6/17/26: Trump Lashes Out At Israel, Prof Pape On US Surrender, Israelis Hysterical Over Deal

27:10So that's continuing to go on. And the goal there being to kind of disrupt the thing and get us back into the escalation. Yeah. That's the hope. We'll see if it works. Let's put this post up from the escalation trap author. Yes, yes, yes. Not that he wants it, but no, but it is the hope in the sense that for Israelis that want to. That's what I was going to say. Yeah. For Hawks, whether it's Mike Pompeo or the Israelis, this is. Yes, that is the hope that it's a trap. Everything falls apart and it just everything goes. It resumes. Let's put this post up from Ibrahim Azizi, who is the head of the Security Commission of the Iranian parliament, who posted yesterday, Iranian resilience forced a strategic pivot.

28:03The U.S. came to the table on Iran's terms. Now, Washington must prove its commitment by ending the war against Lebanon and upholding every clause of the MOU. Any breach will be met with a decisive, crushing response. The era of unilateral imposition against Iranians is over. So both sides eager to claim this as a big win. But the leaked Bloomberg text, even if it's not completely accurate, which I doubt that it's completely accurate, it's clearly the bones of what the agreement is going to look like. And it's brutal for Trump. There's just no way there's no way other way to put it unless you have faith that in the 60 day period he does come to some type of transformative negotiation that is really unexpected and different.

28:48And for whatever reason, he's able to extract that in the next 60 days, but not while we were at war. And what Trump has done very cleverly is he has taken the humiliation that would be his for this and he has pushed it over onto Netanyahu. And by creating this rift with Netanyahu and by publicly humiliating him, he then agitates all of Netanyahu's and Israel's defenders who then very loudly make absurd arguments about how Trump is a traitor and Trump betrayed them and Trump should have put boots on the ground or Trump should continue the war. And that creates so much noise and drama that we forget that Trump is owed a lot of humiliation as well.

29:33And I think the entire world, including me, is just fine to go along with that. Be like, OK, yeah, actually, let's just watch this drama unfold between Trump and Netanyahu. And OK, yes, Trump deserves humiliation. But what's the point? He's actually incapable of it anyway. Yeah, that's an important caveat, to be fair. Now, I guess from our vantage point, there may be something if, you know, we look at February 27th and we say what's going to happen by mid-June or by September when the 60 days has elapsed is the United States will be facilitating economic development in Iran and treating it as a rational actor.

30:15instead of continuing the Lindsey Graham line about the JCPOA from 2015 and acting like that's gospel, now you have a United States that is in sort of rational negotiations that treats Iran as a rational actor with its own interests. And there's going to be economic development in a country that could obviously use some economic development. Maybe then you could say there's a sick silver lining, but I don't have any confidence that's actually what's going to come to pass whatsoever. And I will say, of the three countries, Israel, the United States, and Iran, which one acted with any rationality over the past year?

30:51Was it Donald Trump? It was not Donald Trump. It was Donald Trump. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. Good we got out of the war. I'm glad. 13 American troops died for this, by the way, which uses the word status quo however many times. I should have controlled after that. Yeah. Billions of dollars. and we're here. As Trump says, maybe we shouldn't have done it. Now let's bring in Escalation Trap author Robert Pape. Hi, it's Karen in Georgia from My Favorite Murder. We cruised around L.A. in the Hyundai Ioniq 5 and dove into the fascinating life of actress and inventor Hedy Lamarr. Want the full story?

31:29Take a listen. Hedy, she starts dating Howard Hughes, the aviation tycoon. Do you know a lot about him? I mean, I watch The Aviator, So I know everything Leonardo DiCaprio has allowed me to know about him. But incredible innovator. Right. She says he's a, quote, very strange man. But they do get along really well. Give us examples. I know. They do get along intellectually. And in fact, she helps him design a faster plane. She takes a look at what he's designed. It's got these square wings. And she's like, that doesn't make sense. And so she finds the fastest bird and the fastest fish and sketches out a drawing of like what the two would look like as a plane.

32:08And that becomes the plane that we know today. And he calls her a genius. Check out our new episode spotlighting groundbreaking innovators like Hedy Lamarr and Billie Jean King. Presented by the Hyundai Ioniq 5. Goodbye. Most dog food brands don't really want you seeing how their food is made. Just food for dogs is the opposite. They actually invite you in. You can walk into any of their kitchens and see real human-grade ingredients like chicken, beef, carrots, and peas being prepared right in front of you. It's real food made in real kitchens. Nothing is hidden behind labels. And that kind of transparency says a lot.

