Trump in Iran: Blitzkrieg to quagmire?

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0:06Gerard Baker: He said it was Blue Apron assemble and bake. All the ingredients showed up pre-chopped, and he just laid it out on a baking sheet and no cap. Dinner was on the table in like 25 minutes. Apparently, it's chef design, and it has like over 40 grams of protein. That's a lot, right? So maybe we try it. Just saying. You can be the next Dylan's dad. Blue Apron. Get$50 off your first two orders, plus free shipping with code STIR50. Terms and conditions apply. Visit blueapron.com slash terms for more. The hustle doesn't have to hurt. If performance pressure is making it hard to breathe, Grow Therapy helps you navigate stress, set boundaries, and actually feel like yourself again.

0:41Gerard Baker: Whether it's your first time in therapy or your 50th, Grow makes it easier to find a therapist who fits you, not the other way around. You can search by what matters, like insurance, specialty, identity, or availability, and get started in as little as two days. There are no subscriptions, no long-term commitments. You just pay per session. Grow helps you find therapy on your time. Whatever challenges you're facing, Grow Therapy is here to help. Grow accepts over 100 insurance plans, including Medicaid in some states. Sessions average about$21 with insurance, and some pay as little as$0, depending on their plan.

1:16Gerard Baker: Visit growtherapy.com slash start now to get started. That's growtherapy.com slash start now. GrowTherapy.com slash StartNow. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan.

1:38Gerard Baker: Welcome to The State of the USA, the podcast for the world's sanest take on U.S. politics. I'm Katie Bowles, Washington editor and columnist for The Times and Sunday Times.

1:48Katy Balls: I'm Gerry Beaker, editor-at-large of The Wall Street Journal and columnist for The Times. This week, obviously, we are still very much focused on the war in Iran. We've seen an intensification, it seems, of diplomatic efforts, perhaps by the US. But there's also talk and movements of troops by the US that might suggest that the US may be moving towards actually putting boots on the ground in Iran. So where are we going? What's likely to happen in the next few days? Katie, what are you hearing in Washington?

2:18Gerard Baker: I think, as ever, it all feels a little bit opaque. and certainly I think there is a weariness in Washington now every time Donald Trump says something about the war and it's almost a slight running joke even amongst Republicans. I was out at drinks with some Republicans the other night and this was around the time Trump had declared that he'd won the war and this was said and the group were all lightly sniggering just in the sense of, oh yes, we've won the war but still we're going to have to deal with all the economic consequences of this And therefore, I think at the start when every time Trump picked up the phone to someone and said, you know, it's nearly complete or so forth, it was heavily analyzed and often taken with a bit of credibility.

3:00Gerard Baker: But I do think that in D.C., people are thinking back to the four to six week timetable. And obviously we've had different timetables, but it's one that the White House has gone back to several times. And that gives him two to three weeks to wrap it up. And I think after that, something might start to panic. And when it comes to wrapping it up, there's a lot about who is going to be trusted to do the negotiations, which may or may not be happening. And here, I think the president has been very keen to stress that everyone is involved. Jared Kushner is involved, very smart guy. And Steve Whitcoff, smart guy, is involved.

3:35Gerard Baker: And I'm involved. I'm involved. Why? I'm going to be so big. Oh, I don't want to talk about it. I'm the president of the United States, Tom. And I'm not going to talk about it. It's beneath me to talk about saving millions of lives. So there he's saying everyone is involved, including the vice president, J.D. Vance, who has been notable in his absence by many, frightless not as prominent as he often is on the media. But the Iranian regime is trolling him. You are fired. You are familiar with this sentence. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Jerry, you've written about how Iran just has to survive this, really, for it to be a victory for their regime.

4:14Gerard Baker: Do you think that's looking more and more likely?

