172. Why Trump Will Keep Escalating The Iran War

Welcome to the Rest is Politics US. With me, Katy Kay. And I'm Anthony Scaramucci. Good morning, Catty. Good morning. How are you, Anthony? Did you have a good weekend? I'm doing well. I'm surviving the market storm of volatility that's still upon us. Yeah, I had a very interesting call with an economist over the weekend who said to me.

The traders aren't buying the taco trade anymore. They think this is not a chicken out. We're not escalating to de-escalate, we're gonna escalate to escalate. So today, Anthony. We're gonna look at what Trump is preparing for. Is this the final blow against Iran? Uh is he walking into a much longer war potentially? He's still sounding optimistic.

says he's gonna make a deal with Iran, but at the same time saying that they could take Kag Island easily, and then he's gonna take Iran's oil. So where are we? Is this deal making or is it escalation? Who's calling the shot? You've got some great scoop on that, we're gonna get into all of that.

Uh and then in the second half of the program, we're gonna look at the battle that's playing out between J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio after the Conservative Political Action Committee's big conference down in Texas. But while the conservatives were meeting, we've also had meetings of anti-Trump forces and liberals and Democrats around the country and the rise of one particular Democrat who's causing some people in the party a little bit of heartburn. So that's the show for today.

So over the weekend it was very interesting. Donald Trump said we're gonna make a deal with the Iranians, he's pretty sure. He gave an interview to my friend Ed Luce at the Financial Times, his second. uh in the last couple of weeks in which he told Ed that there's a possibility of taking Cag Island and he says that's gonna be easy and that it's not defended, but that America could be there for a while if they take it.

He claimed that Iran has already gone under regime change. I don't know if you knew this by the way. Stop the presses, Anthony. According to the president, we have actually already won. He said that three times over the course of the last few days. We've won in the past tense. And there has been regime change. Clearly he's you know how he used to go to rallies and try out messages and see how the crowd responded? Like he'd try out Build the Wall.

And then see if he got a lot of applause. Now he's trying out we've won and there's been regime change already. But I don't think he's gonna have mu as much success with that one because meanwhile oil is just ticking up and the markets are not happy. So the rest of the world is looking at him and saying, Okay, you're saying these things, but

We know you say things, we're looking at what you do, and what is America doing? Moving a ton of American forces into the region. Why is he moving them there? If he's not going to use them. That's my question to you. Well, I mean it's just so much here this morning. So just a couple of things. Number one

Uh if Ed Luce, if you're listening, let me give you news flash. Donald Trump does not read your byline, by the way. No. Uh certain he doesn't read your pieces, but anyway. Yeah, exactly. Be he because if he read your byline, he wouldn't be taking interviews from you because you you're punching away. at Donald Trump. So I do love the fact that you have that British voice and Trump loves British accents, so I'm sure

You know, since he doesn't really read, you'll continue to talk to him. So that's number one. Number two, may not be tacoing, but it is Rev Up Market Sunday. Okay, and Rev up Market Sunday is I'm flying back from my hundred million dollar golf trip and I'm nervous about oil prices in the market, so I'm gonna say nonsense to the reporters.

while I'm showing off the ballroom so that the traders that are short are gonna have to cover on Monday. This guy has tens of thousands potentially of American troops about to go into battle in Iran. And what does he spend his time on the flight doing? Producing these big like he loves props, right? These big pictures of the ballroom and that's what he actually wants to talk about is this ballroom that he's building.

So again, I'm not a psychologist, but I do think that that is a stress mechanism for him. Okay. When Charlie Kirk got shot and obviously it was a great tragedy, they asked him about it, he turned around and said, Look at the ballroom, look at this great ballroom. So This ballroom is like a stress mechanism for him and buttons. Yeah, and people that think he's impervious to stress and all that other stuff. That's nonsense.

He's an objectifier, doesn't really care about people, who treat the whole thing like a video game. But he is stressed because He looks at his poll numbers and he looks at his lack of popularity. And it does bother him. But if you're moving the troops, the likelihood is he's gonna use the troops. Everyone I've spoken I spoke to, um Adam Smith, the congressman who's the ranking member on the Armed Services Committee just this morning.

he felt the same thing. He thought that you're not moving the troops there if you're not gonna use them. And by the way he says he's very worried about this. The ease with which Donald Trump is selling the idea of taking uh Cog Island.