32:45Nothing to hide, everything to love. Go to justfoodfordogs.com and get 50 % off your first order. This is Jacob Goldstein from What's Your Problem? When you buy business software from lots of vendors, the costs add up and it gets complicated and confusing. Odoo solves this. It's a single company that sells a suite of enterprise apps that handles everything from accounting to inventory to sales. Odoo is all connected on a single platform in a simple and affordable way. You can save money without missing out on the features you need. Check out Odoo at odoo.com. That's odoo.com. We are joined with actually some breaking news by Professor Robert Pape, who, of course, is the author of the Escalation Trap Substack.

33:32You can check that out. And he is a professor at the University of Chicago. Professor Pape, thank you so much for joining us again. Thank you for having me. Yeah, so actually just between when we started the show and now when we're having this discussion with you, President Trump has been speaking at the G7 summit in Switzerland and is responding to this leaked memorandum of understanding that hit Bloomberg. Iranians are saying it's not real. Actually, now even President Trump is saying it's not totally real. So first, that included a$300 billion facilitation of funds from the United States to Iran, meaning like investments for economic development is the phrase from the leaked MOU.

34:11Here is President Trump just moments ago talking about whether or not that particular part is real B2. Well, it's been reported that it includes a$300 billion fund funded by Gulf allies. That's false. People, you can invest if you want. I mean, what am I going to do, say nobody's ever allowed to invest? No, we're not investing. We're not putting up 10 cents. And people can decide to do that, but that's up to them. I mean, do you want me to say nobody's ever allowed to invest in a country? I'll say it with Egypt. Nobody's allowed to invest in Egypt. Am I supposed to say that? I'm asking whether...

34:47We are not investing in it, and we do not have a fund. Are you asking Gulf countries to fund a fund? No, I'm not. I'm not. If they do it, fine. But I would say they won't be doing it for a while until they find out the behavior. It's a behavior thing. But we are not in that. That's a false story that got picked up incorrectly from a statement that was pretty well made, I think maybe a little bit could have been a little more accurate. And on top of that, the president said this again just moments ago, B3. And you can't give around a nuclear weapon and they will never have a nuclear weapon. So that's very, very strong.

35:25It's a very strong deal. Nobody knows what it is, but it's very strong. And most people seem to be very happy. Who's really happy is the market. Nobody knows what it is, but it's very strong. Now, Professor Pape, we can put B1 up on the screen. This is from The Escalation Trap. You wrote, uncertain deal, and Iran certainly enters its period of maximum leverage. This was on June 15th. You said, despite the headlines, This deal remains highly uncertain. And that, I think, is proving to be true even two days later as we approach the Friday signing deadline that the vice president was telling everybody yesterday is coming up.

36:02So walk us through a little bit of this argument from your end, Professor Pape, about how Iran is in its maximum leverage period right now. Yeah, let's start with the big picture. And then I want to comment directly on what President Trump said, because I think I can offer some clarity for your audience about what's going on as he's parsing his words. But let's start with the big picture. President Trump lost the bombing. Now he's at great risk for losing the deal. And what I mean by that is that Iran came out of the bombing, not just didn't collapse, but came out of the bombing with power. It gained control of Hormuz.

36:47Now, with the deal, the big risk in the deal, and I understand it's very controversial, but the risk is Iran is gaining more power through the deal. And that is very important to understand, that Iran in the deal, even by the terms President Trump describes and J.D. Vance describes, Iran will come out more powerful through the deal than it is today. So this is of enormous importance because we already understand that with the deal, and this is completely agreed to by President Trump, Iran will be able to sell oil immediately. Well, that's a billion dollars a week. Number two, we already know, and this is completely agreed to by President Trump, and you just heard him say it, that others can invest in Iran.

37:50That is, this idea that America would block or sanction countries for investment. This is important. We've had a tight focus on Iran, where we've put basically a ring around Iran. You can't do business in Iran, or else we, America, we come punish you. Well, that, of course, has deterred quite a bit of business in Iran. That is just by what President Trump just said, now off the table. So that means all of those Gulf countries, Qatar, it can offer that$12 billion up front, signing bonus. President Trump doesn't have to pay the money. Qatar is going to pay the money, completely in line with what the Deputy Foreign Minister of Iran has said.

38:35Then you just go further and further, and what you are seeing here is you are seeing just with the early stages of the MOU, Iran is going to gain, over this 60 days, somewhere between $20 and$30 billion, and there's no strings on what they can do with that money. They can give that money to Hezbollah, that is, they want Israel to pull out of Lebanon. Well there's no quid pro quo, and Iran does not give missiles and drone technology to Hezbollah. No. This goes completely the one side. They can give that money and technology to the Houthis. They can build the arc of security resistance that we talked about on last show.

