This Is why the administration is so vulnerable to the criticism that this is so similar to Iraq — Because it is so similar to Iraq. So whatever happened to America First? “Today, the United States military continues to carry out large scale combat operations in Iran.” It doesn’t feel like a war with Iran was quite what Donald Trump campaigned on in 2024. “We’re going to end these endless wars. Endless wars. They never stop. Do you ever see these wars? They go on for 14 years. 20 years.” And my guest this week thinks it’s a big betrayal of the voters who put him in the White House. Curt Mills, welcome to Interesting Times. Thanks for having me. Thanks for being here. So I’m going to do some stage-setting here for anyone in the audience who doesn’t follow all of the ins and outs of right-wing foreign policy debates. But you are in charge of The American Conservative magazine, which is a magazine founded by Pat Buchanan, among other people, in opposition to the looming Iraq war. And for a long time, The American Conservative was a pretty lonely voice for foreign policy restraint, a kind of antiwar, anti-imperial conservatism. But throughout the Trump era, it’s been seen as much more influential — maybe closer to what Trump himself believes. But here we are. The U.S. is at war, and it is a war. It’s not a, whatever, a large-scale combat operation. We’re at war with Iran. We’re still backing Ukraine in its ongoing war with Russia. We’ve intervened in Venezuela. We’ve intervened in Nigeria. There’s a long list. So, whatever this looks like, I would not describe it as a dovish or restraint-oriented administration. And however you would describe your faction on the right — you can call it anti war MAGA. We can call it America First. Whatever label you want to use seems to be losing. So give me a big picture account of why that’s happened. Why, in the broadest sense, the second Trump administration turned out to be much more hawkish than a lot of people expected? It seems pretty clear to me that the ultimate deciding factor is the president’s personality, and own determinations. There are a number of people in this administration — there are real cadres — that believe in non-interventionism. They were put into personnel throughout the administration, in a much more pronounced way than in term one. This generation is younger, I think, very notably at the cabinet level, but also at the sub-cabinet level. There was every indication that when Trump came in first day of term two, first month of term two — that they really wanted to get the ball rolling on a number of these endeavors. In fact, they tried before he was even in power. The president’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff — if you remember, the transition in mid-January 2025 — imposed a ceasefire on the Israelis that was very unpopular among the Israeli right. Trump opened up negotiations and announced it side by side with Benjamin Netanyahu, with Iran in April of 2025. Vice President Vance led a caustic showdown with Zelensky in February of 2025, indicating the administration was going to take a hard line in getting out of the war. Even on pet projects of people like Secretary of State Marco Rubio, there was every indication that there were competing factions to try to do diplomacy in Latin America. This may well just be stuff that is written in history books and not remembered actively, but the opening thrust of Trump term two, was extremely in this direction, and I think it’s worth noting. I also think it had been building for years. There was every indication that it was going to look very different. So — So, then what — So, what changed? What was the — You said it — The president — — Comes down to Trump himself. The president is impatient. The president is impatient. The president does not have the patience for diplomacy. I think this is clear. The president does not have the detail-oriented mindset to overwhelm the various factions in his coalition. And the president is ultimately, fundamentally, an underratedly agreeable personality. And so a major part of President Trump’s Boss Tweed-style of management are people who want to drive the U.S. into war. Right? There are Latin America hawks, there are Iran hawks. There are even conservative hawks remaining on the Hill and in the military industrial complex for Ukraine. And fundamentally, he has not shown the determination and courage to tell them “no.” And I think you’ve seen this, yes, on the right, but you’ve also seen it on the world stage. He likes Keir Starmer. Yeah, I know — he assailed him yesterday with Friedrich Merz — but generally speaking, there’s been a reasonable relationship. He likes Emmanuel Macron. Of course, he likes Xi Jinping, and he likes Vladimir Putin. That’s a status quo dynamic. If you can’t say “no” to anybody. And the status quo is America as an escalatory interventionist power. So that’s a status quo embodied by not just forces within his administration, but by NATO, the Western alliance. What gets what gets pejoratively called the foreign policy blob, right. A lot of this is just an open source like I really don’t. People are intimidated by foreign policy. I don’t think it’s actually that complex. Friedrich Merz, the chancellor of Germany, flew to DC immediately when the Iran war started because he sniffed, I think correctly, a grand opportunity for Europe here, or European internationalists, I should say, which is support Trump on Iran. Lump it. I don’t think they would have