4:17Katy Balls: I mean, obviously, part of the answer is we don't know. The reporting out of Iran is obviously very, very limited. It's an authoritarian regime. There continues to be a hope, I know, especially among Israelis, that once the bombing actually stops and once the damage is done to the Iranian regime's capabilities, then maybe the people will rise up. Frankly, as it stands, Katie, that looks more like motivated reasoning, shall we say, or wishful thinking than the reality. It does look like the regime is surviving this, whether or not there's some intelligence reports in the US suggesting that it might actually emerge stronger because kind of more determined and to some extent emboldened by the very fact that it survived.

5:00Katy Balls: Look, I think what's happened in the last few days is while the military campaign goes on and has obviously been effective in terms of cutting deeply into Iran's missile capabilities, into its broad military infrastructure, the wider sort of strategic battle for the US and Israel is far from one. And that was always going to be about essentially whether or not Iran was going to be able to, in effect, inflict pain on the US, not military pain, but a kind of economic and political pain on the US, so that the American people, the American public, and ultimately, obviously, the American government would say no more.

5:40Katy Balls: And closing the Strait of Hormuz or, in effect, closing the Strait of Hormuz to, you know, to U.S. and to allied shipping seems to have had that effect. And, you know, Trump, what we got at the weekend last weekend was this extraordinary thing on Saturday. Trump saying, OK, Iran, you've got 48 hours to open the Strait of Hormuz or we're going to wipe out your power infrastructure. And suddenly on Monday morning, just before markets open, he says, oh, no, we've had these incredibly fruitful negotiations. That looks to me, again, whatever the actual conversations were that took place, looks to me like Trump backing down.

6:13Katy Balls: It also looks, by the way, and we shouldn't let this pass, like yet another extraordinary opportunity for insider trading by people who somehow had this information that Trump was about to back down. We saw a massive bet that oil prices would fall and that the stock market would go up minutes before Trump made his announcement. And somebody made a lot of money there. So that's another example maybe of the kind of, you know, that what my friend of mine calls the bananization, the turning into a banana republic of the United States. I think it's clear that Trump backed down. It's clear that he is he's not had the success in essentially weakening the regime and getting the regime, not only ideally getting the regime removed, but if not removed, then at least being more compliant and doing what the U.S.

6:58Katy Balls: wants. And so he's kind of now in this position where, well, you know, we'll have these negotiations. There's talk of a 15 point plan. Trump always has 15 point plans or 20 point plans. You know, Woodrow Wilson had his 14 points. Trump always likes to go one better. So he's got this plan, supposedly. Iran's come back with a counterproposal. There will be a flurry of diplomatic activity, I think, in the next few days. But the fundamental reality is, yeah, back to that point, if Iran's regime stays, and most importantly, Katie, if Iran, if that regime remains fundamentally in control of the Strait of Hormuz, then this war is not a victory for the United States.

7:36Katy Balls: It's maybe it's arguably not a defeat. But as I wrote in my column this week, the US not losing a war for the US is a defeat, not losing a war for its enemies, and particularly Iran, is a victory. And so that seems to be where we are right now.

7:50Gerard Baker: Yeah. And I suppose, well, just briefly on your betting point, I mean, I have been really struck since being here how rampant the prediction of betting is. And for example, I remember covering Rishi Sunak election. So the last general election we had, and there was a huge scandal. in the UK of Gamblegate, whereby loads around him, this is still going through the courts, we must say, but, you know, have been accused of, they placed bets on when the election might be, and they were accused of using inside knowledge to do that, and it's led to criminal charges. Here, in DC, anytime you meet someone, he kind of works on the Hill, they're checking Kalshi on their phone, which is one of these prediction sites, and people would bet on words that might be said in the State of Union address, they will bet on what the temperature is going to be by the end of the day.

8:35Gerard Baker: You can pretty much bet on anything. But for politicos, it seems there's quite a lot of space to use your wisdom. Let's call it that.

