Trillbilly Worker's Party - Episode 449: Loss Faking (w/ Special Guest: Noah Kulwin)

Episode Date: June 19, 2026

This week the boys welcome back Blowback's Noah Kulwin to discuss Trump's G7 comments re: Iran/Israel, the Knicks, hair loss and what to do about it, and the new Blowback Miniseries "No Daylight" that examines the history of the US/Israel relationship. Support us: patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty Support Noah: https://blowback.show/

Before we get too far away from the next discussion, you know, not a widely known part of my lore here, boys, is I may be the less preeminent Ballnar. I once worked for two weeks with a 13-year-old Carl Anthony Towns, and I'd like to think that what I imparted to him during my brief stint as the video coordinator for the Dominican National Team. He carried on into a figure. You often were as the wisdom that led to success and victory? Yeah. It might be hard to believe, but there was a time when I was a sod after basketball mine. So now look at me. How tall was he then?

Was he taller than you? He was, he was young. He was like 13. He was about 6'8. So he wasn't totally at you at 13? Yeah, exactly. No, no, he was well. You're looking up hip.

He was massive. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was always a weird thing. I coach Tristan Thompson for a little bit too. Kenneth Farid, like, all these guys are like, did you have some like wisdom like little pearls of wisdom like

if you get behind in the game it doesn't mean you're behind in life or something I guess it was a lot of it was just you know leading drills and stuff and just saying yeah right back boys so they're only

their only memory of you is like doing suicides, not actually like his old head gave me some, like, he hit me to some knowledge. There was me holding a pad for Al Horford to do like contact drills against, you know, that kind of shit.

That's more than I've ever contributed to sports. I don't know. I've seen you hoot before I hadn't swim. Well, I mean like in the larger universal, like cosmological sports sense. You know what I'm saying? I never brushed up.

against any legends is what I'm saying. Colham, are you, or do you play sports as a, as a youth? Oh, shit. I, I definitely, I mean, I'm trying to think, like, I definitely went, I went to a school with kids who growing up became like, you know, classic, like, I went to a Jersey suburban high school, so everybody I knew who became, like, a really successful athlete. It was, like, in lacrosse or soccer. although Kyrie played for two years at the private high school in my town.

Oh, that's right. That's right. And I heard tell of him, but never saw him in the flesh. My parents were big supporters of the Bill Bradley 2000 presidential campaign. Princeton's own. But I, you know, sports for me were like my brother played football. My brother played at Southern Miss. Oh, really?

Yeah, so I watched a lot more football as a kid and I lost the taste for it in college. Did you ever go to Haddysburg? When I was much, much, much, much younger. Been a long time since I've been to Haddysburg. Hattiesburg, I mean, it sounds sick. It sounds like it was a way more interesting place to be like 20. I mean, it was smaller in a lot of ways. It was like 25 years ago.

Now it sounds, I mean, it all sounds, I mean, in general, like that part of Southern Mississippi, that part of Mississippi near the coast sounds quite wild. My brother lives in New Orleans now. So when I go to the south, typically it's because I'm going to New Orleans. I lied just a second ago. I did brush it. I did me and my friend Derek ran into Kevin Durant in an elevator because we went to the University of Texas. And we were in an elevator with Kevin Durant one night. And my friend Derek goes, holy shit, you're Kevin Durant. And he goes, and he goes, what's up, in words. My friend Derek is white.

Evan Durand called my white friend Derek the N-word. So that's all I got. Among the highest honors you can receive. It's like being knighted, brother. When I was in high school, we were in, like, I don't know how he swung it,

but our band leader, like our band or band teacher got us in as the marching band to play in like the, for two games, like back night to night. every year we would play at Madison Square Garden and we would be the

sort of stand-in band for a college basketball team that did not bring theirs. So we were the band one year for Oklahoma when Blake Griffin was on Oklahoma. Yeah. We were the band for Texas

when KD was on Texas. That's so sick. And then we were on the Syracuse team where I think they had like fucking like Wes Matt, like dog shit. but it was definitely

like I've seen I've got I've had the privilege of seeing some really good ball up close and at a young age but on the whole man like it is the next thing has been this like bizarre out of left field civic whatever like it's it is this it is I never seen anything like it where like um like a city as big

as New York so totally fixated on like this one cultural development It's kind of nuts. It's good to see it back. Well, I don't know, man. Even as a former New Yorker, even myself, I'm feeling some sort of vicarious sort of satisfaction. Because I don't live there anymore, obviously. I'm in Atlanta. And I also am not really interested in ball, very much like Air Jordans, but not really a ball watcher, man, or a player, actually.

I fucking suck. But when my mom told me, because he said, the one black guy on the show, I suck at ball. No, I really do. That's what stereotype I do not fulfill. My mom told me that the Knicks had won, and, like, I felt this elation in my heart for, like, half a second. I was like, okay, I don't really care. But I'll go to the parade, though. You know, if I was in New York right now, I'll definitely be a crazy.

It was super cool that it wasn't just like, oh, they won. And, like, you know, 53 years of, like, pain and torture, like, out the window. Like, no more, like, cock and ball torture. Hell, basketball torture. The worst kind. It was terrible. But now it's all gone. and it was like, all right, yeah, that's true.

But there was also, like, the way in which it happened, you know, like, the, like, the Knicks win these first two games kind of coming out the gate, and it's like, whoa, you know, one of them's a bit of a comeback, like, all right, like, that's kind of nice. And then you get to game four, and, like, that come, like, there was nothing, I've never seen anything like it. And so I think as much as it's, it's, like, part of what makes the celebration, what it is, is that it was such an astonishing feat, you know, it's, it's like, they jumped the Grand Canyon, they put the man on the moon, you know, like it was, it was a spectacular thing, um,

done in spectacular style. Uh, and, you know, like, people look for reasons to, like, want to get together and get into the street and stuff. And I don't think it took that much of an excuse in this case, particularly because it's like not about politics. And it's like the only thing that puts people in the street that's not about politics. Right, right, right. Yeah. Find an excuse to live outside. That's the... Indeed. It's what you can take away from all this, even if you...

Yeah. Well, I saw... Zoran said it was going to be the biggest parade in New York's history, and I also saw Zoran say he's been using monoxideil. He took Hassan Piper's advice, and I got to say that makes Zoran, there's two of us. I also started doing Phenestroid monoxidil after Hassan Piker told me to.

