Dasha Burns Hosts Bipartisan Panels on Trump’s Iran Strategy and Midterm Stakes

Across America, Google AI is transforming how the public sector serves you. Imagine, shorter wait times for government services, healthcare signups made simple through rapid AI verification, and smoother commutes on AI-powered transportation systems operating around the clock. From boosting staff efficiency to securing the infrastructure that keeps us safe, Google AI is delivering real results for communities nationwide. Explore additional success stories at publicsector.google.ai Welcome to Ceasefire, where we look to bridge the divide in American politics. I'm Dasha Burns, Politico White House Bureau Chief, and joining me now two guests who have agreed to keep the conversation civil, even when they disagree. Shouldn't be a problem for you two, right? A Democrat turned independent former West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin. He's also a former governor of West Virginia and former North Carolina Republican governor, Pat McCrory. Thank you both so much for joining me from your respective states. It's an honor to be with you. Good to be with you, Dasha. Good to be with you. I want to start with your... Yeah, not mine too, Pat. I want to start with your relationship and how you both got to working together, because you're both former governors and you've both worked with the group No Labels. What inspired each of you to get into that effort? We'll start with you, Mr. Manchin. Well, I was always looking for a way that we could work together, because when I was governor of my state of West Virginia, I'd been in every different position from House of Delegates, the state senator, secretary of state, then governor, and then eventually U.S. Senator for West Virginia. And when I was the governor, I'm working in all those different positions in my state, everyone worked together. We never looked at the other side being an enemy. The other side, whether if you were a Democrat and other people were, your friends were Republicans, they had different ideas of how to fix problems, but they always wanted to go forward and fix things. So I was always in that kind of a mindset. Then I go to the United States Senate, and as soon as I get there, the other side, I had it being a Democrat from West Virginia, the Republicans supposed to be my enemies. I said, there's never been a Republican my enemy. They're my friends. They might have a different idea. We might agree and we might respectfully disagree, but we would always be respectful and be friends. And that's not what they wanted. They wanted to divide and divide and basically make it much difficult and just be very, very obnoxious to each other, because they thought that's what their base wanted. Well, that's not what I wanted. It's not what my people in West Virginia wanted me to represent them. And I never could figure out why Washington politics were so toxic. So I was always looking for something. When I got to DC, I heard about in 2010, December of 2010, I heard about a group called No Labels. They were meeting in New York and I was there, and I'd been a member ever since, and so great to have Pat come on board with all of his experience and what a great job he did in North Carolina being part of that team. And we just became close immediately, because we had the same outlook on political life. Yeah, Governor, how did you end up joining forces? Well, first of my background, I got into politics at the age of 32 as a Charlotte City Council member in Charlotte, North Carolina. And six years later, I ran for mayor and ended up being mayor for 14 years. I almost ran for Congress, but my dad convinced me that you can make a bigger difference as mayor than you can in Congress. You think you dodged a bullet there? Yeah, he was right, by the way. I loved being mayor, and then I was governor of North Carolina, ninth largest state in the United States, and what an experience. And then I ran for U.S. Senate, unlike Senator Manchin. I didn't make it. But Senator Manchin and I both agreed when we met each other through No Labels that the two-party system is really not a problem-solving structure. They're not interested in solving problems. They seem to be only interested in power and meeting the litmus test of whatever their leaders say. And if we dare cross the aisle, we're punished primarily in a primary or by fundraising. And that's not the type of people Senator Manchin and I are. We're problem-solvers, and we enjoy creating a vision, developing a strategy to make it happen, and developing a team to make it happen. And that's what we do in the executive branch, and I think that's what Senator Manchin tried to do as a U.S. senator. So we met, and Joe Lieberman and myself and Dr. Ben Chavis and Senator Manchin and others, we all agreed on 90% of the issues even though we grew up in different parties. And we liked each other. We respected each other, and we love this country. And right now, we're all concerned that the current system is broken, and we need to have people, to have the courage to call out our own in that are wearing our jersey, our red or blue jersey, and say, you know what, we can do better than this. And yet, you know, here we are years later, and they're still a two-party system. We are perhaps more polarized than ever. I'm curious for your assessment of kind of how we got to this moment, why no labels didn't make the impact that you all were hoping for, Senator? Dost you hear the thing that you have to know about the system we have? You can have a third party, fourth party, you can have four or five parties. But the system basically only, only adheres to two parties, the Democrat and Republican Party. That's all. That's how they have the system. That's how the primaries are set up. They have control of the primaries. They can pass laws that give them protection. And it's basically horrible. It's not a representative form of democracy when you have millions of people like myself, who is no party affiliate right now or an independent, that can't vote in the primaries. And it's just awful the way we're doing this system. So if you want to change it, and you don't like it the way it is, look at the state that you're in in the primary, how you pick your people to be involved. You know, we should be able to seek out the best person in our area or who we think we'd want to represent us. And they should be able to get on the ballot in the primary and then find out where it goes. But right now, if they're not a good enough Democrat or a strong enough Republican, they can be primaries if they are already elected and they're always threatened by that. When you have states that basically have a open or no partisan, nonpartisan primaries, your candidates don't get that far apart because they need to be able to pull votes from both sides. And they need to have independence voting form, have some Democrats and Republicans voting for you. That's how you're going to get the best representative form of government that you could ever get. And we're going further and further apart. We're giving all the power to the parties. Forget about the people. And I've said this, if you think that you have the right to vote because you're a U.S. citizen, or do you belong to a party? Are you a member of a party? And they're going to say, well, because I'm a U.S. citizen, I said, I'm sorry to inform you, that's not how it works. You have to belong