8:45Katy Balls: We should just say, by the way, Katie, again, you read about the betting markets. This was actually trading on real financial markets. This wasn't even just on relatively small amounts on betting markets. This amounted to, by some estimates, over a billion dollars trading, essentially a short on the price of oil, which means they expect the price of oil to go down. and a big investment trade on the S &P 500, on the stock market to go up, both of which, of course, happened in the way to the announcement. Billions, potentially billions of dollars made here, not a few hundred quid for someone having a well-informed flutter on the date of the next election.

9:18Katy Balls: It does all sort of unfortunately just sort of seem to be quite common and just reflect the kind of endemic corruption that frankly seems to be going on with this administration.

9:28Gerard Baker: Though, of course, on that, Gerry, a White House spokesman has said they do not tolerate any administration official illegally profiteering off insider knowledge.

9:36Katy Balls: Oh, I'm very relieved to hear that.

9:37Gerard Baker: But on your point about Iran and what counts as a win for Iran and what America has to do. Now, of course, Trump never laid out his objectives in a consistent manner, at least, which gives him some scope, but is also why lots of figures in DC are pretty frustrated. And many in the MAGA base, too, are saying, you know, is this the end of Trumpism? Again, I do think it comes down to how quickly can he get out in a way that doesn't tarnish. But there was a question, too, about these negotiations, because you have the US side and Trump saying they're going really well. Now, you have the Iranians at times saying there aren't any negotiations going on.

10:11Gerard Baker: But I don't think we take everything the Iranian regime says as fact. But do you think Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are the key ones there? It's interesting that the Iranians are saying that they would rather deal with J.D. Vance, which, depending how you look at it, is Iranian mischief making, because J.D. Vance, as we pretty much know, has been more against this conflict than others around him. He is more of an isolationist. Or is it the case that we were hearing reports J.D. Vance was going to be potentially heading to Pakistan anyway to get involved with this?

10:42Katy Balls: Yeah, I think, look, you're right, it could be trolling by the Iranians. I think there is also, there's been some reporting that, you know, Wyckoff and particularly Wyckoff didn't really grasp the nature of the negotiations that he was supposedly conducting with the Iranians before the hostilities opened. And therefore, they want someone maybe who has a slightly potentially slightly better grasp of the issues. You know, I think, you know, obviously, it's a really tricky situation for Vance because, as you say, you know, he's kind of let it be known pretty clearly that he wasn't really in favor of this military action, although obviously got in line once it started.

11:20Katy Balls: I'm sure the last thing he wants right now is to be tasked with negotiations to end the war, although he may want to try and do that. If they fail, that would obviously not reflect very well on him. And it's unusual for the vice president to be given that much authority. Look, you're absolutely right, Katie. Trump is, I wouldn't say desperate to find a way out here, but he wants this to end. And, you know, that kind of bizarre remark that you referred to yesterday, yet another of his bizarre remarks that the war's over, we've won on whenever it was on Tuesday, is just another reflection of his impatience and his sort of eagerness to get this done.

11:58Katy Balls: And what everybody said that he thought this was going to be a pretty quick victory, that the Iranian regime would either collapse or roll over and say, OK, you know, what do you want? We'll give you whatever you want, just as happened in Venezuela, in effect, or that he'd get some friendly, friendly Ayatollah. The endless search for the moderate, moderate Ayatollah goes on. We'll keep people updated on that. But, you know, I think he did think it was going to be over quickly. He's looking at what's happened to the to energy prices. He's looking at his poll numbers, which continue to decline here.

12:30Katy Balls: The war is still not popular here in the United States. But again, whatever these negotiations are, he'll claim a ceasefire. If a ceasefire comes off, he'll claim peace in our time. And, you know, he's pulled out and he's reduced the Iranian threat and done all of that. But, you know, back to that point earlier, if the regime remains in place and if it remains essentially in control of the Strait of Hormuz, you know then Iran can you know very plausibly claim to be the winner and the other winners by the way and there's a China who are obviously already getting continuing to get their their oil from Iran but who have seen the United States you know kind of run up against a much weaker country and again I wouldn't want to in any way suggest that the US has been militarily bested by Iran but strategically the US you know yet another war which ends at best inconclusively if that is how it ends.

