Trump's Iran gamble: madness or masterstroke?

0:02The Telegraph.

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1:14What is Donald Trump thinking? He says he's negotiating with the Iranians. The Iranians are laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz.

1:22Camilla: Is the U.S. president lying, gambling, are about to pull off an extraordinary feat of international statecraft. And we're going to be joined by Greg Swenson, Chair of Republicans Overseas. His nephew serves in the US military and Greg knows the President. Welcome to The Daily Tea with me, Camilla Tominy. And me, Tim Stanley.

1:52Camilla: Tim, we're going to attempt in this daily tea to get inside the mind of Donald Trump. The mind, the mind. The mind of Donald, which is a frightening place. Now, you and I, we came into the studio yesterday. We said, oh, he's announced a ceasefire. He's negotiating with the Iranians. Yes. He's going to stop the bombing of key infrastructure and oil fields. Isn't this great? The markets have rallied. Could our mortgages be saved? But when pressed on who it is he's talking to, he said this. A top person, don't forget. We've wiped out the leadership phase one, phase two and largely phase three. But we're dealing with the man who I believe is the most respected and the leader.

2:34You know, it's a little tough. They've wiped out, we've wiped out everybody. The President is not the Supreme Leader? The President is not the Supreme Leader. The President is not the Supreme Leader. Well, nobody's ever — nobody heard of the second Supreme Leader, the Sun. The President, are these direct laws? The President is not the Supreme Leader. Nobody — we have not heard from the Sun. Every once in a while, you'll see a statement made, but we haven't — we don't know if he's living. But the people that seem to be running it, and they seem that based on, really, fact, because things they've said have taken place.

3:02The Pressure, President, I know you've deployed this. I don't want him to be killed. OK? I don't want him to be killed. Mr President, are you...

3:11Camilla: This is really weird. Has he got some deep throat somewhere in Tehran? What's he talking about? I don't think I'm the only one who's wondering whether he's telling the truth, Tim. The implication is if Donald Trump gave you the name of the person he's talking to, the Israelis would kill them. Anyone could kill him or her. So what is going on here? On Friday, Trump said that the war was winding down. On Saturday, he gave the Iranians 48 hours to give in. And then after that, he'd start bombing key infrastructure. On Monday, he changed his mind and said, I'm delaying that by five days because I am talking to Iranians and they're making positive noises.

3:52What the president is unclear about is who he's talking to and what terms it is they are discussing. because, of course, no one's 100 % sure of what it is America regards as victory in this war. So who would talk to Trump at this stage and what exactly would they conclude with him? So some people suspect that the president is actually lying, that he's doing this in order to stabilise the energy market. An Israeli official told Sky News that people should take his announcement, quote, cautiously with a grain of salt, the official said. It's early Monday morning in the United States at the start of the trading week We saw a similar pattern last week Oil prices have also declined, supporting the positive sentiment in the short term For now it appears as if he has bought a few more days roughly into week four Until the marines arrive and complete their initial deployment and organisational phase And this is very important

4:49Camilla: That's the boots on the ground in Karg Island This is right, yes This is Karg Island, which provides a seaport for the export of up to 90 % of Iran's oil exports. And if you can gain control of that, in theory, you might be able to reopen the Straits of Hormuz and get oil coming out again. And there is a group of marines who are currently on their way to Karg Island, but they don't arrive until Friday. Why does it take so long for them to get... Take a step back and think about it. Friday, last Friday, you've got 48 hours. Monday, suddenly, you've got five days. What happens in five days? In five days, the Marines will be landing.

5:29Now, the Strait of Hormuz has turned out to be America's Achilles heel in this war. Let's be clear about this. America is winning the war. It has decimated the Iranian leadership. It has destroyed what existed of its navy.

5:43Camilla: We've got the new Ayatollah apparently still in a coma. We don't quite know. He's lost some limbs. It has been shock and awe. And America has proved, unsurprisingly, that with a vast technological advantage and with control of the skies, it can pummel a developing country into the ground. And it can intercept missiles, as we discovered with the Diego Garcia attempted attack. Right. The only problem is, is that it's gone to war with a country which has its foot on the supply line of 20 % of the world's oil. And it's gone a bit mad. And it's gone a bit mad and it started to attack other countries in the region, etc, etc.

6:21Now, America has relative energy self-sufficiency, thanks in part to opening up oil and gas exploration, but also the burgeoning renewals market. And the result is that America isn't directly impacted, but if the world loses access to 20 % of its oil, then oil becomes and other exports become diverted to China. And that means that it has a knock-on effect on America. and it's notable that average US gas prices have risen to$3.95 a gallon, which is up from$2.94 a month ago. And in a panic, in order to compensate for this, and this is incredible, but hey, this is capitalism, America has actually weakened some of its sanctions on the export of Iranian oil.

