The Tim Dillon Show - 501 - Donald Trump’s Endgame

Episode Date: June 27, 2026

Tim is joined by journalists Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman to discuss their new book “Regime Change” which covers the first year of Donald Trump’s second presidency. They discuss Trump forcing America into Iran, his reaction to Charlie Kirk’s assassination, & the president’s association with Epstein. Become a Friend Of The Show https://bit.ly/BecomeAFriendOfTheShow and get access to weekly bonus audio episodes of the podcast!Live Dates🎟  https://punchup.live/TimDillonSPONSORS: Quince Go To https://quince.com/TIM For FREE Shipping On Your Order & 365 Day Returns! StashGo To https://stash.com/mood To Check Today’s Market Mood - It’s FREE And Takes Just 2 Minutes! NutrafolFind Out Why Nutrafol Is The Best-Selling Hair Growth Supplement Brand At https://nutrafol.com & Enter The Code “TIM” to get $10 OFF your first month’s subscription and FREE shipping! EthosProtect your family with life insurance from Ethos. Get up to $3 million in coverage in as little as 10 minutes at https://ethos.com/TIM Application times may vary. Rates may vary.Gusto Try Gusto Today at https://gusto.com/DILLON And Get 3 Months FREE when you run your first payroll! ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬Subscribe to the channel:https://www.youtube.com/@TimDillonShow?sub_confirmation=1Instagram:https://instagram.com/timjdillon/X:https://twitter.com/TimJDillonFB:https://www.facebook.com/TimDillonComedyTik Tok:https://www.tiktok.com/@timdListen on Spotify!https://open.spotify.com/show/2gRd1woKiAazAKPWPkHjds?si=e8000ed157e441c8Merch: https://store.timdilloncomedy.com/For every $400,000 we gross in revenue, we are donating five dollars to end homelessness in Los Angeles. We are challenging other creators to do the same.#TimGivesBack

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Tim Dillon show. We have Jonathan Swan coming on, and Maggie Haberman, they are the reporters from the New York Times who just wrote the biggest political book of the year regime change. And this thing sold out everywhere. And it's about the first year of the Trump presidency. We took Epstein, the war in Iran, the assassination attempt, Charlie Kirk, etc. And it's doing very well. I was in suburb of L.

and I tried to get the book and some woman is he kind of, you know, a larger woman was like, it's sold out. You know, like it's kind of one of these, it's just a certain type of person who works in a bookstore. It's a larger lass who has kind of, kind of that wet hair that kind of, you know what I mean?

It's kind of curly, but it's not, you know, and she's got like a lanyard on and she's behind the information desk and like hey what about regime change and she's like, it's sold out they're doing a reprinting now and you're like okay great

so I couldn't even get it I haven't read it and I won't but I think it's important to discuss no because I know a lot of what's in it but I will read it I don't think I will

But I might You should Who cares Everyone's reading it We talk about Vance We talk about Trump Cash Patel

We try to get into stuff It's hard to Do anything in 50 minutes Which is what I realize You know They're on this massive press tour And they And I want to go deep with them

And we tried, and it is pretty good. I think the interview is good. But this is why when Rogan does three hours with people, it is much better because you scratch the surface. But they're both really sharp reporters, and they have tons of access to the White House. But I tried to get that book. I couldn't get it.

And then I went over to William Sonoma to try to buy a bunch of stuff. and this woman was walking me around the store. What was her name? Halal? Hala. Hala? And we got a bunch of stuff, but then I tried to do the tap,

and she goes, we need the actual card. Now, I just have Apple Pay on the phone. I don't have the card info. So we had spent about 40 minutes walking around the store, selecting different things and choosing colors of things. And then she goes, we don't, you got it, we need the actual information.

And then I just had to get my car and leave. And I felt bad about that. Maybe I'll go back today with my actual card. I don't know. I think they had the order. And I might just come in with my actual card. They still have the order I got a bunch of stuff I need. Got a nice coffee maker of brevel. Nice espresso, cappuccino maker. And, uh, exasperino maker. And, uh, exhum. Exciting stuff. Exciting stuff there. So this interview is coming up.

And we hope you enjoy it. I think it's a great interview. You know, but again, it's like they're writing for the New York Times. So again, there's no evidence. Epstein's intelligence and they haven't seen any evidence. No one's seen evidence. No one, you know, it's all, you know, okay. all right all you can do is ask

and what people mean by that is like that they weren't in the room like there's evidence I'm not trying to impugn their credibility because I know that they're like straight-laced reporters they're like we have not seen evidence and it's like well there is though but I understand you you haven't seen enough evidence

to make that claim okay, because they have standards, which I appreciate, but it's like, well, there is evidence. There's just not like, maybe like, maybe you couldn't convict him in court, like that type of evidence. But I also think there's that evidence. Also, I believe there's, ironically enough,

I actually believe there's that evidence too. But, you know, you do the best you can, and I appreciated them coming on. These are the big dogs at the New York Times. I asked them if they were afraid of getting replaced by me. Because, and the Princess Diana bear. Hello, I'm the bear. Are you scared of being replaced by the Princess Diana bear?

They have a serious answer. They have a serious answer. But, you know, we're heading into this summer now. And I don't know that anyone will care about any of this. I don't even care about it. I don't care about any of it. You know, as I was doing the interview, and by the way, I'm not trying to insult either one of them.

As I was doing this interview, I don't care about any of this. I don't. I have no, it's just, I don't care anymore. Because that's what starts to happen in the summer. It's like not, I know that I should, but I just don't. Well, the thing is that Netanyahu actually, yeah, yeah, yeah. I bet. I think they're right.

I don't doubt the reporting. How long can one care about this once it's quite obvious what this is? Once it's exposed like what it is, then how long can we care about like the finer points of it? Once you know it's all kind of a sham, how exactly are you supposed to care that much about how and why? It's like if someone rips you off, you got ripped off. You know, like you're in a car with your wife.

She's like, you know what I think really happened? Here's what probably happened. You go, you, we got fucked. I don't want to keep going over this. It's like, I don't even want to, you know what I mean? Like, I bet we're not the only ones to get taken by that. Yeah, whatever. I'm concerned with us.

So there's only a limited bandwidth you have to go over. And again, it's not to take anything away from them in their book, which I'm sure is fascinating. But there's just a limited amount of bandwidth you have. Like one of the revelations are like, you know, Trump talks to a lot of people that are very hawkish and pro-Israel. Wait, what? Hold on a minute.

Hold the phone. Wait, I can't. I don't understand. My brain is melting in my head. Are you telling me? And then they're like, you know, Trump, he wants to, he sees himself as a great man of history. And did he, he, you know, he wants to make an impact on the global stage, everything. You're like, yeah.

I know, yeah, well, I know that. I didn't have to, I don't, and I'm not, again, buy their book, read their book. But like, it's one of those things, and this is again, it's, I'm not, and again, I'm not, this sounds like I'm, I'm shitting on it. I'm truly not. But what I got from that interview is, you go, yeah, yep. What are, what are these revelations? What are these big revelations?