to a party in order to be able to vote and participate because it's a closed system. I'll say this, Senator, in my travels across the country, I hear a lot of people that feel a lot like you do, where they don't feel at home in either the Democratic or in the Republican Party. And they, especially with some of these issues, like the war in Iran, it's not so much party. It's generation, it's relationship to the military, it's perspective on conflict, and that's not necessarily red or blue. So I do want to talk to you all about this because Americans are on the edge of their seats right now with what we are doing abroad. Punchbowl writes that whether this is a good deal for the United States remains to be seen, talking about the most recent developments with the ceasefire. Tehran has declared this accord a massive victory, saying the United States will eventually withdraw its troops, ease sanctions, allow uranium enrichment, and accept Iranian control of the strait. Governor, how do you gauge these negotiations in this moment? Well, let me go back to the previous question real quick, because it relates to everything. The two parties have a duopoly or a monopoly on the system. They create the rules, voting rules, and they also create the rules in legislators, state legislative caucuses. They create the committees, they commit, they, they control all the rules. And it's almost mafia-like at this point in time. If you dare break out of the rules system, you're blackballed. It's like a mafia type of situation. And we can give examples of no labels, by the way, where staffers of no labels were threatened by both parties that you will never work on the hill again if you participate in this effort. And it's, that's like a mafia type of organization. And it's not right. And we need to call it out. And I'm willing to call out my fellow Republicans, and the center was willing to call out his Democrats in participating in this grasping for power. And right now, regarding the international situation, this is another example where Congress is not doing their job. And they haven't been doing their job now. And the center can relate to this, more than me. But, you know, Congress is on the sideline in every major issue regarding the deficit, regarding spending, regarding immigration, and now regarding a war. And they've let the executive branch take over. And this has been going on through Obama, Biden, and Trump twice now. And that's not the way, I don't think our framers saw how we shouldn't run government through executive orders. And that's what's happening right now overseas and here. On other domestic issues. Senator Manchin, you've said that you don't fault the president for engaging in this war. What is your assessment of how things have gone so far? Well, let me just say this, that I did not vote for the JCPOA back in 2015, because I never could trust the Iranians. I've been looking back since 1979, when they held our delegation hostage over there, and for almost a year or more, it was unreal. And you follow all the way through. And we never could get a clear understanding of how we were going to have access to all the sites that we needed to make sure that they weren't enriching uranium. So I couldn't get there. And I was definitely not in favor of releasing all these millions and hundreds of millions of dollars to them up front. I thought they should have earned it by showing that they wanted to be part of the world order. And showing good citizenship, if you will, taking care of your people. Basically watching over a government and not basically dictating and just basically just horrible treatment of their constituents and their people. The thing about what's going on right now, I was not upset about the attack that went on as far as the United States finally taking them on and taking out the weapons. What the president, I think, could have done better and what I think they made a fault and haven't done is what was our purpose. It's our purpose, basically, to stop the enrichment of uranium, capture all the enriched uranium so they cannot build an atomic bomb and do absolutely horrific damage. They're doing enough damage just with the missiles and drones that they have by the hundreds and thousands of them. So taking their ability to wage war. This is the most prolific terrorist supporters in the world, the country of Iran, the IRG, this regime. You're never going to change regimes. Those are ideologies. You cannot change that, but you can prevent them from doing havoc and wreaking havoc and hardship and just horrible treatment of humans around the world. That was fine. The president could have basically worked with the legislature and made, they didn't have to agree with him, but they could have understood where he's coming from. Well, is it all about the streets of Hermos now? Is it about oil? Is it about the economy? What's it about? If the greatest threat we had was the missile and the enrichment of uranium, then I believe you have the best ally in the world, as far as in Israel, who has the best special ops, that can do that. They should have their boots on the ground there. We don't have to have boots on the ground. My goodness, look at what our friends in Ukraine have done. And what we have done to them and leave them in alert, it's horrible. Well, let me ask you both. And here they are. We're not. Let me ask you both. At this point, it's clear that our military has degraded Iran's military significantly and their capabilities. But Iran has been able to essentially hold the world hostage with the straight of Hermos. Where we are now, do you think Iran is in a worse or better position in terms of its ability to project power around the world? Governor, I'll start with you. Well, let me first say this war, it was not if it was going to happen. It was when it was going to happen. Because they've been holding us hostage and Israel hostage and the Middle East hostage for decades, ever since the fall of the shawl of Iran. Jimmy Carter is an example of that. So it was not if, but when this was going to happen. The problem with all these international incidents is that we have not necessarily the policy. It's the lack of communication to the American public, to the world, to Congress. And we're having that problem with President Trump right now. I wish President Trump would use Secretary Rubio more to talk to the general public as Secretary of State about some of these objectives. Some of the talks that we're having trying to form peace and some of the long term goals and vision that they have for the Middle East and what's America's role in this effort. I think Secretary Rubio is one of the mature people of this administration that we need to see more of at this point in time. And they need to really spend a lot of time communicating with Congress and American people. But listen, we can't make Iran the good guys in this war. They are not. And I'm a little concerned when I watch the media on all fronts that it's almost like we're giving them equal presence Iran and the United States. And they're not. Iran's been a bad player for a long, long time. And sadly, we may have Russia and China helping them at this point in time. And that's something we ought to be very, very concerned about. So the administration, the president's advisors often talk about what a tough negotiator he is. And they say that was on display over the last several days. But some of his comments