7:08Camilla: Yeah, which sounds completely counterintuitive, counterintuitive, yet it's also done the same with Russian oil and gas. Yes, that is correct. What America is trying to do is flood the world market with more oil in the hope that that will depress the price. And they're doing that in part also by lifting some sanctions on Russia so that that can get the market moving as well. I would remind you that until 2025, and this is mind-blowing, some European countries purchased gas from Russia, transported through a pipeline that went underneath Ukraine. Yes. Europe has finally weaned itself off that. But as I say, hey, this is capitalism.

7:49You cannot fight a war unless you have access to cheap fuels. And when you go to war with a country which supplies said cheap fuels, you have to go on buying them. And the kicker is sometimes those countries that you are fighting can get a financial bonanza from the very war you have started. Extraordinary. Because the price of crude has gone up so much. Yes. And because we want to get more and more out of Iran.

8:16Camilla: So just one question. When you were joking earlier about if they found out the mold and the Israelis would want to kill them, you're saying that you think it's far more in Israel's interest for the US to carry on hammering Iran regardless of the consequences, but seemingly not in America's interest to keep on doing so because politically it's not helping Trump and economically it's not helping Trump. Because here's this now surprisingly hawkish president that is having on one hand to maintain this kind of, I suppose, global supremacy and his position as the leader of the free world who can't back down, and yet he's got the markets which he's been ever conscious of throughout his entire career as a businessman, screaming and shouting and going, for God's sake, stop this.

9:04Yes. This president is highly sensitive to movements in the markets. It's one way in which he judges how he's doing. So two things he likes to inflate. Popular support. We won the biggest election landslide in history. Yes. And also the performance of the stock market. And there is a theory called taco, or Trump always chickens out, that says that Trump pushes something to the extreme until the market responds badly and then he corrects. And usually over the weekend, so that when the markets reopen on Monday, it looks like there's a huge rebound and then he'll claim credit for the historic rebound in the markets.

9:43Camilla: Also, aren't there people in the markets, working the markets that are doing quite well out of all this? We saw this last year with the whole tariff threat. Yes. People are buying and selling accordingly. And then, oh, funny enough, he backs down. After Venezuela, one of my best friends is a Marxist. And I was horrified, A, to discover that he's really into stock market trading. But B, that he'd started buying stocks and shares in defence because he said it's obvious there's going to be a massive war. And he still calls himself a Marxist. I love that. This is champagne socialism on steroids. It's so funny.

10:17But to go back to the point about Israel, because, again, we're all trying to figure out how do we get here? Why is this happening? There is a conspiracy theory that Israel pushed America into doing this, and it was given some support by a statement made by Marco Rubio.

10:32Camilla: There absolutely was an imminent threat, and the imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked, and we believed they would be attacked, that they would immediately come after us. And we were not going to sit there and absorb a blow before we responded, because the Department of War assessed that if we did that, if we waited for them to hit us first after they were attacked by someone else, Israel attacked them, they hit us first, and we waited for them to hit us, we would suffer more casualties and more deaths. We went proactively in a defensive way to prevent them from inflicting higher damage.

11:01Camilla: Had we not done so, there would have been hearings on Capitol Hill about how we knew that this was going to happen, and we didn't act preemptively to prevent more casualties and more loss of life. Margo critics of Trump have seized upon this as evidence that Israel is calling the shots, that because Israel was going to go to war, America judged it had to go to war at that time. That also conveniently does fit in with the kind of anti-Semitic line that's being adopted by some on the hard left, that Netanyahu is literally puppeteering the US president, which is kind of an old-fashioned anti-Jewish trope.

11:35Camilla: It all kind of perfectly aligns if you're of that way of thinking. Well, and there has been one very prominent resignation on that basis, which was Joe Kent, who was formerly the director of the National Counterterrorism, Centre, who said that we were pushed into this war by Israel. And he has subsequently done an interview with Tucker Carlson in which he's shared that theory. Now, OK, there's an element of truth in that Israel probably benefits from chaos in Iran in a way that America does not. It's to Israel's advantage if regimes which threaten to destroy it are themselves destroyed. And we saw a building destroyed in Tel Aviv only yesterday.

12:12Right, exactly. But I think if you were trying to persuade this president to go to war with Iran, you wouldn't have to just rely upon Benjamin Netanyahu to do it.

12:22Camilla: Quite. So Trump has, throughout his career, been critical of foreign ventures, and people have flung back at him a series of quotes from the past in which he said, for example, in 2011, in order to get elected, Barack Obama will start a war with Iran. In 2012, now that Obama's poll numbers are in tailspin, watch for him to launch a strike in Libya or Iran. And in 2013, remember that I predicted a long time ago that President Obama will attack Iran because of his inability to negotiate properly, not skilled. Right? So he's been critical of a war on Iran in the past. That's true. Although him and Iran have history, right?