Smith, who's on the armed service c committee, is much more worried about it than Trump seems to be. So, Caddy, I wanna talk about three things, get your reaction to all three. Okay. Number one, What's really going on inside the war room? Who has Trump's ear? Who doesn't have Trump's ear? Uh, number two, what are the questions that the president actually should be asking?

And then lastly, and perhaps most importantly, what are our adversaries thinking about all this and what does it mean for them as they start their war gaming? So let me just very be very brief on all of these. Heg Seth is Lost his mind. Okay, so let's just tell everybody the facts, right? He's running Bible study for defense contractors. He's got everybody praying.

I mean I he must think he's in some kind of twelve hundred A D. crusade. Well, he he says this is God's holy war, right? Right. So he's lost his mind. Okay. Rubio, I'm gonna say, is a two headed monster. He's trying to do both things at the same time. He's gonna try to split the baby. I think he's gonna really harm himself uh on that. I'm just giving you the scattery report on these guys. These guys are in the room with Trump. Whitkoff is the deal maker who can't close

Kushner's the most interesting one out of all of them. Uh being described as the ghost in the machine. He's there. Trump, believe it or not, doesn't really trust them a hundred percent. That's the weird thing about the relationship. People that are really on the inside

are you know, Trump is always worried that Jared is self dealing. Well and Jared's been making a lot of money from this. I mean I think America's fate right now is in Jared's hands. This is a question of whether Either they escalate or it's up to Jared to come up with some kind of a negotiated settlement that is

satisfactory n and I've heard the same thing. It Jared is the one speaking to the Gulf states, Jared is the one speaking to the Pakistanis, he's the one that is doing this negotiation. What is he doing outside of me to make money for himself? Because there lies the jealousy. For Donald Trump. Okay. And then the last last piece of this is JD Vance, who is the reluctant uh anti war hawk.

Uh they're pulling him along uh but he is not happy about it. But you know, when we were reporting two or three weeks ago uh that there was a break there and people were trying to calm things down, that has not happened. Okay, everybody's fallen in line and uh you know, somebody said to me, you know, uh Lincoln had a team of rivals. We have a team of mirrors. Okay, everybody's trying to reflect back to Donald Trump.

what they think Donald Trump wants. Okay. And this is obviously the worst thing you could do in a situation'cause remember the best presidents don't know the answers, Caddy, but they ask the best questions. Right. And the best presidents have people around them who are prepared to say no to them. Exactly. You only have to look at the televised images of yet another

extraordinary cabinet meeting last week and see Mike Johnson making, you know, yet another prize for the president to realise that the route to being in this president's good graces is by flattering him. I'm gonna add one more person to your list. I don't know if this your source was speaking about this person and that

Dan Kane, who's the joint chiefs of staff, who he used to be called Raising Kane. I'm gonna call him Aging Kane now, because every time he gives a press briefing he seems to have aged a few years. And I think he is somebody I've been told who's in this position where m no matter what happens in our relationship, just promise me you never

Never call me like aging mooch. Okay. Actually though, Aging Antony is more of an alliteration than aging mooch. So that's the one you're gonna have to watch out for. For some reason I've started sweating as you said that. Okay, keep going with Aging Kane. Go ahead, keep going. He was brought in to do this job. to say yes to something that every single previous joint chiefs of staff, head of the military, who Trump has had, Dunford, Brown, Milley, all would have said no to this operation.

Kane has said yes to this operation, but because he is actually a military guy, and when you hear him in those press briefings with Hegseth, who is talking about, you know, we're gonna bomb the heck out of them and doing all his macho stuff. Kane is the one that is trying to be reasonable, but he's in this difficult position because he was brought in there to say yes and he knows he could be fired in a heartbeat.

by Donald Trump is what I've heard, and that he's worried about that and he's watching very carefully what he says. So we just have to hope what he's doing is more sensible and protects American forces. Than what he's saying. So in my conversations over the weekend and that I want to share with everybody here is it's the first time in US history. This is the most un American approach to things.

uh the Continental Congress got together, formed the army, put George Washington in charge, Lincoln team of rivals. We've never had a situation like this Where we've got the entire focus and the entire

decision making has shrunken to a person of one caddy. And so this is dangerous on a number of different fronts. It's also dangerous in terms of the way our adversaries to the United States would look at this. Obviously our allies Um but uh I literally I wrote down all the questions Uh that somebody basically said to me, he's broken it up into five different categories, questions nobody is asking.