have gotten some significant pushback. For example, ahead of the Tuesday deadline to reach a ceasefire, the president warned that, a whole civilization will die tonight. What do each of you make of that strategy? Did it go too far, a senator? Dasha, that was horrible. I would hope, the only thing I can do is just hope that he did not mean what he said. Or that he has a different definition of annihilation of a whole civilization. My God, you can't be speaking of that. And here's one of the greatest powers in the Western world, the whole country. The world is ever known, the United States of America. I've always said we are the superpower of the world, not because we have a super military power, not because we have a super economy. We also had super compassion for people around the world that desired the same freedoms and liberty that we have. That's what we always have been there to help and make sure that we were always protecting of those people and it was always there for them. Right now, they're not depending on us. That's the thing that scares me more than anything. The whole thing about NATO, the NATO Alliance, was never to have a World War III. That happened after World War II in 1945. And if you don't have all of the people who have like-minded, basically they enjoy the freedoms and the liberties that come with this and the pursuit of happiness, we all have that same desire. You've got four countries that you can never, ever, ever count on that don't have those desires. That's Russia, that's China, North Korea, and Iran. They're never going to be there. You should never depend on them and you're never going to change that mentality. And just thinking you can do it through war. So we haven't had a clear definition and understanding of why we're there. Are we there to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons? I would hope so because that's where the damage can be done. Are we there to change the regime? I don't think so because we've never been successful at changing an ideology and a regime. So what is the purpose? Are we there to put more oil into the market? Basically it's all about money? Well, that's fine. You need an economy. You need the flow of energy. But with that being said, now they're talking about charging tariffs, not tariffs, but basically a fee. Yeah, going through there. If you start charging for using the water, the international waterways, that we've all been accustomed to using for all of our international trade, where would stop? What happens to the Straits in China? You'll get a South China Sea. What happens to all of this if people start saying, well, that's my water, you're going to pay me to come through there? It's like a toll booth. Everybody's going to have a toll booth. You can't have that. You can't accept that. But now why won't the other NATO allies? Well, you can't treat them as if their enemies are not your ally, they're your adversaries. And all of a sudden you say, now we want you to work with us. Well, Democrats have responded. In the human nature. Democrats have responded really strongly to Trump's message. Axios writes, Trump removal chatter erupts among Dems over Iran post. Lawmakers are openly floating impeachment or even removal via the 25th Amendment, a far cry from the strict taboo around such procedures at the start of Trump's second term. Would this type of effort be a waste of time, or is this something that Democrats should push for, Senator? It's a waste of time. It's all politics. It's a waste of time. First of all, impeachment trials are basically political trials. Okay. And you know what you're getting into there. You sending a message? Well, then do a sanction. Sanction him. But putting him on trial is not going to do anything. But basically just in in bolting and harding, it'll harden his basically supporters. You don't need that. What you need to do is find things that you can't work with. So Mr. President, can't we work together on this debt of $39 trillion? We've put all more debt in the last five months, ever than history of the country. And now you want to take the defense spending up to $1.5 trillion? When we never had gone over a trillion. And the interest on our debt is over a trillion. Don't you think we ought to get our financial house? Can't we agree on those things? But the Democrats just basically get into mud slinging and throwing back. The president is who he is. Well, governor, it's not going to react basically anything positive. Governor, you mentioned earlier how Congress has seated so much of its power. They're in recess right now. But when they come back, the War Powers Act is going to be a huge topic. I want you to take a listen to Chuck Schumer and then we'll talk on the other side. I'm announcing that today. The Senate will vote next week on the War Powers Resolution. Congress must reassert its authority, especially at this dangerous moment. No president, Democrat or Republican should take this country to war alone. Not now, not ever. Republicans will once again have the opportunity to join Democrats and end this reckless war of choice. How should Republicans respond? Well, we need to call out the hypocrisy of both parties because during my lifetime, we've been involved in a lot of wars without declaring a war. And both parties are guilty of that. So anyone throwing rocks on this issue lives in a glass house. The president deserves criticism for like communicating with America and the world on truth social at two o'clock in the morning. That is no way to communicate to people. People call me old school. I'm 69 years old. That's not the way we need to communicate. And not through cussing and swearing and things of this nature. However, the critics also need to say, this is what we need to do. They know what we've done. They may disagree about what we've done and how we've gotten here. But the critics also have to make recommendations now that where we are, they need to stake their position about what we need to do and make recommendations on what we need to do to move forward. What agreements would they agree with in moving forward? How should we work with Iran? How should we work with Saudi Arabia? How should we work with Israel? How should we work with NATO? They've got to start, you know, coming up with solutions instead of just throwing rocks. Because we're all a part of this problem now. And again, it was not if, but when we are going to get involved. And there's a lot of criticism on the communications, on how we got involved in some of the communications since. But we've got to realize both the media and the public and all the politicians have to go, okay, we're here right now. What do we need to do together as a country together as one? Instead of throwing all these internal stones at each other, which is a very bad signal to the rest of the country. Senator Manchin, what is your prediction for how this plays out once the Congress comes back? Well, Congress always had, as I recall, was always informed to a certain extent. We weren't always asked when something would happen because some things are just highly, highly sensitive. And I understand that, but when you get deeper in, you know, if you want to look back in history, how do we get so encumbered in Vietnam? Go clear back to the Korean War and look all the way up to present, you know, Afghanistan, Iraq, everything that we've done and how we did that and continued on. The authority to use military force