12:58Exactly. America has history. It goes back to the 1979 Iranian revolution and the taking of American hostages. And Trump has said several public things in the 80s and 90s to the effect of this is like America's enemy number one. They humiliated us. They should not be allowed to get away with it. He was highly critical of the nuclear deal cooked up by Barack Obama, which he said was allowing Iran to build missiles, etc., and accrue the wealth that means that someday it could take enriched uranium and stick it in a rocket. So he tore up that deal. And of course, he joined Israel in its strikes against Iran last year in the 12-day war.

13:36Camilla: And the Abraham Accords is his effort to align Gulf states and other more democratically minded Middle Eastern nations against regimes like Iran's. I mean, he's set in quite a lot of capital and had done in the past of being the peacemaker, not the warmongerer. He personally gets on really well with people like Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia. There is some strange affinity between the Trump family and the Gulf monarchs. Might be kind of dynastic and money orientated. I think it is that. I think they appreciate negotiating through relatives like Jared Kushner. Yes, that's right. Yeah, there's the same kind of modus operandi.

14:11There's a sympathy there. But the other element we have to consider is this is an administration which Trump won contained diverse voices within it, in which actually at that time it felt more like the hawks were being held back by the doves. Yes. Trump, too, does not contain that diversity of opinion. And it feels as though the doves, particularly those of a religious inclination, have much greater influence. Marco Rubio is more of a level-headed kind of a neocon who, partly because of his heritage, was very happy to see what happened in Venezuela and would presumably like to see the same happen in Cuba.

14:44But if you take someone like the Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, well, he comes from a more kind of Protestant tradition of seeing God's divine purpose in America and foreign policy as having almost biblical foundation.

15:01Camilla: Well, Donald Trump yesterday admitted that Hegseth had been influential in his decision making over Iran. I called Pete, I called General Cain, I called a lot of our great people. We have great people. And I said, let's talk. We got a problem in the Middle East. We have a country known as Iran that for 47 years has been just a purveyor of terror. And they're very close to having a nuclear weapon. We can keep going and get that 50 ,000 up to 55 and 60. There's no end. Or we can take a stop and make a little journey into the Middle East. and eliminate a big problem. And, Pete, I think you were the first one to speak up.

15:43And you said, let's do it, because you can't let them have a nuclear weapon. Now, you say admitted, this might be Trump teeing him up for a sacking. Really?

15:53Camilla: Or just like, if this all goes wrong, it's all your fault, Pete? He's done this before. For instance, he had 100 % support for Kristi Noem, who was the Secretary for Homeland Security, until all those horrible ICE raids took place and two protesters got killed and then she lost her job on the basis that, quote, the drama sadly overshadowed and distracted from the work of the president. So there's a part of me that suspects Hexeth is being set up as a sacrificial lamb here. Now, guess who's re-emerged? The lesser spotted vice president, J.D. Vance, Tim. J.D. Vance. Now, we're saying he's dovish.

16:32Camilla: We know he's isolationist. We remember vividly his very public criticisms of President Zelensky back in the Oval Office back in the day. He has been conspicuous by his absence from any of the press conferences involving these strikes on Iran. When they began, he was asked about it and said that he wasn't allowed to comment on it because he had sat in the Situation Room. So he's gone quiet. The problem that J.D. Vance faces, senator from Ohio, friend to techno-oligarchs and a sort of an isolationist, is that he built his political personality and career on attaching himself to Trump when Trump was anti-war.

17:12Camilla: Yes. And now Trump has turned... Let's be very honest about the journey he's been on, which is as winding as Robert Jenrick's. He was a never-Trumper. And then he changed his mind because he didn't think that Trump was going to be interventionalist. and also for his own political future. Because he was in a difficult primary in Ohio, and in those days the only way to win the primary was to get Trump's endorsement. Yeah, and he needed to align himself with Trump because he wants to be the next president, Tim. Let's not beat around the bush here. Yes, but having defined himself as I'm Trump one, if you like, in my instincts, what happens if you're in Trump two territory in which Trump is going around saying, let's go to war with Iran, and so do you support that and do a complete 180?

17:55like, for example, Tulsi Gabbard appears to have done, which has been highly embarrassing for her? Or do you just take the approach of just sort of sitting the conflict out and hoping that it ends well?

18:06Camilla: Or do you score some political points by saying, look, I wasn't really in favour of this, but I tell you what I'm going to do now. I'm going to help broker peace. I'm going to, yes. That's good positioning for him. Yes, yes, yes. Bless him, a little hillbilly is now in talks with, well, as we have discussed, very opaque, perhaps even non-existent Iranians. Yeah. Some of these tensions might seem so great that you wonder how doves and hawks can get on in the same administration, one that's gone to war to supposedly everyone's surprise. Well, part of the answer to that is that they do share in the Trump administration an overarching historical view of America's interests, which is that America now exists in a multipolar world.