I'm serious. And again, not in an attacking way or an accusatory way. I'm super grateful they came on. But what are we learning? What are we learning here? Trump is, you know, he's, he likes power. Yeah. Yeah. He likes power and the people around him.

And he's at odds with his base. Right. He doesn't really care. You just, you know, he likes power and exercising power. And he wants to be remembered in history is like a psychopath, like Mao or Hitler or something. Okay. But you could get that from just watching him a little bit.

You want, this is the. a problem now with like, and it's not a problem. And again, read the book. I'm sure it's phenomenal. But like, you know the book already. This is the issue that we have with everything. They're like, the revelations in the book are startling. Trump didn't want the Epstein talks out. Yeah. Yes. The revelations in the book are unbelievable. Trump did it. want the Epstein docks out. Yeah? Well, we knew that.

Read the book. So, I mean, I'm sure there are things in the book. They certainly uncover little things like Trump. Trump learned about Kirk's assassination from his son Barron. There's things they uncover. They take you in the situation room, you know, and the people go. But here's the thing.

Here's my question. I'm saying this honestly, and again, I don't mean to be, if you just made up your own book, like how close would you get to their book? Kind of close. Like if you just made up your own book from what you know already, you kind of have their book. If you just invented your book about how it happened,

you'd be close to their book. Do you see what I mean? no one's is anyone like really going like how did this happen like yes i asked that question because i have to but like it's obvious how it happened she's like you know mag heaberman again great reporter she's like trump really liked a pager attack of course he did it's great tv it's an episode of McGiver, pagers start blowing up in people's hands? It's a fascinating and impressive display of violence, which Trump loves. So like, it's almost like, yes, does anyone, like if you went up to someone in a supermarket

and goes, what do you think Trump thought about the Hezbollah, you know, the Israel Pager attack against Hezbollah? Does anyone think Trump would go, well, it's terrible, you know, you know, innocent people could have been heard. No. No. He's going to go, that was great. That was amazed.

They bought these pagards from a company. They had no idea it was Israel. Then they all blew up. Yeah. That's what. There's no period of history that has needed less explanation than this period. That's what's difficult. Nobody needs to know anything.

because everyone knows it. Everyone knows it. Are there things people don't know? Sure, but the broad strokes of it are in front of your face. If you don't get it, you'll never get it. If you're confused now, there's no hope for you. There's no helping you. Trump doesn't care about anything that you think,

he cares about in the sense that like he understands that it's all a show and basically what he wants to do is he's going to try to whack some leaders and knock over some countries so that in history they can turn around and go yeah that Donald Trump he was a man that's what he's trying to do he doesn't care if you get uh you know an operation on your foot he doesn't it's not his he's not trying to do he's not trying to he doesn't care he doesn't care about deportations or immigration

or whatever he presented that he cared about he doesn't care about any of that he doesn't care term two is about let's wax some people I have because by the way when you have all that power

and you don't could use it he's sitting around and going what is it for he wants to fire a nuke of course he wants to nuke someone there's no way he doesn't want to nuke someone

he wants to know what it feels like to order a nuclear first strike nuclear attack on someone. Because why have it? Why have this capability and not use it? He wants to do it. Because this has been fun for him.

He's like done all the things. Term one, he was kind of like sandbagged by his advisors. He said like, you can't do this. He killed Soleimani. And then term two, he's like, yeah, it'd be fun to bomb people. Be fun to start a war. I want to do that. And I'm sure he's like, it'd be fun to nuke someone.

you know, it'd be fun to press a button and vaporize. He's done it all, really, except that. You don't look back at Trump's life and go, wow, so many missed opportunities. He's done it. He's been rich. He's been famous. He's been married like five times or whatever, four times, three times, whatever. The guy, you know, he's fucked a bunch of his friends' wives and his assistants or whatever.

the dude lived in New York has a building with his name on it, has built buildings all over the world was a megastar of reality TV is now the president of the United States again survived assassination attempts the only thing he hasn't done is firing nuclear weapon

and vaporize killing a large number of people at once and you know BB probably went in there was like you know you could do that and history would look kindly on you. And Trump probably thought about it. That's the one thing he hasn't done. The one thing Trump still wants to do,

and he probably admits this to close friends or people that he talks to, I don't know. I think there's a part of him that wants to nuke somebody. There's just a part of him that wants to get the nuclear football out, put in the code. He would love it. He'd love the process of it. he would love, and he would talk about it.

He'd do interviews after he goes, they bring in the football, you know the football, the nuclear thing. It comes with me wherever I go. We had it in Palm Beach. I spoke to the generals. There was no other way. We took a break.

We're at Palm Beach. We're having a dinner. And we had a Frank Sinatra impersonator there. He was singing. We told him to take a break. We wanted to treat the moment with the seriousness it deserved. So we stopped the Frank Sinatra impersonation.

right in the middle of my way, which is one of my favorite songs. He would be saying this. It's one of my favorite songs. We stopped them. And he goes, I took a nice moment of silence. And then I pressed a button. We fired the nuclear weapon.

And then we said, before it hits the news, we knew there was a 10 or 15 minute lag before we hit the news. He goes, at that point, we just had the Frank Sinatra Pursinator continue singing. And he did that's life, which was oddly fitting. And then I could see footage. They were showing me footage of the nuclear weapon.

detonating, and I asked, I go, how many people get it immediately? And then, and then he would say something like, I call him the uglies. How long do the uglies hang around? Like the people that get deformed or like get radiation poisoning? He goes, how long do the uglies hang around? And they explained to me, they said, well, most people get it in the beginning, but then there's the uglies that run around. And then I asked, should we put them out of their misery with another nuke?

and they were like, well, I don't know about that. The second nuke's a PR nightmare. The first nuke we kind of get away with. You say there was no other way, it ends the war. So don't think that Donald Trump doesn't wonder about what it feels because all the people that he respects, or at least puts himself in their category, this list of crazy leaders,

they've all killed lots of people at once. So he definitely thinks about what that would, Just from a visceral, like, what does it feel like to kill a bunch of people at once? How does that feel to press? It's the ultimate power, if you think about it. The ultimate power is to just from your country club press a button and kill a lot of people instantaneously. He wonders about that. Now, probably he won't do it.

knock on wood, thankfully. But like he wonders about that. And it excites him a little bit. That's a type of guy. It excites him a little bit. Maybe I'm not saying he's a complete monster or something. But like he does think a little bit about, you know, what would it be like to fire a nuclear weapon?

It hasn't been done. And he'd be the one to do it. And he also thinks about like, generations from now, people would be like, Trump used a nuke. He used a nuke. And he knows that that would put him in the history books, too, is the guy that used a nuke because Truman used the atomic bomb. But we haven't used a nuclear weapon since then.

And Trump wonders, like, what if I'm, I guarantee he's like, what if I'm the guy to do it? I think part of him thinks like that because that's the way he understands the whole thing. because like, it's a little bit kid in a candy store with him. It's a little bit of Willy Wonka chocolate factory. Like outside, people are like, you know, projecting onto him. They're like, he's going to save America. He's going to get rid of the immigrant.