is something that the Congress has that responsibility, because basically we've asked the people to pay for it. It's the taxpayers who pay for these wars. The first wars we never paid for, the only two wars when it started, was Afghanistan and Iraq War, two wars we never paid for. We never said anything aside. We never made sure that we had X amount of dollars. It just went on and on. And before you knew it, trains of dollars were being spent. Taxpayers faced that burden. And now we're in a situation now that we see the amount of cost this thing is going to incur and the longer it goes on, the more it's going to be. So the power of the purse is with the House of Representative, which is the Congress. And then we have to coincide on that, being in the United States Senate. And Congress about to we agree. And they've been locked out of that right now, but they've given away an awful lot of the responsibilities and powers. We've done that by just the leadership. It shouldn't be just Chuck Schumer and then John Thun, but it takes the whole hundred senators. The thing about the senators, the minority could always participate. They both want to get rid of the filibuster. Every time they get power, if the Democrats are in power, they want to get rid of the filibuster because they want absolute power. Now the Republicans are in power and the President wants to get rid of the filibuster because he wants absolute power. The thing that kept our country what we are today is because it would take minority participation for us to pass things. And when we pass things, it took a while to get it done, but when you did something, it took it even longer to get rid of it. So we didn't bounce back and forth. And right now we have no input on what's going on, how much money is going to be spent on it. We have no input on what's going on, how much money is going to be needed, and how we're going to pay for this war. That's what the questions should be asked, but the Democrats are in the minority. They just can't keep stone stones, as Pat said. You just can't keep stone stones at each other. You've got to say, if you're against something, tell me what you are for and how you would fix it. Give me a remedy of what you are against, how to fix it. Work with me to help make it better, not just cast hate and basically chastise me for doing something wrong. If I made a mistake, I'd love for you to help me so I can fix that mistake. And right now we're getting no help at all. They're just basically, everyone is just hunkered down in their own silos and just throwing all they can at each other. That is not a way to lead the country, and it's not what this country needs right now. We need leadership, and that means bringing people together. I do want to ask about the impact of this conflict on the midterms, because this is going to be a critical election. And by the way, there's a pretty significant Senate race in your home state of North Carolina, Governor. So I want to ask, what is the mood among voters in North Carolina, and just how much of a factor could this conflict be for that critical Senate race? Well, I think the biggest conflict is the economy. As a result of the war, and even before the war, we had issues of the economy here in North Carolina, and that's why this could be a switched state for the Republicans moving to the Democratic side of the aisle. So this is where it's up to the administration, with the help of Congress, to communicate what pain we might go through with this war, but also explain if we go through this pain, we stop future pain that might occur on you and your grandchildren and great-grandchildren, because that's what hopefully the only reason we get into war is to prevent even a more serious crisis down the road. And the administration's doing a very poor job in that area, and yes, that's going to impact the midterms, especially every time you fill up your gas tank. Now, a lot of things can happen between now and November, which could completely reverse it, but right now there is just total chaos. I mean, one day you hear this, and the next day you hear something very depressing, and the stock market goes up 1,000 points one day and goes down 800 to 1,000 points the next. There's got to be some continuity and less chaos. And right now, it's almost as though Washington, both Congress and the executive branch, is thriving on chaos because they care more about the midterms than the long-term health and security of our country. There's too many short-term thinking people in D.C. right now and not people thinking long-term. And they ought to say the hell with the midterms in their thinking. They ought to be making decisions that have an impact on the next decade, not the next several months. Well, let's talk about the future before I let you go. We only have a couple of minutes, but I do want to know about each of your futures. First, Governor, do you have any plans to run for office again that we should know about anything you're mulling? I don't think I could get elected dog catcher in either party because I don't meet the Lippness test in either party. I couldn't get through a Republican primary right now. And the Republicans call me a rhino and the Democrats call me a right-wing extremist. So I feel very comfortable where I am at this point in time. All right, Senator. And by the way, that's part of the problem. Even the media, we're doing too much labeling. Well, he's conservative. He's liberal. People like Joe Manchin and I, we look at each issue kind of on its own because each issue is so complex. Maybe you look at it without labels, maybe no labels. Senator Manchin. Well, that's one of the reasons I joined. I'm down about it. Senator Manchin, your political future. My political future is basically trying to get the people of America understanding how to take back their government. How basically can we take control again? Because it's about the people. Right now it's not. It's about the party. These people running for office today and are serving right now, they're putting their party before their country. And basically, they take, we all took the same oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution. We all took that oath of office. And basically, we all worked for the people who represent us, basically who we represent. They elected us to represent them, whether it be Pat in North Carolina, me in West Virginia. We didn't, you know, I didn't work for the president. I didn't work for Chuck Schumer. I didn't work for Mitch McConnell or anybody else. I basically had to answer to the people. And when I couldn't answer, I wouldn't vote for it. If I couldn't go home and explain, I wouldn't vote for it. When you talked about what's going to happen in midterms, they're going to vote your pocketbook. Let me tell you what happened in 2022. By June of 2022, inflation was at 9%. Okay? The borders were porous. The Democrats had screwed up Raleigh, basically, on those two things. And they paid the price in 2024. People didn't forget. We brought down by 2023, inflation was back to 3.5%. Gas was back to $3. But people didn't get credit for that. They remembered all the heartache. And right now, you're not talking that many months out, to the primaries are starting to happen pretty soon. And then you get the general election coming in November. People will remember how hard this has been and how difficult. Whether it's buying food, buying fuel for