Trump’s War in Iran Accomplished Nothing (ft. Tommy Vietor)

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Built with a long-lasting battery so you're not scrambling for an outlet and built in intelligence that makes updates around your schedule not in the middle of it. Find technology built for the way you work at dell.co.uk forward slash Dell PCs. Built for you. Dell PCs with Intel inside are built for every moment with long-lasting battery life and built in intelligence. You can stay focused on what matters most. Dell Technologies built for you. Dell.com slash Dell PCs. We went through an entire year of lecturing them that Europe was their problem. Ukraine was their problem. They need to focus on their defense and their continent. And now we're telling them to mop up after us and clean up our war. I mean, it's just it is entirely incoherent. It is just Trump trying to blame someone else for the disaster that he caused. I don't think it's serious or credible. I mean, it sounds like we're kind of cutting off our nose to spite our face here. Welcome to Reaching Moderates. I'm Jessica Tarlove and I'm very psyched to have Tommy Vitor with us. He hosts Pod Save the World. Pod Save America. I don't know. Do people usually lead with World over America? You know, whenever there's a genocide being threatened, we can go with that one first, I guess. Okay. We already hit genocide. Also, former spokesperson for the National Security Council under President Obama. Tommy, thank you for joining me. Thank you for having me. It's great to see you. If you aren't already, please subscribe to our YouTube page to stay in the loop on all politics news. Also, huge news, huge. We've been nominated for a Webby Award for the Best News and Politics podcast in the whole universe. I don't know if that's true, but it feels really good and it feels that big. We need you guys to vote. We're up against a Midas Touch podcast and they have like an army. It's like a pro-democracy army over there. So please go to vote.webbyawords.com and cast your vote. I know it's a little wonky to do it, but I would really appreciate it if you would. And if Scott were here, he would also implore you to do so. It's been a while. Last time I saw you was at CrookedCon in D.C. We had a lot of fun. Yeah, we did have a lot of fun. Yeah, it was, I told you when I saw you at the after party, like I'm never around liberals. So it was interesting. I watch you do battle on TV all the time, like almost every day. And I just got to say, like, goddamn, you are a good fighter. I would lose. I'd flip the table and walk out. I think on my last day, whatever that may be, and don't get excited if you're Donald Trump listening to this, we could do a table flip or something. Please. You've hung with Jesse Waters. You know that like, he's actually a good hang. He seems like he's in on the bit. I can't ever tell if Guffeld would use it. He just wears the funniest clothes, sort of sits there in that corner seat, slink down, talking shit. It's great. Anyway, I enjoy watching you. It's a vibe. The five is a vibe. And the war in Iran is a vibe as well. That was a terrible segue. Same with transition. Here we go. So I've been saying this since the announcement of the ceasefire, that there is no ceasefire. And I think that we should stop using that term in general. Missiles are still flying all over the Middle East in every direction. It seems like the US was really the only ones that slowed down, frankly, at all. Donald Trump continues to declare victory, but also is demanding that our European allies send military support to help us get the Strait of Hormuz open. The Iranians are now saying that at max, 15 vessels will be getting through. It is still unclear what they will be charging, whether it's the dollar, a barrel, paid in crypto, or the 2 million per tanker that they'll split with the Omanis. Either way, it's usually 100 ships that get through. There's supposed to be big negotiations on Saturday with Jared Kushner, Steve Wittkopf, and JD Vance for the American side. Where do you think that we stand at this moment? I'm with you. I think there's sort of like a ceasefire name only. I mean, the biggest debate at the moment is over whether Lebanon is included in the terms of the ceasefire. And it seems like it is or was supposed to be, because the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Shaba Sharif, tweeted out in no uncertain terms that there was a ceasefire effective immediately, and he said, quote, everywhere, including Lebanon. So we can also now know that Sharif's previous tweet, where he was like, talks are going well, he was pushing Trump for a two-week extension. The New York Times reported today that that language had already been seen and signed off on by the White House. So it seems like now everyone is trying to pretend that Lebanon was not included, especially the Israelis, who are just absolutely pounding