He's going to do this. He's going to do that. But inside, it's really with him like, what does this button do? What does this lever do? What if I could do this? How could I, how many people, can I kill with this gadget? What contraption can we kill these?

How do we deal with them? Do we kill them? Do we? Because that's how he understands the world. It's all just, it's power who has it, who doesn't. And the more power that you exercise, the more history looks back at you and they're in awe of you. Whether they say good or bad things,

and he realizes that it almost doesn't matter because, number one, he won't be around. But number two, he also knows that he's going to lose control of the narrative no matter what. The only thing he'll have is the power that he exercised. Did I do it or not? So I do think that he sits down at night and eats like a overdone steak at Marlago and he sits there and he goes, you know, in the back of his head,

he thinks about like what would it be like if I was the first president since Truman to fire a nuclear weapon itself? So what would it feel like the next morning? Because people will let, you know, at the end of your life, you know, you go, I did it all. I fired a nuke. I did it all. I fucked Marlon Maples. It was just like third wife you had Tiffany with.

It was like a hot blonde, you know. And I, I owned a country club and people showed up there every day and worshipped me and told me I was great. And I became the president. And then they tried to kill me. And I survived. And I became the president again. and I was sitting there one day at Morlago for lunch and I went the only thing left to do

is to fire a nuclear weapon and kill a lot of people so that in history I'm remembered as a guy who did something. I want to do something. That's what Trump's about. He's like, I just want to do something. And I don't want to like,

he's not trying to like increase literacy rates in the third world. He knows that he's not like Jimmy Carter who's like, I'll build houses for homeless people. Trump's like, that's not what I'm going to do. I want to be, he kind of doesn't mind if people, like, it was like a reign of terror.

He doesn't mind that. He said, not if that affected if that's the way history chooses to remember him. He just wants to do something. And I think there's no way he hasn't thought about what would it be like, what would it feel like to fire a, a nuke, he probably is like, whoof, the power, the unbelievable power that you have in your hand when you fire the nuke. And then you get up the next day and you're like, it is what it is. We just nuke someone and you go downstairs to Marlago and people are a little somber that day

because you just nuke someone. And you give a little speech and you go, it was the only thing, you know, we had to do it. There was no other way out. And then the people Marlago kind of, you know, they're nodding. They get it. And you know. They're with you. You're the guy who just killed everyone. And they're nodding and they believe in you and everybody's kind of on the buffet line. And people are just kind of slowly eating their scrambled eggs. And then, you know, by like 2 or 3 p.m., you know, the day starts normalizing.

Like, yes, the TVs are on and they're talking about all the people that were killed. But like, you know, they're kind of muted. People are chatting. People like, thank God we did this. otherwise it would have been a much bigger war, much more people would have died, thank God we have Trump to make the tough choices. And then he'd go golfing.

The day after he murdered a ton of people, he would go golfing. And he would be on the golf course and the press would be there. And he thinks about this. Because it's the last thing he, and I don't want to manifest this, but it's fully the last thing he,

isn't that, you know, it's the last thing for him to do would be to just kill a large, number of people just for his own curiosity. And the fact it would guarantee his place in history is like he nuked them. Trump nuked them. And he'll say a lot of people thought about doing it. I did it.

I did it. So let's hope he doesn't do that. But that's, that would have been cool if they had said that in the interview. If I said, what are some revelations that are interesting to you and they go, Trump really just wants to nuke someone? He doesn't care who. That's the other thing. I don't know that he cares who he nukes.

As long as he gets that rush, because he's curious. He's like, what would it feel like to just kill everyone? That's the way he thinks. That's what makes him interesting and dare I say fun. Dare I say fun. That's what makes him interesting. He goes, what would it be like to kill everybody?

Because that's why he became the president. He's like, I wonder what it would be like to be the president. Like what's that? Guys at Trump's level of life that have been rich forever and all that shit. They don't really, they're basically at the point where they're going, get me some new experiences. And one of them would be like, what if I controlled the president? Like, then you get in there and go, oh, I can't even do any, like nothing works.

Nothing's really fixable. There's all these problems. So then he starts going, what if I just killed everyone? because the system's broken, but what if I just killed everybody? Like, that would be awesome. So I guarantee, and I'm sure he's asked about nukes, and I think they told him like you can't nuke people.

I think he's asked. I'm pretty sure he, like, asked, like, the Joint Chiefs. He's like, so what about these nukes? How does that work? That's the last thing from the... He's very bored. No one will tell you this. He's really bored in the presidency, you can tell.

He's, like, bored. He's done it all. It's enough already. He's right. he's going to be a lame duck soon. The last thing he has to do is just nuke somebody. That's all he wants to do. That's all he wants to do.

That's all the president of our country wants to do is to wake up in the morning and press a button and vaporize a large number of people. That's all that's left. And then I think he'll go, I did it, I got it. I get it. I know what the job is. The ultimate power is to just press the button

and send a ballistic missile flying. I don't think he cares anymore, but you see these speeches he gives us very half-hearted. He's like, meh. Where are drug prescries? I saw him the other day. He took about prescription drug prices. He's like, the drug prices are coming down.

He doesn't. He wants to nuke somebody. He wants to order a nuclear attack, a first strike nuclear attack. You know? And he wants to know what it feels like to just sit in a chair at Moralago and just see just those mushroom, that mushroom cloud go up. And he'll see a bunch of people. you know, there'll be people on the news scurrying

and there'll be the blast zone, the radius. He'll get into that for a few days. Like, what's zone one? What's zone two? What are the effects of zone three? That's the last thing he has to do on Earth. I'm telling you right now, I will bet money that the last thing he wants to do on Earth

is just fire a nuclear weapon before he goes. He's done it all. He's done everything except that. So I guarantee you he's curious. I bet he's reading about nukes. I bet he's asked generals questions that have made them deeply uncomfortable about what it would be like to fire a nuke.

And I think he is one of those guys who like just wants to go out with a bang. I think he really, he's got a few years left of life. And he knows that his place in history will kind of be solidified if he just fires a nuclear weapon. He's like, I got to figure out a way to do it. I got to figure out a way to do it.

So I think when the Iran stuff comes up, it's kind of interesting. He's like, well, maybe I'll just drop the big one. Like, maybe I'll just fire a ballistic missile at him. So our interview now is with Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman, who wrote the book, Regime Change, about the Trump administration's first year. That's a good interview that do go into some interesting, tidbits from the first year of the Trump presidency, Vance, Epstein, Iran, Kirk, etc.

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you know, in the back. Elevate your summer wardrobe. Go to quince.com slash Tim for free shipping on your order 365 day returns now available in Canada, too. That's QYNCCE.com slash T-I-M for free shipping and 365-day returns. Quins.com slash Tim. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Tim Dillon show. Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman have the biggest political book of the year, as evidenced by the fact that it is sold out everywhere. I was curtly told by a employee of Barnes & Noble that it is sold out, and I would have to wait,

and that they were waiting for the book to be reprinted because the demand was so high. So congratulations to both of you on that. Thank you for coming on the show. Maggie, I want to ask you the first question, you know, famously during Trump's first term, you had a ton of access to Trump. And I know you had kind of a rocky relationship. There were times he loved you. There were times he was disappointed in you.

what would you say the main defining characteristics, now that you've observed Trump up close, what are the main differences between Trump one in his first term and now the first year of his second term? Is he more emboldened? Is he more confident? What exactly do you think the main defining differences are? It's a good question.