transportation, your gas, or diesel fuel. I have a diesel truck. And my gut, I'm paying $5.60 a gallon. And also, look at your electric bill. Look at your utility bills. The cost of everything has gone up tremendously. It will not come down that quick. And that'll be a tremendous price to pay. And usually during a midterm. We're running out of time here. But before I let you go, I do want to ask, given everything that you both are laying out, could we see no labels get revived for 2028, Senator? I think until we change, until we change how we run our primaries, if you don't have an open primary where I can go in as an independent and decide how I want to vote. Or if I can go in and basically we have everyone in. You have Democrats, Republicans, and independents, and I can vote for four of the top people. We have to have more input on representation. And they're selecting it. It's not us selecting who we want to represent us. It's basically the party selecting who's going to represent us. It's not the purpose and it's not the purpose of a representative form of democracy. We have got to change that first. And I'm going to work with Pat. Pat and I belong to the same mentality. Get something done, put the country first, and let's get this country back to the basic rules. Yeah, Governor, do you want to see no labels come back? Would you be a part of it again? Oh, I'd love to have it come back. But they know, it was a great attempt by Joe and me and others. But the system is just rigged at this point in time. So any politician who says it's rigged for the other party knows it's rigged for both parties. And by the way, I want to tell your Washington audience, your national audience, this is not just a Washington problem. The same dynamics are occurring in our state capitals and even in city governments and county governments, where we have one party control everywhere and a lack of cooperation because the same dynamics are occurring sadly outside of Washington due to the same money structure that we have in government and the same power structure that we have in government. And those in corporate America and legal community all kind of play the system as it is today. And anyone who's going to challenge that system is going to have some political blood, not real blood on their hand and be willing to take the risk of maybe not getting elected. And I think that's what me and Joe would be willing to do is risk our current political seat to do the right thing in the long term. And we need more people to have the courage to do that in D.C. and our state capitals and in our city halls. All right, gentlemen, that is all. Dr. Roy, what you're talking about is no labels real quick. If no labels could have got on all 50 ballots, if we could have gone, we couldn't navigate basically the way the parties had everybody blocked out. You're fighting all their energy and all their resources. We're just trying to get on the ballot. Think if we'd have had access to the ballot. We could have put a team together. Whether it be me or Pat or whoever it would have been, former Democrat, former Republican, putting the country first and running it in a bipartisan way, the country is hungry for that. They would have loved that. And we'd have loved to have been part of that. All right, gentlemen, that is all the time we have. Thank you so much for this conversation. Former West Virginia independent Senator Joe Manchin and former North Carolina Republican Governor Pat McRory. Thank you both. This was a great conversation. Thanks for joining me. Congratulations. Thank you all. Good to be with you, Pat. Thank you, Joe. All right, let's turn now to this week's C-SPAN flashback, where we dig deep into the video archives to show you a moment in political history that's eerily similar to what's happening today. This week, the United States and Iran agreed to a ceasefire, avoiding the deadline President Trump had set before the war would escalate. Let's now flashback to 2003, amid tensions with Iraq and then President George W. Bush, issuing his own ultimatum to Iraq's leader Saddam Hussein. Watch. All the decades of deceit and cruelty have now reached an end. Saddam Hussein and his sons must leave Iraq within 48 hours. Their refusal to do so will result in military conflict commenced at a time of our choosing. For their own safety, all foreign nationals, including journalists and inspectors, should leave Iraq immediately. The Iraqi government dismissed the deadline, and after the 48 hours, the United States initiated military operations and marked the start of the 2003 Iraq War. After the invasion by U.S. and coalition forces, Baghdad fell within weeks, and Iraq was occupied for years. To talk about the current war in Iran and other top stories, I'm joined by two political pros from both sides of the aisle. Republican strategist Mark Lodder, former special assistant to President Donald Trump, he's also the co-host of Wake Up America on Newsmax. And Democratic strategist Ashley Etienne, former senior advisor to President Joe Biden and President Barack Obama. Thank you both so much for being with me today, your old friends of the show, so you know the deal here. No fighting, but I will look to both of you to kind of put your strategist hats on here and explain why each of your parties is doing what they're doing, how they're approaching this critical political moment. I want to start with actually what you guys just saw there, thinking about back in 2003, what lessons has the United States learned from the Iraq War? Mark. Well, I think you saw that in the way President Trump approached Iran. He did not send infantry units and boots on the ground into Iran. He took out their direct threat to the region through nuclear weapons. He's taking out their military capabilities. And he's also made it very clear at the right time, the Iranian people should be the ones to rise up and set aside that regime and bring on a new Democratic government. But it's going to be up to them, not the United States, not our Arab partners, to do that and try to impose our will on Iran. Ashley, when you think about that time and you watch that clip, what goes through your mind? I think the concern is that we're making the same mistakes we made then, that we are committing a lot of money. I mean, I think maybe the President's come off the $200 billion that he was asking for to support the war in Iran, that we now have 40,000 troops in the region that are now in vulnerable positions. And that there's even discrepancies within the administration about whether or not this is a justified war. So it seems to me that we might be making the same mistake in Iraq 2.0. And then I would say sort of the lessons that came out of Iraq that we've not seen here is we're going this alone. That's really the other concern. We have no allies, no strategy, and no alignment with the one ally that we're engaged in in this warfare with, and that's Israel. So I think there's a lot of, we're making some of the same mistakes, but then in other areas we're going in a different direction than even Bush did that makes this even more vulnerable as a nation. Let's talk about this ceasefire. Bloomberg writes U.S. President Donald Trump has two weeks to figure out whether he's untangled the knot he created in Iran or just pulled it tighter. Trump's announcement Tuesday that he was accepting a proposal for a two-week ceasefire in Iran was met by relief in global capitals and