uh questions about the longer view, questions about honesty, uh uh questions about, you know, really the whole munitions capability of the United States. No one sat down in a cabinet meeting with a president That has said, what does day 60 look like if Iran doesn't capitulate? Show me the actual plan, not hope. Okay, what is our munitions reprenant? timeline and current burn rate. When do we hit a ceiling that constrains our options in the Pacific? Uh if we send ground troops

Which Trump is obviously dying to send them. What is the exit condition? Again, not the hope, but the condition. Give me specific, verifiable, observable things that must happen before the last American soldier leaves. We put a capsule summary of those in an article that will be in the newsletter. It's free and the link is in the episode description. So Caddy, from your reporting, do you think any of these questions

are being th th they're sitting around in a war room going through these questions and the commander in chief is sitting there. Well so look, I I think these questions, Anthony, actually are being asked in the Pentagon.

I think the l the tactical mission-based questions are the questions that are being asked, but there are a lot of people in the Pentagon who are very nervous about the lack of political strategic planning around this and that the mission keeps changing and they're worried about mission creep. And they're worried that all these forces are being sent there.

Uh and are they gonna go there to try and take out the uranium? Are they gonna go there to try and just take Karg Island? How do you get out of Karg Island? What's the long term governance of the Strait of Hormuz gonna be? There's a lot of conversations going on among America's allies around the world about okay, we cannot leave the Strait of Hormuz in Iran's hands after this.

So I think you can separate it between what the aim of degrading America's military, which is going well, and then basically everything else, which is the strategy, the political economic strategy. We haven't even spoken about that. What's the plan for dealing with a supply shock that one economist over the weekend told me is not dissimilar to the supply shock that we face?

around COVID. I mean Americans aren't are just seeing on the periphery that the Sri Lankans are going to a four day week, or that the Vietnamese have closed down some factories, or that workers in Thailand have been told to stay home. But what they're not realizing is that that's gonna lead to directly to higher prices for Americans. And that can come back to hurt American consumers, which will then have an impact.

on White House decision making. I don't think any of those conversations are happening in the White House because as you said, we live in a system of mirrors. Donald Trump once reflected glory back to him. It was a problem with Bush, it was a problem with Obama, it was a bit less of a problem with Biden.

But presidents get into that Oval Office and however much they say, I want a team of rivals around me, I want people around me who are gonna say no to me. The m institution of the presidency makes it hard. The trouble is Trump doesn't even want people around him who are going to say no. So I think that's why you've got this disconnect between those all of those very valid questions which are being discussed in the Pentagon um and amongst military folks but are not being discussed thoroughly.

At the political level.

Do you think Trump is capable of asking the following question? What w w what are you guys not telling me?

that you think I don't want to hear. Do you think he's capable of asking that question? No. Don't you think that's an important question? Very important question. I mean we're in a very interesting moment. I had a interesting conversation with somebody who ha has ties with the Gulf states over the weekend, who said we're in this interesting moment where Some of America's allies who were saying no to the president, who were fulfilling that role, saying, listen, this is gonna be difficult.

you know, be careful what you wish for. We don't want you to go in are now saying they cannot afford to have any daylight between them and the president. So they're now saying yes to the president. In fact they're pushing America to stay there. Because they're terrified that America having started this is gonna leave all of those Gulf states in a weaker position with a wounded Iran. And however much the president says there's been regime change, there has not been regime change.

and that we'll be back bombing every six months and that will have a long term damaging effect for the reputation of these Gulf states. So even some of the allies who might have been there saying no to people like Jared Kushner'cause they had this very good relationship with him. Um, are now saying, please, you know, full steam ahead, Mr President, don't stop where you are.

So I don't know I don't know where the brakes are on this at the moment. I don't know we are in this extraordinary moment a month in where remember when we first started this, we were both being told by people that this was a two to four week operation. I remember being told that.

That's a bit like Don Rumsfeld said when he went around Europe saying this is gonna be uh just weeks. We will be in and out of Iraq in six weeks. And now we're in a position where I think this could potentially be going on much longer than that. Economists are saying to me they're not counting on the straits being open for at least another two to three weeks.