chosen this, but they don’t really care. I mean, the Europeans have been contra 10 years ago when they were all in on the Iran diplomacy. They’ve been very frosty throughout this process. They don’t care about the Iranians, easy to dump them and try to get Trump back all in on NATO and Ukraine. And he said it in the first 20 seconds of his response in his meeting with Trump, he said, yep, yep, we support the end of this regime. But I’m really here to talk about Ukraine. How much do you think Trump likes being a hawk, though, too? I mean, yes. So it’s impatience with diplomacy, it’s agreeableness. But when I look back at his first term, it was a first term that had in a way, a kind of establishment Republican foreign policy. In other ways, he very conspicuously resisted figures like John Bolton arguing for escalation against Iran. But there were various moments, right. The assassination of General Suleimani, most notably where it seemed like Trump took real pleasure in using the U.S. military arsenal. And not being the guy who put boots on the ground and occupied countries, but in being a dynamic actor on the world stage. And that when I look at the pattern from Venezuela to Iran, that’s what I linked it to. The impatience, though. I mean, there’s disputes, there’s negotiations, it’s complex. It’s hard. He feels like he’s getting run over by foreign actors potentially. He said it yesterday, Israel didn’t make this decision. If anything, I forced their hand. He’s very competitive and jockish and macho about that, so to speak. But I think you’re right that he’s attracted fundamentally to the glamour of these strikes. So there is this element to him. But fundamentally until perhaps this month or until February 28, when we launched the war with Iran, Trump has shown a pretty clear hesitancy to get involved in these grand ways. à la the neocons, à la the 2000s. So what is the alternative to the kind of internationalist and interventionist consensus that you’re arguing that he’s accepted? What is the right wing foreign policy, the conservative foreign policy that you were hoping for? Just in broad strokes. Look, I think it’s important. So our magazine was founded by Buchanan and as you mentioned, and Buchanan, in a lot of ways was the Tucker Carlson of his age and also ran for president, which may be forthcoming one day from Mr. Carlson. But Trump and Buchanan had a very bad relationship because they both comically competed over the 2000 Reform Party nomination. And Trump said horrible things about Pat. And I’m only aware of two people that Trump has ever personally apologized to one, his wife, Melania Trump, after the leak of Access Hollywood. And second Pat. So even if you think Trump believes in nothing and is a nihilist, which I don’t but if you believe that he is aware of the ideology that he trafficked in in the 2016 primary and has continued to the last 10 years, and that is fundamentally a conservative anti-globalism. It is skeptical of our massive empire overseas, that it serves the Americans, that it serves the national interest. It is skeptical of unending immigration, and it is skeptical of quote, free trade. That is what Trump ran on. That is why the conservative establishment lost its mind when he first rose to power. And that is when his back has been against the wall. What he has really reached for, I mean, remember someone called Ron DeSantis was once favored to beat him in the 2024 primary, and he leaned in hard to the anti-war messaging, leaned hard to the trade, hawkish messaging, hard on immigration. He reached for it again and again and again. And at the same time, of course, a rising young senator called JD Vance endorsed President Trump early in that primary when that was not voguish, that was not considered the safe play. And then he backed a withdrawal and skepticism of Ukraine when that was not at all considered the conventional wisdom, even on the right, or at least within the establishment right. He made that made those bets. And that was an early alliance between the two of them. And I think it tells you that this ideology was always twinned and linked. Do you think of this ideology as isolationist? No but I mean, I think I mean, what is isolationist? Well, that’s part of my question. I mean, it seems just like a catchall slur. I mean, very few. Well, there’s a thread, there’s a thread that runs through Republicans… Who has ever called themselves as an isolationist? No one ever. No one. No well, people actually called themselves neocons. So that was like a real movement. They called it. They advanced policies that helped ruin the country. But like, that was an actual ideology, I think. Although by the time it became controversial, when they started messing things up in the early 2000, you had lots of neoconservatives who would say, well, what is a neoconservative anyway. It was, I guess what I’m getting at is this. There’s a strand of Republican foreign policy that is extremely hawkish, aggressive and interventionist, and sometimes for the sake of democracy, sometimes just on general. It’s a de facto ideology. You see it, it’s on autopilot on Capitol Hill. I mean, it’s the older generation is just marinated in it. It’s the central nervous system. But there’s also a thread, a strong thread that runs through actual Republican presidents from Dwight Eisenhower, through Richard Nixon, and to some extent, Ronald Reagan, that is internationalist but skeptical of military intervention. But then there’s