18:49It is no longer completely the top dog. It is competing in particular against China. And that with limitations on its resources, it needs to shift away from Europe and away from the Middle East and move towards containment of Beijing. Now, it might seem odd to go to war in the Middle East in order to switch to dealing with China. But the argument is, this is the war to end all wars. If we knock out Iran and we fix that, then the Abraham Accords that you mentioned will stick. Israel is safe and we can give up policing that region. At the same time, as we force the Europeans to negotiate with Russia, resolve Ukraine, get that turned into some kind of neutral border state.

19:30And again, we can get out of Europe. And we're very happy for Mark Ritter and all these other people to go around saying Europe needs to be for its own defence, which it never will. But we're happy for them to do that because we need to focus on re-industrialising, preparing for AI and being able to beat China in the Pacific.

19:47Camilla: And you decapitate one of China's key allies from whom they were siphoning huge amounts of oil and gas by the back door without even really admitting it. But then the other good power play by Vance in suggesting that he is in some way leading peace talks that may or may not exist is it keeps both flanks of the MAGA base happy. Those who are hawkish are already with Trump and quite happy to see boots on the ground in Karg Island. Those who aren't, and let's be honest, there are quite a great many of them. So let's look at the latest CBS News YouGov poll. 57 % of respondents in the US believe the conflict is either ending up somewhat badly or very badly for their country, while 43 % said the conflict is turning out very well or somewhat well.

20:36Camilla: So we've got more thinking it's going badly than think it's going well. So when they talk about peace, it's not just to calm the markets, it's to calm actual Republicans ahead of the midterm, surely. Well, the thing is, if you drill into those numbers, what you tend to find is Republicans as a tribe are a bit softer on the wall. But MAGA people are really in favour of it. And this is the confusing thing. It's the Team America World Police argument that it's just US supremacy, F yeah. Well, I think it's a misunderstanding about what MAGA is. I love that you call it MAGA. Make America Great Again.

21:12I'm sorry. It's MAGA, isn't it? It is MAGA.

21:15Camilla: But to me, it's MAGA. This is like Jacob Rees-Mogg saying mass is mass. Carry on with it. Carry on with it. So there is MAGA, which is the intellectual core of it, which is people like J.D. Vance and Tucker Carlson and a whole range of podcasts and, say, the American Conservative Great Magazine. I really recommend it to people. But then there's MAGA the Base. Yeah. And MAGA the Base is more attracted to Donald Trump than it is to the quote-unquote philosophy of Donald Trump. But there is also, if you look at a map of where the Republicans still win, the Republican base remains the Deep South and the West.

21:52And the Deep South in particular has a really strong militaristic tradition. And those people haven't changed just because they started to vote for Donald Trump. And I'm old enough to recall writing and thinking about American politics around 2008 and Bush. You could not get nominated to replace George W. Bush if you were critical of the Iraq war. In either 08 or really 2012. It took until 2016 for Donald Trump to be nominated by the Republicans saying Iraq was a mistake. It took a generation to get through. Because Republicans and conservatives instinctively defer to the commander-in-chief. They're very pro the military.

22:29They see everything through the prism of, you've got to support our soldiers and our veterans.

22:33Camilla: And they hate Iran. You're saying that cap and flag wearing maggots, who might be your more working class Rust Belt Americans, are in favour because they're patriotic pro-military. Even though they might be parochial and not have passports. And what a never-Trumper would say, and there are increasing numbers of anti-war conservatives who are now regarding themselves as never-Trumpers, is that Margaret is fundamentally a cult. I'm sorry to say it, but a personality cult. Yes. And what they believe is whatever Donald Trump does. They're basking in an orange glow. Right. They've drunk the orange Kool-Aid.

23:07Right. And so where does that leave the handful of philosophical conservatives who supported Trump for the last 10 years because they thought he was going to do certain things, such as staying out of war in Iran? What do those people do? And one of the most prominent of those is Tucker Carlson, the podcaster.

23:21Camilla: Yes, OK. Who is an anti-war conservative. And we are now speculating, will he run for president? Oh, my goodness me. It's not impossible. All right, but surely the choice for those intellectuals is Vance because of his war scepticism combined with his very cogent and articulate way of expressing Republican pro-free market opinions. But if you're one of these tiny number of anti-war conservatives, in a primary, who are you going to vote for? The guy who went quiet when the war was on or the man who toured the country saying it's wrong, it's evil and we shouldn't do it and Israel's running us. Should journalists ever be promoted to power?

23:57Camilla: It's a conversation from another podcast. The one thing we can't really figure out is what will the Democrats do? And as people like to joke, the one guarantee in life is the Democrats will screw this up somehow. How do the Democrats respond to the cracking up of the conservative base and the long tail of this war, which is likely to be higher prices and a really unpopular Donald Trump? Do they now respond by moving back to the centre and saying, we just went mad for 10 years. So now let's vote for a boring centrist. Like say Gavin Newsom, okay, kind of a good looking centrist or Pete Buttigieg, a not so good looking centrist.