Although I think that him, Loving me was a word I wouldn't go with. But definitely, you know, he spoke to me and so forth. This presidency, Tim, is, this term is really unrecognizable so far for the first 14 months or so to the last one. Like, he is flying on gut instinct in a way that we've really never seen, and he's always been a gut instinct player, but not like this. You know, in 2017, he came to Washington. He was under investigation. He didn't really know most of his government.

A bunch of them felt like he was dangerous and that their job was to stop him. And now he's surrounded by people who, many of whom were with him for the four years he was out of power. They watched him make it through indictments and court cases and assassination attempts. And they really believe in him and they want him to succeed. And so all of that has made him much more emboldened.

And he's so much less attuned to domestic policy and, excuse me, domestic politics than he was before. In term one, you could sort of see what was going to slow him down at various points. You know, he would watch negative coverage of, like, you know, the border and how policy was being handled, and he would change it. It's really not the case the same way this time. It's not black and white. Like, sometimes, sometimes I'll make changes. But he is operating on what he wants to get done, and he's playing for like a bigger stage. Jim. It's like he wants to be remembered in history in a way that he can't be erased. Just to follow up on that, do you think there's a guiding political philosophy behind him?

It is often said that Trump is a populist or a nationalist and that make America great again. You know, Steve Bannon describes it as a populist nationalist movement. Is there anything behind that? Is there a political ideology behind that for Trump? I know for many of his fans there is, and for many of the commentariat, for lack of a better word, there is certainly. But for Donald Trump, in the sense that you've observed him

over a long period of time, do you think he has political principles? I think that he has certain core id-like impulses on a few things that he's talked about for a long time and trade would be the main one. Other countries ripping us off, ripping the U.S. off, on national defense would be a big one.

Being against the NATO alliance would be a big one. But generally speaking, I personally, in John, then may have a different answer on this. I think there is a difference between the MAGA movement and where Trump is. Trump is able to change, and I think that's kind of what's hurting him right now. He is able to say two different things

about the same issue and has been for a very long period of time, But he was very emphatic in 2016, you know, no more foreign wars, no more foreign overseas Middle East wars, said the same thing in 2024. And he, you know, are reporting, and we write about this in the book, but there is this belief that Netanyahu just kind of like puppeteered him into the war. And it's certainly true Netanyahu made a case, but Trump really wanted to do this. And he believed it would be quick. And he's much more hogish on Iran than a lot of his own advisors. So there has always been a bit of a divide between the movement and Trump, but his supporters were willing to give him a lot of benefit of the doubt that I think he has lost some now.

But Jonathan, I'm curious if you think I'm wrong there. Yeah, Jonathan, what would you say the main tension points are between Trump the man and Trump the movement? Because now we've seen that the fissures in the movement have grown over Epstein, over Iran, Right. Slightly a little bit over over some domestic issues as well. You know, Palantir AI. Where do you think the main tension points are?

What does the MAGA movement not understand about Trump? Well, I think you just put your finger on a bunch of them. The first time I really saw the movement cleave away from Trump was actually I want to say it was 2021. Whenever he did that tour with Bill O'Reilly, it was like in his off years when he was out of office and he was doing this stage tour with Bill O'Reilly. It used to be a Fox anchor.

And Trump starts boasting about the COVID vaccine and the crowd's just like, boo, you suck, woo. And like, you could tell Trump was really like startled because you've got to remember, But he doesn't really get exposed to negativity. Firstly, he subscribes to sort of the power of positive thinking. You know, he grew up with Norman Vincent Peel was his pastor, right, Maggie? Yeah, eventually.

His family ended up worshipping there. But he wrote this book, The Power of Positive Thinking. And Trump really manifests that. He doesn't allow negativity. And when he's on the patio at Mar-a-Lago, he's surrounded by flatterers, right? They're coming up to his table. he's playing the iPad. He's like, you know, playing Pavarotti and James Brown and piping it through. And they're coming up to a table going, great job, Mr. President. You're crushing Iran, you know,

keep your boot on the neck, you know, et cetera, et cetera. And then he goes back to the White House and he's surrounded by flatterers. I mean, what Maggie said is really important because what's happened in this term is, look, every president exists in a bubble. We've seen that. I mean, Biden certainly did. Every president does. But Trump's bubble has tightened. And there's really not many people inside that bubble who are telling him, sir, actually, people really don't like this war in Iran, or, you know, this problem with affordability is a real issue. It's not to say no one is doing that. J.D. Vance was a really singular lone voice, actually, in the lead up to the war with Iran saying, this is a terrible idea. This is a disaster.

out the problems with munitions and all the things that we've come to see, the Strait of Hormuz, potentially closing. But even though others on the team had a lot of skepticism about going into Iran, they really didn't voice that in the room with Trump. It was very mild. And look, I think I'm sort of, this is a bit of like cheap psychoanalysis, so treat it as cheap psychoanalysis. But I do think there's an intimidation factor, you know, when you're in the room with Trump. There's a sort of, I don't know if you've been around Trump. I've never met him. I've never been in the same room with him.

It's a really interesting thing, Tim. Like, he sort of, he create, Tucker talked about this actually publicly. It's almost like, I don't want to get like, you know, supernatural about it. But I think Tucker used the word spell. There's something to that. He sort of, he creates, no, he creates an atmosphere around him. And like, you know, if you work for him for long enough, you've got to kind of make a decision.

You know, if he's saying, you know, the economy's never been better, you know, he talks in like absolute declarative sentences, hyperbole, often completely divorced from reality. It's not like you're going to sit there and like fact check him. You know, at some point, if you're at age, you sort of just going to let it wash over you if you want to stay in his company. And over time, I think that has an effect where they sort of begin to see the world as Trump sees. and they end up occupying a bubble as well. So Jonathan, I want to take you and this goes to both of you. Maggie brought up a great point. It's a point I've brought up a lot.

One of the most attractive planks of the Trump platform to a lot of people my age that live through Iraq or Afghanistan was that we should not mire ourselves in unwinnable foreign wars, bankrupt the country, saddle future generations with debt, inflame anti-American sentiment all over the world, send, you know, destabilize these countries which send floods of refugees through Europe or here,

and that in turn destabilizes the political situation in those countries. And we saw that happen in Iraq, Afghanistan, in Syria and Libya. all of these were, you know, wars of choice for the United States. And Trump came on the scene saying, we've wasted a lot of time, a lot of money, a lot of people tragically died in those wars. How do we go from that?