targets in Lebanon. I think they hit 100 targets in 10 minutes on Wednesday. So it doesn't seem like they're pretty keen on there being a ceasefire deal. Obviously, as you said, the Strait of Hormuz is closed. There is a 400-some-odd tanker backlog. And if they're going to let through 15 boats a day, like that's not going to do anything to lessen that problem. So this feels quite tenuous at best. Absolutely. And I mean, when you say Israel is not keen for Lebanon to be included, I don't even really count Israel as being included. And I think that that is the perspective that BB Netanyahu has as well, because the Israelis were openly very frustrated that they weren't in these talks to begin with, at least the latest round that included the draft tweet that came, it seems like for our side, I'm sure you saw that at originally. It had like draft for Pakistani prime minister. And then they were like, oh, shit, got to take that down. Oops. Okay. So we agree, tenuous at best. I saw as well that if we move off of war footing in the Israeli context that BB's corruption trial will resume on Sunday, which I hadn't thought about in a while, but is continually a factor. We've talked about that with Trump as well. He had to win the 2024 election to be able to stay out of a courtroom. And BB Netanyahu is very much in a similar position on his home turf. Yeah, it's worth remembering that before October 7th, they were massive protests in the streets in Israel because Netanyahu was basically trying to shred the judicial system in Israel to take over more power to keep himself out of prison. He's got a number of corruption trials. It ranges from kind of like venal, you know, typical kind of corruption, like accepting cigars and champagne and other gifts to like major regulatory giveaways to media organizations in exchange for good coverage. So he's a corrupt, terrible leader who has a lot of reasons why he wants to avoid an election and stay in power and keep himself out of jail. I want to, I guess, swerve it to what you think is possible at this point. And I've been trying very hard to, you know, look at successes where there have been and there have certainly been some major military successes, though I still am a bit cloudy on the why now in all of this. You know, Iran has been an existential threat for a very long time, right? And people saying like this was imminent from, you know, the last 47 years, that was Tom Cotton's line, I think. Nonsense, yeah. Total nonsense. So what do you think is a best case scenario for us looking at the facts on the ground? Well, so the context for me is the Obama's nuclear deal with Iran, I think took 18 months to negotiate. JD Vance has what, 10 days left to cut a deal. And so there, you know, maybe they can negotiate another ceasefire extension. And maybe it's an actual ceasefire this time that allows an opening through the Strait of Ramuse that leads to Trump punting again and again. But I mean, I just, I find it incredibly unlikely that Trump is going to find some broader deal that resolves all the things he says he wants to resolve. I mean, if you think about the priorities, like the number one priority is dealing with Iran's nuclear program and the spirit of being a raging moderate, like certainly their nuclear sites are badly damaged, but we were under the impression that they were totally obliterated last June. The problem is that there's still 900 pounds of highly enriched uranium sitting in Iran somewhere. And you could take some of that, spin it in some centrifuges, enrich it and get to bomb grade pretty quickly. So that is a real problem. And I suspect the most analysts think that Iran is more motivated than ever to seek a nuclear weapon as a deterrent because they don't want to get bombed every six months. Again, like Iran's military, we did a ton of damage to them, right? The Navy, the Air Force, the air defense systems, but like that was not an existential threat to the United States. It might have been to Israel. We also bombed their, you know, industrial capacity and ability to rebuild, but they still have the ability to fire like 15 to 30 missiles a day, 50 to 100 drones a day. So they have some capacity to create economic havoc in the region. And then there was this, you know, question of their support for proxy groups like Hezbollah. And I think going forward, the big question for me is, will Iran be able to continue to charge this toll on tanker ships? Because if the answer is yes, that gives them a massive financial windfall that they can use to both replenish their military and to support Hamas, Hezbollah, all the groups we say we want them to stop supporting. So, you know, that doesn't seem, that seems like a very bad setup. And then the final one is regime change. And remember, Trump was saying early on, not only that he wanted regime change, but that he wanted to pick the next leader. Instead, we swapped Ali Haman, who