24:34Camilla: Also really hard to pronounce his surname and it's just not going to work. Buttigieg, yeah, I know. Or do we say, here is the Democrat Trump. Here's the populist alternative. Let's just go with Ocasio-Cortez of New York. Or Meghan Markle. Right, right. Well, who knows? You take my point. It could be anyone. It could be Oprah Winfrey at this stage. The Democrats are likely to do one in the midterms, but how do they actually translate this? I mean, if Tucker Carlson's running... Yeah. Shall we just bring it back very briefly to domestic matters because that's been a fascinating study of the motivations and the contradictions at the heart of all this.

25:15Camilla: So we've got our own Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, trying to reassure our own markets, although saying basically, don't expect a big giveaway on energy bills like Liz Truss did. We're not going to look after Middle England, I'm afraid. Put on another jumper. And by the way, your bills are coming down in the summer. And no, we're not going to continue to freeze fuel duty beyond September if we don't really need to. Because by the way, I'm squirreling away headroom left, right and centre. And also there seems to be some resistance to spending more money on defence, even though they have made pledges.

25:48Camilla: They're writing cheques that perhaps they can't cash with the Treasury. the jury's sort of out on it, isn't it? OK, so on defence, on Monday, Keir Starmer addressed the liaison committee and was grilled by Bernard Jenkin. And it's actually just, it's worth hearing this little exchange because it's a rare occasion where we see the Prime Minister losing his temper. You had failed to anticipate the need to defend Cyprus with a destroyer. But this smacks of a lack of war-fighting mentality that reaches right across the government, which is what we address in this paper, about warfighting readiness, where we are not at.

26:24And the chiefs of staff are saying, we need to be ready for war. So when are we going to be prepared, and prepared for what? We are finalising the investment plan. That sits with the Strategic Defence Review. This smacks of an enormous complacency. Well, this smacks of the fact that for years there was underinvestment by the last government, and the stripping out and following out of our armed forces. We had 18 months to deal with it. who was to thank... I'm not making a particular point. Well, honestly, 14 years of underinvestment, 18 months for Labour government... But take drones, for example.

26:59We're picking up the underinvestment of your government. Now, Sir Bernard's point is, you have said you are going to rearm the country and put it on a war footing, and you have given us a vague figure in percentage terms of how much more you will spend.

27:14Camilla: It was a commitment and now it's an ambition. But what you have not actually done is released the money. So what the prime minister is saying is, in effect, I will release the money when I'm told I can release the money. He needs to be told as ever because he's carrying out a review. He's carrying out a review. And once we've had the review, then we'll make the commitment and then we will release the money. But that all has to come through the Treasury. It's all process, process, process, which is reflected beautifully in his paradoxical explanation on the lack of Britain's response to the attacks on Cyprus or in the Middle East, which is, I would like to react, but I can't because I, in 18 months, haven't spent the money because I couldn't because you were in government before.

28:00Camilla: Yes, that's right. So it's kind of like partly the Tories' fault, partly I'm being careful and considered and that's why I'm having a, quote, consultation and partly his own prevarication over this entire thing. Right. But also we knew for weeks, for weeks, that there was something going to happen in Iran. And assets, as you said, have been sent into the region. F-35s have gone there. Mine sweeping equipment's gone there. I'm not going to deny Britain has taken part. HMS Dragon isn't quite at the RAF base. But HMS Drag Race is not there yet, by the way. It's not going to be there for quite some time.

28:31Camilla: Get a move on, lads. Come on. Exactly. So while we've been debating what's going on in the mind of Donald Trump, ultimately it doesn't matter from Britain's point of view because we're not part of this. We're not. Because we don't have the muscle to take part in this. And I find a lot of the discussion around it academic, because a Britain without a serious Navy or military, what does it really matter to us, what America thinks or what Trump is doing? And this is kind of Trump's point. You're not part of the negotiations. I don't have to talk to you because ultimately it all comes from me. These are my toys to play with.

29:02You don't have any toys.

29:03Camilla: And if you'd spent more on defence, along with your NATO countries, as I'd been advising for years, maybe you would be a part of this, but you're not. Because you're a comparative minnow. Yes, yes. Although Trump, as always, and American politics, as always, deals in half-truths. And it should be said, Europe certainly has supplied money and material to Ukraine. And also it should be said that as well as the Americans being able to intercept Iranian missiles, the Germans also have that air defence capability. They do. That might come in handy. And I think one more fact, which is important to place on the table, because you'll hear about it a lot online, is that America sends billions of dollars to Israel every year to prop up its military.

29:43That's technically true. But where does Israel spend those billions? In America. So in effect, America pays Israel to help with American manufacturing.

