Raging Moderates: War in Iran Backfires as MAGA Turns on Trump

0:00Scott Galloway:Before we start today's show, we have an announcement. Raging Moderates is now five days a week. What a thrill! First word, your second word. Welcome. Jess and I will be putting out episodes every weekday evening covering the biggest stories in politics, and you won't want to miss a single thing. So, make sure you're subscribed to Raging Moderates on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. Now, on to the episode.

0:30Scott Galloway:Welcome to Raging Moderates. I'm Scott Galloway.

0:32Jessica Tarlov:And I'm Jessica Tarlov.

0:33Scott Galloway:In today's episode of Raging Moderates, we're discussing MAGA's division over the war in Iran. That's a segue. And Kristi Noem faces lawmakers for the first time since Alex Petty's killing. If you aren't already, please make sure you subscribe to our YouTube page to get up-to-date coverage on everything that's happening. All right, let's get into it. For years, Vice President J.D. Vance pitched Donald Trump as the president who started no wars, the break from the Bush-era hawks. Now there are U.S. strikes on Iran and American casualties climbing. Some inside MAGA feel betrayed. Others say this is still America first.

1:08Scott Galloway:Let's watch how Vance is explaining the attack. Set back just a little bit. If you go back to Midnight Hammer in the summer, what the president wanted to do with that mission was eliminate Iran's ability to build a nuclear weapon. And we did destroy the nuclear enrichment facilities during Operation Midnight Hammer over the summer. Now, here's the thing, Jesse. We destroyed Iran's ability to build a nuclear weapon during President Trump's term. We set them back substantially. But I think the president was looking for the long haul. He was looking for Iran to make a significant long-term commitment that they would never build a nuclear weapon, that they would not pursue the ability to be on the brink of a nuclear weapon.

1:42Scott Galloway:And after months, really almost a year of painstaking diplomacy, what the president determined is he didn't want to just keep the president or excuse me, keep the country safe from an Iranian nuclear weapon for the first three, four years of his second term. He wanted to make sure that Iran could never have a nuclear weapon, and that would require fundamentally a change in mindset from the Iranian regime. God, talk about a word salad. OK, now let's watch Nick Fuentes and how he's responding to the situation. And now we're in a regime change war with Iran. That's the breaking point. I'm out. I'm done.

2:21Scott Galloway:I am off the Trump train. I am not voting in 26. if Rubio or Vance are on the ticket in any form in 28, I'm voting for a Democrat.

2:33Jessica Tarlov:Say whatever you say, whatever you want, do your worst. So I mean, grain of salt with anything Nick Fuentes says, and he's a professional shitster and he does a good job of it and has made himself a lot of money on his brand of racism and anti-Semitism and all of that. But he is expressing what a lot of the America First wing of the MAGA party, which we used to think was kind of the totality of it, that the Rubios of the world and the Lindsey Grahams were reluctantly coming along, right? Because it was going to be a more isolationist Republican administration than we'd ever seen before. And they're realizing not so much, that the Rubios and the Lindsey Grahams have won out.

3:20Jessica Tarlov:And people like Megyn Kelly, Nick Fuentes there, Matt Walsh are sitting there, Tucker Carlson, you know, scratching their heads saying, this is not at all what we were promised. Now, you know, get in line for all of the things that are happening to you that are not what Donald Trump promised. But this one has pretty severe consequences. I mean, as of today, we have six service members that have been killed. May their memories be a blessing. We are continuing to get conflicting stories about the rationale for doing this. I mean, Marco Rubio gave probably the most cogent press conference. And I want to ask you about what he said there, because I don't know if the administration was happy that he came out and said it, but when he was pressed by reporters about the imminent threat, the idea that we were only going to strike Iran if we were facing an imminent threat.

4:15Jessica Tarlov:He said the imminent threat was that they were going to strike us if they were attacked and that Israel was going to attack them. And the America first wing of the party, and it is how it even sounded to me, has taken that and run with the notion that we switch gears to be on Israel's timetable. And obviously there's huge military buildup in the region that's been going on for weeks or months. We obviously intended to do something, but it feels like we have been caught very backfooted. Like the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem has said, we can't help you. We're sorry, we can't evacuate you. CBS is reporting about those six troops who died in Kuwait, that they didn't have the warning system set up.