I was going to say you're looking robust up top there. You are, brother, man. Positively robust. It's, it is, the thing is, man, when, like, the tallest, most professionally handsome guy you know is like, oh, you should do this, like, this thing to, like, keep your hair. You know, it's kind of like, well, I guess I'll do that. The proofs in the put. You know what? You know what?

No, I don't know if you heard this when you were listening before you got on fully, but listening to the. hair conversation, but I'd actually ordered some of that from some kind of shady website online. I think it got shit from India. I think I still have some. And I... Research chemicals. Yeah, I was like, I don't know what's in this. It's probably ivory tusk, but that's fine. I don't care, yo. It's cool. But like, you know, I took, I took it for a couple, like, I took it for like, no, maybe like two weeks, man. And then I like my hair, I guess it was already in the process of growing back, you know? So I still, um, I still have some and I'm terrified

like sometimes I have nightmares like once in a while I bet my hair is going to fall out again um so like I'm like I got cut you off right there have some real problems I don't have to go to Turkey to get a hand I hate to say it but like you actually like like that's what

I mean supposedly that's what happens at the start you take it and it makes some stuff come out at first and then it's like you know like somebody explained it to me and I was like all right, that's very interesting. Fuck biology. I'm going to have to think about this figurative terms.

And so, like, what you're saying is that all the good, all like the weak, like the struggling follicles are getting thrown off. And they're going to be replaced by beautiful, strong new ones that are actually going to do the fucking job and not like, you know, wimp out. So, like, you know, it's like, I encourage you, man, continue to taking the research chemicals from this shady site. Okay. I mean, although, look, I am sure they're the real thing because it's like this, like part

of what is, I mean, look, this is, it's a goofy ass thing now, but because this shit is available everywhere on the internet, it's just like, oh yeah, like, people talk about, like, hair stuff as if it's like a solved problem, which just makes the whole cultural stigma about it way worse. Right, right, right. I'm anxiety about it

way worse. Also, to be fair, I've ingested worse, so I don't mind taking some shady philts that I bought off live. Yeah, I've huffed cat littered before, so, you know, you drank kerosite, as I'll listen to know for the Patreon. I mean, you know, it's, it is as like hack as it gets at this point, but it really is like the thing with RFK that I've never understood. It's like, so you want that guy telling me what I can and can't put in my body.

That guy. Him. Damn. Like, no, like, fuck on. Man. That's not real. I'm not the first person to say that, but it always struck it. Speaking of hair loss, I guess we're gathered here today to talk about, you know, some really important, heady stuff.

And I think the... I like the... Sorry, I really liked that. That was a good point. That was a good fun, though. Plower out through. Talking about hair loss, we have to talk about heady stuff. Sorry to explain to the audience.

That was great, too. but I just wanted to pose this to you guys to the top of the episode. Before we really get into the meat of today's episode, I just wanted to cover the last few days in the news. And by that I mean the ongoing, well, it's not ongoing. They say that there is actually ceasefire in effect. And there is a document. and it's going to be signed.

And so I guess my question to you guys is, judging from Trump's statements from the last 24 hours in at the G7 summit, is there really a break between Trump and Netanyahu slash Israel? Or is it more of the Barack Ravid, Joe Biden, you know, managed PR thing that the American and Israeli media like to do so much? What do you guys think?

Tom will start with you. I'm hoping against hope that it's right, because for all of his warts, there is something deeply satisfying about Trump referring to Netanyahu as a very small, during the part. Yeah. And I will add on to that too some of the comments that he's been saying that you implied or Terrance like alluded to.

to rather, like him saying that, well, Iran, they should be able to have ballistic missiles. A lot of Republicans are saying it actually. Well, this is the thing. This is the thing, man. I'm like, you know, I think for a lot of the commentary, I think it's kind of broke their brains because it sort of punches a whole. Like every once in a while, Trump has these moments of sundowning lucidity, you know, where he says things and I'm not really sure if he, like, wholeheartedly believes in them, but I think it's politically advantageous, you know. And also, I mean, we fucking lost that war. I mean, before this peace deal was even signed, we'd fucking lost, right?

Militarily speaking, you know. But I just kind of find it interesting that that sort of interrogates American-Israeli hegemony, you know. And I'm wondering if that will stick or if it's just, you know, a fad and he'll wake up one day. I mean, I don't know. We'll see how sustainable this actually is. But, you know, you can't really trust America. America's very difficult. Someone has to lose here, right?

Like, America can't be the ones to lose. Israel's a pretty convenient scapegoat. Well, I mean, we should be clear, though. The U.S. lost. Israel lost. We lost. And now, because we lost, like, we're going to have to sever consequences. What is funny is Trump trying to get out of having to take responsibility for those consequences

by pointing attention at literally anything. And so, you know, he's doing a lot of, I mean, the main, you know, the way he's spinning this, right, like he's, we're recording this on Thursday afternoon. He has dispatched J.D. Vance to be the person who has to eat the shit sandwich on this one. What better emissary? Well, hold on. I think that this is one that Vance is happy to do, though, because Vance's whole deal is, like, I'm going to be the guy in the future.

I'm going to be the guy who is on the right side of these questions that are going to be part of why the Republican Party's brand is going to be mud for the post-Trump period at some point. And, you know, how he'll be able to thread that needle while also having been Trump's vice president, I think he's going to be very funny, especially because Vance is so singularly untalented as a communicator. And uncharismatic.