39:21No strings attached, no limits on what they can do there. That's just in the first 60 days, okay? But now let's look at the true long-term problem or medium-term problem, which is the title of the substack on the escalation trap, the period of maximum leverage. This is what's happened so far. But what's going to go on in the next 60 days is, yes, oil will start, begin to dribble out of the Gulf, but that won't reach the drops of oil. The ships won't reach their stations, their refineries for 60 days, 30 to 60 days. And then it will be a big process after that. So what do we live on in that 60 day window?

40:05We continue to draw down the oil inventories. The oil inventory window remains the crucial issue because there's no way around it. And what's going to happen is as we draw down to our rock bottom levels in the global oil inventories, that means Iran's leverage is going to soar. It's going to grow. No, because now in 60 days early August, that's right when the 60-day window ends, notice, and that's when the oil inventory bottom hits rock bottom. That means if Iran shuts this down again for any reason, doesn't like what Israel's doing, it can just come up with any reason it wants, it can hold the world hostage for even more.

40:51And what's that more likely going to be? And this I lay out the trajectory here, because I'm thinking of this as a realist. If you're going to maximize power for Iran, what's the next set of steps you want? You want complete withdrawal of American forces from the region. You want that's your next goal. And you're already talking about it, and it's in the Bloomberg already. They're already laying down the marker that the next steps are going to be. And this may seem like, why do we care if U.S. forces are there? because if U.S. forces are not in the region, now all of a sudden Iran has even more room for its sphere of influence.

41:37There's more reason for those Gulf countries to, when we say invest in Iran, that's also called bandwagoning and siding with Iran. That's joining Iran. Let's just be clear, not Israel. They're not investing in Israel, you see what I mean. So what's going to happen here is that as this period unfolds, this is what I've been talking about, about the fork in the road that President Trump had to choose. Either he escalates or he goes down the road of surrender and allows Iran to become the fourth center of world power, where it achieves over a period of a year or two regional primacy. And Trump has accepted not just to get out of a deal, he's basically drawn a roadmap.

42:33Remember how President Trump said the Obama deal was a roadmap to an Iranian nuclear weapon? Well, this is a bigger roadmap. This is a roadmap to Iranian primacy regional hegemon in the region for as far as the eye can see, which, by the way, down the road, may also include nuclear weapons. That's not foreclosed here by any stretch. There's nothing here that Iran has done. So President Trump's words, he was choosing his words very carefully in what you said. There's nothing in the Bloomberg that he is really disagreeing with. He's saying it's all fake news while he's in fact confirming every word that's in Bloomberg.

43:21Because what it says in Bloomberg, and if it's okay for your audience, I'm just going to read The United States undertakes, together with its regional partners, to create a comprehensive plan agreed on by both parties, ensuring financing of at least $300 billion. Now, that doesn't say America will certainly finance it. It does say America is good with it. And for Iran becoming a regional hegemon, man, you can't ask for better than that right now. And their leverage is only growing over the next 60 days. And it will stay there through the end of the year, because it'll take that long before we'll have enough surplus to put more reserve back in our oil inventories.

44:15because as long as we don't have the oil inventories, we don't have the cushion for even a short period of time. And if Iran decides to temporarily block the straits, you're going to see much more panic here on the markets. Yeah, and of course, as we and all of the rest of the world are building back up our inventories and building back up our strategic reserves, we're also buying oil for day-to-day activity, which has been putting much more demand pressure over the next kind of six months to a year as this is unfolding, which, to your point, only accelerates the amount of leverage that they would have.

44:52But I want to push back a little bit on kind of two notions there. One, is it really surrender to say, as Trump was laying it out in a very common sense way, who am I to tell some other country whether they can invest in Egypt or whether they can invest in Iran? It's a free world. Basically, he's saying it's a free world. If you want to invest in Iran, I happen to agree. I think sanctions are kind of insane that the U.S. unilaterally and actually illegally under international law. You can't just do unilateral sanctions and say nobody's allowed to invest in Iran. So why is just why is following international law and not implementing unilateral sanctions on a country surrender to them?

45:30And then related curious your take on this right now, the Strait of Hormuz obviously has the capacity to shut down and really crimp the global economy. Over the next 20 years, we're going to have an ongoing shift to other forms of energy. And the Gulf countries are going to continue to build pipelines and other routes that take into account this choke point and try to go around them. So global fourth power seems to me exaggerated based on the fact that the Strait of Hormuz is in some ways a deteriorating asset in that kind of a world. So let me explain both points. So first of all, I am not arguing in favor of going back to escalations.

46:16I just want to be very, very clear here. Okay, that's not my point here. I'm assessing as an analyst what's going on in this deal. I'm not making an advocacy, oh, we don't like X, let's go back and bomb them. So I just want to take that issue right off the table. The reason this is a complete surrender and capitulation by Trump, though, just as a factual matter, is before the war, we fought a war to weaken Iran's power. We wanted to weaken it by crippling its regime. We want it to weaken its missiles. We want it to weaken its ability to threaten its neighbors. This is the opposite outcome. And now Trump is signing on the dotted line.