Take us in, whether it's the Oval Office or the Situation Room, Maggie said that it wasn't simply Netanyahu puppeteering him, that he thought this was a good idea. but, you know, in the article that I read in the New York Times that you guys both write, he has the head of the Joint Chiefs telling him this is not going to be easy. You have Ratcliffe, the head of the CIA going to affect regime change is going to be incredibly difficult. We don't know that we can do it. I forget who it was, but someone in the room goes, the Israelis are overselling.

Like this regime's not just going to collapse. So he's getting all of that information. what is motivating him to do this? Why would he mortgage his political future on this war? It's a country of 90 million people. They have a very large military. They have defense guarantees with places like Russia and China. He's getting all of this information.

What is pushing him in that direction? How do we go from 2016 Middle Eastern Wars bankrupted our country? to 20, you know, 2024 were invading Iran. So I'll sort of work backwards a little bit. Maggie and I, as part of the reporting for the book, we obviously asked for an interview with the president, and we ended up getting one at sort of quite late in our reporting process.

And we go in and see him on March 16th. So it's the 17th day of the war with Iran. And there was a very, I thought it was a very revealing moment in that interview. We were asking him about presidential power because he had told Tucker Carlson a year earlier that no president has ever been as powerful as me. He made that claim to Tucker Carlson, which obviously a claim that's sort of soaked in hubris. And so we ask him about that. And he gets one of his aides, Natalie Harp, to go and fetch this document for us.

and she goes off and gets this printout and gives each of us a two-page printout. And he sits there. He wants us to read this document. And he starts reading it. And the document, he says, is written by a historian. And the first opening of the document says, Donald Trump is the most powerful man who's ever existed on the planet by far. And then it goes on to compare him to what he describes to us are the top 10.

And it's Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Alexander the Great, the Caesars, Genghis Khan, Attila Hahn, Tamerlane, you know, essentially some of the most notorious dictators. Yeah, it's a good list. Let's be fair to Trump. It's a good list. It's a good list. It's a solid list.

So he shows us this list and there's no moral dimension to it. It's about the metric is about power. And the analysis at the top is the reason Trump is the most powerful American president is because he is in charge of the U.S. military. He's in charge of the U.S. economy. There has never been a military as powerful as the U.S. military, obviously, in human history, but that Trump is willing to use that power. And it really occurred to us in that moment, but it occurred to us throughout our reporting. You know, you asked Maggie about how the second term differs from the first term. I think he, and he made this very clear by Hannity's

I think he wants to be a sort of Napoleonic type of figure. I think he wants to be a capital G, great man of history. And I think that he believes that the way to do that is to do, quote, unquote, big things on the global stage. And I think the story of going to war with Iran was a story of, for sure, Netanyahu, pushing extremely hard. You know, we have an extraordinary scene in the situation room in the book, Etch war to Trump and showing this video montage and regime change in Iran. The CIA said it was nonsense. But I think a big, even bigger part of Trump's own instincts.

He thought this was going to be a fast. He said his experience of going in, authorizing Delta Force to go into Caracas and snatching a foreign sovereign head of state out of his bedroom in the middle of the night in his pajamas and doing regime change in that country and installing a pliant puppet, I think made him feel that he could control events around the world when he really can't. You know, you said it. It's a country of more than 90 million people. This is not Caracas.

And the revolutionary regime in Iran is 47 years in the making. It goes much deeper than the Hugo Chavez's remnants in Venezuela. So I think he just had an overestimation. a false belief in the power of the American military to shape events overseas, completely a historical. There's no example in human history of regime change achieved through an air campaign. It's never been done. You always need boots on the ground.

So, you know, anyone who has any passing familiarity of military history could have told you that, but he just had a feeling. And we've talked to people who were in the room with him, and he just felt that this was going to work out and that this was going to go well. And the last thing I'll say is, you know, we have a thing. in the book where Tucker Carlson, before the war, says to Trump, um, you know, he's questioning him about it. And Trump goes, it's going to be fine.

And Tucker goes, are you sure? I'm paraphrasing. And Trump says, yeah. And he says, well, how do you know? And Trump says, because it always is. Right, right. I mean, that's, that's the mindset. Maggie, following up of what Jonathan said,

the Israelis have the greatest intelligence service in the world, arguably one of them. They do tons of psychological profiles of people. Do they look at Trump and they know he? and they know he wants to be a great man of history. Are they using his own ambitions and his own personality against him to get him into this war? Can you go into a little bit of his relationship with Netanyahu and how exactly, when did Israel start lobbying for him to do this privately? Was this when Miriam Madelson gave him money?

Was this when he was elected? did it start in term one? When did the clamoring to go to war with Iran begin? So we write in depth on this. Tamut, I'm glad you asked about that because it's actually one of the areas of reporting that was really interesting to us and that went in a direction

that was somewhat different than we had initially anticipated. But, I mean, look, he did the strike against Soleimani in early 2020 over the objection of some of his advisors. He was very proud of that. He's been talking about it for a long time. he had this falling out with Netanyahu in early 2021 because Netanyahu congratulated Biden on winning the election.

And this became a sore point. And we write about how in the book Netanyahu wanted to, you know, repair the breach with Trump. He goes to see him right after Butler when Trump has, you know, this wound on his ear. And he's showing Netanyahu the ear. And not Netanyahu shows up to this meeting at Mar-Laga, which is really long, a couple hours. And he's got a list, I'm shortening this anecdote, but he's got a list of like all of the leaders who had, or one category of leaders, who had congratulated in Biden and showed that actually Netanyahu was pretty late by comparison. It wasn't really that quick. Okay, so Trump kind of

laughs and whatever. Trump makes clear to Netanyahu in this meeting, according to our reporting, that at some point in a sort of pull aside, he's going to be a much harder line, on Iran in a second term than he wouldn't, then he wasn't a first, that he knew that Netanyahu wanted him to do certain things that he didn't do last time. He will do them this time. And the context for that is, number one, Iran had been lobbying physical threats against Trump since the Soleimani strike against half a dozen or so members of his senior team from term one. Iranians, according to the U.S. government, hacked into the Trump campaign's emails. And so all of this is like part of the backdrop for why Trump is more pissed off and more receptive.