13:22Katy Balls: And that isn't good for the United States. It's for its prestige and for its broader strategic goals in the world.

13:28Gerard Baker: Yeah, I think two things can be true, which is the US has had a big success militarily in terms of sending the Iranians back. But also this is going on a bit longer than Donald Trump expected. And him deciding his feeling in his bones that he has spoken about when the war is over also has to have the Iranians and the Israelis responses in

13:47Katy Balls: And look, I think after the break, which we're coming to in a second, we're going to talk about if negotiations fail. At the same time, the U.S. does seem to be pursuing a kind of twin track right now, which is the talk of these negotiations. At the same time, they are continuing to deploy troops into the area, a significant number of Marines being shipped out to the region. Quite interestingly, mind you, though, the two big aircraft carriers, which were the focus of so much attention a couple of months ago when they were moved to the area, the Abraham Lincoln and the Gerald Ford have both been moved essentially out away from the immediate theater operations.

14:19Katy Balls: But yeah, there's talk about what are these Marines going to do? Is this all about keeping the kind of action that will be needed to open up the Strait of Formas? We're going to look at that. And of course, look at the broader political situation here in the US and some of the other challenges that Donald Trump's been facing and some of the other threats he faces. We'll look into all that when we come back after the break.

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15:23Gerard Baker: Whether it's your first time in therapy or your 50th, Grow makes it easier to find a therapist who fits you, not the other way around. You can search by what matters, like insurance, specialty, identity, or availability, and get started in as little as two days. There are no subscriptions, no long-term commitments. You just pay per session. Grow helps you find therapy on your time. Whatever challenges you're facing, Grow Therapy is here to help. Grow accepts over 100 insurance plans, including Medicaid in some states. Sessions average about$21 with insurance, and some pay as little as$0, depending on their plan.

15:59Gerard Baker: Visit growtherapy.com slash start now to get started. That's growtherapy.com slash start now. GrowTherapy.com slash StartNow. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan. Welcome back. Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of War, continues to give us what we might call poetic commentary on the war.

16:22Katy Balls: We negotiate with bombs. You have a choice as we loiter over the top of Tehran, as the president talked about, about your future.

16:29Gerard Baker: Now, Jerry, we'll come back to the Secretary of State for War. But first off, let's talk about this prospect of boots on the ground that you just mentioned. Now, on the one hand, Trump has won the war. It's over. It's been a great success. On the other, we're hearing a lot about troops being deployed. We know that there were 5 ,000 sailors and Marines sent previously. They've now been talking about 1 ,000 paratroopers. And none of these numbers are huge. But of course, every time we get near one of them, you start to hear figures on the right warning, particularly the MAGA figures, and also a wariness, I think.

17:04Gerard Baker: So do you think this is a real proselyt, or is this Donald Trump really just trying to keep his options open so if the Iranians don't move enough for him, he can take action?

17:14Katy Balls: Yeah, it could be either. Look, I think that the numbers that are being talked about, a few thousand Marines, the 82nd Airborne, you know, the sort of the elite paratroopers of the U.S. forces, they're small numbers. But they are the kind of numbers I think that people have talked about in terms of conducting some sort of amphibious operation to take out the Iranian facilities along the Strait Reformers in the Gulf. I'm not a military expert. I don't know whether that would be large enough. I've read people, some people saying, yes, that probably is a big enough force to do that. And others saying, no, it's nowhere near enough.

17:48Katy Balls: It's a very long stretch of coastline. So it could be a bluff. And, you know, Trump is bluff, bluff, bluff, right? I mean, it's kind of, you know, we had the bluff last weekend over the taking out the power facilities. This could be a bluff. I think you're absolutely right, though, to point to the fears that people have. Because, again, you know, especially those of us who are sort of rather long in the tooth, this is what people worry is the escalation trap, right? So, yes, yeah, we just have a couple of thousand of the Marines, the most highly trained, the most competent forces. They go in, they do a quick job, they achieve their objective and we win and that's it.