47:03I have to recall that on February 28th, he announced he wanted unconditional surrender by Iran. This is the opposite. This is unconditional surrender by the United States. And notice Trump said, who am I to block it dot, dot, dot for Iran? So just as a factual matter, this just is a surrender here. And now back to the issue of Iran as the fourth center of world power. I'm not saying it's the fourth center of world power today, but what counts as a regional hegemon that would be a center of power? So number one, controlling 20 percent of the world's energy. That's a fantastic amount of control of the world's resources.

47:53The United States only has 16 percent. Russia only 11 percent. To put this in. Then on top of that, they're building a sphere of influence. So now when we talk about a regional hegemon, what's the next step? The first step is resources. Second step is regional influence. Well, now what they're doing is they are kicking Israel out of Lebanon. They're extending their umbrella over their key allies, and they're building that security belt from Lebanon to the Red Sea to the Gulf. The third is the states in the region bandwagon with you. They give you things rather than contain you. So those are all steps already happening.

48:39and what I'm explaining is this is what it means to be a center of world power and it's already emerging and it will take more time to consolidate but they're on a road to do that. That's my point, not that they're there now and this is the world we're going to have to live with. This is a world of the future that's coming and that's my job as an analyst. It's not to make it all sound all fine, Let's just all pat. Everybody's fine. Okay, let's accept reality. My job is to tell you what's coming so you can prepare for that reality. So why, for example, might Israel freak out and start assassinating leaders in Iran as a result of this?

49:25I'm not telling you they're going to assassinate the leaders coming on Friday, but notice they've done that before. This happened just literally a year ago when Israel started the 12-day war by literally killing the exact diplomats on the weekend we were about to meet with them. Now, I'm not telling you that's going to happen, but things like that you should expect here, because Israel was the rising power. Now it is the opposite. So why might Israel lash out? Well, if you don't have the assessment of the world we're moving into, you can't really get a good judge on the risks. And there's also an element of the sunk cost fallacy at play, too, in that what often will create escalation into a hot war that lasts longer and longer is the idea that you see a leader like the president of the United States, whether it's Donald Trump or somebody else, saying, well, I have to escalate because otherwise it looks like complete and total capitulation.

50:22It looks like surrender, to borrow the word that you just used, Professor, based on what we've seen from the leaked MOUs. I think CNN has its hands on one now as well. So what's interesting is if we take the administration at face value here, I'm curious for your take on this, one of the things that maybe we aren't anticipating is that Trump is willing to take a major loss and be viewed as somebody who has capitulated, which is odd because the very cheerleaders he's been drawing nearer to, the Mark Levins of the world over the course of the war, are the ones that are devastated right now, furious, devastated, enraged right now by the terms of the deal.

51:00And so if we, again, are taking the admin at face value and say, you know, 60 days from now, everything has gone according to plan, it looks like maybe they didn't escalate because they took a they just became comfortable taking a big loss. Is there some element of that, too? So there is definitely truth to exactly what you said in the snapshot of today. So there is no doubt that President Trump is taking the loss. He's trying to shift the buck to J.D. Vance. So he's making J.D. Vance carry as much of the loss as possible. So that's why Vance has been on like 32 news stations in the last 12 hours, okay, and defending Iran as the rational, reasonable people and so forth.

51:43So that's the case. But my point is a little bit broader than just the snapshot of today. We're moving into an incredibly contentious 60-day window. We're moving into a window where literally war, a hot war, could break out at any point in this 60 days here. Now, how you would know that won't happen for the United States is that American forces will withdraw. So if American forces leave the region, that is, all those, the carriers leave, all those aircraft leave, the 10 ,000 ground forces leave, if we pull out, if we don't repopulate the bases that have been destroyed, remember, a lot of bases have been destroyed, well, if that happens, then the risk of escalation will truly go down.

52:36But in that window of that 60 days and beyond, that is where you have more losses coming for President Trump. And as he gets into the midterms Here, the question is going to be, can he keep eating losses? Because Iran's not done giving them losses yet. Iran's not saying, oh, yeah, I got what I wanted. I'm good now. We're just good for the next five years. No, that's not what Iran is doing here. They already are putting down the markers. They want American forces out of the region. They want Israel to truly be out of Lebanon. They want their money. What happens if they don't get their money? Is Iran simply going to say, oh, sure, you promised me the money you welched on the deal, but we're not going to close the strait of foremost?

53:20So these are the issues that are coming in the next 60 days and beyond. And it's between now and the midterms that President Trump really is going to be an issue. Can he keep eating the losses as you've got basically half of MAGA pretty upset right now and they see a big loser in front of them? That's what they see. And this is a problem for Trump and MAGA. Will MAGA just suck it up and say, oh, sure, we're going to just kind of get behind the guy who just who's got us into this big war, killed, you know, over a dozen of our troops, 100 billion dollars. And now we come out with a loss. Is that going to help in the midterms?

