have them arrested? did they, you know, open investigations.

I don't put anything past it. You know, again, when you tell me you're afraid, you're not afraid enough. You're not afraid enough. Right. We're not afraid enough. Well, he says that we've got a big week coming up. James, I very much hope that you will come back to us and talk to us again soon because your perspective is so valuable. Well, thank you.

And we love hearing from you. Well, thank you. I wish I was in. I wish you were in the south of. France too. I'm going to go and have a glass of... Please do that. All right. Good tip. Thank you. Okay. Bye. Be very afraid. Well, not the happiest notes on which to end, but I like to think of James

sitting calmly now, sipping his red wine in his farmhouse in the Shenandoah Valley, and I'm about to go and have a glass of rosé on the quazette. Join me on Sunday for a conversation with Evan Osnos. He decodes the super yachts and the crazy habits of the Uber wealthy, the plutocracy, the Uber billionaires, which is perfect for the weekend before Jeff Bezos's wedding to Lauren Sanchez in Venice. Join us then. So even if you're a billionaire listening to this, be beast. This podcast was produced by Devin Roderino and Anna von Erson, and it was edited by Jesse Milwood. Want more great listens? Check out our comedy podcast, The Last laugh and our star-studded The Daily Beast podcast at the Daily Beast.com slash podcasts.

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