It was clear to Netanyahu's top advisor, Ron Dermer, that there was like an 80% chance that Trump would join them in a war and in a meeting that he had with Trump after the 2024 election. So you move forward and Trump is incredibly, and this is actually an under explored piece here. but Trump was fascinated by the pager attacks that the Israeli military did against Tesbalah. And Netanyahu brings him a gold-plated pager, and it's a gift to Trump. And, you know, Trump is very good at telling different people different things, depending on the audience. So to some who were anti-Natniahu, he was sort of critical of the gift. But with others, he was clearly fascinated by it and kept talking about the violence and the violence of the attack. And then you get to June of last year when they go into.

into this 12-day war, which is led first by Israel. And they were going ahead regardless. It's a massive success. Trump is watching on, it's obviously a much smaller campaign, but Trump is watching Fox News that morning, and it's just being heralded as this like military success. And he wants to be part of that. And so he had great faith in the Israeli military because of what he was being told. And he was just much more open to this for the variety of factors that Jonathan mentioned and that I'm talking about, which is he personally felt under siege by Iran, and he believed this was going to go quickly. But like, Tim, one thing that was so striking in our reporting, we talked about this in the book, he was so much more hogish on Iran than most of his own

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Right. So Jonathan, let me ask you, you know, Tucker Carlson, who's incredibly close with Trump for a long time campaigned with him, was probably one of his biggest advocates in the media, if not his biggest advocate in the media, has publicly broken with Trump over the Iran War, over Epstein. Tucker has recently come.

come out and said he would no longer support the Republican Party over this. Tucker has floated the idea on his show that we didn't, we don't fully understand, and even to me, it is a bit confusing. We don't know much about Thomas Matthew Crux. We don't know much about the Butler assassination. There are people that believe that there are elements to it that may have been staged, may have been faked. We, you know, it's just very interesting that after the.

that assassination attempt, Trump and Netanyahu have this meeting and Trump goes, I'm going to be more hawkish on Iran. Tucker has floated the idea without directly, but I think he's kind of implied it, that Trump is afraid for his life. And that for whatever reason, after that assassination attempt, he became more amenable to certain ideas. and I think Tucker strongly implied that either Israel was behind the attempt or Israel maybe knew about it or whatever the situation may be. I mean, you're aware of that. Obviously, both of you are aware of that.

Tucker Carlson is a massive figure in the party. What is your response to something like that, whether it's that direct accusation or like, what about Trump changed after that assassination attempted? Anything changed? Was he more concerned with his own mortality? why did the president of Israel fly to him directly after the assassination? Like what,

explaining me the dynamics of that aftermath? Right. I don't see, firstly, I haven't seen any evidence to support what Tucker is saying on that. And I personally don't agree with it. I do think that the assassination attempt made Trump more fearful for his life. There's no question about that. I don't think there was any, I don't see any evidence that there was any Israeli connection to any of that. But we write in the book that Trump, he's not really traveling as much

domestically anymore. And there's a lot of sort of fear about that. And when you talk about the closed-off ecosystem, I just don't think you can underline that enough as a factor in all of this. When you're hearing primarily from people like Mark Levine and Hannity and there's an echo chamber around you that is very hawkish against Iran and they're telling you you can be a figure of destiny, you're going to be a great president, you know, you're at the Marolago patio. I think that's been a much bigger factor. And, you know, in term one, Trump was traveling out around the country a fair bit. He was, he had Twitter, he was scrolling Twitter, he was being exposed to different ideas. And I just, again, you never know what you never know, but I haven't seen any reporting that links

those events and that makes me think that there's something there with respect to Israel. Maggie, do you think Trump's demeanor changed? She seemed very, a little bit more reserved in the Republican National Convention. He's sitting there. He has a bandage on his ear. He does seem, you know, a slightly more reflective. I've heard from people that know him pretty well that he never really thinks about mortality. Do you think that assassination attempt, and I'll also ask you, Maggie, about when Charlie Kirk lost his life,

How did these events affect Trump in your estimation and change him as a person, as a leader? So I think you were saying people say that he doesn't reflect on his own mortality. That's actually not our experience at all. And in fact, it's a little difference. Starting with one event, Tim, the predates Butler, which was actually a few events. one was when his first wife, Ivana died, which was during the four years that he was out of office, he was really, really shaken by that. For whatever reason, obviously, that was a complicated marriage, divorce, what have you. But that was the first time that somebody really, really close to him in a long time, had died. So that was one. His sister died, Marianne, during the campaign also. And that had sort of a different effect on him. But he is thinking about mortality that absolutely, according to our reporting, again, can't get into his mind, whatever,

but just in the things he is saying to people and had been saying, it absolutely did play out for him and was something that he was thinking about. He also knows that, like, I mean, one of the reasons that it wasn't totally clear that he was going to run again was because he was talking to people about, in 2021, about how old he was. And he only had, like, six or eight years left potentially, you know, to enjoy a great, I mean, that's possibly forgetting the exact number, but he was clear that it's not like he's 50, right? And so he had a limited amount of time to enjoy life and that if he ran again, this might be the rest of it.

And obviously, you know, he ran. But yeah, I do think that he thinks about his own mortality. I do think that that convention was a strange, muted version of him, at least for a while. And then he started giving his speech. And I think that the crowd seemed bored. and so he started talking more like himself. But I think that death and physicality is something that he does think about.

And as Jonathan said, according to our reporting, his concerns about safety are indeed why he is not traveling as much. Now, he also doesn't believe he has to. He goes to the whole not-comparating about domestic politics that much. But if he doesn't have to, he's not going to do it. Jonathan, tell me about... I think it's hard to always... Yeah.

Sorry. I was just going to say, Tim, to your question, sorry. No, go on, go on. No, I was just going to say, to your question about Charlie Kirk, I think it had a really profound effect on the I'm a circle. And we have reporting the book, I mean, the way Trump learned about the shooting of Charlie Kirk, his son Barron called him. He was in the Oval Office, and he gets a call from his son, Baron.

And Barron was, like, very upset. You know, he was a big fan of Charlie Kirk's. Charlie Cook was almost a family member to everyone in the West Wing. And I knew Charlie really well. I mean, I talked to Charlie the day before he died. He was, his loss, you know, there was all this stuff written at the time. And I think it was written with good intentions, but I think it was kind of bullshit, which was, you know, his impact will be greater in death than it is in life.

blady blar. It's sort of a glib way of it's. It's really not true. The thing about Charlie Kirk was he was sort of a unique. His abilities were kind of unique in the Republican Party as a political organizer, as someone who had Trump's ear, but was willing to kind of push him on certain issues. He was very against the Iran war. There's been all this stuff written after he died about, oh no, Charlie was, you know, very pro- Netanyahu. That's just just not true. It's absolutely not true, especially in the last year of his life. He became much more skeptical of Israel, much more. I mean, he was aggressively arguing against going to war with Iran. So he was an important voice. He was a hugely important political organizer. He had a big media

presence as well. And he was this sort of connective tissue to a younger part. You talked to him about like your age and your listeners and whatever. Like Charlie Kirk was arguably more in tune with that group of people than anyone in Trump's close orbit. And so I think that loss had a really profound effect on Trump's circle. And it just removed a person who I think was an important voice in Trump's ear as a counterbalance to some of the more hawkish voices that he hears from. How does this administration come into the White House crusading for more transparency, talking about declassifying documents related to Jeffrey Epstein, Cash Patel?

the FBI director builds a career doing this, right? Dan Bongino as a podcaster does the same thing. Trump was always a little bit more lukewarm on that idea. Take us into that scandal that erupts over the administration's refusal to declassify those documents in the beginning and then to also kind of gaslight their own support. by saying nothing happened. Epstein didn't do anything.