54:02So this is this is the other side of the trap, if you see what I mean. So I'm not telling you he will certainly escalate. That's not where I'm at. And I'm not advocating he escalate. I'm assessing that we're in the middle game of the escalation trap. And how you would know you're in the end game is not just by a piece of paper and promises of the future. American forces will physically withdraw from the region. That, if you go back to my ex-account, that's what I was warning about in early February. We're building an armada. I wasn't focusing on Trump's words. I said, we're likely going to bomb Iran.

54:45That's why I started the escalation trap, because we moved the troops here. Well, if we unmoved the troops, now you're following the indicators that Professor Pape uses, which is the behavioral indicators. That's how you'll know you're actually out of the trap. And I think the way that a lot of people understand the escalation trap is that it's fairly determinative and that each step pushes you further into it. But at some point, presumably, this is going to end. So how does the model account for other decision making that gets out of the escalation trap? Let's say this MOU does stick. Does that mean the model was flawed and needs to be amended?

55:32Or are there elements within the model that allow for this you have the elements in the model is i've been explaining and this is what i lay out is you had stage one stage two which is stage two is where iran gets hormones then you're at a fork in the road stage three more escalation by trump stage four we accept acquiesce to iran becoming the fourth center of world power and we withdraw our forces we literally withdraw our forces so that's the four stages that i've laid out and on my live videos, I go through this almost every two weeks. So I've got the graphics and so forth. I'm glad to send you the graphics, by the way.

56:09And so this is where we are. We are at a fork in the road, and Trump is choosing the acquiescence track. And how you'll know then that the escalation model is ending is when Trump withdraws the forces. That's how you know that you're actually, it's the end. And that just hasn't happened yet. Now, maybe he'll withdraw forces next week. Maybe he'll withdraw forces in 30 days. I don't know. But that's not, I'm not predicting the timing. I'm predicting the trajectory and the stages. And that's really the, and I'm sorry, but this is the 20 years of the moment. This is the only way out of this is either you go forward with more escalation, or you withdraw your forces and you accept, at its acquiescence, accommodation, capitulation to a stronger Iran.

57:04There's no graceful way out where we just pretend this didn't happen and suddenly we're back to February 27. We're not. The status quo of February 27 is not coming back. There's two status quos in front of us. More war or Iran is a stronger power for many years to come. Professor Pape, thank you so much for reacting to breaking news this morning. We really, really appreciate you being here. Well, and thank you for having me and for allowing me to explain what's essentially a model and all these stages here, which is really quite something. So thank you so much for doing that. No, thank you. I know our audience appreciates it a lot.

57:48So we're very grateful to you for making it. And if you want that graphic, just let me know and then you can circulate it with this so people understand. Just shoot me a note. Sounds great. Thank you so much, Professor Pape. Okay. All right. Thanks again. Bye-bye. Hi, it's Karen in Georgia from My Favorite Murder. We cruised around LA in the Hyundai Ionic 5 and dove into the fascinating life of actress and inventor Hedy Lamarr. Want the full story? Take a listen. Hedy, she starts dating Howard Hughes, the aviation tycoon. Do you know a lot about him? I mean, I watch The Aviator, so I know everything Leonardo DiCaprio has allowed me to know about him.

58:25But incredible innovator. Right. She says he's a, quote, very strange man. But they do get along really well. Give us examples. I know. They do get along intellectually. and in fact she helps him design a faster plane. She takes a look at what he's designed. It's got these square wings and she's like, that doesn't make sense. And so she finds the fastest bird and the fastest fish and sketches out a drawing of like what the two would look like as a plane and that becomes the plane that we know today and he calls her a genius. Check out our new episode spotlight and groundbreaking innovators like Hedy Lamarr and Billie Jean King.

59:02Presented by the Hyundai Ioniq 5. Goodbye. Think about it. When it comes to your own food, you can walk into a restaurant, see what's being made, and know exactly what you're getting. But with dog food, most brands keep that completely hidden. Just Food for Dogs does the opposite. They've built their entire brand around open kitchens. You can actually walk in and watch them prepare your dog's meals with real human-grade ingredients like chicken, beef, carrots, and peas cooked right there in front of you. No mystery, no behind-the-scenes you're not allowed to see. That kind of transparency is rare in the pet food world.

59:39And it's a big reason they've become the number one vet-recommended fresh dog food, earning trust from pet parents who want to feel confident in what they're feeding. When a brand is willing to show you exactly how your dog's food is made, it says a lot about the care, quality, and standards behind every meal they produce. Nothing to hide, everything to love. Go to justfoodfordogs.com and get 50 % off your first order. This is Jacob Goldstein from What's Your Problem? When you buy business software from lots of vendors, the costs add up and it gets complicated and confusing. Odoo solves this. It's a single company that sells a suite of enterprise apps that handles everything from accounting to inventory to sales.