And what what's the impact of that? Listen, if the straight is open in the next two to three weeks, I will personally be surprised by that. I don't think the markets think that. You know, like my buddies that are allocating capital in the energy markets, they don't think that. If that if that's the case, I mean, that would be a win. You know, I I I think things have gotten so bad.

that we're gonna be wishing that we were here eight weeks from now. Because Caddy, you have to understand something. When I was in A Afghanistan and and traveling on a troop support mission in 2015 or way back in 2011 when I went to Iraq on a troop support mission. And you talk to people in an unplugged way in those areas.

The people think differently than the Western cultures. The Iranian soldier, the IRGC, they think differently. They have a different cause and they're looking at us as an imperialistic invader that their ancestors have dealt with for a thousand years, if not longer, and they have a different attitude and they have a different approach to going about what they're willing to sacrifice, i.e. their lives if necessary. So so to me, it's not well thought out.

There's nobody sitting in the room with the president where the president's actually asking the questions. If you go to the Cuban Missile Crisis in nineteen sixty two. the thing that came out of that, and Richard Newstat uh wrote about this. In in nineteen sixty, the professor from Harvard wrote a a book on presidential power, but then he followed up in nineteen sixty three He said that the president, Kennedy, sat at the table. He didn't know everything, but he asked the right questions.

And the right questions led to effectively a decent resolution for everybody. That's not happening right now. So so to me, I'm super worried about that. And uh the other thing I'm super worried about, if I were a DIA analyst for the Russians or for China, I'd be looking at this guy saying, look, this guy's lost it. He can't think.

He's not focused. He's he's in a war cabinet meeting and he's talking five minutes about a Sharpie conversation that never happened, Caddy. And so I'd be looking around the room and saying, Okay These sycophants, this is right out of a first grade book with the Emperor has no clothes.

and the guy that they're leaning on is eighty and he's befuddled and he has lost it, Caddy. So what's your reaction to all that? Because I'm I'm personally as an American I'm super worried about not only how badly we're doing in the eyes of the world, but what the hell are you guys doing in terms of understanding what it means actually to be an American?

Because what it means to be an American is to build a consensus among each other and not go in this buffoonery direction. I mean, that's a great question. And you know who's got the number of Donald Trump and America right now, it's the Iranians. You and I have been sending us each other backwards and forwards all of these videos that the Iranians are making, these little Lego videos. I mean, they are unbelievably sophisticated. They understand Donald Trump and his weak points.

They understand America's weak points. I know that there's a whole machine producing them and that they are being amplified online by the Russians and by the Chinese. But you have to think to yourselves, it's worth watching guys. Take it if you haven't seen them, just Google them. They're all over the internet. The idea that people who in Washington are dismissed as the mulas in the desert.

Are producing something this sophisticated has to make you rethink their intelligence understanding and their psychoanalysis. of Donald Trump and the leadership of this war and where America is right now, because I think they've They've got his number and they're doing it in a way that I had would not have expected from them. Worth all of you watching because They are a good window into the Iranian psychology in the Iranian communications.

Who's winning right now? I think it's impossible to say that America is winning this. I mean there's a Donald the only argument you would make is that the American military has done a very good job of degrading Iran's military. And that we're not getting access to images from Iran because there is the internet is out, everybody's trying to get onto what little Starlink availability there is.

And so we are not seeing the full amount of de degradation within Iran at the moment. But then Reuters has a story that says that the US can only confirm with certainty that it's only destroyed a third of Iran's missile arsenal so far. So even on that ground of how much we've destroyed, there are questions about that at the moment. But I don't see how you can make the case that

America is in a better position than it was before February the twenty eighth. In fact it's in a worse position because we're sort of in the same position. They've got fewer missiles, but we've got the Straits of Hormuz shut. And the American economy is about to face a whole load of damage. The world economy is about to face a whole load of damage coming from that. I think you have to say it's asymmetric and they've they're with a very bad hand.

They're playing an extraordinary asymmetric war and right now the Iranians are winning. Congressman Smith said something interesting to your point about in eight weeks we're gonna be in a worse position and we're gonna look back and think, I wish this we were where we are now at the beginning of April. And he said that he doesn't believe in the sunk cost. Theory.

And that actually what America should do is sit down, say to Jared, negotiate the best possible deal you can right now. We're getting out of there. By the end of next week, come what may, we're done. Yeah, but Trump's eagle's not gonna allow that. But it was an interesting argument. I think you made a point that really requires emphasis here. The Iranians have traded military hardware and the destruction of their military hardware for economic leverage.

over the straight. And that trade is working because I can tell you who is losing caddy. The American consumer is losing. The global Western consumer is losing. Trump's approval numbers are losing. And and I think this is the stuff that causes somebody like Trump in that vacuum of yes people, a team of yes men. is the name of the book, Caddy. Uh, and I think it causes people like Trump to escalate at a time when smarter people would figure out a way to de-escalate.

