Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.
Matt Duss: Thanks, Greg. Great to be here.
Duss: Well, yeah. As you said, Trump more than seemed to want to cut a deal with the Iranians over their nuclear program. He very much was invested in this. He had his special envoy, Steve Witkoff, who had engaged in multiple rounds of talks with Iranian negotiators. I think Trump famously announced these talks a couple months ago in an Oval Office meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu, who seemed none too pleased about that announcement at the time. From all reports and also from what I’d heard just privately from folks who were close to the talks, there were still some ways to go but there was a real interest on the part of the Iranian government and on the part of Trump and his team to get to an agreement.
Sargent: So I want to talk about this New York Times TikTok. It’s kind of amazing. [It] takes us up to the present moment. A couple key nuggets here: One is that Trump believed Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu was trying to draw him into a Mideast war. He seemed wary of that. But then he soured on the Iranians during the negotiations, as you said. He seemed to have decided, according to the Times, that the Iranians were playing him, and now he’s more favorable to joining with Israel and going to war. It seems as if Trump’s only way of understanding this is looking at how it makes him appear. Is he getting played by the Iranians? Does he look strong enough? Are there any actual deliberations on Trump’s part here that you can discern?
Sargent: Right. It really does seem like he’s really easily manipulated by some really nefarious people. Someone’s whispering in his ear that you’re looking like a chump. And all of a sudden he’s like, You know, forget it. Let’s go.
Sargent: And there’s something really deeply troubling here if you connect the dots in the Times report as well. As everybody knows, Trump shot down his own Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard the other day. She had said the intelligence community didn’t believe Iran was actively building nuclear weapons. Trump rebuked this saying, “I don’t care what she said. I think they were very close to having them.” And yet, Matt, the Times also reports the following. I want to read it, “Senior administration officials were unaware of any new intelligence showing that the Iranians were rushing to build a nuclear bomb.” So what is the basis for Trump’s conclusion that Iran is very close to having nukes? Where is he getting it from?
Sargent: Well, Matt, let’s have a little comic relief here for a second. The Times also reports that after Israel’s bombing started, he saw—meaning Trump saw—on Fox News that Israel’s military strikes were being portrayed as “genius” on Fox. And then at that point, Trump started claiming more credit for this in phone calls with reporters. Then he started leaning toward joining Israel in war against Iran. Matt, can that be real? The great antiwar Trump, [who] hates foreign entanglements, ran against Hillary Clinton and against Kamala Harris as the antiwar candidate, [is] literally getting led into war because he thinks it looks totally cool and awesome on TV. That’s what that says.
Sargent: Right. I want to read Trump’s quote again, “I think they were very close to having them.” Trump’s own officials are not concluding that, so he had to get it from somewhere. And I think you’re exactly right. It’s from Netanyahu. It’s from Tom Cotton. It’s from Lindsey Graham. Those are the people who are telling him that this is what he should believe.
Sargent: Well, you had this great piece making the case against the U.S. rushing into war. Can you recap that argument for us?
And he also campaigned in that way in 2024 where the Harris campaign really seemed to lean into a defense of the militarist status quo, refused to distance herself from Biden’s war, his support for the war in Gaza. And Trump was able to get to her left, essentially, by saying, There’s war everywhere. I want to end these wars. I want to make peace. And even if that’s not true—and of course, it’s not true; Trump is lying about that, was lying, as he lies about so much—the fact is he correctly understood that there was a big constituency in this country that wants the U.S. to stop making war and start making peace. And they were willing to believe him.
Sargent: Well, that brings me to the final question here to close this out. In your piece, you point out that a number of Democratic senators have made a pretty forceful case against going into Iran. Where do you think the Democratic Party will come down here? I’m somewhat hopeful that we’re not going to see a rerun of the run-up to Iraq, in which a lot of Democrats rolled over for George W. Bush. We don’t have a September 11 this time, which made a lot of Dems feel like they couldn’t oppose war. Bush was more popular than Trump is now, and Trump is just so profoundly and obviously unfit that I think the calculus will be different. Am I being too optimistic here? Where do you expect Democrats to land?
Yesterday, Senator Tim Kaine announced that he would introduce a war powers resolution, which is a way for Congress to constrain the president from going into war without authorization. So that will come to a vote in the next few weeks. But even though I don’t think we’ll see a rerun of Iraq, in the next few weeks, Trump could do a lot of damage. If he was to decide to join with the Israeli attack, to send B-2 bombers dropping 30,000 pound bombs on the installation at Fordo, regardless of what Congress does, Trump could create a new reality that could be pretty catastrophic. And then we’d all be faced with what to do there.
Duss: Yeah, unfortunately, I think Trump seems to think that he could get involved and end this satisfactorily fairly quickly. And I think that’s an illusion. If the goal here is to just diminish or come close to destroying Iran’s nuclear program, first of all, I don’t think that’s something you could do in just a few days or even a few weeks of bombing. That would take a long time. But then you actually need boots on the ground, either in the form of U.S. troops or other troops accompanying inspectors, to determine that you have done enough damage to the nuclear program.
Sargent: Matt Duss, it was so good to talk to you. That was really illuminating stuff, and folks should pay attention to what Matt has to say on this going forward because it’s going to get really effing hairy. Matt, thanks for coming on with us, man.
Duss: Alright, thanks, Greg.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Transcript: Did Fox News Scam Trump Into Embracing War With Iran? )
Also on site :