It is, you know, all of that. But, you know, I, I, tend to err on the side of as I think pretty much all of you have sort of hinted at or said even I think maybe Terence you said explicitly which is that like who the fuck knows how long this shit will last

man I tend to think that this one may actually end up being enforced and that Israel may back off I'm not sure if that'll end up being the case I do believe that Trump has just

committed more to this particular peace agreement with Iran than he has with any other. And we know that because of all of the efforts to downplay it, among other things. I think, meaning that, like, he knows how bad, he knows how bad the terms that he agreed to are. Which, you know, that said, like, this is very politically costly for Trump if he stays on this course. Not politically costly, I think, in the sense that, like, oh, Republicans will love him any less. But I think that it, like, you know, he's been able to operate with a pretty, unified front and that the whole anti-war

Trump thing has been revealed to be pretty fake and like pretty shallow and that it exists you know similar to the never Trump lib thing or whatever from 2016 like the first anti-war version of that also mostly like lives online and with people who frankly don't really engage as Republicans

don't self-identify as Republicans and so now that like okay like we have this this actual Fisher emerging because of like Trump's actions and not like among the base I think that like it will be political costly if like Trump can't you know keep the Israelis from doing more

shit to test his authority because then he'll like actually be forcing the issue like right now it's just a Rand deal redux right like Israel's using its lobbyists their shit talking the deal they're saying it's a terrible oh it's awful I just want to point out too not to cut you off no but I just want

to point out I saw this tweet which I could remember from whom but it's not an original thought but I have to agree with it is that you know whenever you lose a war of course it's quote a bad deal right that's what fucking happens you fought you lost right so of course everyone's going to criticize the fact that like okay we gave away the fucking everything you know we gave away the farm but i mean what do you think actually happens when you end up losing a war right you can see these these guys want this though to have been a battle like this is the thing right

this what i was getting at it with their bitching which is that like they they ultimately they view this as such a bad deal because they view it as like a surrender of a battle that because we are engaged in a war that we are not fighting, but that is being fought against us, and that our participation in this war and our fighting is just doing, like, a necessary amount of self-defense, right? So it's

people who's described to the very powerful fucking delusion that happens to guide American policy making for the past half century that Iran is, like, actively seeking our destruction, that Iran is like sending agents into America all the time to, like, kill people, that they've tried to kill various presidents and all this other stuff.

You know, similar to what we said about it. Very much projection as well. Clearly. Absolutely. I mean, we literally killed the Ayatollah a few months ago. Yeah. You know, a month ago, even. I don't know, man. Like, we're the demons, you know?

Right. And it turned out that, like, Iran had this, like, kind of, you know, like, nut cutter of a weapon to use that was short of a nuke, which was cutting off, like, a third of the world's oil supply. And that's a very powerful weapon. And for some reason, the morons in charge it. think of it. And the Israeli's attitude on that moron in charge not thinking of a thing is like, oh, well, that just means you have to actually use the nuke now. Right.

And like, so now we're like in this weird phase, I think, where like, the Trump Fisher is just going to end up like, you know, like it's an inflection point. Like the Fisher's going to define the next couple years of his shit, you know, in addition to whatever the economy

does, simply because like these people will not stop unless they can restart this conflict, like straight up. Like, they've been existing since October 7th in, like, a perpetual state of, like, war, and they want that to continue. So can I ask a question? Because I'm unformed about the terms of the agreement.

But is there a stipulation in there that Israel, is there any stipulation at all, actually, that Israel must stop bombing Lebanon, must stop. Literally the first paragraph. Okay, okay, okay. Yeah, the first part of it, they're like, it's like, so, uh, let's be, brief, uh, Israel agrees not to, do you know what? Well, how, how do you, how do you, how do you, I think no,

to your point though, is like the how do you, one, how do you enforce that to, you know, well, I guess that's the main point is how do you enforce that, you know? So this is where it's like, the way Hezbollah is enforcing it is that we're still seeing news headlines about how Israelis are getting put in body bags. Like, you know, like, like, there's Israel, like, like, the way that they, like, um, Israel does a ceasefire, is what is a treaty and maybe they give up you know some territory but then historically right like their strategy and their behavior has typically been like well we'll push this to the limit like we say that like we have this border with Lebanon but like we're going to keep sending patrols and and you know it's keep you on your toes mow the lawn you know is the is the more grand

is the name for when these stir up and you know conflagr actual like conflagrations um but that's the goal uh on that front i just don't think that like this agreement is you know israel is is going to just like i do think that when trump picks up the phone and says stop doing something they'll stop doing it and that if they don't trump will be asked his advisors what can i take away from them and they'll give him something that he can take away from them and they'll go do that like i believe he sounds like i don't think trump has staked this much on publicly saying at this point like i control the israeli without actually like, you know,

like realistically having that power. Like it would be hilarious and very sad, obviously, if Israel decides to just crank this up and Trump's like, well, what are you going to do? Because I just don't believe, again, at this point, like he seems like he's put too much on the line to go back to that. Trump? Trump has? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That, like, he can't, that he, like, he's just never said this much about how, like, Israel's really got to stop. They got to stop doing stuff. you know, like he's been really explicit in this past week. And he's again, like he's, he's defended the relationship.

He's not, I'm not saying he's abandoning the Tanya who that's never going to happen. But like he's making it, you know, like the redux, right? Like,

and this goes back to the mini series that Brennan and I just put out for blowback is that like, I think it is kind of a redux of the Reagan years. Hmm. Where in Lebanon, you know, Israel in that time

launches an invasion of Lebanon because that's where the PLO, the Palestinian resistance and political leadership was based and had been launching attacks on Israel and so Israel uses that as a pretext to not just like go after the PLO but to try and remake southern Lebanon

into like a DMZ to make it like territory that could never be used as like a pretext for any operation against Israel. And you know even though you know hundreds of thousands of people live there fuck them. And the Israeli

at that time, like, you know, they began bombing, like, as soon as the invasion starts, like, they got a green light from Washington, and then Reagan's, like, uh, there's a little much. And Reagan calls Begin and says, you know, like, he uses the language. He says, like, you're doing a Holocaust. Cut it out. And in the end, like, after, like, a couple of years of, like, truly back and forth, like, quite, you know, intense and vivid drama and blood and guts, you know, in Lebanon, Reagan ultimately just like is, you know, like, like the administration like realigns with Israel.

And they say, we know which side our bread is buttered on. So even in these like historic moments of tension of daylight between Israel and the U.S., like ultimately what is characterized it and what I think certainly with the Trump administration would be the case. And it wouldn't, it may not necessarily be for another. But for the Trump administration, like they're never going to like do some strategic anti-Israel. No, of course. Of course not. But they are going to try and crack the whip here because it is just not politically sustainable for Israel to keep doing this shit.

Right, right, right. Right. But to your earlier point, though, we talked about this on the show like so much. But, you know, we're wed, right, through our settler colonial, not even past, but present, right? And possible future, you know what I mean? And also just having a foothold in the Middle East, you know? So it just, I often think about what would it take for the United States?