also a fuller kind of anti-imperial antiwar right that says, no, we need to dismantle bases, bring troops home, and so on. And I’m curious where in that divide you sit. Like, do you think that Eisenhower and Nixon and Reagan offer a valuable tradition, or do you think they were too imperial themselves? First, the magazine represents a range, but I’m happy to answer it for myself. For yourself. And it’s also. But it’s also relevant to Vance, to Trump, to these figures like what are they trying to build? Are they trying to change the way the American empire works, or are they trying to retreat and dismantle it? For myself, I am far more to the latter. I think basically the critics of where America went, particularly post-World War II, lost the battle. But they were right. And I don’t think this is actually an ancient battle, because the empire is still going on and America is increasingly stretched thin in my assessment. And I think their arguments are still alive and well and relevant going into the 21st century. So I prefer Nixon’s foreign policy to Reagan’s. I prefer Eisenhower’s foreign policy to the John Birch Society, but I prefer Robert Taft to Eisenhower. That’s where I come from. And Reagan, I think is similar enough to Obama on the left, which is it’s of deity figure where it just doesn’t really behoove one to mess with him. But I think we drew the wrong lessons from the Reagan years. And I think Reagan is fundamentally overrated. conservative figure and overrated president. And potentially, in many ways, damaging one. And do when you talk about then the shift that you saw happening on the younger right in appointees to the Trump administration, do you think that a lot of those people agreed with you, or do you think that they saw themselves more as saying, we’re still internationalists, but we’re in the Nixon school? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think the people who are in the government are probably functionally closer to the Nixon Eisenhower school, which I still think would be a vast improvement over the default mode of where we have been in the 90s, 2000s, 2010s. Do you think there’s actual public support for any kind of anti-imperialist, antiwar turn? Absolutely, absolutely. I think, but I think foreign policy is complex. I think it needs leadership. I think it would need a president to explain why we are doing this to the American people. But I think the people who lose their minds when the president. Pursues a new type of foreign policy, whether this be Donald Trump or even Barack Obama. It is an elite driven game. It is a D.C. in New York thing, that is, who’s actually opposing it most vociferously. It is not protests in the streets to keep our bases in Bahrain. It is not protests in the streets to make sure that we Borat-bag Nicolas Maduro. It is a D.C., New York intelligentsia thing, fundamentally. O.K, let me make a counterargument and see what you think. If you look at polling on the Iran war so far and again, four or five days in and obviously it can change dramatically. But right now, initially, overwhelming numbers of Republican voters support the war. It’s not popular nationally. But then Donald Trump himself is not popular nationally. But within the Republican coalition, there’s plenty of support for the war in polls. Doesn’t seem just elite driven. I think if you looked at polls for the Venezuelan operation, you would probably see something similar. And then over time in polling, I think if you do it on the basis of philosophy, right, you find a lot of default hawkishness among Republican, conservative and right wing voters. And there’s people who look at the kind of antiwar right or the war skeptical right that you represent. But that’s also associated with really prominent figures like Tucker Carlson, who you already mentioned, Steve Bannon, all the way now through figures like Megyn Kelly and others. And people say, well, that’s actually the elite driven phenomenon. That’s a group of people who found a way. This is an attention economy to monetize a lot of people who are really intensely focused on foreign policy or sometimes really hostile to Israel. We’ll talk more about Israel in a minute. But that ultimately, Bannon, Carlson and others, they speak for a really hyper engaged 10 percent of the Republican coalition. But most people are just hawks on the right. And if you say we’re going to go to war and kick some ass in the Middle East, yes, if it goes really badly, people will turn against it. But there isn’t like a philosophical support for restraint. What do you make of that argument? Most people most voters, are deferential to their party and their politicians. So, I mean, I think the counterfactual to your counterfactual needs to be interrogated. What if President Trump had signed an Iran deal? I think overwhelming numbers of Republicans would have supported that. What if President Trump had opened up business dealings with Nicolás Maduro, he’s doing right now with Delcy Rodriguez, or trying to? I think that would have been uncontroversial in the population. What if President Trump had pulled out of Ukraine and Ukraine hadn’t collapsed, and there was an enduring deal where an armistice frees the battle lines? I think that would have been very popular on the right as well. So you see a level of partisanship in this country that is extreme. You see a level of trust on the right and President Trump, which is notable, but I’m not sure entirely unique. I think the Democratic