18:23Katy Balls: Well, you know, that happened in Vietnam in the early 1960s with military advisors. You know, it was relatively small numbers initially that were thought would be necessary to win certainly the second Iraq war. nothing like the scale that was deployed for the first Gulf War and the fear is you know okay yeah you send in you send in the 82nd Airborne and some Marines but what's the old phrase you know no plan survives contact with the enemy and maybe they get bogged down or maybe there's more maybe there's more of a trap there so then we have to send in a few more and then before we know where we are we're in yet another land war in Asia which none of which have ended well for the United States in the last 70 years.

19:07Katy Balls: So one thing I do think is I think Trump is so risk averse on this particular aspect and so concerned about what might happen if the US were to get bogged down there that I think it's unlikely that you'd see any significant deployment of troops. But that brings us back to this point. If that's what it takes to release the Iranian stranglehold on the chokehold of world trade if it takes that and if he's reluctant to do that then you know where does it leave the u.s here i i can't you know i love the idea casey when he was asked the other day about you know who's going to control the strait of homers it was like he said well we will and then they said well what do you mean he said well maybe we do it jointly be me and the ayatollah you know the idea of a ayatollah trump condominium in control of uh the world's trade i'm sure that would send a few shivers down a lot of spines around the world.

20:01Katy Balls: So yeah, look, we shouldn't overstate it. Maybe a deal will be done. Iran will agree. You just heard Hegseth there ranting in his usual way, and as you say in his poetry about the skies over Iran and how Iran is going to give up its nuclear weapons. Maybe it will. The US and Israel have done enormous damage to Iran. We shouldn't in any way underestimate that. Maybe they'll say, you know what, this game isn't worth the candle and we will agree to some at least some you know verbal diplomatic concessions on nuclear weapons and on our missiles and that kind of stuff and trump can then sort of claim claim a victory but again it's you know without something as comprehensive and clear as that trump's gonna

20:42Gerard Baker: have a hard time selling it one of the things when it comes to will he won't here i i think is when you get closer to the weekends that people start to get worried because the pattern is effectively wait for the markets to close, tick, get to Mar-a-Lago, tick, then see where we get to. And therefore, I think it's always that kind of Friday overnight, what are you going to wait to on Saturday on Eastern Standard Time, at least. So even this week with the troops where they are, the talk of Karg Island, obviously the base within Iran, which is where much of the oil infrastructure is, and that's where Trump has been threatening.

21:18Gerard Baker: I think people are saying you know well let's see how this week goes and does he just a bit trigger happy on Friday if things aren't going to plan I think right now people think that's less likely than not but certainly I think it's interesting that people see it almost through these kind of weekly cycles of when he might escalate these things and in the meantime you have I think a domestic picture which is not all linked to Iran at all but of course with the rising price of oil. I think you had Delta Airlines, one of the big airlines here in America, last week saying the price of their flights was going to go up due to the rising oil.

21:54Gerard Baker: That's one of the things I, you know, figures close to the White House saying, it's things like this that are worrying us about the impact. And I think there was just more and more privately a sense that the Iran war is undercutting and undermining the message they're trying to land on their economy.

22:12Katy Balls: Yeah, I think that's very true. Look, you know, for viewers and listeners, particularly in Britain or overseas, you may not be following it as closely as those of us who live here and have to travel.

22:24Gerard Baker: As soon as we finish the recording, I'm heading to the airport and feeling deep dread and you can explain why.