is 86, and going to regime change naturally to his younger, more hardline son, whose entire family we have killed. So it doesn't, like in no way do I feel like we're in a better position vis-a-vis Iran now than we were before this war started. And do you think our European allies are going to heed Trump's latest warning or threat that they have to support us militarily when it comes to the strait? I mean, like, do they really have the capacity to do that much? I don't think they do. I don't know. It's like we, the whiplash between the positions of like, ha-ha, at the idea that there is a decent set of armed forces across Europe, let alone a navy that could help us out too. Like, god damn it, why aren't you sending all of your best men and gals, though I don't think Trump and Hex out to ever say gals, to help us out, is very confusing to me. Like, are they the weakest organization in human history without any good warfighters? Or are they going to be our saviors in this partnership? Yeah, it's hard to say. Yeah, like, look, the French have some ships, the Germans have some military capacity, the UK has some capacity, but not nearly what we have. And by the way, we just, we went through an entire year of lecturing them that Europe was their problem, Ukraine was their problem, they need to focus on their defense and their continent. And now we're telling them to mop up after us and clean up our war. I mean, it's just, it is entirely incoherent. It is just Trump trying to blame someone else for the disaster that he caused. I don't think it's serious or credible. And it sounds like now they're examining all these ways that the US could potentially punish NATO countries that didn't go along with this gambit, including by pulling US forces out of a country like Spain. But I mean, at the end of the day, it's like us having four deployed troops like that helps us project power. So we're kind of cutting off our nose to spite our face here. Absolutely. I do want to NATO hop a little bit. I guess I mean, Secretary Ruta in his comments sounded, I don't want to say as bad as Todd Blanche and that press conference that he gave is they interim AG. But I'm watching, you know, this play out with JD Vance in Hungary, stumping for Victor Orban, which is somehow not political interference. I certainly don't understand how that's the case. And then there's reporting, which I hadn't seen before, that Hungary had actually offered assistance to Iran after the Pager attack last year. So just to be clear, we're trying to get a peace deal, or at least a legitimate ceasefire with the Iranians as JD Vance is piling around with Orban, who stand shoulder to shoulder with the Iranians. Anyway, the craziness of all of that. And then at the same time, the continued threats that the US is going to leave NATO or at least scale back our presence there. So how, I guess, strong do you think the alliance is at this particular moment? And what do you make of JD Vance in Hungary? Yeah, I'll start with JD Vance. I mean, it is remarkable to me. First of all, it's remarkable to me politically that he's there, because Europe is now facing its own energy shock, its energy crisis. Most of it's in the form of natural gas. I think everyone knows that the reason for that is the war with Iran. And, you know, you're seeing reports that even the most right wing parties in Europe, like the AFD in Germany, the neo-Nazis in Germany are now distancing themselves from Donald Trump, because he is becoming so unpopular. And yet JD Vance, who has none of Trump's actual political appeal, or sense of humor, or like Riz out there on the stump, is showing up in Hungary to stump for this illiberal populist who is not only like, you know, he's as corrupt as corrupt gets. And, you know, for your listeners, like, I don't just mean corruption in the form of taking bribes or whatever, but he's doing that. You know, he's installing like his brother-in-law in key positions. But I mean, like corrupting the entire state of Hungary, the courts, the media, all of it, to enrich himself and to keep his party, the Fidesz party in power. On top of that, like Putin uses Orban to screw with the EU and prevent any support for Ukraine. Netanyahu uses Orban to prevent the EU from sanctioning Israel. The Chinese use Orban, they give him money and investment, and prevent China from being sanctioned in the EU. And now Trump's using Orban to kind of mess with the EU over like media laws for tech companies or whatever and all the things they don't like. So it's just, it's crazy to me that like this is the guy we've gone all in on, but that's kind of been where the Magal world has been for a long time. In terms of NATO's capacity, like Trump is not wrong, I don't think when he says sort of NATO is us, like so much of the NATO architecture is built on US military power and interoperability and assets and whatever. So it would be a massive problem if he were to