standard bearer, Biden was a weird president, I think a young. We can agree on that. We stipulate to that. I think Barack Obama, if he was president today, would have similar dynamics on the left, and I think that was frustrating for. Liberals or.. Meaning. Meaning that the left was notionally antiwar. But when Obama. Did things they supported it I mean, Obama and Trump have similarities or the phenomenons have similarities. There was a lot of left wing intellectual. ennui with Obama in the mid 2010s, I’m sure you recall, and it didn’t really show up in the polls. O.K, so I think Trump is a big deal. I think whoever leads these parties are big deals. I think presidents are big deals, but I don’t really see that as evidence. As for hawkishness, actually, I see that as evidence for trusting the president or trusting who leads the party or trusting your party. And I will say this as not a big fan of Bush, certainly, but also of Obama, who I think were both failed presidents. They both tried to marshal support in fairly traditional ways, which this is what I believe I’m going to do this. I’m going to spend political capital on it. Iraq, Bush did that. Obama did it for mediocre health care reform. what. Wouldn’t you at least agree, though, that there is a strong generational division here? where older conservatives and Republicans. And again, I think you can see this in opinion polls have a stronger hawkish default, going back in part to some of the veneration of Ronald Reagan you talked about. But again, I think just connected in a kind of profound way to how conservatives, older conservatives think about their country that we’re the country that won the Cold War. And if you’re a patriotic American, you should expect us to be able to do good things abroad. That seems still a powerful force in public opinion that can’t be just reduced to Trump says it. Therefore people go along. But I think the story ultimately is an elite one, because I’m still going to focus on the counterfactual. Let’s say Trump did a deal with Vladimir Putin. Let’s say Trump did a deal with the Iranians. He said, I solved Biden’s war. I did a better Iran deal than Obama Yeah, there might have been some people in the country, some right wing radio shows who are like “You know, the mullahs are still up to stuff We got to do this or do that.” But I don’t think there would be revolt from the older clientele of the party if Trump had chosen diplomacy versus Trump is choosing war and there is revolt. Well, wait, is there revolt? I think you’re going to see I think it’s going to be pretty bad. O.K yeah. I mean, it depends. I mean, it stipulates how long this war goes, right. Trump may still off ramp. Trump should off ramp. But I’m arguing succinctly that it actually would have been politically more savvy for him to do the diplomacy. And the only real explanatory variable in my view, is the elite story. That’s who was losing their mind at diplomacy. What about the explanatory variable of non-American actors? I think there’s huge too. I was being maybe diplomatic. Well, but. But not so. I don’t mean our allies. We’ll talk about our allies in a moment. I mean our adversaries. So when I look at what’s happened with Russia and Ukraine, right, it seems to me that the administration made a big diplomatic push. They twisted the Ukrainian government’s arm, as you mentioned, in the famous Oval Office meeting and elsewhere, to get them to be more open to a peace deal. And for various reasons, Vladimir Putin has decided that it’s in his interests to let the war go on. And that has left the White House they’re still negotiating a hawkish summary. I mean, I think they could have come to a deal that would have been attractive enough for Putin to not continue the war. But that’s life. I mean have to offer him a deal that makes it more attractive than the status quo, right. But to take the extreme example, if Trump made a deal with Putin and six weeks later, the Russian army took Kyiv and occupied 2/3 of Ukraine. The public would turn against that, don’t you think? I think the driving force on why they would turn against it would be hysteria driven from the media and by foreign policy elites. So I’ll stipulate to that. And look, this is I guess I don’t think that was really an offer though. I mean, we can debate Ukraine all day, but I think let’s narrow the zone of what was actually discussed. Like there wasn’t discussion of giving them Kyiv. There was There was discussions of giving them these four oblasts. There was discussions of security. There are discussions of security guarantees. These are the things that are actually being talked about in all these various negotiations. If Trump did, let’s say, the 28 point plan, which critics say is a Russian plan from 2025, late 2025, I think if that was initiated, I think that the Ukrainians and the Europeans would complain and liberals in the United States would complain, but that Ukraine would not collapse, that there would be a deal, and that would solve the conflict for the short to medium term. And I think the public would not revolt, right. I guess I just I think the Afghanistan scenario is what you raise, basically, which is if the administration had incompetently allowed Ukraine to collapse Afghanistan. Yes, I do think Trump would have been blamed. But I also think the big story there is media and foreign policy elites hammering that issue and making it everything on the airwaves. I guess that was the story. That was the Fox