29:57Camilla: Yes. It is not true that Israel is just sucking from the teeth of the United States and America gets no benefit from it. You notice online ideas are beginning to creep into popular conversation. And one is that Israel just takes and takes and takes, gives nothing back and calls the shots. Well, either Donald Trump is the crazy emperor of the world who does whatever he likes, or he's controlled by Benjamin Netanyahu, which is it? I think the crazy explanation is more believable. Well, on that note, Tim, let's speak to somebody who does know the US president. Greg Swenson is the chairman of Republicans overseas.

30:36Camilla: And he's got a stake in this war because his own nephew is in the U.S. military.

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31:26Camilla: Greg Swenson, welcome back to The Daily Tea. It's lovely to see you in the flesh and in the studio. Tim and I have just spent the last, I don't know, half an hour trying to get inside Trump's head. Because you have to admit, even as a Republican and a Trump supporter, this is all quite confusing. The US president is saying that he is negotiating with Iran. Iran is saying, no, you aren't. He sets a 48-hour deadline. Now he's extended that to Friday. We've got boots on the ground. Marines expected on Karg Island by Friday. the markets are jittery what's going on here? What is this man thinking? Greg, you know him more personally than we do what's going on?

32:06Well, look, he is unpredictable that's part of his nature but also I don't think he wants to telegraph exactly what the plan is or the detailed plan, right? He went out of the gates with we're going to destroy their nuclear capabilities their ballistic missile capabilities sink the Navy all of which he's done for the most part Now it gets to be a little trickier. And I think this is where you have to be able to pivot. You have to be able to maybe change directions. And we're dealing with a lunatic regime. So when the lunatics said yesterday, we're not talking to the president, they were lying because the president indeed or the administration was indeed in contact with, I think it was the head of the parliament or some other position.

32:49Camilla: So you're saying the Iranians are lying, not Trump. Yes, definitely. and that became more clear later in the day yesterday. And so, you know, but again, the president is going to pivot. He's done this before. He sets a two-week deadline and he sends the B2s in on day 10. You know, he doesn't want to tell the regime everything he's doing. But you're sure he has a plan, Greg, and he isn't just making this up as he goes along. Totally. I say that. Let's just use one piece of evidence. Yeah. He kind of admitted last week, oh, I didn't really anticipate the Iranians blocking the Strait of Hormuz. Well, anyone with any knowledge of that area would say that that might be the first thing that they would do.

33:29Yeah, and I think that the president sometimes either misspeaks or wants to change direction and might say something like that. Or maybe I think he did it on one other occasion, too, where he said, I was surprised at X. Now, it doesn't mean that they weren't anticipating it. And I guarantee you the Pentagon had gamed everything out, every potential move. And so, yes, the president was surprised that they didn't have as much defensive capability. You know, that's not saying he didn't expect it or it wasn't preplanned. What he's saying is he personally was surprised that X happened or Y happened.

34:03So, you know, so I think there's it's impossible to say exactly what the game plan was in terms of this is what our expectation is. We think this will happen. But what they do, and you hear this from General Kane consistently, is they game everything out. They might choose door number one as the most likely scenario, but they're ready for door number two and door number three. So the straight absolutely was expected. Was it 100 % probability? I don't know what number to put on that, but they're definitely prepared for it, that's for sure.

34:38Camilla: All right. So you're saying he has a game plan to use American parlance. What's the end game? Well, in a perfect world, the end game would be regime change. I mean, that's not the first priority. And I think that might be much more of a priority for the Israelis. But surely the first three, as I mentioned, you know, the Navy, the ballistic missiles, the nuclear capabilities, and also destroying the production facilities that make the drones, that make the missiles. And they were producing 100 ballistic missiles a month. We in the West were producing seven interceptors a month. So the longer we waited, you know, another 12 months from now, they've got 1 ,200 missiles.

35:15We've got 72 interceptors, you know, Patriot missiles or whatever. So, you know, look, I think that the president would love to see a new regime. But the American public has no appetite for, you know, another Afghanistan or another Iraq. So this is different. He's hitting his objectives in many respects.

35:35Camilla: Except in regime change, to be fair, Greg. only because the Ayatollah has been replaced by his son, who's even more hardline, not least because most of his family, including his wife and child, were wiped out in the original strike that took out Khamenei. We're now in a situation where we think he's in a coma and may have lost some limbs, but we don't quite know. So Donald Trump turned around to the Iranian people and said, rise up. They haven't. So, OK, I can accept what you're saying about the diminishing of Iran's military capabilities. the regime change hasn't happened it doesn't look likely to happen right now that's what's and this is what's hard about dealing with lunatics they are unafraid to kill their own people and so i think everybody's got a little scar tissue from january where we saw what happened yes and and you know we can so many historical you know moments where the regime in power if they're not if they're not if they're willing to kill their own people it's really hard to defeat them when they control all of the violence, right?