pull out of NATO. The good news is that I think Marco Rubio passed a law saying that it would require an act of Congress to actually formally pull out of NATO, though you could do a lot of things to weaken and hobble it in the interim. Yeah, I feel like we've stopped talking about Putin a bit and all of this, like the beginning of the war, we were talking about him all the time and like how he's going to be a net beneficiary of it. And then that talking point went away and I would like to bring it back because it seems like this ceasefire and what basically everything our administration is doing is just giving him more time, right? And more power, cash, weapons, etc. And then also really helping the Chinese. So can you like access of evil us a little bit about how everyone is benefiting? I'll David from this for you. The Russians are the most obvious ones, as you just said. I mean, when the oil prices go way up, Putin is reaping way more revenue. On top of that, the US was getting rid of sanctions on Russia to allow the people to buy their oil. So Putin is winning in every sense economically in terms of the oil markets. At the same time, I think like any like bandwidth in mindshare that might have come out of the White House or like Steve Wyckoff and Jared Kushner and those guys for Trump to push Putin to agree to a ceasefire or a peace deal with Ukraine is just gone, right? Like you can only do a certain number of things at a time. And if we're busy trying to topple the, you know, we're running Venezuela, we're waging this war with Iran, we're preparing to topple Cuba, like Trump's team just doesn't have the time to focus on Ukraine. Now the Chinese, I think, they're benefiting in kind of a different way. They are going to be harmed by, you know, higher energy prices in the long term, though they have much bigger stockpiles. But I think they benefit from the United States just looking like a crazy unreliable partner to the rest of the world. And also, you know, on a more kind of concrete military terms, Xi Jinping knows that the United States is expending all of its interceptor missiles, we're firing off all the Tomahawk missiles or the T-Lam missiles that one would use in a war with China. And so we're certainly hobbling ourselves militarily if there were a conflict with the Chinese going forward. Do you think that they're eyeing Taiwan more seriously as all of this is going on, or that's just like an old school Republican, a pre-Maga Republican talking point, I guess? I mean, I think that Xi Jinping, much like Putin kind of views reunification as part of his legacy projects. In what form that will take, when he will do that is known only to him. I mean, the date you always hear is 2027, which is I think when some U.S. general testifying before Congress said he thought the PLA would be ready to take Taiwan. But I mean, we don't really even know what that would mean. Like, would it mean some sort of blockade on the island? Would it mean actually landing troops? Would it mean, you know, a full-scale invasion? We don't know. I do think ultimately reunification is Xi Jinping's goal and he is not going to hide it. Do you think Trump still goes on his trip to China? Now, I mean, it's been pushed back once already. Yeah. I mean, I think he has to. I think he probably knows it's the most important meeting he'll have this year. He loves the stage. I mean, remember the last time Trump was in China? Like, they took him to the old city. They threw him like a big specialty party and dinner. He like wouldn't stop talking about it for months. Like, he loves the pomp and circumstances and being on the biggest world stage. So I think he knows he has to go. The thing that would worry me if I were Taiwan is that Trump is desperate for an economic deal with China that he can sell back home as somehow beneficial to us. I think he will be thrilled to give up whatever kind of ancillary things, anything human rights related that Xi Jinping wants. So that would not give me a lot of hope. Okay, let's take a break. Stay with us. Ready to launch your business? Get started with the commerce platform made for entrepreneurs Shopify is specially designed to help you start, run and grow your business with easy customizable themes that let you build your brand marketing tools that get your products out there integrated shipping solutions that actually save you time from startups to scale ups online in person and on the go. Shopify is made for entrepreneurs like you sign up for your $1 a month trial at Shopify.com slash setup. I'm Mitch first, two time in the Brazil champion championship MVP and forward for the US women's national team. Before I went pro, I graduated from Harvard with a degree in psychology, which comes in handy more than you think. Any athlete pursuing greatness knows there's a certain mentality you have to have. What people don't know is what that costs. In my podcast, Confessions