News story in Afghanistan. I guess this is a point where we somewhat disagree in the sense that I supported the withdrawal from Afghanistan. I wrote columns in favor of it. I defended Biden at the time against his critics. At the same time, at the same time observing the dynamics of that, how it affected perceptions of the Biden presidency. And obviously that reflected the way it was handled as well as the policy itself. It just gave me a sense that there are limits to how anti-imperial and withdrawal oriented American president can be, because a lot of Americans are just bought in. And sometimes I think for good reason, sometimes for bad reasons, to are a broadly ambitious role in the world. And certainly that things that appear as national humiliations. It doesn’t take Fox News whipping them up for that to. I think the execution would have solved, I think if Abbey Gate hadn’t happened. I think if the images in the airport had been less chaotic, I think that would have gone a long way. O.K well, let’s. All right. Let’s talk about, as you say, let’s stipulate that disagreement and talk more about what you see as the other actors shaping US foreign policy. So you argue that restrained, oriented, anti-imperial foreign policy could be popular with the right leaders. We’ve both been writing about these issues for a long time. It has not found the right leaders, even in the form of Donald Trump. A partial Buchanan. What is the obstacle? What is the core obstacle to elites embracing this kind of foreign policy? There’s a kind of different questions. Yes O.K. I mean, the fundamental obstacle is a president who believes in it and advances it and goes for it. I mean, I would say the same thing. We went into ancient history, the early 20th century, World War II was not popular getting into it before it was. And FDR cleverly marshaled public support and world events to get us into that war. And now that’s remembered as this sterling success of American power. But it wasn’t popular. It was extremely unpopular, actually, in the late seconds. And he basically had to pledge to not get us into the war when he ran for re-election in 1940. And so I think that the idea that Americans have extremely strong convictions on any of this stuff is not true. But I also think that is an argument against their extremely strong convictions for hawkishness. And you mentioned the Bannon, Carlson, Kelly right whatever you want to call it. And, because I see this line of critique, but I also think it’s very notable that the highest information members of the party and the most engaged voters, because I think you picked up on something smart, Carlson I’ve known for a while, and I think he would be doing this regardless. Bannon pretty much the same. But if there wasn’t a market for what they were saying, they wouldn’t be doing this probably 10 years ago. I was always told on television that foreign policy, it didn’t track, we could barely get me on TV, could barely get people on TV to talk about it, even when Carlson had me on, it was really just kind of almost a favor. That’s not the way it is anymore. People are getting madder and madder and more engaged on this subject organically. But I would say that the way that they’re getting madder and more engaged centers around having one very specific villain. Like a primary focus of Carlson especially, but others as well. Is Israeli policy Israeli influence on the United States. It’s true, it’s true. So it’s just true. It’s just true. Good all right, so what. Tell me about Israeli influence on US foreign policy. Israel’s foundation was always twinned with the United States. I mean, this happened in the 1948 election. Truman tilted the scales and helped. It helped him win the election in 1948. But fundamentally, since the 90s, since the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, Israeli politics has gone in a different direction and it has been highly twinned with particularly center right intellectuals and elites in the United States with a certain perspective. And it is a perspective that says that Israel can only be secure by thrashing everybody in the neighborhood and breaking them into bits until they’re weak. It is a siege mentality. It is a garrison state. And of course, it is very linked to the US when the other half of the world’s Jewish population is here. And this is a highly emotional issue. There is an attempt to say any criticism of Israel is ipso facto anti-Semitic. I think it is. Well, number one, it is the kind of argument that the right is supposed to be against, which is woke political correctness. It’s also just fundamentally untrue. And I think it’s a silly and dulling thought technology. But five years ago. I would say it was fair to say that kind of critique had a fair amount of purchase in American politics that people the critique that says if you criticize Israel too strongly, you’re anti-Semitic. I don’t think it has any substantial purchase right now. I think the Democratic political coalition has been fractured repeatedly in the last few years by debates that are profoundly about Israel and Israeli policy. And as we were just saying, it’s now happening to the right. And as we were just saying, some of the most influential voices on the right in terms of interest and engagement are intensely critical of Israel. So it seems to me that one that taboo is gone to a large degree. If it’s gone, then let’s actually be substantive. But what is it. Can’t just be. That is brushing