22:29Katy Balls: So US airports are in a fair degree of chaos right now, most of the major ones, because there's an impasse in Congress about funding, There's yet another sort of semi-government shutdown. There hasn't been a bill passed in Congress to approve funding for homeland security. The Democrats, with their hostility to ICE, want to essentially kind of defund or significantly reduce the funding for ICE. ICE comes under homeland security, so there is no agreement on homeland security spending. Who else comes under homeland security? The Transportation Security Administration, the TSA, which runs all the security at America's airports.

23:08Katy Balls: So those people are not being paid. Many of them, understandably, are not showing up for work. And you have the spectacle of, in some cases, I think I saw Houston yesterday, Houston, the major international airport there, four to five hours wait at security lines to get through. I live in New York City where LaGuardia is one of the airports in Kennedy. Slightly shorter, but people were reporting. I guess I've just seen another post from someone this morning saying long, long lines at LaGuardia again this morning. Exacerbated, by the way, in case anybody noticed, by that horrible accident that occurred on one of the runways at LaGuardia when a plane hit a fire truck.

23:46Katy Balls: But, you know, I think you're absolutely right that you've got, you know, gasoline prices, as they call it here, shooting up. Again, not British prices. Having someone who just filled a car up in Britain last week, I was a little bit taken aback. But, you know, I'm up here in New York, just outside New York City. $5 a gallon is now what we're paying here. $4 is pretty well average across the country. That's 30%, 40 % higher than it was two months ago. Inflation overall still seems to be high and edging up. You've got this chaos at airports. And, you know, you've got people saying, what the heck are we doing fighting this war over and around?

24:22Katy Balls: A, which is making all these problems worse, and B, not dealing with the problems we have here at home. And I think that's really, really undermining Trump's message. It's undermining his political authority. And it's really, really creating problems for Republicans. And we see it all the time.

24:37Gerard Baker: Yeah, I had one figure with close links to the administration saying that, you know, a month ago, he had asked him what, you know, the biggest weakness of this administration is. He said, to surprise, it would have been immigration because that was around the time of Kristi Noem obviously being pushed out or moved aside to a new exciting job opportunity. And, you know, this thing that they were campaigning had become toxic in, you know, and also all these kind of companies saying they couldn't get the workers, people feeling as members of the community are being pushed out, not just the violent criminals.

25:09Gerard Baker: But they said, no, they actually, he asked them, you know, that day they were saying, pretty much thinking it is Iran, which has become the biggest negative issue for this government, which again adds to the sense that pitch it how you like, but we are coming back to that off-ramp, which the president clearly feels he's going to need unless it just doesn't go to plan. He feels that he has to escalate to end it.

25:30Katy Balls: And the polling numbers continue to be terrible, yet in some ways getting worse. Just Trump's approval on the economy, I saw in a poll this week, lowest ever, lower than Biden. He's now overall approval ratings in many polls are lower than Biden. When Biden had that awful, infamous debate appearance, which basically ended his presidency, Trump is now tracking Biden's approval ratings after that debate appearance. It's, you know, he's really plumbing the depths here. You pointed out that on Tuesday, there was another special election in Florida. Tell us what happened there, Katie, because it has particular resonance.

26:06Gerard Baker: This was pretty special. Now, we have had various elections, you know, say, oh, that's not normal. This is a seat, you know, which, you know, at the election, the Republicans had a double digit lead. Why is this going badly? But the reason this one might sting a little bit more is I mentioned Mar-a-Lago earlier. You know, the Golden Palace in Trump's view, his Florida palace that he likes to go to in Palm Beach when he has a weekend and it's in season. A Democrat won a by-election for the Florida statehouse seat that covers Mar-a-Lago, which I think is being a symbolic victory. Mar-a-Lago turns blue.

26:42Gerard Baker: There's also another quite delicious detail in this, which is obviously we have this Save America Act at the moment, which is trying to tighten up rules around voting. and lots of Republicans saying they want to ban postal voting in some ways. Trump voted by post, we are told, in the Palm Beach election.