jubilations and financial markets. Worries are quelled for now about whether he'd push forward with attacks on civilian infrastructure and plunge the region into further conflict with a bombing campaign. Mark, how crucial are these next couple of weeks for the White House? Well, I don't think they're crucial for the White House. I think they're crucial for Iran because we have to remember here this war will end at our choosing when their threat is removed, their ability to build nuclear weapons, deliver them in the Middle East, and even two capitals in Europe has been removed. But it's the regime itself that's got to decide does it want any chance at survival and what will that look like, and that's really going to be up to them. And we have to remember too when it comes to these ceasefire terms that we keep seeing reported out in the media, especially those coming from the Iranian regime, that's them trying to communicate to their people that they're standing tough when they're saying something else completely to U.S. negotiators because they know this is their only chance to not only stay in power but to stay alive. Actually, what should Democrats be doing in this moment? How should they be articulating what's going on for their constituents? Well, I just have been in contact with both the leadership on both sides of the chamber. And as you know, they've introduced a war powers resolution on both sides, the House, they did it on the House side, and they're going to be doing it on the Senate side in a matter of days. My advice is that they need to introduce a suite of bills, go beyond just the war powers, introduce a bill admonishing the president on his rhetoric, introduce a bill about the war crime, bombing schools and killing civilians, introduce a bill that would cut funding to the war altogether outside of necessary sort of functions. And I think that would help to build out the narrative a little more and apply more pressure on the Republicans. I then suggested to them what they need to do is an outside strategy. You've got an inside strategy where you introduce these suites of bills. The outside strategy is to activate a ground game in these 40 seats that the House is targeting to win in the midterms. And then the states where the Senate is targeting to win the midterms go into those states, get some ground pressure going on those Republicans on these issues of the war powers, the war crimes, all of these resolutions, push the ground swell of pressure on the Republicans to box them in, drive local media, drive local phone calls into those members' offices. I think that is what's going to actually make the difference here. Take the argument now outside of Washington and set the ground ablaze in these districts, in these states where you think you can win. Mark, same question for you about Republicans, especially the ones that are campaigning right now. Voters still have a ton of questions about what's going on and what we're doing and why we're doing it. How should they handle this inflection point here? Well, first off, I hope the Democrats do everything Ashley just said, please do, because it will show them that they are the Neville Chamberlain's and the French in weak against our enemies. Iran has been a threat to the world for 47 years and every president, regardless of party, has identified the threat, said something needs to be done about it. President Trump is actually the only leader who stepped up to do it. And we have our fighting men and women in the field right now in combat. And if Democrats want to walk away from that, that's something that they can try to do. And the American people, Republicans, should stand strong. We can question things later, but while our men and women are in combat and we are looking to take out an enemy that's not new, we have known they are the enemy for 47 years. George W. Bush put them as part of the axis of evil. Why shouldn't we be strong in front of our enemies? And we can talk about some of the politics behind it after the fact. But Mark, you know, it's not just Democrats that are coming out critical of the president here. It's some of his strongest supporters, some of the leaders of the MAGA movement on the right. Look at this NBC News piece from Tuesday. MAGA influencers push back on Trump on Iran. It's time to say no. Saying President Donald Trump is starting to destroy Iranian civilization after campaigning in part of a no-new-wars mantra in 2024. His reversal, screening major strains within his own Make America Great Again movement, evident in increasingly loud dissent from some of his most prominent media figures, resistance from a growing number of GOP lawmakers and polling. I mean, how politically damaging could this be when it is people inside of the movement that are crying out right now? Well, let's remember, look, the political parties on both sides have their various wings. And I would say your Tucker Carlson's and your Meghan Kelley's are no different than AOC and the squad. They are the radical wing nuts on both sides. The vast majority of people in the polls have shown that more than 90 percent of the Republican Party supports what the president is doing. So let's not be distracted by what I would say the wing nuts are saying. America first, the MAGA movement has never been isolationist. It has never been weak in front of our enemies. And if they want to have that argument, they can do that, but they're going to come out on the losing end of it. So I would say let's focus where the majority of the party is. And I would say most even moderate middle-of-the-road Americans, we don't run away from our enemies. And so Republicans who are worried about this, they should not try to become Democrat light. They should become Republicans strong and stand with America, stand with our troops, stand with the commander in chief. And trust me, in an election, when it's weakness versus strength, strength always wins. The reason why I suggested that Democrats go into these states, into these districts, and drive and pressure Republicans on this, it is because 61 percent of independents disagree with the president's war in Iran. He did even more disagree with his tactics in Iran. So this is an independent play. And those are the voters that are going to make the difference in the midterm elections. We're seeing right now elections that just happened just recently where you had voter turnout among Republican voters. That's down. We've seen that consistently throughout the year. We've also seen where Democrats have flipped 28 seats, if not more at this point. So the Republican party is in a very vulnerable position. So my point is go into these states, exploit that vulnerability. There is, you could do two things at one time. You can still support your troops while ensuring that you hold the president accountable to his commitment to the troop and to the nation. And that's the position that Democrats have to take. And I think it's an independent voter play. Let's talk for a moment about the vice president, because he's about to take on quite a task. He is headed to Islamabad to negotiate with the Iranians. The New York Times report about president Trump's decision making in the process to wage war noted concerns from the vice president. This piece says Mr. Vance Warren, Mr. Trump, that a war against Iran could cause regional chaos and untold numbers of casualties. It could also break apart Mr. Trump's political