aside. You’re brushing aside the fear that Israel still engenders, especially among the establishment. And this. That people feel that their careers will be destroyed if they’re at all critical of Israel. And that is still a controlling mechanism. People where I mean, people, people, people in people in media, in politics, people in media and politics, people in media, in politics and to an extent, corporate America. But since we’re talking about foreign policy, just focus just focus on foreign policy. Is that then an actual driver of US policymaking. I’m for sure Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So you would say that a big reason that a lot of Republican elites Yeah, take a much more hawkish line in the Middle East towards Iran, especially than you would favor or than you think most of their voters would favor is not because they’re sincere Iran Hawks, but because they’re afraid of having their careers destroyed. I think it’s a mix. I think particularly of older, as we mentioned, this age variable is huge. I think older people are more inclined to actually believe it. And then additionally, I think the clear separation between the interests of the United States and Israel wasn’t as obvious in generations past. I think there was a view, especially in the Bush administration, that the world was Fukuyama. And so, yes, this was the Israeli position. But if we knock over all these strong Muslim states, Jeffersonian democracy will actually blossom. And, look, I understand. You can say that different elites in the Bush administration fundamentally said this or disagreed on this or Bolton wanted to go in for this reason. It’s different than Paul Wolfowitz, right. O.K, fine. But fundamentally, the marinade was the only acceptable style of government and organization in society is Western liberal democracy, and other societies that organize themselves in a separate form are fundamentally illegitimate. And I think because Israel stabilized itself, styles itself as a Western liberal democracy, I’m not sure it’s Western liberal or democracy at this point. They are naturally able to latch on to that cast of mind. That cast of mind is discredited among younger people because this is a heavily indebted society, and Americans don’t believe in the future, broadly speaking, anymore. But for older Americans, it is a more attractive mode of argument. But do you think. See, I I just don’t think that’s where the pro-iran war right is right now. I agree that was a big part of the story of where the right was in the Bush era. Not universally, but a sense that I’m not so sure we’re out of the Bush era. To me, I look at the Trump era and I look at not so much even the people who always supported war with Iran like Lindsey Graham. But people who have oscillated back and forth between being anti-war, pro-war, who were shaped, I think, by loyalty to Trump in the ways you describe. I think for a lot of those people, the story they tell themselves now is we don’t have any fond illusions about democracy and the end of history. We think the world is a tough place. We think there’s a bunch of powers Russia, China, Iran, most notably, that are hostile to American interests. We think there’s a set of powers in the Middle East that are friendly to American interests, including Israel, also including Saudi Arabia, which has also played a substantial role, I think, in pushing for a more hawkish foreign policy from Trump in a way that gets less attention from Tucker Bannon. No one is out there telling a podcast host you can’t criticize Saudi Arabia in the American media. right, right. And yet there’s much more criticism of Israel in the American media than Saudi Arabia. But Israel is much more enmeshed in U.S. society than Saudi Arabia is. But is Israel more enmeshed in the decision making patterns of U.S. foreign policy than Saudi Arabia over the last 25 to 50 years. I feel like there’s AI think there’s a fundamental underestimation of the place of Saudi Arabia from the anti. I think there’s a bunch of Americans who support working with Arab states and Israel to fight Iran for what they think of as tough minded, realist reasons, not just gauzy Americans or elites. I think Americans who like Trump and currently say they support this war. So yeah, he advances Yeah he advances that he has picked a side pretty clearly at this moment. But even I think he may flip again. No, no. Well yeah. No I want to end by talking about the future that it might be likely Yeah but I mean, seriously, I mean, the guy flips constantly. Oh, yeah. No, no, he could absolutely flip again. But even in terms of foreign policy elites, when I look around the Republican Party, it just seems to me that yeah, there’s a lot of people who are like, Israel’s tough, Saudis are our allies. We’re weakening an enemy and strengthening. And I think this is I think this is a supine ideology. And I think it has gotten the essential incentive structure is this you can discard the things that are unpopular. So the 2000, oh, the naive democracy building. Are enough on Iraq. We’re not going to do that again. The essential lesson of the Iraq war is don’t invade Iraq. But everything else that has power. Israeli influence on the United States. The large military conservative institutions that are still bought in on this. You keep that and you just cook up something New, slightly different, and sell it as fundamentally a rejection of the 2000. It’s not a rejection of the 2000. This is why the