There was no organized trafficking of women, underage women. Take us into that because that was, from my estimation, the beginning of the end of the MAGA movement as a cultural force, because people really started to see, you know, it's the famous line, meet the old boss. I mean, meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Take us into that if you can. Yeah, I can take that one. So what you just said, I was nodding as you were talking, because I was thinking about how at least, even if it, maybe it isn't the end of MAGA as a cultural movement, but enforce the way it had been, but certainly in our reporting, that was really the turning point when Trump just starts to,

lose political altitude with his own supporters because he, you know, they were seeing him say something very different than what he had said before, just like the Iran War. But on this one, you know, Trump's got key figures in his government top officials, who you just named, who had been talking about releasing the files, that there was a client list that it needed to be put out, a client list of predators. This was a cabal that people had, gone unprosecuted for years. And clearly, by the way, just as an aside, this was a multi-administration failure in terms of dealing with Jeffrey Epstein after he got a sweetheart deal in 2008 and with Galane Maxwell. But Trump himself was never actually that vocal about it. If you look at what he

was saying, it was sort of half-hearted. Yeah, I'd be okay with it. So in early February... Even more than that, Maggie, I interviewed Trump on... Oh, I forgot about that. We just have an HBO. show when I was at Axios. And I interviewed him in 2020. And Trump was like saying about the lame I wish her well. I wish her well. And I interviewed. I said, she's a, you know, she's been charged with child sex trafficking. Why would you wish her well? And he was like, oh, I'd wish anyone. It was clearly something he like, he felt very uncomfortable about it. And when he was asked about releasing the Epstein files during the campaign, he was like, yeah, I'd have no problem with that. But you could tell he just, he wasn't that into it. But I think.

that the Patel, I mean, Patel was so bombastic about it. I mean, during the campaign, he was like, put on your big boy pants, FBI, you know, release the, tell us who the pedophiles are. Yeah. And it was this amazing situation where, like, you know, you released the demons and the demons come back to get you. It's like, oh, suddenly you're in charge of the FBI. And, you know, presumably if someone's going to put their big boy pants on, that's you. So he found himself in this extremely awkward position where all the demands that he'd made were now demands that, you know, he ought to fulfill. But, you know, to be slightly fair to cash Patel, the problem, one of the biggest problems was the president himself just didn't, do you want the whole thing

to disappear and didn't want to go down that path? So even if, you know, Patel was interested in doing that, it wasn't really a road that he could walk down. Maggie, why did he want it to disappear? Why would the president want it to disappear? Without being able to know exactly, I mean, to be clear, Tim, like in the reporting that we did, we didn't learn anything that would change anyone's understanding of what happened in terms of Epstein's crimes, Maxwell's crime, anything about Trump. We were really focused on the administration's reactions. But what is known is that Trump had been close friends with Jeffrey Epstein for years and years and years and years.

And he tells this story about, you know, how they had a falling out and the exact reasons why have changed. They clearly did at some point. There's, he has been trying to distance himself from Epstein for quite some time. There are many, many pictures of him and Epstein together. Some of those were in the files that were ultimately released. Whether it was that reason, whether it was just that he didn't want to deal with it, whether it was just that he underestimated his own base his interest in this, and he wouldn't be alone in that. There were top officials in the White House, political officials, who did too.

They thought this was a passing cloud. Susie Wiles being chief among them, right? Susie Wiles completely was taken by storm by this. James Blair, Susie Wiles, a couple of other people. And what we write in the book is that, you know, they had polling from Tony Fabrizio to support that idea, that this was a very limited group of people who were interested in this. And Dan Bongino in our reporting really was the one trying to do something of a lapel grab and say, you do not understand. This is not an online story. And Vance. And then you get into a situation. Yes, Vance was actually the most vocal inside the White House, bar none.

And don't forget, Tim, like, you know, so much blame was put on Pam Bondi for giving that interview where she was like, it's sitting on my desk, which seemed to confirm there was a client list when she got asked about it. And then she shows up with the White House with these binders, which were to give influencers. And her staff, you know, got them from the FBI, according to what people close to her said. They anticipated there would be new information in them. There was almost nothing new in them. But most importantly, they had not been looked at for whether Trump's name would be in them. And so they get to the White House and a White House aide takes the binder and opens it up, and there's Trump's name right there.

And it's stuff that had been out already. It was like travel logs and stuff like that. But that was the beginning of how this all came to end up in a series of situation room meetings that we write about where, yes, some people did have concerns about the victims, but those specific meetings were almost exclusively about how to handle a PR crisis around a president who didn't want any of this out. There's questions for both of you. Have you seen any evidence to the, or whether it's circumstantial or not, do you believe that Jeffrey Epstein was affiliated? with either our intelligence service or a foreign intelligence service. And is that one of the reasons that we have not seen the rest of the documents or that it has, as Maggie said, it's a multi-administration failure?

Is it because at some level, Jeffrey Epstein and his operation were being protected? I haven't seen any evidence of that. But his network was, I mean, extraordinary. and you've seen that in the documents. He's a very unusual network. But we've not seen anything that, you know, we would need ironclad evidence to be able to say that, you know, he had some affiliation

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Gusto, pay them hoes. Talk about the dynamic between Vance and Trump. Vance is famously, I mean, you know, chosen as the vice president because Tucker Carlson tells Trump, if you pick Marco Rubio, forces within the government who disagree with your policies will just kill you because they know Marco Rubio is going to be able to carry out their plans.

Um, you have to pick J.D. Vance. J.D. Vance is more of an isolationist. You know, he's, you know, more of a nationalist. They would not kill you to get Vance. Um, this is, you know, like a well publicized thing. I know that you have noticed. You reported it. I literally, I literally reported that conversation. Yeah, yeah. Tucker said that too.

That's right. Absolutely. Whether you reported it or I reported it, who knows, really. But I, no, I get it. I get it. But no. So, so. So, Vance comes in. Don Jr. loves J.D. Vance. Tucker Carlson loves J.D. Vance. You know, so... Musk loves him.

Musk loves J.D. Vance. What is the dynamic between J.D. Vance and the president of the United States. Is he respected? How does this play out? J.D. Vance comes on as this nationalist guy. Then what happens? So I think it's a very interesting relationship. because J.D. Vance actually believes in these policies to a much deeper extent than Trump does,

whether it be anti-intervention, you know, not going into the wars that you were talking about, whether it be he's more hardcore on immigration, for sure, much more aligned with like a Stephen Miller on immigration, and we get into that in a book. Trump thinks he's very smart. One of the main reasons he picked him besides all the advocates that he had, Charlie Kirk was, by the way, another advocate, big advocate for J.D. Vance, was that he was good on TV. Trump thinks he's smart. He often talks about how impressive it is that he got into Yale without having a rich daddy. That's what Trump says. Thinks he's handsome. Trump is very much a cast people for certain roles. But the fact that Vance has been really the only one at the senior level who has

vocally opposed going to war with Iran and being skeptical of the big military adventures that Trump has taken, that has cost him a bit with Trump. It's irritated Trump at different times. And others who had skeptical views about this effort to go to war with Iran didn't really stick their necks out in the same way that Vance did. Like Rubio was skeptical, not as skeptical as Vance, but didn't really. make any type of case against going to war with Iran that we could observe in our reporting. So I think it cost him a little bit. The other element of that relationship is Trump just enjoys messing with them.