of Elite athlete, I sit down with the best athletes in the world and explore the psychology, mindset and unseen battles on the path to greatness. So take a seat and learn from the Confessions of an elite athlete on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. I want to tell you about a new podcast from Vox called America actually. It's hosted by political journalist, Estad Herndon who I love. The show asked the question, what will America look like after Donald Trump? Better happen. Trump's been running a one man show for over a decade, but we're heading towards the first open presidential election since 2016. And it'll play out in a country that'll feel very different. America actually digs deep into the questions that you and your friends are asking about politics, culture and the economy. It'll map out the people and ideas that will shape the future beyond Trump. You can watch America actually on the Vox YouTube channel and listen wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back. You know, we've just talked for 15 minutes about various crises all over the world. We just got a GDP report that's been revised even further down to 0.5%. We have a war in Iran. People can't afford their electricity. Certainly can't afford college, go on vacations, healthcare, skyrocketing. And our party is talking a lot about Hassan Piker. I got a rundown yesterday for the five and it was our C-Block. And yeah, we did war. We did a couple blocks of war. And then we're talking about Hassan, who is a very prominent Twitch streamer who has made, if you're being generous, a lot of incendiary comments. There are a lot of people and a lot of ink that has been spilled about anti-submitted comments, misogynistic comments, et cetera. But he was invited to campaign in the Michigan Senate primary on the Democratic side that put this front and center. Either way, it's become this existential question, I guess, within the party. And I wanted to play you a little bit of Jesse Waters talking about Hassan yesterday on the show. How is this not toxic masculinity? Do you know the people that often call you a toxic masculine source are embracing this guy? They are. Well, who cares? The thing about this is I kind of liked his answer to it. He goes, I don't think we want to get into platform policing and cancel culture. I agree with that. So if this guy wants to run and win, he thinks this guy could help him win. Give it a shot. Give it a shot in Michigan. You know what? I respect it. Own it. What? This could cost you a huge, but what is going on? I really feel, do it. I really don't care. Strange bedfellows that get made. And watching the way that Hassan does history, I do understand how captivating it is for people to just watch him, what, 12, 14 hours a day doing that. Where do you fall on, I guess, the broader question? This is not just about Hassan Piker, right? It's about how we do media and what lessons we've learned from 2024. Yeah, allow me to unburden myself. First of all, I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of everything Hassan has said. As you mentioned, he streams for 12 hours a day. I'm sure he said, a lot of stuff I agree with, some stuff I disagree with, some stuff I find offensive. That's not remotely surprising for the media business, right? I do want to take a step back and just say, Democrats, you do end this stupid debate about platforming or not talking to certain people because we disagree with them. First of all, Hassan has a huge platform. And every time someone attacks him, it makes it bigger, right? So we just be honest about that. I think the searches are up 180% for him. There you go. There you go. But if you disagree with him, you have a couple options. Go on his show, explain why, or don't go on his show, and don't explain why. But let's not gatekeep other people and tell them what to do or demand that John Assoff needs to condemn Hassan Piker because Hassan said some nice things about John Assoff. That's how this whole stupid thing started. And I feel so strongly about this because I'm mad at myself for not speaking out about this exact dynamic in like 2018 and 2020. There was this online policing of Democrats, by Democrats of Democrats, and like scolding people if they wanted to go on barstool sports or talk to some edgy comedian or go on Joe Rogan. And it was complete and total political malpractice because we vacated the playing field and Republicans filled it and then they won. And so to win elections, we have to talk to people we disagree with, including having conversations with people whose views might offend us. We don't have to agree with them. We just have to talk to them. And with respect to this recent conversation about Hassan specifically, I just think we should be clear that I think that this is part of a strategy to attack Hassan and kill off debates about Israeli policies and political leaders that are entirely