5:01Jessica Tarlov:It was like a makeshift facility and they had been asking for more drone defeat capabilities, but none came. The Wall Street Journal is talking about the U.S. officials who have been in briefings with access to classified information, and they say that administration's assertions are incomplete, unsubstantiated, and flat-out wrong, that there's no evidence to support Trump's claim that Iran could rapidly develop a missile capable of striking the U.S. So, like, how do we look at all of this and think that this was well thought out or that we have a real plan and are carrying it out?

5:40Scott Galloway:So I've equated our military interventions to Bond films, and that is they always start amazing, right? Bond films always nail the openings. The credits are top of the line, even. Well, the opening is always awesome. Yeah. Every Bond film. And then it goes on to either be Skyfall was great. Casino Royale was great. So call that Kosovo and Kuwait or even I'll say Venezuela where things go really well. Or it goes on to be awful. Die another day. A view to a kill. Basically Iraq or Afghanistan. So, as always, and I'm curious if you perceive the same vibe shift I've seen in just 48 hours, started awesome.

6:23Scott Galloway:All this military hardware, we immediately take out the equivalent of the president, the secretary of defense, the joint chiefs. we see all these inspiring short-form videos of Iranian citizens rising up. And then all of a sudden, it becomes clear, and you pointed this out, the majority of Americans don't support this. 7 % of Democrats, 54 % of Republicans, and it feels like the Republican side is waning even faster. And it feels like there's been a dramatic vibe shift based on one thing, and that is the incompetence of the administration. and whoever, I don't know who's head of comms, but you should be able to answer three basic questions.

7:07Scott Galloway:Why are we doing this? Why are we doing it now? And what are the objectives? Why are we doing this? I think the biggest error to date was from Secretary Rubio, who I would have said 48 hours ago was the leading Republican candidate for president. When he said exactly what you said, he basically said, Israel is now dictating foreign policy for America. He said, well, Israel was going to attack them, and we knew if they attack them, they're going to respond, so we had to attack first. Like, okay, so let me get this. The tail wagging$1.1 trillion in military spending in the most powerful country in the world is Israel.

7:43Scott Galloway:You're saying that they are dictating our military interventions and foreign policy? That was an incredibly poorly thought-out statement. You know, if they had said something along the lines of, we have a tremendous opportunity to vastly diminish the nation of Iran's ability to continue to be the primary sponsor of terror and to unlock incredible economic prosperity and also bring stability to the region, and we're going to vastly diminish their kinetic capabilities. and when the following objectives are achieved, we're out of there and we're doing it now because let's be honest, we have an opportunity to do more damage and achieve our objectives at a lower risk right now because they're on their back heels.

8:24Scott Galloway:Russia's busy, Hezbollah's weakened, they just don't have any, you know, they don't have any support or backup right now. So that's why now. And then what also came out that I thought was sort of weak sauce was they did identify that statement, We're going to, you know, get rid of the nuclear power. We're going to ensure their, you know, missile defenses are taken out. We're going to take out their Navy. Right now, it comes across, their communications come across as defensive and improv. They're literally, there's reports they've reached out to a bunch of traditional journalists where Trump is real-time workshopping his messaging.

9:03Scott Galloway:So it feels, they feel as if it's defensive. And Jesus Christ, no one thought to like answer these basic fucking questions before you deployed one of the largest military actions of the last decade. You didn't think through to have a fairly cogent answer for why, what are the objectives and why now. What it does appear to me, though, is that now that the regime is going to survive. And I still think this could have huge benefits by diminishing or neutering the kinetic capabilities of Iran. I think that's a good thing and worth a decent amount of risk. But essentially, the administration looks weak.

9:39Scott Galloway:And if I were in Iran, I'd be saying, all we got to do is wait out these guys. There's no political capital or will to put boots on the ground, which I understand. And without boots on the ground, there's never been a regime change ever in the Middle East. And these guys appear to be already taking flack or incoming from their own party, much less the Democrats, who only 7 percent support this. So I think the Trump administration, through incompetence and poor messaging and poor framing of the words they choose, has said to the Islamic Republic, just wait this shit out and you're going to be fine and it's going to be back to normal.