It's like, I think a lot about South Africa, you know, and how, like, using the example today to say to people that that was apartheid, right? And there was like a global effort, right? I mean, not even a global effort to necessarily stop it, but condemn it, you know. And slowly, right, up until the fucking 90s, right? This lasted for so fucking long. And I asked myself, like, how long can this last? And what are the goals and benefits and disadvantages and advantages and advantages of continuing this relationship with Israel? and will it be

it's politically disadvantageous or is it a moral issue, right? Which I think is the larger kind of problem, right? Realizing that it's not about it being politically convenient because of an upcoming election or because your numbers are down in the polls, but actually this is abhorrent to exist in the modern world, right?

You know? Yeah, I think to your point, though, like there is, right, like the, what I think you call like the kind of like strategic inadvisibility or like the consequences that come from letting Israel do this stuff

and assisting them do it. Let's be clear. Helping them, helping them being, you know, we're complicit in the most explicit, you know,

we're co-conspirators in most respects. I think that the like the settler colonial piece of it that you describe around like apartheid, for example, like apartheid worked along the color line and working along the color line was even in the time of like the late 20 or was rather not even in by the time of the late 20th century was no longer a defensible like public ideology it wasn't um the idea of racial discrimination in that explicit like those forms like it was you know you know it was it was it was it was Jim Crow plus.

It was even more advanced than Jim Crow because of how codified and how institutionalized it was, you know, like at the national level. And then that there were all these like, you know, sister and satellite countries that South Africa was running, et cetera. I think in the case of Israel, it is worth asking, well, what's different from South Africa? Not because Israel isn't an apartheid state. It is. Not because there isn't a racial ideology like ordering it. there is, but because

what has allowed Israel to endure are, I think, sort of these points of departure that are worth picking, you know, sort of examining. One is that like you know, South Africa was founded, like the geopolitical circumstances in which South Africa was founded and allowed to become apartheid were

extremely different than that around Israel, where like Zionism essentially was able to, because Western countries didn't want to take in European jury, like Zionism was able to provide like an easy straightforward answer

to the problem of like well what do we do with the surviving Jews and on top of which like it also aligned with like more immediate and pressing questions particularly for the British and the Americans about like well who do we give the keys to the car to when we

like wind down our colonial presence here or an explicit colonial presence and to me there has always been this kind of like with Zionism what's made it endure is that like you know it's it's worth it's looking at those qualities that were present at the founding that like it had an ideological disposition that was way more acceptable to the international community than like a color line bias you know racial ideology and on top of which it also like

solved a problem which in its day was this like you know again this thing about the holocaust and then eventually the cold war um and being anti-soviet and now i think it's really about like well Israel sells weapons. Israel buys technology. Israel has, you know, Israel has made itself indispensable and made it very difficult to extricate from the global system. You know, like other heavyweight

super power, you know, China doesn't crack the whip on Israel. You know, like these are, it's not just like a settler colonial ideology that explains just like our complicity and all this other stuff and not just like these points of ideological affinity. But it is because like Israel has,

you know, adapted and made itself to become convenient to the world. And I don't think that that will last, to be clear. I think that, like, October 7th was, like, kind of lit a flame that we're seeing, like, you know, like, that country's coming undone. Um, more or less. Um, and

that, and that's sort of where, like, I believe that, like, the South Africa comparison is helpful, but that, like, Israel is just way more adaptable and has been like, you know, is, is, is now more or less similar to South Africa, however, like, by its own hands essentially committing suicide.

right right through its own mistaken policy in South Africa's case right because they launched like a bajillion fucking wars in the 19 in the late 70s and 80s that were really stupid and strained all their resources and all their people and then like the whole state collapsed you know because partly because of what it kicked up internally as well um and in Israel like they're starting a bunch of wars and everybody's you know getting angry internally and it's not really clear how the like the actual structure of the state could necessarily like survive like unending conflict like this.

So it's you know I do that is like I think broadly like how I see like that like the like that's how I see South Africa and its echoes playing right now. I'm kind of curious though about this

statement that Trump had made there's two things that I think he said this week. Well one of them is Vance telegraphing Trump but the other one is Trump himself. The first one was the comments that Trump made it to G7 a few days ago where he was like, the Israelis like, I don't understand why they have to go into Lebanon. Like, let's just send the Syrians to do it.

Like, that's what they're there for, just send the Syrians to do it. And I thought that was an interesting comment because, like, I don't, I don't, it is kind of this thing where, like, Trump doesn't really, you kind of see him, like, not really. Like, he's like a, he's not really quite a fascist in the sense that, you know, I think that a lot of like resist libs cast him as. Like, he's obviously greedy and a sociopath and a narcissist and a criminal. But he doesn't at the end of the day understand things like ethno-nationalism. You know what I mean? Like, I think him saying, like, why can't the Syrians do it?

It's like, well, you're missing the whole point. Like, Israel has to do this. Like, this is kind of the logic that's kind of at work. or in my in my I don't know fucking you know seat from Kentucky I don't know I just

the internal politics of Israel it seems to be the case I see what you're saying like globally with regards to China and like the global economic system but like that's what's permitted it like I said but like what's ending it is what you're describing

which is that like essentially like if you look in Israeli politics right now what is like you can you could close your eyes and you could kind of already even begin to chart out what the next four to six years look like in the in the in the possible scenario that the nittaniahu government falls um and let's say the nittanyahu government falls and like they have to call elections and a new coalition is brought in it's not a coalition that will have Arabs

it's a coalition that will include the religious it will have to include some conservative parties um and it will probably like collapse under its contradictions like the last time that this happened and Netanyahu's rule was interrupted for like a year, whatever, by the Neftali-Bennock government. And I think that then what will take the place of that is like, all right, well, if Netanyahu's out of the picture by then, which is possible because of all the cases against him, but doubtful because ultimately he is like such a, like,

if he didn't exist, the system would need to invent somebody like him. He reconciles contradictions across the system and is able to act as like a fairly large coalition builder. I think that, you know, what you see, what I see is like the rise of like the settler movement and establishment. Just like kind of, and not just like settler, but like they're facilitators. Like people who live in Maine, in not in settlements, but who live within the green line, as it's called, within, you know, Israel proper. Who believe that people who are in the settlements and believe that the class of person that they produce has the answers to what's wrong in their. society.