Okay, we're gonna take a break and come back and talk about JD Vance, Marco Rubio, the fight for the leadership on the right, the fight for the leadership on the left. Is the left going MAGA? Join us for that. Welcome back to the rest is politics US. It's been a quite a weekend for both sides of the political spectrum down in Texas.

You had the annual meeting of CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Committee, where all the great and the good from the Conservative world come and discuss the fate of their party. And on the left you had all of these no kings marches. Some people from the No Kings organisation saying as many as eight million people, Anthony, rallied at thousands of rallies all around the country to protest against uh Donald Trump over the course of this weekend.

And you've seen the rise of some very prominent, very left wing figures that we're gonna talk about that too. But h how did you see politics playing out this weekend, Anthony? With I it feels to me like both the left and the right are kind of flirting with MAGA at the moment. Yeah, flirting with MAGA in what way, Caddy? What do you mean? Well you've got these figures on the left, um Hassan Piker is

one of them, who was very influential in the election of Mayor Mamdani. He's got three million followers on Twitch. He spends hours live streaming every day. He was part of a big online rally at the weekend. He appeared with Bernie Sanders at a Tax the Rich rally in New York. He was at the No Kings rallies as well. He's weighing into the Michigan Senate race, uh trying to get a very progressive candidate. elected down in Michigan, but his style is kind of MAGA. His following is very male. He is

sort of being called a manosphere body with a progressive mind, I think is how the New York Times described him. He's been accused of being anti Semitic in some of the things that he said. About he's very anti Israel, but he's also been accused of being anti Semitic. Accusations he denies, but he does has said that. People in Israel are inbred, for example. he's been accused of being anti woman. He's just got this very assertive aggressive style.

that some on the right say, This is our answer. If we can get more Hassan Pikers into the mainstream of democratic politics, then this is gonna be a huge win for us because we can charge him with a whole load of things of being too extreme for American voters. But he's very popular online, very popular with young people and very popular with young men. And I think it's as indication that Trump who did well with young men in twenty twenty four is losing those voters.

You've got a whole generation of you've spoken about this with Scott Galloway so eloquently. You've got a whole generation of young men who are feeling they don't have a sense of purpose. They've slightly lost their way. Women are getting more jobs than they are in the kind of healthcare sector. They're losing their traditional jobs. And they're looking for a political home. And they went to Trump for a little bit.

And now they're looking somewhere else and they look to people like Joe Rogan and they look to people like Hassan Piker. And yes, he's calls himself a Marxist and is definitely on the left but is there really much difference? What they want is more of a vibe.

and a style and an affirmation of what it is to be a young man. I know that in the media sometimes we overestimate the influence of influencers, but I do think he's a very interesting figure because of this thing of They've got a whole cohort of the population looking for a political home and they find them in the extremes.

See, it's interesting. So when you say MAGA, that caught me off guard a little bit, but now that you're explaining it, what I hear is populism and what I hear is left wing populism. And I what I also hear is here's the formula for the provocateur. Ready? Anti establishment. bypass the mainstream media, right? This is what Rogan Bannon has done this. Uh Pikers Twitch account is an example of that, is doing it. Okay. And then to your point, you're targeting economically anxious young men.

And you're you're you're getting a reward with these people if you are unpolished. and authentic. Okay, and so that's the Gravitron. And what's interesting about this is that Mandani, to these people, he's polished and authentic. And so he goes into that sleeve. And Caddy, what I'm super worried about, uh and this could be a sign of my old age, frankly, uh I I'm worried about Agent Antony. I mean it's unbelievable. I knew you were gonna do that.

set yourself up. No no put it on the I le No no, I left the opening and you said here you go. No no. I expressed that level of vulnerability, I left the opening to see how vicious you actually are and you've now exposed yourself. You've exposed the viciousness. Oh, I'm sorry. That was hard. It's eight ten on a Monday morning. That's a little rough. Let me keep going. Keep going. The stinger, I'm pulling it out of my back right now. Let me pull it out.