1:00:23Odoo is all connected on a single platform in a simple and affordable way. You can save money without missing out on the features you need. Check out Odoo at O-D-O-O dot com. That's O-D-O-O dot com. So President Donald Trump is suggesting that if Israel is incapable of waging war in southern Lebanon without the mass killing of civilians, perhaps a former al-Qaeda leader should take over the task. Let's roll C2 here. I suggested to Israel to let Syria take care of Hezbollah. Because to be honest with you, I think they do a better job of doing it. The result in Israel across the political spectrum and the media class has been one of deep struggle.

1:01:12Let's roll a little bit of the John Potter's podcast. Trump is now saying Bibi is indiscriminately murdering Lebanese, but the Iranians are nice. and they only want to help their country? The people who just tried to shoot down and kill two of our pilots last week. Yeah, and of course, who tried to assassinate him. Yeah. What's going on? Tried to assassinate John Bolton. What's going on? I'm telling you what's going on. What's going on is he, something happened and he decided that he went the wrong way and he is ratcheting himself in the other direction. And it's almost as though when he was without restraint in the rhetoric that he was using, the militaristic rhetoric he was using, I only want unconditional surrender.

1:02:12I'm going to bomb your civilization. Da da da da da. once he turns tail, suddenly Iran's nice, Gutter is brave, another thing that he said today, and you will always be my friend, and you are so brave and so wonderful in these talks, and Israel is the bad guy, which is where he's going. This weekend, he went from, um, Bibi is, uh, you know, what the F are you doing? And you're without judgment. And now it's you're blowing up apartment buildings in Beirut. And the Iranians are really nice. Did you hear any music there? I almost felt like I heard some music there. In any event, Ryan had a vision.

1:02:57The meltdown unfolded at MSNBC as well. It wasn't confined just to the podcast spaces. Let's roll the heartbreak from Tom Nichols here at C6. How do you characterize this kind of settlement other than the Iranians got what they wanted, the Americans didn't, and that's where we're going from here? And then, Higar, what does that mean for the Lebanese? Yeah, it's a disaster, actually, in so many ways. So Tom mentioned here that the Israelis are now being held back. And it sounds, a lot of people, it sounds like a ceasefire would be a good thing, right? Normally that sounds like something you'd want in Lebanon or anywhere.

1:03:31But the fact is that if we focus on Lebanon specifically, there's no deal. Over on Twitter and Telegram and Facebook, it's continuing apace. Put up C3 for some instructive elements of this one. Here's one. Everyone, and I mean everyone, in Israel feels a profound sense of betrayal today. From all across the political spectrum and from every walk of life. Everyone. History proves, says Michael Orrin, the former ambassador to Washington, and Israel has no choice but to risk an open confrontation with Trump. An apology from your American Jewish parents ran in the times of Israel. We are here, among other things, to defend you too.

1:04:17In the end, this is your real home. She's addressing Whitcoff and Kushner, whose real home is the United States of America. This is weird. And we are guarding it for you and for your future generations. And you turn your backs on us like this? Simply losers.

1:05:00Unfortunately, she goes, Israeli right-wing figures brand Whitcoff, Kushner as losers over Iran deal. Kushner and Whitcoff really coming in for some serious abuse here. It's tough. It's tough to be done. Laura Loomer not taking it well. She watched a clip of the World Cup. Iran, after scoring an equalizer, one of their players did the old pistol thing to the ground and to the crowd. Ooh. And Loomer said, Loomer replied. Loomer, insane that these freaks are allowed to come to the U.S. By the way, they detained the guy who scored the goal for like seven hours. And he still scored. And they were not even letting the Iranians sleep here.

1:05:43Like they have to fly in and fly immediately back out. But Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff are negotiating with them simultaneously. And we're cutting a deal with them. $300 billion of economic development. Unfreezing assets. Lifting sanctions. and you can see why the tears are flowing. No question about it. My question is really the rallying around Trump that some of his biggest critics in the last 24 hours have done since February. You look at that and you just ask, what did you think was going to happen? What did you think was going to happen? Were you so confident that Donald Trump was going to do the full Netanyahu?

1:06:23And I mean, you and I obviously still have criticisms of what Trump is doing. It's not as though we're like, oh man, Donald Trump, such a realist. He's really giving the finger to the neoconservatives. He did the war. He did the war. But if you're Donald Trump, you're probably looking at Mark Levin now and you're like, huh, maybe I shouldn't have listened to you. Yes, and you're hearing that a lot in the Israeli political class that Netanyahu sold Trump a bridge, Trump bought it, and that he's not going to be able to sell Trump any more bridges and that he's really burned that bridge, in fact.