27:01Katy Balls: Yeah. Who knew? It's like all those illegal immigrants who used to employ at Mar-a-Lago too, that it's definitely one rule for you and one rule for me. These special elections, again, look, we can read too much into them, but this is a run now. Again, these are like by-elections. And some of them, by the way, like this one, are state-level elections. They're not national-level elections. They're not elections for Congress. So, again, we can get carried away. We should be careful not to read too much. But this is just a run here of hefty defeats in many of them in what would be considered pretty safe Republican or Trump districts.

27:35Katy Balls: And one thing that seems to be absolutely true is that the energy and the enthusiasm is right now all with Democratic voters. Democratic voters want to come out, you know, whether it's in Florida or Texas or Pennsylvania, as we saw in those governor-elect, gubernatorial elections last year in Virginia and New Jersey. They're very eager to come out and vote. Republicans are frankly a little bit demoralized. Now, again, we are seven months away from the midterm elections, a little bit more than seven months. A lot can change. You know, maybe the Iran thing will work out better. Maybe the economy does improve.

28:09Katy Balls: Maybe Trump just focuses more on domestic issues rather than on trying to sort of topple regimes around the world. But it looks pretty grim for Republicans right now. And these elections are all just straws in the wind, which are becoming, you know, frankly, something like a hailstorm. And I spoke to Republicans at the end of last week to a couple of Republican people. I know one who's running for office in New York and one who is a member of Congress already. And they are they are preparing for the worst. They think that this is going to be an historically bad year for Republicans. You know, now, you know, there's all sorts of questions, of course, about how much to what extent Trump will try to forestall that.

28:49Katy Balls: They're probably trying to forestall that. As you say, the SAVE Act, which is its most important measure, is requiring ID for voters to vote. Now, that is a very popular measure. Most people completely get the point, you know, that you do need to show proof that you are actually eligible to vote when you vote. And as people always point out, you know, you have to have ID to get on a plane or to, you know, buy alcohol in most states in the country. Why on earth shouldn't you be required to show ID when you vote? So that's a popular thing. But it's not getting through that measure that they've loaded up with all kinds of other things.

29:24Katy Balls: So it's not getting through Congress at the moment. But there might be other attempts, I think, to perhaps, you know, discourage people from voting, shall we say, in the wrong way. And we'll see as the next few months unfold. But as it stands, yeah, the Republicans are in for a hiding.

29:39Gerard Baker: Yeah, and I will be, well, airport allowing, I will be heading to Texas this afternoon where I'm hoping to, well, A, cover CPAC, the Conservative Summit, where Ken Paxton, one of the candidates running for the Republican primary to be the candidate for the Senate race, is going to be speaking. And then also I'm hoping to catch James Tallarico, who is the official Democrat candidate on the trail, because he is hoping to really have an upset in Texas. And I think speaking to some Democrats here in D.C. yesterday, I think if they could turn Texas blue, I think that was something that's long been talked about.

30:17Gerard Baker: But that would really be kind of this huge, not even just symbolic, just a huge victory and a sign of how tricky things are for the Republicans. but they're cautiously optimistic, I would say.

30:28Katy Balls: I'm going to Texas too. I'm going to Dallas though, where I'm speaking at an event.

30:32Gerard Baker: I'm in Dallas, Gerry. How are you?

30:34Katy Balls: I'll be there tomorrow.

30:36Gerard Baker: I'm everywhere depending on the airports. I'm here in Dallas.

30:38Katy Balls: I was going to say, it is, of course, one of the states in the US that is quite happy to see oil at$100 a barrel because it will once again contribute to the boom of Texas, but it is politically very interesting. So, as you say, travel permitting, airlines permitting, we will both get a sense of what promises to be one of the most interesting, politically interesting places in America this year. Otherwise, Katie, I hope you have a good week. And we'll be back again next week to discuss, no doubt, what we learned down in Texas and all the other exciting things that are going on. So for this week, thanks very much indeed for joining us.

31:14Gerard Baker: So join us again next week when we'll both be back from the Lone Star State.

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