36:34You know, only the regime has guns. And this is why we have the Second Amendment in the U.S. That's a different story. But I do think that, you know, if you go back to 1989, you know, the Chinese killed their own people. And so Tiananmen Square didn't really turn into regime change. But then a year later or two years later, the Soviet Union, Gorbachev said to his army, don't shoot our people. It's time, you know? And so I don't think the mullahs will say it's time. I think they'll, they're suicidal. I think they'll go down with a fight. So it's difficult to game right now.

37:07Camilla: All right. So to delve further into the mind of the president, how do you think he's feeling with the markets reacting as they have been? Yeah. With the price of a gallon of fuel in America having shot up by a dollar. Right. In about a week. Yeah. Criticism of him having once been somebody who advocated never wars. Now being hawkish. and let's be honest, some pretty mixed polling when it comes to American sentiment about this. Yeah, without a doubt, all the above are true. And the president's not immune to polls and public sentiment, right? He's smart. And if anything, he's more than any other president.

37:42You know, he has his finger on the pulse of the people. That's why he was elected twice. And so I think he pays attention to it for sure. That's why, again, I don't think it will turn into a forever wore boots on the ground with special forces, maybe some Marines here and there, but not the massive army presence that we had in Iraq and Afghanistan. And so he knows that. He's sensitive to the markets and to energy prices. That's smart, right? I think where presidents make mistakes, like I know Biden did this a lot, was saying, don't worry about it. It's just gas prices because people like that don't pump gas, right?

38:19And that's not going to change going to change my life but if you're paycheck to paycheck and and it's a dollar a gallon which it is you're right that's difficult so you have to be cognizant of that you have to pay attention and and have some empathy with the people what he has said is it it is and he's right on this it's a short-term challenge right i again not to diminish the fact that people are hurting But we'd rather have short-term spike in gas prices or petrol in the U.S. than a regime with a nuclear bomb or a regime with another 1 ,200 ballistic missiles in their arsenal.

38:58Camilla: Or a regime that can hold the world for ransom for 20 % of its gas and oil supplies. They've got a veto power on 20 % of the world's energy. But how are the MAGA base viewing it? Because Tim made an interesting distinction earlier between your kind of more intellectual Republicans that might be more Vance-ian in their isolationism versus your kind of red cap wearing, rust belt Americans that are actually deeply patriotic and believe in the military and would think that Iran is treacherous, murderous and evil. Yes, and they are. And yes, they do think that way. But there is a distinction in the Republican camp, right?

39:36And it's interesting, Camilla, it's a great point. The change, you know, a generation ago, even just 15, 20 years ago, the country club Republicans were the more hawkish. They were the neocons.

39:47Camilla: I love this idea that the country club. I'm imagining Republicans now with sweaters over their shoulders, Greg. This is how you were in the 80s and 90s. I can see that in you. Absolutely. Going to the tennis club. I'm often accused of being a country club Republican. And I remind people I just dress like one. Fair enough. I vote like a MAGA Republican. Basically dressing like you're in a Ralph Lauren ad-carryon. But it's interesting, the change. And now the MAGA wing, even though they were known as the anti-war and very much against forever wars, et cetera, they're polling at 90 on this. And the country club crowd is at 55.

40:24So Republicans overall are polling at 77, 78, 80, supporting the president.

40:31Camilla: The working class American Republican is more in favor of the war than the country club American. That's right. Which might be kind of counterintuitive because you think that the working class American is the one that doesn't necessarily have a passport, leave the country much or care all that much for Middle Eastern matters. And their sons and daughters are usually the ones that die in combat. Precisely. It's counterintuitive. And it's a really interesting point because if you'd asked me a month ago, I would have said the MAGA wing is going to be less supportive of this than the country club wing.

41:01And it's the opposite. And it was the same with Midnight Hammer last June. It's a 30-point difference between the country club and the MAGA. So he's still – now, you have a few MAGA personalities that have come out against it, Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly. But they're not really reflective of the party in general or the MAGA wing of the party. And I think the reason the country club folks are not as supportive, it's not because they're against the war or that they're pro-Mullah or pro-Iran at all.

41:30Camilla: They're worried about their stocks and shares, Greg, I would imagine. Yes, for sure. And also, you know, they're not big. A lot of them are not big fans of President Trump. You know, there's still that 10 percent never Trump wing of the party. And they are definitely country club. They kind of see him as a necessary evil to defeat both Biden and Harris. but he's not their perfect candidate. This is how J.D. Vance once positioned himself, of course. Yeah, and it's interesting. You don't hear much from J.D. Vance. You can tell that, you know, and this came out in the signal chat, the famous signal chat when we were bombing the Houthis, where the party in general was very supportive of taking out the Houthis, and yet J.D.

42:10and maybe one other person on the chat, and by the way, I think that's healthy. I think it's great that some people are for it, some are against it in the party. yeah, they might have to all come out and look like they're all supportive. It's just part of politics. But I think it's healthy that they have these debates. And this is not something you want to do in a way that's not well thought out. How will it affect the midterms? I don't think it will affect it that much. Really? If the midterms were tomorrow, for sure, it would be bad. because overall it's polling at 55, 60 against and only 35 pro.