But but what what I'm trying to say is that the establishment has failed these people. And what I'm trying to say is that we have the TSA not getting paid And we've got six hour lines at the airport. Yeah. And what I'm trying to say is that the Department of Justice is no longer the Department of Justice. It's the Department of Retribution. People have lost faith

in what's going on, so they're like, Okay, burn it down. Yeah, blow it up. You're right. That's exactly the phrase. It's like blow it up. We tried everything else. It didn't work. And now they're even saying we tried Trump. And Trump didn't work for us.

Right. It turned out that Trump was one of them. Imagine Trump was one of them. Trump hasn't made our lives better. He's going and getting involved in the Middle East. I mean, all these No Kings rallies uh the number one issue that people were talking about now. He's replaced kind of, you know, immigration and anti ICE and tax the rich. It's now the war. So he's got involved with that and I think you're exactly right. They tried Trump.

Trump they now think is one of them and so you've got a whole load of people and they're g and the the people in the middle of American politics, which I think is where you've come from all of your life. they're getting squeezed out. So you've got people like Third Way, which is the kind of reasonable third way centrist groups in America. They are horrified by what they see in Hassan Pika. They're super energized by it. They feel okay, well we don't care if he says things that are outrageous.

Maybe he does, maybe he's not very woke, maybe he says stuff that, you know, they certainly don't care if he's anti Israel, and it's throwing the middle, these old establishment groups in American politics, into a real spin because They don't know how to reach these people. They don't know how to reach these young voters. There is a desire to hear politicians be authentic. We've spoken about that a lot in American politics at the moment.

But then it's when does that desire to hear authenticity flip into a desire to hear things that are socially taboo? that you can say thing um, you know, Donald Trump has done some of this. I can get away with saying things that other people can't say and I'm gonna it's the shock factor and they will love me for it. I can get away with saying I'm gonna grab women by the pussy. And and he did. He got elected after he said it.

And that broke a wall of what was acceptable. And I think you've got now more and more of a push for amongst young people, for people just to say things that they feel they're thinking. however socially or politically unacceptable or out of the mainstream. Hassan Piker's getting Graham Plattner, the oyster farmer who is running up in Maine to be the Democratic candidate for the Senate and who may well win.

has in been endorsed by Hassan Piker. Gavin Newsome has said he'd go on Hassan Piker's show. And all of these politicians now in the mainstream are how having to figure out how do I deal with these influencers who may have said things that I don't like.

and I don't approve of, but also have big followings and reach with young men. And they're so they're trying to say, Well, I think it's important to discuss with everybody. It's im it's important to have open conversations with everybody. But it's putting the democratic mainstream in a bit of a conundrum in the way that Joe Rogan, Nick Fuentes, Joe Rogan less so, but Nick Fuentes puts Tucker Carlson, put the Republican mainstream in a similar conundrum. How far am I prepared to go?

along with these people on the lines of being authentic or being outrageous.

So couple of things, okay. The fur the first one is institutional collapse. Let's just call it for what it is. Uh the the institutions that have held up the country successfully for some reason are collapsing, either due to neglect or laziness or a lack of understanding how important that process was to getting us here.

The second thing is the masculinity crisis. I I think, you know, as you pointed out, uh Scott Galloway and I have addressed this, but uh if you're spending time video gaming, you know, and what does Scott say? Go to the bar, try to meet people, you know, no one no one's no one's doing that. And then Catty, the attention economy

cannot be overlooked here because everybody in that age group wants to be an influencer. And the way you become an influencer is you create outrage, right? Outrage is actually the product. Gets attention is the product. And you monetize outrage. I can get Governor Newsom to come on, right? Because he needs the attention if he's gonna run for office. But here's the thing I would say to you that I'm worried about is where does it stop?

And then if it doesn't stop, Caddy, where does it go? I mean, who becomes leadership in a situation like this? Well I mean you've got you know, Mamdani I think in a way has harnessed some of this and the platforms of this. Um we're gonna talk about this in our founding members' QA this week, uh because we had a question come in for you actually, Anthony, about how well you think Mam Dani is doing a few months into his presidency into his

tenure as mayor, and a lot of people I think were very afraid of Mamdani and saw him as this kind of gung ho socialist who was gonna gut New York and was bound to fail. And actually that doesn't seem to be the case at least so far. So you can get a populist type leader, the question I think is everyone where you have to start drawing lines. You draw lines on misogyny, you draw lines on anti-Semitism,