And that's just like an increasingly common class of person. Because they agree, you know, like, it's, it's, it's very sad, um, in the sense that it like, supposes that like, like, it's a society that like won't give up the sword, but I don't know what else to call it. Um, and that, and that really is like where the like mechanics of this are to me,

like going like there is like a material geopolitical, like, there is like a geopolitical analysis that explains like how, you know, that Israel is like these destabilizing force in the region and that like US has hitched our wagon to it and that that's creating problems for us. But, you know, it is also that like Israel has been able to get away with doing this for so long and continuing in this direction that at this point, like there's nothing that can arrest that motion in that direction. You know, and so the only thing that I can see happening is that Israel will eventually end itself because I don't believe. that it will be able to maintain the necessary like political parameters of like what keeps a state together whether you know it's like certain markers of economic viability

or it's just that like the political instability becomes too intense or that it becomes like an outright civil war you know and all of which are I think like you know like possibly like it's a you know October 7th like I said it before it changed everything like these are all the possibilities through which you know towards which history is now flowing which how it'll go exactly anybody who says that they think I that they think they

have an idea I think is this foolish well I keep thinking about that map that Netanyahu showed about greater Israel you know that like extends into like southern Lebanon and Israel's plans it's just untenable the maps that I've seen there are maps there are like maps in Israel that

settlers show that like go into Iraq like it's untenable might as well go into Minnesota like what are we talking about here but it's what's so exhausting is that they view it as and the Israelis see this as they don't frame

it like there is the ideological component that says that like all of this is our land is from the Bible and you know like we've all seen the videos of the settlers with New York or Chicago accent saying like it's my house now and it's like well you know it's I we we can believe that there's a lot more people like

this. The way that people justify it though, and the way that Netanyahu will explain it internationally if they go this route or somebody who's like him will be that they'll say like, this is what we have to do to maintain our security. Like, do you see

Hezbollah? Do you see Iran? And this is where Israel starts to come apart when the U.S. no longer says, well, we actually don't think Iran is trying to kill you all the time. Because then you now start to have, like, this is where I start to see

the the the the the contradictions because like I think Israel is going to try and find ways to keep this fight going in in ways that are 100% like they're gonna you know it's it's just not going to go away it's not going to end and if the US like really cracks the whip hard and you know it says Israel like no you have to do this then I think it'll end up being like it's also just going to like embole like now a path of leverage by the way has just been demonstrated for how to

apply pressure on Palestine which is like not been happening, you know, like previously only the Americans who have been able to do that. And now there's like another country that just got Israel. Like, the world is changing very quickly. And I couldn't tell you exactly how like all of the, like, there's just so many more points of vulnerability and leverage to be used against Israel, diplomatically, politically, politically, than have existed in a long time. And the way that you know this is especially the case is how much the Israelis are bitching

about it on social media. Dude, they're fucking pissed. You take the temperature pretty reliably there. Let me ask you this, Noah. We talked about kind of like Reagan's posture toward the Israelis when tensions, you know, got hot and the same with Trump. But in the new miniseries, you talk about like W. Bush was kind of able to check them at certain points by pulling back $10 billion in aid. There's the quote from H.W. Bush about, you know, I feel like I'm the only one taking it on the Israeli lobby. What was different about the Bush's posture versus like Reagan and Trump and something?

these others. Well, I would say the thing is always right. It's circumstances make men and men make circumstances. In the case of Reagan, it was a case of circumstances making the man. Reagan came into office like a crazy fucking Zionist. There had never been a presidential

campaign who talked about Israel with the boner that he had. And as soon as he got into his office, it was just like constant fights with the Israel lobby and fighting with Israel because the other big thing that had been happening was that the U.S. was getting very aligned with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Arab states because

of the Iranian revolution. And like the Iranian revolution wasn't just the case of like, oh, these radical Shia Muslims took over. The Iranian revolution was, fuck, the country that we've been arming to the hilt for like a, you know, a decade plus, you know, like a third of all like congressionally

approved arms expenditures in the 70s went to the Shah's Iran. Oh, no. our enemy has all that now. Fuck. God damn it. So it meant that we had to make some friends. And so Israel was like really was pissed though because they're like, we don't want a strong Saudi Arabia. Fuck you.

You know, later they would be like, we don't want a strong Iraq. And Israel did not want a strong Syria. They didn't want a strong Lebanon. They invade Lebanon. And Reagan was just like, I, like there is too much going on right now. Like you need to chill out. People are really mad at me. and you know we're we're winning the cold war we're doing all this like what the fuck

yeah and he ultimately though like what does he do he bitches he bitches he bitches he bitches he like he sends marines we back up the israeli mission when the marine barracks get blown up by hesvila that is because the u.s is helping israel bomb you know neighborhoods it's not because like we all our poor marines were just sitting there it's like no it was we were in the war we were in that war. And so by the time you get to Bush, like, the way Bush saw it, like, Bush is an oil guy. And oil guys had more sympathy for Saudi Arabia and the oil companies. And they just always thought of Israel as, like, irrational. And so Bush says, look, we have done all, like, the time is out. Like, you've got to figure out the Palestinian question. And you've got to, like, resolve it

now because these Arab governments are who matter. And I don't know if you can take a look at Israel. but the whole Muslim world is getting really agitated right now. Like the Mujahideen that we helped arm in, you know, in Afghanistan, like that's a big thing. And we know, you know, in fact, we're still involved there. And so we know how real it is. And, you know, yes, there was the Iranian revolution, but also like in Saudi Arabia in that same year, you know, there was a revolt at the Kaaba, essentially. And there was, you know, they had to send in French, they had to send in European commandos

who had to be blessed to go murder extremists in the Kaaba. they were like squeegeeing out the blood you know so there was like a relit like there was like a rising there was a sense of like like a violent political Islam is like one of the major strategic challenges that America faced

and Bush just had like a way more pragmatic idea of going about it Bush and George Schultz and James Baker who was Bush's main guy and that was the difference in between the two and so Bush was like the last president who made threats. And the big threat that he made

was about loan guarantees. So after the Soviet Union collapsed, Israel absorbed a huge number of Jews or people who said they were Jews. People who said they were Jews. You know, like,

it's... Fad of nickel. Fertop pulled that old trick. Rachel Dollazal of Jews. That's funny. It's, um, and they, and so a bunch of them came over. And like,