And we have a scene in our book where he has Rupert Murdoch over for dinner at the White House. And it's a pretty astonishing moment. You know, it's like a few months after Murdoch in the Wall Street Journal published the story about Trump writing a birthday, They're in the shape of a nude woman, whatever. Trump says he's going to sue him. But anyway, they have this sort of peace dinner in the blue room at the White House. And they're at the table. Murdoch's there.

And Vance and Rubio are both there at the table. And Trump says, you know, I like them both. They're both great. Rupert, what do you think of JD? And Murdoch says, you know, JD has the potential. to be great. And Vance is like, it's awkward, but Vance like, oh, gee, thanks, Rupert, you know, knowing full well that Murdoch had done whatever he could to stop Vance from being vice president. And then Trump says to Murdoch, and what do you think of Rubio? And without

missing a beat, Murdoch says, Marco's brilliant. So I think one of the issues that Vance is going to have potentially is a lot of the donor class, a lot of the people that Trump hears from at Mar-a-Lago, a lot of the more hawkish voices that he hears from on Iran are very anti-vance. And I still think, based on our reporting, we don't like speculating. I still think Vance is the most likely person to be the candidate. There's no sign that Rubio is building any kind of operation to challenge him. Rubio has told Vance and said publicly that he'll support his bid. So I still think he's going to end up being the nominee.

But I think the one thing we could probably say was some level of. confidence is that Trump is not going to make it easy for him. Right. Final question. I know that you both have to go and I appreciate the time. What revelation do you think, and maybe there is one, there might be many, that explains right now the future of what our relationship with Israel is going to be in the Democratic Party and in the Republican Party.

One of the biggest tension points has been the war in Gaza, the war. the war in Iran, now the war in southern Lebanon. It has put a strain on the U.S. Israeli relationship. Like no time I have ever remembered. I'm 41 and at no time in my life. Have I seen anything like this? Trump had said, you know, people are starting to hate Israel. This was a quote.

He said his supporters were starting to hate Israel. You see specifically among young people, but now that has grown with everybody, how does our relationship with Israel change because of this? Is there, are they cognizant of that in the administration? That this has been a very, you know, shifting thing for a lot of people that they are looking at this relationship is saying it's an unhealthy relationship. And is that being addressed on any level? Trump seems to be aware of that.

what is his relationship with Netanyahu like right now? I'll talk briefly and then Jonathan should take it. And in brief, the things I was just thinking about when you were saying that is that most of Trump's advisors, and again, this goes back to the point that he's much more hawkish on Iran, for instance, than most of his team, they are looking at what has happened. They are looking at the fact that this MOU has become the paddle they're trying to get out of the creek with. but it's kind of slow going. You know, the oil prices are coming down,

but they know that they are running out of time, especially before the midterms. Most people in Trump's world are way more concerned about the future of the Maga Coalition than he is. Trump said something interesting that I was thinking about him before when you were talking to us

when we were in the Oval Office, which was when we were asking him about Netanyahu as a wartime partner and how has that been, given the ups and downs in their relationship. We reported in the book that Trump had called Netanyahu a con man at one point, which is like one of the biggest insults in Trump's lexicon. And he was speaking very favorably of Netanyahu, and then he said, and I'm paraphrasing

a bit, but it was he's not afraid of war. And that actually speaks to Trump's psychology as much as anything, but also spoke to what he found appealing about Netanyahu, which was a willingness to do this. Their relationship right now is not great, but it's not great because Trump is finding himself and at Quagmire that it's harder for him to admit that he went into pretty willingly. But Jonathan may have a smarter thought on that than I do. I think the asterisk and the nuance is, yeah, like Trump is, we have reporting the book where, you know, he had a phone call BB Netanyahu last September.

He's like, the Jews are sick of you, even the two Jews on this call. It was Jared Kushner and Steve Wickoff. They're sick of you, you know, berating. He has these eruptions at Netanyahu, but he really hasn't, except for rare exceptions, he really hasn't used his leverage to actually change Netanyahu's behavior. He hasn't cut off the supply of weapons to Israel or done any of the things that, you know, the biggest skeptics of Israel on the Democratic side, some on the Republican side are pushing for. I think the future of the relationship is very uncertain, the U.S.-Israeli relationship.

Because what comes after Trump, it's hard to imagine it's a more pro-Israel direction. When you have public opinion doing what it is, when you have younger Republican voters, much more anti-Israel. I still think the congressional Republican Party is very pro-Israel, but the younger, newer members coming through, you can see where the trend line is heading. And if J.D. Vance is the Republican nominee in 28, the Democrat is certain to be very skeptical of Israel.

So then you may have a match-up of two Israel skeptics. And I think the Israelis understand that. You can see what they're doing. Like Netanyahu said, he wants to bring down the amount of US aid. You're seeing some evidence that they're trying to increase their relationship with India and understanding that they might need to start finding other friends in the world. Because I don't think with public opinion being where it is that this relationship at the moment anyway has a very rosy picture ahead. Interesting. Well, the book is regime change.

Can anyone get it anywhere? I mean, this thing sold out everywhere. How do they get it? It's still in bookstores and they're restocking fast on it. There's ebook. There's audio. They're doing a big reprint. They're doing a huge reprint.

And so it is going to be back to. There's some copies. You can find them sometimes. Everybody is reading the book and just as you guys leave, you know, the podcasters, a lot is made of podcasters and the impact they have. had in the election or the audiences they have. You guys are traditional mainstream media journalists who, you know, obviously work at the New York Times.

Do you fear being replaced by people like me? Tim, you do what you do much better than we ever could, mate. But I think, you know, I don't think you would want to replace us, mate. Our jobs are pretty unglamorous. And I don't think you'd want to be doing what we're doing. So look, on a serious note, I often think about this. There's this sort of, you know, legacy media is almost this, like, dirty word, and I

understand that. That's fine. But for us, the kind of reporting that we do actually require, you need a big institution behind you. Because often, you know, we have published a lot of information recently. You talk about the supply of American weapons, which we've spent down in Iran. We have no munitions left, you're telling us. We have no, it's really, very limited.

It's really. It's really disastrous. Well, that's not good. The long range missiles and stuff. But the point being, sources have taken really, on a serious note, they've taken really big risks to give us that information, publish it. And we, like the infrastructure of the New York Times and having lawyers to defend us, you know, if the president tries to sue us, leak investigations, the technology security apparatus, not to mention the platform. Like, Maggie and I actually couldn't do the type of reporting we do as free agents on substack. That's not to denigrate people on Subzac.

In fact, I subscribe to a bunch of them. But the type of reporting we do, we actually need a big institution around us. So we're grateful for it. Well, very good. We're hot and cold here on the New York Times. We like them sometimes. We don't like them other times. That's just the way it is.

We can live with that, mate. You can live with that. You guys are great. Thank you for coming on. The book is regime changed. But the reality is me, Joe Rogan and Barry Ware. I see the only journalist left in America. Sorry.

Thank you both. And we appreciate it. God bless. Good luck with the book. Thanks, Tim. I appreciate it. Bye.