10:14Scott Galloway:So I think that – and I'm wondering if you sense this. I sense a dramatic vibe shift in the last 48 hours that is leaking a lot of advantage and power back from the U.S. and its allies to the Islamic Republic. I now think in Kalshi's odds every day that the Islamic Republic falls, that the regime falls by the end of March, is going down every day. It feels as if in the last 48 hours there's been a substantial vibe shift. What do you think?

10:44Jessica Tarlov:Totally. And it's not good news if you've only been doing this for 72 hours and 48 of them have been a vibe shift. Yeah. Right. Like that's not particularly strong odds of success or bringing over the American public to support an action as important as this since President Trump has said multiple times that they are open to prolonged conflict and boots on the ground. Those are statements that give people PTSD in this country and for good reason. And you listen to Keir Starmer, the U.K. prime minister, speaking about this yesterday. He may have gotten himself out of all of the Epstein trouble that he was in with his defiant speech where he said, we're not going to fight your illegal war with you.

11:26Jessica Tarlov:You know, France is out there. Macron comes out, says we're going to be building up our nuclear arsenal and we're not going to even tell you exactly what we're doing. It used to be something more transparent. Spain kicked us out of their bases that we were using. And I think two things are important. So Dan Cain, General Dan Cain, who's the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, there was a lot of reporting in the last week that he was really nervous about doing something. and that we were underestimating the Iranian pushback that we were going to see. And it seems like he was completely right. So if the U.S.

12:00Jessica Tarlov:or if Israel thought that the IRGC or whatever remained of it were going to, you know, scuttle right to the negotiating table afterwards, they were sorely mistaken. And reporting shows that Iran feels like they can dig in for 60 to 90 days, frankly. And not only are we going to deplete our own arsenal, all of our Gulf state partners need backup from us. They need money and weapons to keep doing this because Iran is firing everywhere, you know, to countries that they don't get along with, but some that they actually have a pretty decent working relationship or peaceful coexistence to some degree.

12:38Jessica Tarlov:So I think that that is a really huge problem here. And then there is the issue of, which is something, you know, we talk about a lot, you know, the relationship with the U.S. in Israel. And I saw Bibi was on Hannity last night. He said, you know, hogwash to the idea that this is going to be a prolonged conflict or that that they pushed us into it. And I don't see any other way to read it. I don't think that makes me anti-Israel or not a Zionist or any of that. It just seems like the facts on the ground based on what the secretary of state and Mark Warner, the vice chair of Intel on the Democratic side, came out and confirmed that.

13:16Jessica Tarlov:He said, I'm extremely pro-Israel, but this is a new frontier if we are shaping foreign policy based upon their timetables. And they just blew up right before we jumped on here. There was a meeting, I think, 88 people to select the new head of the IRGC, who's going to become the new Ayatollah, I guess. And Israel blew that up. So Israel is going about their business, and they live in an existential threat scenario, right, every day from Iran. And I understand that. But we are now in bed together in a way that is making people who are supportive of Israel very uncomfortable. And I worry that it's going to feed a vicious cycle and degeneration of U.S.-Israeli relations.

14:05Jessica Tarlov:We've already seen it, obviously, on the Democratic side. It's now people are more sympathetic with the Palestinians than the Israelis for the first time in history. The same thing is going on in the kind of America first wing of the Republican Party. And it's not what I expected, I guess. And I don't want to be naive. But hearing that, like you said, coming out of Rubio's mouth was jarring to me.

14:28Scott Galloway:They sound very defensive and like all of a sudden they're on their heels. And the response, typically they say Republicans have fallen line. They're just falling out of love right now. So some Republican responses. Senator Chuck Grassley on X. President Trump gave Iran plenty of negotiable opportunity. I don't know what that means. Representative Thomas Massey of Kentucky on X. This is not America first. When Congress reconvenes, I will work with Representative Ro Khanna to force a congressional vote on war with Iran. You know, if they had said, we see an opportunity to vastly diminish the kinetic capability and restore, which likely decreases chaos and terrorism and increases the likelihood of the Iranian people being able to choose its leaders or bring stability to the Middle East, they could have left it at that and created an off-ramp.