Israel could not handle the cost of that. Like, I'm taking them all in. Like, they needed money. And the U.S. would guarantee loans was what they needed to do to make this all happen. And Bush said, you're not getting that unless you go to Madrid. And that's, and Madrid is what led to the negotiations that produced Oslo, ultimately. And Bush said, and the Palestinians have to be there. now after bush and under clinton the process got a lot worse um because clinton's administration was

much more friendly to israel but the like the reagan bush difference is just sort of a classic case of like we had the neocons and then the neocons kind of fell out of favor and then you had bush who really was much more of a pragmatist and was like in the by that point what was objective what was not being understood is like if not the twilight of the Cold War, it was clear that America was winning it. You know, by those years. Even if, like, the collapse of the Soviet Union would come as a shock, like, there was, like, a sense of, you know, like, Western momentum. And so it was, you know, again, like, preparing for a post-Cold War reality, like, Israel had been an anti-Soviet bulwark, essentially.

Like, it was, it would have been an antiquated problem. And Bush's mind, he was eating his vegetables, you know, politically. it just happened that he was the last president who ever seriously tried that so go ahead turn sorry i was just gonna make her listening to the miniseries like i'm so glad i was not i technically i was alive during regan but very very short amount of time like if i had to listen to his fucking howdy duty bullshit everything we had our version we had his voice is so annoying though man it's so bad nuclear who is our version Obama? No, I know Bush, man. Like I, like I, I, Bush was forever, dude. Adam, Adam Friedland and I talk about this a lot. Like, when I was a kid, Bush was the president. It lasted forever. And I never ended and I wanted to fuck. I hate. That's true. During the most formative years of my life, personally.

Exactly. No, it's just, and it was just like this fucking, like, Texas dickhead who wasn't smart. And you just like, it was, it was like a violation of everything young liberal Noah. Like, you know, like. held dear at that point. So I felt like I got that part of the Reagan experience. What I'm glad that I missed from the Reagan years was that like he had like he had approval highs that Bush only ever tasted for like minutes. Right. After.

Yeah. 9-11. I don't I don't mean the substance so much as the tone. Like something about his like 1940s radio announcer voice like movie, you know, old Hollywood voice like but trans. muted into 80s. Or some of the other van fucking greats on me. It's like a reverse vocal stem.

Or that, Terrence, or he has the voice of like, you know, a character antagonist in an A24 horror film. You know, like a doll, a voice like his coming from a doll. Like a character Ethan Hawk would play or something. Yeah.

With a weird mask on. Yeah. That's true. Some long-lay shit. I don't know. I'm with you, though. For sure. Like, you're both fucking morons. Absolutely. And they both last. forever. Well, and in Reagan's case, I think, like, Reagan would have been more painful because Reagan has

the Trump thing of, like, people thought he was a joke where, you know, he in 1976 he runs and everybody's like, oh, well, that joker will never do it. And then he almost gets the Republican nomination and people are like, whew. But then he just comes back in 1980 and the worst happens because then there's another economic crisis or an energy shock and

and, you know, the Iran hostage crisis and and, well, that's what I'm talking about. That's what I'm talking about. Also, too, I don't know how. Simpson's a bit rapping Ronnie Reagan. Oh, no.

Oh, no. Also, too, I don't know how truth this is, but I swear that I read before that people could already see, I mean, I guess they would ever talk about it openly publicly, but they could already like tell or gleaned like early signs of dementia, you know. so like he already had come into office like according to some of these people of rumors went into office already a little bit like kind of spaced out you know

and untethered in a second term he had dementia second term in the second term of the Reagan White House you it starts to get kind of funny because you can like the moment when like New Year's 1980 in Boogie Nights or like when everything goes to shit in Goodfellas

that moment was sorry I just lost my I was so pleased with myself for thinking of those references I forgot take you big that we were in the that we were in we're in the 80s right where are we

in the 80s it reminds me of Alfred Malia comes out in the gown it reminds me of junior it's like it's almost like the soprano like Reagan was like I had no knowledge of Iran contra. Sorry, it was Iran

Contra. It was that moment. It's kind of like he had dementia actually. He could have pled the case that he had dementia, but he had too much pride to actually. It's November. It's November 86 and like a lot of things start to go wrong. I mean,

the economy's doing pretty well by then. Like it's just rebounded from the Volker induced lows. But there is like a lot of like, the economy is running really hot, if anything, and, like, you have the SNL bubble that is, like, clearly blowing up by that point, and, like, you

have a lot of financial rackets that are kind of going haywire. I think that the Iran-Contra, like, when it starts, like, the Reagan White House had always been this kind of, like, there are different, like, little camps trying to influence Reagan.

But by the second term, access to the president got a lot harder. And so, Schultz had the portfolio at state, at state and meant that he was like he he was his own institution and he was able to kind of run foreign policy at the high level as he saw it but then once iran contra happens and he's not implicated at all a lot of these other fiefdoms like the you know like the like the you know cap wineberger he's out um but bill will casey who's the head of the CIA who's like probably like the guy closest to the

center of the iran contra cork board he uh dies uh like pretty suddenly um in the middle of like the Iran, of like the heat of Iran-Contra. And he'd been in poor health for a while. And you have the Reagan White House. It's like, okay, so then like you have, it's kind of a chaotic environment. Don Regan, his chief of staff,

and Nancy Reagan are at each other's throats constantly. They hate each other. Her's a little more superior than. And Reagan is just like not all there. He's not all there. And so you have, like, it's a kind of perfect case of, like the dementia was really well concealed.

And he'd probably obviously been like, you know, clearly like he was not as sharp in 1985 as he was in 1980. But like the wheels had already kind of come off the bus. And the White House wasn't like this like extremely well centrally directed place. And so it's just kind of like a bad vibe. And the hope is that like, well, the economy's good.