legitimate. And I've experienced those kinds of attacks myself. And I can tell you, it's unbelievably frustrating because a lot of the groups doing it are operating in bad faith. Again, to be clear, anti-Semitism is a scourge. I will call it out. I have called it out. It is obviously wrong and it's anti-Semitic to, for example, blame all Jews for Israeli government policies. But what I find frustrating is that Israel's defenders often do is they take totally legitimate criticism of Israeli government policies or political leaders and say that that is anti-Semitic. And I find that wrong and offensive because I criticize US political leaders all the time and US policies all the time, but I still love America. And like right now, it's manifesting in this conversation about the role Netanyahu played in encouraging Trump to go to war with Iran, and we can dig into that if you want. But like the strategy predates that. Like there's an organization called the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, or IHRA. They released their definition of anti-Semitism. It includes things that we would all agree with like Holocaust denial. Like that's obviously anti-Semitic. But it also says that quote, applying double standards by requiring of Israel a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation that that is anti-Semitic. What the fuck does that even mean? Like I think every nation should not bomb Palestinian civilians. Does that solve the problem? Right? Like that's where I'm coming from on this. And just one final thing, like I find it so frustrating that we're talking about talking to St. Piker and whether that's out of bounds when every president, every member of Congress, every cabinet official meets with BB Netanyahu, an ICC-indicted war criminal who is directly responsible for thousands of innocent deaths in Gaza, Lebanon, and now Iran. Like this guy is corrupt. He's racist. He's venal. He's an awful leader. And as we said before, like before October 7th, he was trying to destroy their judicial system to keep himself out of jail. So like that is the problem to me. Like he's a bad person. He's a bad leader. It is not his religion that I have a problem with. Yeah. I mean, I agree with a large chunk of what you just said. And you know, I have not used the term genocide for what went on in Gaza, but I certainly can see things that be commensurate with war crimes. There was a famine and it was very clear that Israel was the problem with the food and supplies getting into Gaza. And I think that you're completely right that using Hassan, who has said some incredibly offensive things about Israel, I get, I don't even, this is the problem. I don't even know how to talk about this, which is how we get tripped up into these conversations. And I went through and I made sure before I went on the five that I had looked at all the statements that are being run in these montages of the things that he said. And if there were explanations for them, if there had been corrections, like he has said it was a mistake, obviously to say that America deserved 9-11, something like that, that gets used a lot, not just by the right, but by the left. And I think the reality on the ground is that we have to, especially as Democrats, deal with this problem of a huge fissure between the American left and the state of Israel. And it falls squarely on BB Netanyahu. Like that is the line in the sand, essentially, for why we have seen this split. So it's 60% of all Americans now have a negative view. This is according to the latest Pew polling. And it's a majority of people, no matter their politics, under the age of 50. And so if you're looking at this, if you're an Israeli person or you are an Israeli politician and you're looking at life after BB, whenever that comes, I'm sure you're essentially crapping your pants, saying like, we're not going to be able to have a good and decent relationship with this country because of it. And you mentioned, you know, BB's role in this war, that New York Times piece, the Jonathan Swan Maggie Haberman piece with BB in the Situation Room, I brought that up on air yesterday, as you just say, like, guys, everyone in the meeting, except for Trump and Hexeth, saw that it was ranging from farcical to bullshit. And you're talking about Marco Rubio, John Ratcliffe, you know, hunkish people, right? Like people who know what the threat that Iran poses is. And I don't know how we, I don't know how we get around, I guess, having a fissure with Israel now. And you see a lot of people who are in the moderate camp that are saying that, like that we can't be giving aid to them anymore. We can't be supplying them with weapons anymore. Yeah. I mean, look, I think that there is an enormous fissure and anchor at the Israeli government in Netanyahu specifically on the left, but also a growing one on the right. I mean, listen to any episode of Tucker Carlson. There's a lot of