coalition and could be seen as a betrayal by many voters who had brought in, bought into the promise of no new wars. Mr. Vance, whose disagreement with the whole premise was well established, addressed the president. You know, I think this is a bad idea, but if you want to do it, I'll support you. Mark, does this reporting, do these reported comments help or hurt the vice president in his political future? Well, as you know, I worked for the previous vice president under Donald Trump. And the one thing you never heard was a vice president coming out publicly with their disagreement with the president. So I think that is a fundamental mistake if that reporting is true. So this is an opportunity for the current vice president to literally show that he can help deliver the peace that the president has promised. I think it's very important for him to do that. And I would caution them and their team to not have these kinds of stories crop up, because in all the years that I worked and, well, worked closely with the first administration and vice president Mike Pence, you never had a story about where he disagreed with Donald Trump, even if he might have privately, you never heard it. Until it was too late. Go ahead. So my only point is, is it a mistake or is it strategy or is it hedging? I think that's, I think, I think we don't give Vance enough credit. When we talk about his strategic sort of acumen. So I think it is less a mistake. And I think it's more hedging and he's looking, he's forward looking. I think he thinks that this is, to some degree, a mistake. Again, we're going at this alone. Never at a time in American history have we had such distrust of the American government from not just our allies, but from our foes. Again, we're committing, potentially going to commit billions of dollars to a war where we don't have any exit strategy. So I think the vice president's hedging is best. Do you think that this conflict hurts the vice president's chances in 2028? Well, I think he'll be able to say, he'll be able to point to statements like this to say, well, I never fully believed in it, but I was doing my job. I mean, very much like what you heard Pence say, you know, when he left the White House was like, I didn't believe in everything, but I had a duty to do my job and a duty to the nation. So I think that's probably going to be his line. Mark, the leading of negotiations, what Vance is about to take on here, is this an opportunity or is it a big risk for him? I think it's both. I think it's an opportunity if he can pull this off, along with President Trump, because it doesn't matter who the president sends in there. The vice, the president is ultimately going to be making the final decision. Someone's picking up the phone, calling the president and says, this is what their plan is. This is what I countered with. And he will be the one to say, yes or no. So it will be President Trump's deal. But you want to be seen as being a key player in negotiating that piece. If it falls apart, then you're going to be out there championing our troops and our American initiative as we continue to press the war until it comes to an end. We've touched on 2028 elections, but let's look a little closer to now in this timeline. We've got the midterms in November and we just had a bit of a bellwether with this Georgia special election. The House GOP got a boost with the Trump-Endorsed candidate, Clay Fuller, winning the special election to replace Marjorie Taylor-Green. But it was also a pretty good showing for Democrats, given just how red that district is. NBC News writes, Republicans win Georgia race, but Democrats post-largest swing yet in special House elections. Republican Clay Fuller carried Georgia's 14th district by 12 points. President Donald Trump carried the district by 37 points in 2024. Ashley, what does this say for Democrats? How should they read this? Well, I can tell you it's not a boost for the president. I mean, it was a district you were supposed to win, but we actually made incredible gains in that district. And to me, what it says is what we've been seeing over the course of this year is that a tremendous amount of dissatisfaction with the president, that the president made certain commitments and promises to the American people when he was running. He committed to lower prices on day one, prices are higher than they've ever been, including gas prices and groceries that could go on and on. He committed to not to ending all the wars. Now we're in more wars than we were when Joe Biden was in office. We've bombed more than eight countries in total. He also made a commitment that that he would prioritize the interest of America and put America first. And now we, the American people, including Republicans are feeling like the president has lost sight of that. So that's what's really happening right now is you're seeing now the American public's dissatisfaction with this administration. The challenge for them though is there is no exit strategy here, nor is there an exit strategy in Iran. There's no plans to turn around the economy. No plans to address the issues that are really, that are really, that American people are struggling with. But I will say one thing. My advice to my party is now is the time. I mean, we're past that time in fact, but now is the time to introduce and roll out an affirmative agenda, a vision for the nation that contrasts with what President Trump is actually offering. One that's rooted in affordability, accountability of the president. And then there's got to be this third bucket I'm going to title sort of innovation. We've got to, we can't bring new voters to the table with stale ideas. We've got to start innovating and coming up with new ideas. We've always been a party that's been forward looking. So with the economy and everything in flux and in transformation, we need to introduce an affirmative agenda with innovation anchoring most of it. And look, while there are certain headwinds for Republicans, Democrats are still polling even worse than the president. So they've got some work to do. Yeah. And I think the affirmative action actually addresses that issue. When I worked for Pelosi and I was running the opposition for her, we were down maybe six points very much like where Democrats are now to Republicans. But after we introduced the pro-active agenda and started to run on it, mobilizing on it and fundraising on it, we went up double digits going into the summer on Republicans. So that's what they have to do. That's the missing gap. Yeah, Mark, what do Republicans do with these Georgia election results? Take them for what they are. It's a special election in a Ruby Red District. You're never going to get turnout on that level when Republicans know they're going to win this seat. And you're basically just getting the most party loyalists that are going to come out. Make sure it gets across the finish line. So I'm not worried about one special election in the middle of April. But Mark, there have been a number of these examples, right? We had the elections last year. Just on Tuesday in Wisconsin, the Supreme Court election, the Democratic-backed candidate won there. I mean, should Republicans be taking some lessons from these last few elections that saw Democrats? I mean, Politico is writing a wow moment. Democrats election hot street goes scorching. I mean, is this a narrative? I'll do respect, Dasha. I'm not going to put a