And even if like people like are, you know, they're generally satisfied, then we'll be able to elect a Republican. Which is more or less what happened. happened, even though it really threatened to be a close election in 88. Like the Reagan White House and like this and the dementia stuff is like, I believe it was real. I believe that a lot of like a lot of the reporting and the testimony from people around him at that time when they're being honest, it's pretty clear that like he was like, eh, but the situation had devolved and Reagan was so well managed that it kind of, it was a case of like a Woodrow Wilson or frankly, I would say like in part a Trump where the.

the fact that he is like not all there is like it actually it has become functionally irrelevant i mean because it's on i mean in my opinion it's kind of on autopilot right something i've mentioned before where you don't really need a figurehead like trump right or you don't need him to be as charismatic or as sharp as if you could say he was ever sharp you don't need him to be any of that or even funny right even whatever it is that people found appealing about him it's already kind of like an automaton it's already kind of in motion and moving right you could put anyone there i mean Biden and trump or the two oldest presidents that we've ever had. And we talk about this on the show a lot.

I mean, it feels like there was sort of just Biden was kind of a placeholder for Trump, you know, just on the path to his second term. And I often forget that Biden was even president. There are so many times where there's like this lacoon in my mind where I'm just like, oh, shit, dude, we have a year 17 of Trump. Yeah. The irony, and this obviously shades to this. It's not a one-to-one, but because I don't know how this is.

is going to pan out. And I do think you're right. No, I don't think there's going to be any major dramatic or public or whatever break between Trump and Netanyahu. But there has been many speculations like, would Kamala have done this or Joe Biden have done this? And it's like, I kind of get this sense that like Netanyahu actually probably would have had a better deal if Biden or Kamala would have been in the White House because

they showed that they were pretty. willing to just write a blank check for anything Israel was willing to do. I don't know. I just, I, to me, the only problem with the counterfactual is that it's just like, it couldn't happen because the entire point of like why Kamala isn't in the

White House, aside from Joe Biden's like face like, like besides, in my mind, the way I've been like, like, like, like,

just to pretend that I live in a more pleasing reality than what I do. It's not that like like Joe Biden like like like like, like, you know, sundown on state. or whatever. It's, it was actually that like he just, he got like too fucked up.

And like, you know, he just like way too lit at the debate. The green room. Yeah. Right. Right. Magic.

So I, because he, because he's like whispering there at the end. I, so when, you know, when Joe Biden, like,

did that combined with the Gaza thing, like it was over. You know, I, wanted to believe it wouldn't because I would like to not have Donald Trump as the president but like it was just sort of like clear on the vibe alone

that there was no like the cut would come to do X, Y, or Z is just like a moot question because it would have just been more continuation of Biden style stuff I'm sure but like that wasn't an option. That was just not in the table and I think the next election

is going to get way fiercer and way meaner on the subject. And Democratic Party. I think people, I think people on the party are not ready for what voters want. That's like one of the weird things I've become kind of an optimist about, unbelievably a word that I really never used. But it's that like, I used to feel pretty strongly, right, that, you know, American fascism

would become something like really quite dangerous and more malevolent than we've known it, in conditions of like real privation, right? like real economic struggle, collapse, decline, and so on. But what I feel like I'm finding in the Trump years is that while that is certainly true in many respects, and like the, you know, the rapid expansion of ICE suggests that like, you know, we're going to be experiencing, like we'll be suffering through a lot of this stuff for years to come. And liberals are going to be making excuses for not going back to the way things were even, let alone trying to improve upon what had been before.

I do think that people are really like on a consciousness level like they want to burn everything down just like on like a you know it doesn't like the ideological valence of it is almost like kind of not that important like people are willing to say like yeah fuck Israel fine like kill Netanyahu I don't care I voted for Kamala Harris I voted for Hillary Clinton I voted for you know like it's just like there's a real sense of antipathy that you have to be able to credibly represent to people in order to be politically viable now. And I just don't know if anybody who says, I love Israel, can really pull that off.

And that to me is, like, actually, like, again, like, there's a measure of, I recognize, like, I'm not, like, most, a lot of things I'm not optimistic about. But it's just been fucking crazy to see the extent to which, like, that sort of, like, base antipathy. And can you fuel my hate? Can you fuel my anger? Can we fight, you know, can, you know, like, how, just, how much it seems like that that is like constructively influencing how people think about the world now. Well, you know, when Israel is, when eating crushed glass is more popular than Israel among Americans, you know, like, I think that's like pretty good. That's a pretty good. And when people are like, yeah, fuck this country, you know, fuck what, not even, not even if they're pro-Palestine necessarily, but even the people that, people should be more of the outrage,

but even the people that are asking, like, why is it that all these billions of dollars are going towards Israel? And like, I'm struggling to make ends up. meet, you know. I don't fucking have health care, you know what I mean? Valid question. And also people who are like the educated suburb. I mean, like this is part of what I find like I'm using like, like take for example, um, the New Jersey 11th district. It's like where I grew up. And that was Mikey Sherrill's district who before she got elected governor and had a special election. It was a three way race between, um, I mean, really it was a two way race between like the progressive and Alillia, uh, yeah, and, um, Tom Alonowski. You know, like,

like a centrist Democrat. And there was like a pro-Israel kind of spoiler and A-PAC dumped a ton of money into the race, essentially to tilt it in favor of the progressive. And A-PAC did that because they viewed it as like a way of neutralizing somebody who they viewed as like a more substantial like strategic critic. But like what the move had the effect of doing was of drawing attention and like making a lot of people who were otherwise like reasonably sympathetic to Israel, if not in love with Netanyahu like radicalized against APEC

because APEC is now because like they're dropping the pretense like they're willing to play more partisan politics like they're they are the ones now putting Israel on the other side of of the Democratic Party it's not Chuck Schumer is doing it you know Chuck Schumer's doing everything he can

to hold it together but I really like it's it's I just feel that like it's it's true toothpaste out of the tube shit man like these people are playing really crazy fucking games with American voters and expecting that they're going to be able to get the same results they've had for a few years, for, you know, however many past years, for the next however many years.

And I just, I, like, that seems like a bad bet, man. Yeah, I saw a video of somebody asking our governor, Andy Bashir, who's going to be in that mix. You know, he's like, is that person asking me, Israel's polling at 8% favorability with Democratic voters. Like, how are you going to navigate that as like a presidential hopeful or whatever? And he said, well, sometimes when you're good friends out of line, you got to sit down and just kind of, you know, tell them when they've been bad and all this kind of stuff.