focus there. A lot of people say he can cross the line anti-Semitic comments, but a lot of it is a focus on, you know, Israeli government policies and whatever, like, whatever it is, it's influential. But just, I mean, on this broader question of like, sort of Netanyahu's role, I mean, it just, look, Trump is the decider. You know, he owns his decision no matter what, right? But Netanyahu obviously lobbied Trump hard to go to war with Iran. He's asked every president in modern history to bomb Iran's nuclear sites. I mean, I know this because it happened to Obama. But still, like, you know, yesterday I saw this group called Camera, which kind of like, polices media coverage around Israeli issues, put out a press release attacking the press for its coverage of Israel's role in pushing Trump to go to war with Iran. And their press release said, NATO pushed Obama to go to war in Libya, but no one ever blames NATO countries for that decision. And I'm like, I read that and I thought, you're making the opposite point, right? Because actually, I was there. I remember the French pushed Barack Obama really, really hard. President Sarkozy pushed Obama really hard. Sarkozy did want the United States to fight his war against Gaddafi for him. And there's a lot of really sketchy reasons for it now that I won't get into. I've talked about this before. I've talked about how weird it was. No one calls me francophobic when I say that, right? Like, no one accuses me of hating all French people. It was politics. These are political decisions. Like, this is kind of like standard fare. And yet there's this expectation that we have to kind of like tread softly when talking about Netanyahu's role in advocating for this war when back home, he brags about his ability to manipulate leaders in Washington. And I think like, when we silence that debate, when we scare people out of having an honest conversation about it, when we make someone like you who talks for a living like feel uncomfortable having these debates, they get pushed to Nick Fuentes' show or, you know, Tucker's show. And people are like, oh, that's where the real, the honest conversation is happening. So I'm going to turn that way. And I think like that is part of the big problem. I totally agree with you. And it loops back to, I guess, what you're saying initially about being able to go everywhere and have these conversations. And I brought this up at Kirkacon at your conference, which you so generously invited me to, to be on a panel with Hassan Piker, where I said that in a lot of ways, the conversation that I'm having, and I'll be, I get interrupted and all these things are happening. But there is something that I have always felt is quite freeing about being in conservative media for me, because I'm not being policed all the time. And the left, to some degree, gives me a free pass with some stuff, because they're like, oh, well, she works with these people, right? Or like, what are you going to do? You're going to fight about every single thing that said or like, you know, she's a raging moderate. So of course, she's not going to think that, you know, Hillary is as bad as Donald Trump or whatever was being sold on, you know, the left flank of our party as a 2016 election. And I think genuinely that, like on some days, I'm having a much better time in the conversation. I'm having a louder and more impassioned conversation. I'm fighting harder to get my points out in some cases. But there's a real exchange of ideas that's going on. And I would rather be doing that than this kind of like self-flagellation ring that's going on a lot on our side. And it has gotten better, I think, since the 2024 election, but it is far from perfect. And everyone preaches the right talking points like, you know, I on the prize, like affordability, affordability. And then I'm like, why is the Sondpiker like the C block in my rundown? And like, why is this what we're expending our energy with? Like, if you like him, great. If you don't like him, also great. He doesn't care. That's the thing also I've noticed from watching him. His feelings don't get hurt by any of this. And it doesn't seem like he's coming out that hard also against the people who are saying, I don't want to appear with him. He's just like, okay, well, I'm going to go do this thing. And I just like, I think to see this from his point of view for a second, it's like, people are mad at him because of some of the words he said, which, you know, in some cases might be offensive, right? Which are bad. Or bad. But he's like, I'm trying to call attention to kids getting bombed in Gaza or Lebanon. And like, how is that not worse? How is that not a bigger deal? How is that not the thing that is like seizing our attention in this moment? And on your broader point, like, I think there was like some hysteria around cancel culture and like Democrats got kind of pegged with it. And a lot of it