42:48Camilla: Yeah, this is the whole of America rather than just the Republican base. And it's very partisan, right? 20 % of Democrats support it, 80 % of Republicans. It's like everything else in America right now. It typically polls on partisan lines. Of course you want the independents. It's not polling well with independents. So if the midterms were tomorrow, it would be bad news. But this will be, I hope and assume, ancient history by November. And American voters really don't care about foreign policy in general. They care about the bread and butter of the kitchen table issues. Yeah, but then they might care about the neglecting of domestic policy.

43:21And I think it would hurt them in that case. Okay.

43:24Camilla: And also the price of eggs doesn't continue to come down, Greg. He promised economic prosperity. It will. And look. Will it? Oh, yeah, because prices are already down. By the way, gas prices are lower than they were for Biden, right? So now Biden caused the higher gas prices. It was$5 a gallon in 2022. and most of that appreciation or increase in gas and energy prices came before the Ukraine invasion. Why? Because Biden was hostile to the energy sector one and two dropped seven trillion dollars into an already hot economy so you had inflation. So it was supply and demand because the supply was squelched.

44:04We were doing three million barrels less a day than we were if Trump had stayed in power. So now Now, I look at these increases as temporary, but you're absolutely right, Camilla. If the midterms were tomorrow with gas at$4 a gallon, that would be bad news.

44:21Camilla: You might have a Jimmy Carter moment. Absolutely. But I think by then, tax reform, deregulation, and the total liberation of the energy sector, our natural gas prices haven't moved, maybe a little bit. Oil trades on a global market, of course. But we don't need supply from outside the country. We're energy independent, which is a shame that we're not here in the UK because we worked 20 years ago. Tell us about it. You're channeling the Telegraph audience's view about the insanity of Ed Miliband doubling down on net zero at a time like this. But anyway, do tell me about your nephew. So he's just graduated as an F-18 pilot.

44:56Camilla: Yes. And where is he now? He's on Abraham Lincoln. So he's in the Gulf. And that's his first deployment. So he trained. How old is this lad? He's 29. Oh, so he's an older man. He's gone for all of his training. For that kind of plane, it's seven years of training. So he graduated university in 19. And this, after seven and a half years of training, this is his first deployment. He landed his F-18 Super Hornet on the Lincoln in the Pacific right outside of San Diego back in November. The intention was to sail around the Pacific for six or nine months. Little did he know, a month or two later, he'd be sent to the Gulf.

45:32So he's on the Lincoln. I haven't talked to my brother in a week or so, but the first week he flew his first mission and picked off a Shahad drone that was aimed at the Lincoln. I assume it was aimed at the Lincoln.

45:46Camilla: But how's your brother thinking about this? I mean, it's all very well joining the military when the country isn't at war with, as you say, a bunch of lunatics. Yeah. This is worrying. He's worried. Of course he is. Yeah. I mean, the family's extremely proud of him. But it's, yeah, it's quite natural to worry. And, you know, the overwhelming force and difference between the U.S. and Israel versus Iran tends to make you confident that, you know, you shouldn't worry. It was an overwhelming military victory already just in the first week or two. But, you know, F-18s do crash. You know, there's accidents, right?

46:24We've seen one, I think, in F-35 last week. And so, you know, of course, my brother is worried. We all worry. But these men and women are just unbelievably well-trained and disciplined, and the equipment is top-notch, as the president often mentions. And so, you know, we're pretty confident.

46:42Camilla: But to bring it full circle, your brother and you are confident. I mean, your nephew is in President Trump's hands literally right now. Yeah. And you're comfortable with that. I'm totally comfortable with it. I'm not sure my brother would be, A, because it's his son and not mine, and B, my brother is very much a lefty. So he voted for Bernie in 2016. Oh, did he? Also very, very left wing. Fair enough. So it's amazing that his son, you would not have guessed that, right? No. That the son of someone who was, I wouldn't call him an extreme lefty. He's not, he's a common sense Democrat, let's call him.

47:16Got it. But he, yeah, I'm sure he's not, you know, supporting this activity.

47:22Camilla: But he's supporting country. Of course. Greg, we wish your nephew well, of course. Thank you. And thank you very, very much indeed for sharing your wisdom and expertise on all Republican matters with The Daily Tea. Great to be here. Thank you. We'll be back tomorrow, 5pm.

48:03Acast powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. This season on The Dream. Supplies are being provided by nurses who run out in the middle of the night and purchase diapers. But the hospital is still charging as if they still have these items. We are digging into every topic we've ever wanted to cover on this show.

48:27Camilla: It's a spinning plate analogy. The second that you stop spinning those plates, that crashes. So you can never stop working. The Dream Season 4 comes at you weekly starting Monday, January 20th. Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com