And, you know, but that the relationship has got to, you got to call them out. You got to call them out. Yeah, you got to call them out. Yeah, call them in. Yeah, call them in. Yeah. But you can call in Israel in 2026. But, you know, the sense of people wanting to.

I don't think like that kind of, you know, tip-y-towing around that question is going to work. Politicians have historically, like for 80 years, liberal politicians have had a problem. And you can kind of trace the identification of it to when Clark Clifford, one of Truman's advisors and sort of like a major player within the Democratic Party for the next half century,

sits down Truman and it gives him the kind of facts of life, political speech on why he needs to support some kind of the Zionists or the Israeli like like he needs to support Jews and Palestine in some way. And it's that since the late 19th you know since 1876 or something or since the 19th century no president has been elected

without New York State. You know, except for one Woodrow Wilson term. And if you want to win New York State, you got to win New York City. If you want to win New York City, got to win the Jews. Right. And I don't believe that it's like obviously a one for one today. But I do think that like Israel has been this like,

it's like it is it's just objectively true right that like zionist groups and culturally jewish groups as well um and influential political figures have they been able to over many many years like make israel more um like if you were a put like there's a reason zora mom dani has to like not do everything that he said that he was going to do on the campaign trail like there are just like political forces power and embedded in institutions that like are about not just like making us have connections to Israel, but to love them and to fuel a love and sense of mutual appreciation. And I, you know, I, I, I think that, like, politicians have to, like, they're the last people to see that that's slipping. You know what I mean? Because they're the ones who are most reliant on, like, nobody wants to break that rule and suffer the consequences. Everybody would

obviously want to break the rule and reap the gains. But, like, people look at Zoron and they're like that's New York they look at Katie Wilson that's Seattle they look at DC that's DC you know you they'll always come up I I feel anyway that it's just going to take like more years of like sustained losses due to this question

for for them to start waking up and we're only at the beginning of that well even even um Andy Bashir as you had pointed out Tom referring to Israel as a friend you know I mean even that that kind of like relationship

of kind of like, I don't know, just this mutual relationship of guess of appreciation, right, or mutual respect, which Israel has no respect for the United States or Americans, you know, at all, right? But for some reason, politicians still have it in their mind that we can kind of work out this relationship and it would be beneficial to both parties. But I don't know. There's a, there's a mistaken image in Americans' minds of what Israel is and who the leaders of that country are and what our relationship to Israel is. And that mistaken idea is, is they're going to cling as tightly to it as they can

there's no and you know for which I don't exactly blame them because I think that um who is like Israel's going to clean no no no politicians

and like people like Bashir whatever because like the alternative right suggests that oh fuck I have to go to war against Mark Rowan and Jeff Yoss and like fucking I have to like go to war against the Ellisons like that's actually

a path of least resistance kind of Yeah, like, dude, it's like I, you can be a Bernie crat and like suffer the consequences of that, but like you'll hang together with all the other Bernie crats fine, et cetera. Israel's different, man. And like, if you're not a Jewish politician, you're already in deep, deep trouble because of like it's, it's very tough. Like, you have to walk a very narrow path. Um, I mean, historically, like from there, like, I don't agree. I think that more people should be challenging that box to be clear. I don't, I don't agree with that logic.

But like, that is. Like, if you ever talk to serious, you know, you ever talk to politicians, like, that's mostly how they have to, it's like a constant triage. And it's like, it would make me put, it would make me eat a gun. Right. And you really have, you also have to ask yourself, what other country has these kind of privileges, right? Where politicians have to walk this fine line, you know? I mean, it just seems very unique and unfortunate, you know. It's all, I mean, it's, and it, the part of where it's going to get, like, really.

bad, I think, is that there's going to become a, like, I don't believe that the anti-war, Trump right thing is a real thing now. I do believe that hostility to Israel could very easily become like a new in-group signifier

on the right that like raises the salience of anti-Semitism to incredibly high levels and then provides even more pretext for like you can just imagine like this kind of spiral of repression

you know to rather than just dealing with the problem I think the UK is like a half step or a couple steps ahead of us in this process right now and we may never get to that point but it's one of the things that's that's the thing that I have an anxiety about is you know like as an American in America that like the anti-Semitism stuff and just like the complete breakdown of meaning

you know what I mean right of like of like common sense and logic and like basic dignity it's just to lead to like the most like like we're all going to feel that like we're living in clockwork orange right right yeah yeah are you getting shades of that frankly my droogs indeed yeah yeah well you know well i was talking about some other orange how about them next am i right yeah tell you my destiny well um yeah well i actually got to take off guys um you're um more than welcome to keep chopping it up of course. But, you know, I appreciate you coming on, Noah. You know, you mentioned it multiple times. You'll have a new miniseries on the relationship between

the United States and Israel. If people want to find that, where should they go? So go to blowback.com. Show. You subscribe there for 25 bucks. You get the full mini series. It's three episodes, and we'll post some other stuff from it. but it's like entirely behind the paywall. But the thing is, is that with the paywall, you also get a full ad-free archive of our show. So our seasons that are, you know, like these 10-episode audio documentaries, basically,

plus bonus interviews on everything from the Iraq War to the Angolan Civil War to the rise of the Khmer Rouge. And this new mini-series was really meant to sort of look at moments of tension between the U.S. and Israel, some of which I talked about here today already, and to give a kind of a sense of, when exactly there has been tension between the U.S. and Israel.

And, you know, perhaps with an eye toward illuminating, like, what's different about those moments and now, and also what's similar between those moments and now, because in making that, this mini-series, it was disturbing how many of the problems that we discussed in the present were articulated,

you know, many, many decades ago by people who pretty much saw, you know, things developing exactly as they have. so that was you know it's it's a it's not it's not a happy listen but it is a good listen and later this year we will also have a new full season that you would get immediate access to and we haven't announced where it's taking place yet but it will be in Latin America

I can say that much hello hello yeah and we got more we and I are doing other stuff that we just can't talk about yet it's it's the most aggravating thing in the fucking world but that's just the way it is well please go check that at everybody um and please go check out our Patreon. The link is always in the show notes and you can go support us there. Noah Colwyn, thanks so much for joining us. Thanks, next. No, it's fun. Chop it up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you guys.

All right. Well, we'll see y'all next time. Adios.