lot of stock in what Politico is writing. But I'm going to tell you. I do take some offense to them. But I will tell you, listen, Mark, I just, but I want to know strategically for Republicans, like when you, Politico is not the only one writing those kinds of headlines, right? Like, what do Republicans do with that? And the polling and the outcomes from literally the polls, like the ballot box, are telling Republicans something right now, no? Well, you've got a few more months and we have the benefit of having the control and the ability to do the things that we need to do, whether it is end of the war. And then also, I'm already seeing that the markets for oil have dropped in October, September, back down to pre-war levels. That's what the markets are expecting. So there goes gas prices just in time for November. You also have the ability of the fact that we have the free market answers to solve the affordability crisis that was created by Joe Biden and Democrats in the mainstream media were telling us to ignore it. It was just transitory. People remember that it was the Democrats in control and Joe Biden that drove prices up. Despite the fact that we have a war in the Middle East, gas still doesn't cost right now as much as it did under Joe Biden, and it won't. And it's going to come back down. So you do have the ability to actually lean into this because you are showing leadership. You are doing the things that need to be done, whether it is making the world safer, addressing affordability issues. And if there are some blips in the road, you will have to handle that. But I think if you try to panic and go to become Democrat-like, that never shows that it's going to work. You need to run on your record, and they have accomplished it a lot, and we still have time to accomplish even more. All right, Mark, I'll give you a headline you'll like a little better. Here's one that says GOP banking on Trump's wall of cash to stop Dems in midterms. Trump's war chest tops a half billion dollars. Despite the terrible polls, a series of recent GOP election losses and projections that the party could lose the house majority in November, top Republicans see hope in their financial might. How important is that war chest, Mark? It's absolutely critical. As we know, people at home, not in Washington, DC, New York, in the media, or in politics, they don't hang on every word like we do. So you've got to be able to reach them, whether that is through paid advertising, whether that's through events, whether that is in their social media. And so being able to deploy that war chest in very strategic places and the president's team, they know. And remember, every person that ever went to a rally over the last 12 years, every person that's been reached, they've got that contact information. They know how to reach these people. Now you've got to just get them to the polls in November. Ashley, more money, more problems? You know, one of my favorite rappers. No. So I mean, what we've seen over time is that money, there's limitations to money, that money doesn't win elections. I do agree with Mark that money enables you to do more. But the reality is, if we get back to Mark's point, the American people aren't going to forget that what they've been experiencing for the last two years, if they didn't forget what Joe Biden did, why would they have amnesia about Donald Trump and the Republicans, the American people know that the Republicans are in charge and have been for two years, that this can't be blamed on Joe Biden. So they're going to have to account for the experience that the American people have gone through. I think one of the lines that Republicans would consistently say is that Joe Biden would, in his administration and talkers, Democratic talkers, would try to convince people that their reality is not their real reality. And here's the point behind all of that, which I don't disagree with him. But now that's what Republicans are trying to do now, is trying to convince the American people that what you're experiencing is not real reality. That's not what you're really experiencing. So it's going to be a problem for them. And I think the money has limitations. And the real issue is not going to be whether or not Republicans showed up to rally and they have their contact information. It's going to be those independent voters. Those are going to be the people who are going to make the difference. But beyond the tactical... One thing I will be able to say quickly though, go ahead Mark. If the gas prices are down and the Ayatollahs and the supreme leaders in Iran are no longer a threat, I think most of the American people will go, yeah, I was willing to pay a little bit higher gas prices for a couple of months to eliminate the largest sponsor of terror in the world. But Mark, I just bought Lucky Charms for my daughter and they were... It was $9.99 a box. $10 for Lucky Charms. I mean, even if you address gas prices, we're too far gone in so many areas of the public's life. Electricity bills. I mean, there's so many areas that are just unaffordable now that I'm not buying that. Well, to Mark's point, there is some time and I think what Mark is saying is true and the inverse is also true. If we are still involved in Iran, if gas prices are still high, that poses a challenge to Republicans. If the president solves those problems, it's an advantage. So there's a lot of environmental factors that matter here too. But they were losing before Iran. Don't forget that. When we were talking about these 28 races that we flipped, those were all happening before Iran. So let's not, you know, convince ourselves that if Iran ends and gas prices ends, that that's going to make the difference for the Republicans. I don't believe that that's true. Right. Mark, 20 seconds to respond and then I got to wrap you all. Yeah, I just also remember that Democrats don't have a plan to Ashley's earlier point. And right now, in a choice between a positive vision and just we hate Trump, that's it. Right. Time will tell and that is all the time that we have. Thank you both so much. Democratic strategist Ashley Etienne, Republican strategist Mark Lauder, thank you for bringing your expertise here. And let's close this week's program with our ceasefire moment of the week. NASA's Artemis II crew completed a historic lunar flyby this week, breaking the record for the farthest human beings have ever traveled into space. During the journey, the astronauts captured images of the far side of the moon. Afterwards, President Trump called them in space. You've made history and made all America really proud, incredibly proud. We have a lot of things to be proud of lately, but this is there's nothing like what you're doing circling around the moon for the first time in more than a half a century and breaking the all time record for the farthest distance from planet Earth. Humans have really never seen anything quite like what you're doing in manned spacecraft. It's really special. I want to personally salute and congratulate Commander Reed Weissman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen. And I also want to thank the entire amazing team at NASA. Artemis II is setting the groundwork for future moon missions. That's all the time we have for this episode. Ceasefire is also available as a podcast. Find us in all the usual places. I'm Dasha Burns and remember whether or not you agree, keep talking and keep listening.