1:07:02We can put up C4. Amit Siegel, who's the journalist who is closest to President Trump, I mean to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, posted in Hebrew, which Sagar helpfully translated here. Claude helped Sagar. Claude helped Sagar translate, of course. I mean, I'm not claiming Sagar. It speaks Hebrew. And finding that the support for Trump is collapsing within three weeks, he went from what? Plus, basically, 25 minus 25, you know, give or take a few. Like, an absolutely incredible turnaround. Trump hates it when people don't like him. Yeah. So as J.D. Vance shares this information with him, I think Trump's position is probably just going to harden on this question.

1:07:54I don't think this is going to soften him. He likes people who like him, dislikes people who dislike him. It's pretty much that simple. He was fantasizing recently about maybe he'd run for a prime minister in Israel because he has 99 percent approval rating over there. That was several weeks ago. I think that his campaign is much less tenable at this point if he wanted to run. Now, this has actual, I think, practical real world implications here because the domestic politics now inside Israel are going to push not just Netanyahu, but other candidates for prime minister to try to draw daylight between themselves and the United States.

1:08:42For decades, the way that you became prime minister in Israel was to say, I am the most loyal to the president. The president likes me the most. And so I will forge the best relationship with the United States. Like that was the thing that you would argue. And then you have your positions for and against the different domestic policies. But when it came to the foreign policy, the idea was I am the one that can build the relationship with the United States. And then I would always say, just leave the Americans to me. I know how to work the Americans. Yeah. Now Netanyahu is more popular than Trump and Netanyahu is not very popular.

1:09:17So Netanyahu is incentivized to say, I am the one who will stand up to Trump. Then what does he have to do? Do something. Does he continue the war in Lebanon? He refused to withdraw troops. Yeah. And then what does Trump do? Right. Because. If Iran says, well, then that's over our red line, we're attacking Israel. Does Trump, now that Netanyahu is fully broken with him, does Trump attack Iran on Netanyahu's behalf if he's out campaigning against him? Or does Israel now have to wage a war against Iran by itself? With its, as we reported, they're down to double-digit ballistic missile interceptors.

1:09:57They rely on the U.S. Navy's ballistic missile interceptors. And in order to carry out their bombing runs on Iran, they need refueling help from the U.S. Recently, when they struck Iran, if you notice, they did it from Western Iraq because they couldn't refuel. That's much more expensive. You're using expensive munitions. The munitions have a lower payload because they have to travel then much further. If you can just fly right over top with a gigantic B-52 and just drop the heaviest stuff you've got, boom, that's going to have the most impact. If you have to fire a missile from Western Iraq from a plane that has to then turn around and go home, it's easier to intercept.

1:10:40It's less accurate and it's going to have a lower payload. So that's what Israel's left in its war against Iran. Iran's still sitting with a bunch of its hypersonic ballistic missiles and Israel's depleted. But like I said, domestic politics push Netanyahu in that direction. But it's disastrous to his foreign policy. Like he really screwed himself. And some of this is yet to be determined, because we don't know. We've covered this over the course of the show today. Like, we don't know what happens in the next 60 days. We don't know if Trump actually does end up capitulating somewhat to Netanyahu.

1:11:16Things resume in Lebanon. It all falls apart, but it's just less high profile, similar to what's happened in Gaza. He's able to get the deal. Say he got the deal. He's trumpeted peace deals around the world that don't actually totally materialize. It's just the point that he's able to say, I orchestrated X, Y and Z. And that's what he wants to do. And do I think that he wants to have some long term solution to the problem? Is that his ideal? Probably. But does he really care at the end of the day if that turns out to crumble? If he's also able to say, I did this, I brought people to the table.

1:11:49They had all the incentives and they just didn't want to make a deal. That's also probably something he's satisfied with at the end of the day. less satisfied, of course, than being able to be remembered as the president who brought peace to the Middle East or whatever he thinks that his vision of peace in the Middle East looks like, Mara Gaza, whatever that was or is, actually, because that seems to still be the plan. Hard to know. But anyway, all this to say, you look at how people have been treating Trump, who are supporters of the robust Israeli-American alliance over the last couple of months.

1:12:20He is the hero, the visionary, all of his haters are in, they are disintegrating the coalition. They're being selfish. The pushback is anti-Trump. And now some of these same people are doing pushback and saying that Trump is abandoning Israel. They're furious. You heard Pedoritz and Eli Lake, who, by the way, we invited to come on the show today. We will keep asking him to come on because - He's cousin Eli. Yeah. Distant by marriage, I think, right? Yeah. And so we want to bring somebody on who's going to make this argument. My cousin won't even come on the program. Come on, you're alive. And so we'll keep trying to make that happen.