you draw lines on, you know, gratuitous cruelty to other people. There have to be certain lines that politicians in the middle draw and say, actually, you know what? I'm not going to have anything to do with people who I think fall into any of those buckets. that I'm not gonna go that low just to pick up a few more votes because you know what they say, Anthony, don't wrestle with a pig because you might get dirty. I'm with you and but I I I think the real question for people

is who is the new political class? Right? You mentioned Mondani. Okay, he's part of it, right? I don't know that he he how much further does he go outside of New York City? We've always said, you know That's very different. Maybe the country's not ready culturally at this moment. Maybe it is. Yeah, but could be could be heading there. AOC is part of this movement, right? So weirdly, Josh Shapiro is the other side of it, right? Josh Shapiro is like

The countermodel. You know, he's like competent and centrist. Get things done. Keep your head down. Right, exactly. Get get SH I T done. Right, exactly. No outrage. Right. Dial down the outrage. Don't go trolling Trump on social media. Right. So he's almost the counterdote to that, right? Yes.

I think that's right. But then like who's the who on the right though? Well let's talk about that because we had this CPAC. meeting, right, last week down in Texas that ended over the weekend and they had a poll as they always do, of who their favorite leader is gonna be, and who wins the C Pack poll every year is a kind of deal for a moment in Washington. And J. D. Vance won that by

fifty-three percent this year. Marco Rubio came in at thirty-five percent. But if I'm JD, first of all, the CPAC poll doesn't always proved very reliable. Um, Rand Paul won it for three years in a row before twenty sixteen, and we have never had a president Rand Paul as far as I remember. And J D won it by sixty one percent last year, so he's actually dropped

Eight points in the CPAC crowd. I mean, these are the kind of insider conservatives. They're very MAGA down at CPAC. They still love Donald Trump. He didn't actually show up this year. But is JD in that? field of being able to be populist enough have enough outrage. He's tried it on a few times. He's trying on the mantle of going and torching Europe when he goes to the Muri Munich Security Conference. He's trying it on online. He spends a seems to spend an awful lot of time the vice president.

on Twitter. Has he got enough of that populism? Of that'cause I I think the problem with J D is he's a bit of a weather vane. He was being you know, he's the guy that said Trump was cultural heroine and he doesn't have the charm, he doesn't have the charisma. He's a believer, he's an ideologue, but he hasn't quite got that authentic charisma that some of these influencers and people like

Trump have. I don't know. I th I think JD even though he won the straw poll, he's gotta be watching out for other people. If JD Vance was a podcast host, would you listen to him? No, that okay, there you go. Too supercilious. She wouldn't listen to'em, right? No, I don't think I would. But on the other hand, do I want a podcast hope to be host to be my president? I mean, no aspersions to you or me, but You may not, but I'm talking about this young new group of people.

that are enthralled with this type of stuff. And I think we've established that the presidency It's not a hiring decision anymore for the American people. It's a popularity contest. It used to be who you wanted to have a beer with. Now it's who do you want to listen to for six hours. Who do you want to listen to? Who's going to be in the media? Who's going to be on the top of the drudge report? Who's going to be in my face for the next four years?

Can I or can I not tolerate them and and are they entertaining? So you weirdly need somebody in that role. that offers charisma and entertainment, but is also a policy wonk and a student of history. Right. So it's a it's a very it's a very tough thing to find if you're looking for that. Right. Maybe maybe Josh Shapiro of that is that. I don't know. Or maybe Gavin is that. But here's the thing I I would say to you about this whole movement that again has me worried, Caddy.

Is that no one has a vision. You know, Clinton, Democratic Leadership Council, here's my vision. Newt Gindrich, contract for America, here's my vision. I don't hear a vision from anybody. No no one's sitting down and saying, okay, it's 2050. It's 200, you know, 56. It's thirty years later here at America. What do we want America to look like? Where is America going? How do we right size our

Deficits, expenditures, how do we fix our infrastructure? How do we fix our K through twelve environment? Hey, but by the way, Anthony, let me give you the heads up. That doesn't play on a podcast. And that doesn't play in the attention economy. So I guess my question to you, Caddy, is if you really wanted to fix the country But you had to fit it into the juggernaut of the attention economy. What would you do? You've got to find the person that and Rahm Emanuel has been writing about this.

who's also uh former chief of staff to Barack Obama, mayor of Chicago. running for president in twenty twenty eight on the democratic side, he has been talking about exactly this. So you've gotta come up with ideas and he's been doing a kind of ideas a week fest around exactly that kind of thing. Education, immigration,

around spending and taxation, but you've got to be able to present it in a way that sings on TikTok. I mean, it's an incredibly hard thing for anyone and and it's somehow I think in the communications environment that we're in The person who wins the Republican primary and who wins the Democratic primary is going to be the person who mastures the communications. medium of today.