was bullshit. But there was a real problem of like online mobs coming down on random people for saying random shit and like punishing them and exiling them in a way that was like, there was no path back, right? There was no sense of forgiveness or any way to like get back into the circle or the, or, you know, whatever the debate was. And that was really bad. Now, I do think this kind of platforming conversation, like people on the left can cheer for Hassan, where it gets more complicated for them is what about letting anti-abortion candidates into the tent? What about a really religious candidate or going on a religious show where those people have more conservative social views, right? This is where it gets uncomfortable. And this is where it gets complicated. But I think the way you, the only way out is through. Go on, talk about it, argue about it. That is the point of politics. We do politics so that we don't kill each other with swords on some field in fucking England somewhere, right? Like, that's what we're doing here. So like, let's just do it. Yeah, I totally agree. And, you know, I had regularly said like, Joe Manchin votes with you 93% of the time. Like, why are you wasting your arrows? And I've been there. Look, I found him super annoying at times. He triggered me. John Federman triggers me. I complain about him all the time. Like, so I'm, I'm trying to do better, but you're fundamentally right. I'm not saying that you can't have legitimate criticisms, but the ostracization or the ideas of supporting, I think, you know, dead end primaries, at least for the districts that you're talking about, because you don't like one or two positions of these people, I think is a fool's errand. And it sends a very bad message to a lot of moderates and a lot of independent people, which is the, you know, the biggest majority block now, the people who identify as an independent, but they say, I don't want to do this. Like, like Jared Golden being hounded out of politics is something that I will like never get over. Yes, it's that. And look, you mentioned Victor Orban earlier. I mean, Victor Orban has an election coming up on April 12th. It is the biggest political threat he has faced in like, I think 16 years. And the only way that it seems like his opponent, Peter Magyar, is running against him successfully is he's a former member of the Fidesz party, Orban's party he left. So he is like center right, if not pretty conservative, but he is running with the broadest possible coalition, because that is how you defeat an authoritarian movement. It has to be the biggest tent possible. We all know that we just have to like live those values in our own lives. Absolutely. Really quickly before I let you go, California Governor's race, Trump has endorsed another one of my former colleagues. They are all over Steve Hilton. Eric Swalwell was very commandingly in the lead on the Democratic side at about 60%. According to Cal-Shi, that has dropped a lot there of accusations swirling of sexual harassment from former staffers. What do you think is going to happen? So I was like, I have a lot of friends who work in or around kind of like the governor's office or work in California politics. Before Trump decided to jump in and endorse Steve Hilton, they were terrified because for your listeners, like the way California elections work, it's a so-called jungle primary. So the top two vote-getters go on to the general election. And there was a real chance that Steve Hilton and the Republican and then this other guy named Chad Bianco were going to be the top two vote-getters because all these other Democrats were going to split the vote below them. What Trump did was like a gift from God. He came in and he endorsed Steve Hilton and elevated Hilton. So it's likely now that Hilton and some other Democrat will go forward. And so I'm stunned that he would do this for us. I think the Democratic Party was preparing to try to elevate Hilton with tens of millions of dollars worth of ads to ensure that a Democrat and a Republican went forward. I have no idea who's going to win this primary. I live in LA. I can't tell you how little attention is being paid to it because Trump just blots out the sun. There's a lot of great candidates in there, like Katie Porter, Eric Swalwell, Tom Steyer. There's a lot of people that are well-established. I have truly no idea who's going to win at this point. Okay. But at least we got to say jungle primary. And yeah, I was, the little I was paying attention, I was like, are there going to be two Republicans in this race and also who is Chad Bianco? Tommy, this was awesome. Thanks for coming on. Thank you so much for having me. It's great to be here. Before we go, a reminder that Raging Moderates is not only five days a week. We're also on Substack. Scott and I did our first Substack Live yesterday. Did you watch it? 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