1:12:58But they're furious that Trump said Syria might be a better—Syria might have a better or might be a better protector of Lebanon or a guarantor of peace to some extent in Lebanon than Israel. That is infuriating, infuriating Trump's biggest supporters— That guy cares more about civilian casualties. It's a realist perspective, though, right? Like he's saying, here you have a country that is able to relate to this country. We can say it's dumb, but these are the same people who were saying Trump was a genius for the last two months. So which is it? Also, Syria is not going to do this, by the way, because Syria would rather have Israel fighting Hezbollah in southern Lebanon than bombing Damascus.

1:13:44And they continue to occupy Golan Heights and a lot of area north of that. They're pushing, like, very close to Damascus. Like, so the second that al-Shara went in and, like, took care of Hezbollah, which, of course, they can't remotely do, but let's say they did, then Israel would just start bombing Damascus. So, like, it's interesting that even though Assad and al-Shara are completely ideologically different and we're at war with each other and that Israel saw al-Shara coming in as advantageous compared to Assad because Assad was part of the axis of resistance. Since he has the same geostrategic logic as Assad did to kind of allow either, and Maz has been pointing this out at Dropside, either by neglect or by design, the supply lines between Iran and Hezbollah seem intact.

1:14:42because you're seeing drone technology and other military equipment appearing in southern Lebanon that Iran only recently developed, which means it's getting from Iran somehow over to southern Lebanon. And the whole point of overthrowing Assad for Israel was to cut off that supply line. But they then so weakened Syria that even if they wanted to, they can't. Like Assad controls like Idlib in Damascus, basically. And stop projecting your ideological wishes onto Trump because he's going to reflect them temporarily at any given point and then reflect your opponent temporarily at any given point because he's not a hardened ideologue.

1:15:27So anytime you're claiming some big ideological victory with Trump, you're taking a risk because you're going to have egg on your face in all likelihood three weeks later. Even people now who are saying Trump is giving Israel the middle finger will have egg on their face at some point, again, because he's going to do something nice to Netanyahu. The man is not a hardened ideologue. He is totally doing what he thinks is pragmatic at any given point. And that logic can often be hard to follow. But if you're going to start mocking people for being wrong about Trump and being spurned by Trump, you will also end up being mocked and spurned by Trump.

1:16:01Last thing, because we've got to get moving. What is this doing to the Republican coalition? Like, is Tucker kind of coming out on top here? Or is the break between Trump and the Tucker world so personal that even if they wind up on the same side again, it can't be repaired? Like, what's the status here? I mean, some of the same people we were just talking about were furious that J.D. Vance even went on Megyn Kelly's show yesterday. Right. They said it would be dangerous even for him to do that. Furious. Furious about the fact that he sat down with somebody who has been critical. Yeah, man's got to sell books.

1:16:41Ryan knows the grind. Critical of this war. And one of the things that J.D. said to Megan yesterday is that he told Trump he was going on the show. And Trump said, absolutely. I love that. That J.D. said he'll say nice things about you when you agree with him. And he'll say bad things about you when you don't agree with him. That's just who he is. And so. Who's talking about Tucker? He's talking about the president. Oh, OK. Yeah. If, I mean, you don't understand that at this point, then you just are blind to the last 10 years of Trump. Meghan was like, yeah, I don't mind it, because if you are watching Trump closely, you kind of understand that's how this works.

1:17:12So I don't know. I think Tucker is so totally blackpilled by the war, which is something J.D. criticized people for being, quote, blackpilled, not Tucker by name, but being blackpilled by the fact that the war was launched in the first place. I think there's some people are just off the bandwagon because of that. I don't think Massey gets back in the coalition or Tucker gets back in the coalition. I think there's a thaw probably in some of these relationships, even the fact that JD did go on Megan's show yesterday, says he's willing to take some of the questions and talk to some of the people who have been critical of the administration.

1:17:40So I don't think it's it's a complete disaster for the mega coalition in terms of like some people sticking around. But I also think just the decision to launch the war in and of itself was a bridge that was burned with a lot of people, period. And you're not going to be able to reconstruct that.

1:18:14Hi, it's Karen in Georgia from My Favorite Murder. We cruised around L.A. in the Hyundai Ioniq 5 and dove into the fascinating life of actress and inventor Hedy Lamarr. Want the full story? Take a listen. She starts dating Howard Hughes. And in fact, she helps him design a faster plane. So she finds the fastest bird and the fastest fish and sketches out a drawing of what the two would look like as a plane. And that becomes the plane that we know today. And he calls her a genius. Check out our new episode spotlighting groundbreaking innovators like Hedy and Lamar and Billie Jean King. Presented by the Hyundai Ioniq 5.

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