They're not gonna win without that. But then here's the real question because Marco Rubio, who only got thirty five percent at CPAC, And does lower. I was reading a Manhattan Institute poll that was super interesting ranking all of the Republicans and I had a chat with them about it. Marco Rubio ranks lower than JD Vann. In every single demographic, except one. He ranks about 20 points higher than J.D. Vance amongst independents.

And who actually decides American elections? Once you've got through the partisan nature of the primaries, which are more left wing and more right wing. than the actual American electorate, you've still got to end up with that candidate who can win independence, who can win the middle of America. And if you look at That poll, the only Republican who can do that at the moment, is Marco Rubio, who can get those suburban, college educated white women. He's a bit more like

McCain, he's a bit more like Mitt Romney. If he can get over his MAGA years with Donald Trump and it all depends on how Donald Trump is doing in two years' time. Marco Rubio in the polls is the only person that can get independent voters. So that's why the political system is even more screwed, because you've got to get one thing for the primaries, which is high octane, high outrage. high populism, but you've got to have somebody else.

who can run to lead the country and actually win over the middle of the country. So I don't know. Anthony. Calling Anthony Scaramucci if you don't have enough jobs. Do you want to take this one on? What job is that, Caddy? Run through the primaries, run through the general and that would be good. Yeah. Yeah, that would be good. Yeah, I'm uh yeah. I don't know. I don't know. I my wife I I don't know. My wife's political platform is castration. We probably should start there. But

But do you see what I mean? That it's it's an impossible situation that somebody's in. But you you're saying something that people should hear before we go. And that is Rahm Emanuel's right. It is jump ball. That's what m Emanuel said, Hey, I'm getting in the race. It's jump ball. Uh it's anybody's race right now. The other thing is Which I think is really true here. Uh, none of the people that you're mentioning

are hooks. I don't hear the hook yet. Okay. Now weirdly, someone like Shapiro or Newsom could be a hook because they're not a hook and they're not trying to be hook. I feel like if you're trying to be a hook like a Vance or a Rubio and you're not a hook, then it almost disqualifies you. You mean there's an inauthenticity to your personality. Is that like you've got an overbite and you're like trying too hard. We'll see, but both parties right now are simultaneously having an identity crisis.

And so far you've read me the list and you've done a very good scouting report. And who knows, Caddy? It could be Deus Ex Machina, it could be somebody could come up. It could be a military leader. It could be an Admiral McCraven like figure. Let's see where we are in two years' time. If we're still at war in Iran, then we might be wanting for something totally different. The field is open, Caddy.

Field this open. Yeah. JD may think he came out of C Pack with this one in his pocket, but I wouldn't be measuring the drapes in the brand new ballroom quite yet. I just want to challenge you before we leave. You you said that they're still very MAGA, but yet they cheered when Schlapp was talking and he mentioned impeachment. People cheered.

And then he said, Okay, uh let's go back to that and they cheered again. I think the CPAC people generally are very upset with Trump over this war. Generally. That's just my pr impression. So it was interesting. There was more disquiet over the war and a lot of questions over the war. But I I think I'm right that there was only one candidate That was up on stage.

who actually criticized Trump and didn't criticize Trump by name. He did it by saying you can criticize the president and still be a patriot. Right. And that was as far as anyone went on the stage in criticizing Trump. Let's see. Hey, listen, if they're voting for J D they're voting for Trump's little guy, so then that makes you think they like him still.

I just want small things right now from our government domestically. I'd like'em to open things. I'd like'em to open the airport, Caddy. That's all. It would be so nice to be able to go to the airport and not have to queue for six hours. And listen, if we can't open airports in America right now. What are we doing trying to open airports in Venezuela and Iran and Cuba? Yeah, exactly.

Exactly. Okay guys, we'll leave it there. Join us for our founding members episode. Uh we'll get into Mamdani more during that. You can sign up and become a founding member at the rest is politicsus.com. I'm sure you know where to find us. with us. Thanks guys. See you later this week.