15:23Scott Galloway:But my understanding is in the last four days, we've seen I'm willing to put boots on the ground. Well, of course, don't be stupid. It's not going to be boots on the ground. We want regime change. No, not necessarily regime change. And now it feels like they're on their heels saying with these four objectives they've outlined, which, quite frankly, they could say they've already achieved and leave tomorrow. It feels as if they're setting themselves up for the ability to declare victory and leave, which I would argue is not the right message to be sending to the Islamic Republic right now. That, OK, we're getting shit.

16:02Scott Galloway:We had our macho photo moment. We're going to be out soon and we're going to declare victory. Because basically, if I were the Islamic Republic, I would just be saying, oh, OK, they're already. the core competence of the Russian people is they will lose a million people and still keep fighting. And I say this with some admiration. We lost, I think, 400 ,000 people in World War II. The Russians lost 20 million, and they would have kept fighting if they needed to. We do not have the same endurance or willingness to suffer, and that's good in some ways and bad and others. But it feels already as if the administration is on their heels and, in my view, sending kind of signals of weakness, basically saying, all right, we are already looking for an off-front, as opposed to if they just said, we are here to so vastly diminish the nuclear and kinetic capabilities of Iran that they are no longer a short or medium-term threat in the region and have absolutely no hopes of ever rebuilding their nuclear program.

17:04Scott Galloway:They would at least have been consistent and created an open-ended opportunity to say, no, we're not sure when we're going to leave. And I think they would have gotten more people on board. They come across as really, in my opinion, incompetent, weak, inconsistent. The one thing I would like more discussion on is that my sense is there's been a huge strategic blunder here on the part of the Iranians by attacking essentially all of their neighbors. And basically the attitude is you're either with us or against us. So if you aren't going to defend us, we're going to attack you. And a lot of the attacks, in my opinion, while they make for dramatic video, have been more, I mean, they went after the largest refinery in Saudi Arabia, but Saudi Arabia has its own armaments.

17:50Scott Galloway:To me, it seems that was a very dumb move, that they had an opportunity to create a wedge in between the Gulf states and America. And instead, what they've essentially done is isolated themselves. And what's interesting is that the markets appear to be saying, commodities markets, silver spiked, oil spiked, it's already coming down because I think the market is basically saying, interpreting America's comments, is they're looking for an off-ramp. They're looking for an excuse to say, declare victory and leave, and that it'll be business back to usual pretty soon, including the fact that the IRGC will not fall, that the Straits of Hormuz will be open again, that this is not going to be a long-term war.

18:34Jessica Tarlov:Is it a taco?

18:35Scott Galloway:Oh, that's actually the right, isn't that? That is exactly the right description. I hadn't thought of that. Say more about what you mean there.

18:42Jessica Tarlov:Well, I mean, I'm not queen of the tacos. I know it was a British journalist who did it, who said it first. It's Robert Armstrong. He's not British.

18:48Scott Galloway:He's American. He works for the FT. Oh, that's what it is.

18:50Jessica Tarlov:British newspaper, American.

18:52Scott Galloway:Yep. Stands for Trump always chickens out.

18:55Jessica Tarlov:Right, Trump always chickens out. I mean, there are, I hate to use that for this analysis because there are six dead American service members. And there are, I think, 115 dead innocent Iranians from a strike there on a school, dozens of schoolchildren dead. So I'm not trying to minimize any of that. It's not like when Trump says, I'm taking Greenland tomorrow and then just sits there and watches TV and drinks Diet Coke. But if we are, which the reporting indicates, looking for an off-ramp, which would come in the form of some sort of diplomatic negotiation that we had the opportunity to do over the last several weeks.

19:33Jessica Tarlov:And there is, you know, significant reporting that there were breakthroughs, at least on the precipice, and that it is now Iran that is pulling back and saying, you don't get to get out of here in five seconds or less, right? Like, we can go longer than you think, that 60 to 90 days.

19:49Scott Galloway:I think that's exactly right.

19:50Jessica Tarlov:That in looking for the off-ramp, this is the most extreme foreign policy example of what Trump has done, you know, with tariffs, for instance, or various threats. So anyway, I don't know if it fits in that category, but it feels a little taco-y to me.