administration is so vulnerable to the criticism that this is so similar to Iraq, because it is so similar to Iraq. I don’t think it is a full rejection of the 2000, but I think the people who are supportive of the war have people or elites or including elites. Well, I think it’s very different. I mean, look, I think George W Bush, who was a worst president to this point anyways, than Donald Trump. He’s the worst president by far in American history, in my opinion. He lost two wars and he crashed the economy. And when he left in January of 2009, 22 percent low seconds of Americans support him. What does that tell you. Half of Republicans supported him even as he was leaving the White House. I think that matters. I think that will fundamentally be true no matter what Trump does. But I think it’s only so interesting right now. I’m just trying to get at, what are the actual conduits of forces that are shaping foreign policy right now. And it just seems like you’re telling a story where Israel in particular exerts this kind of influence over people who don’t fully agree with Israeli policy but are afraid to argue with it. And that’s one argument. It’s not the full thesis or are in the thrall of like, yeah, early 2000 ideas about the spread of democracy. Let’s just to be very concrete. How much power do you think Benjamin Netanyahu is exerting over U.S. foreign policy right now. A disgusting amount. I mean, this has been going on for a while. I mean, the Benjamin Netanyahu, when he spoke to Congress under, I believe, Speaker Boehner, he was greeted more warmly by the legislature than the president of United States was at the time. So the Republicans took over Congress in 2014, and he gave an address, and it was like he was the president. I think a lot of Republican congressmen want Netanyahu to be the president, frankly. I mean, it’s obvious for everyone to see, but it just is fundamentally again, an elite thing. Netanyahu is not that popular in the United States. No but among Republican voters and elites, he is. But the lawmakers and elites reflect the broad the broad opinion. I mean, no, most congressional races are low information. But Republicans American Republicans, and that a default support for Israel that is rooted not in fear of political persecution by Zionists, but by some combination of historical affinities, religious affinities, and hostility to the Islamic Republic of Iran, which has done a lot of bad things to Americans over the years. Like, that’s a real core part of Republican sentiment. It may be ebbing among the younger generation. No dispute. But, but it is not a majoritarian perspective in the country. I mean, if that was true, Trump would never have been the Republican nominee. I’m just trying to stay with Israel because it seems so central to the actual. It is inside the right critique. But Trump, Trump, Trump ran for why Trump ran for president as more of a dove than other Republicans. But throughout his first term, he also constantly boasted about being the best friend that Israel has ever had. He was moving the embassy. He was doing all kinds of things. And again, he’s in bed with him. But he accepts. He accepted large Israel adjacent financing for his campaign. And you mentioned the golf before. The family is obviously in business in the golf ball. And the golf was far more of a driver of hawkish foreign policy in the first term. Let’s pull up. I’m trying to understand in certain ways just the future of the right and where right wing foreign policy goes from here. And so it makes a big difference whether we understand Israeli influence on Republican foreign policy as a primarily about the opinions of conservative voters who are pro-Israel for a range of reasons, to the opinions of elites who are pro-Israel for a different set of reasons, some mixture of sincerity and fear. You’re arguing versus three this narrative where well, no, it’s about Trump’s business deals and deal making in the Middle East. Those are three quite different perspectives. They can all be true. They can all be part of the story. I don’t understand the contradiction. Well, I’m just curious what we think is the defining, the defining force here. And as we can’t say no to Israel. He’s not saying no to Israel. But this will not stop unless he says no to Israel. But And he’s not. That is the he’s not saying no to Israel because he is fundamentally too agreeable or because he’s fundamentally corrupted. He’s agreeable. He is too close to them politically. And I think, yeah, I think he’s somewhat afraid of them. Why is he afraid of them. I think they’re an intimidating society. And I think people are afraid of Mossad. I think people are afraid of Israeli influence in foreign. They are afraid what it can do to people’s careers. I think this taboo, as you mentioned, is breaking, but I think it has a lot of explanatory power for Trump. Sure, sure Yeah I mean, you think Trump. Are you think he’s afraid of Israel as a force. I could break him that could attack him and call him an anti-Semite, or as a force that could expose dark secrets about him Yeah I mean, I think the Epstein story is somewhat relevant. I don’t know. We don’t know because the government’s not being transparent. But I think he was in alliance fundamentally from the beginning because of campaign donations and the structure of conservative foreign policy elites with the Israeli hard line and the Israeli hard line is, yeah, they want regime change. They also want state collapse in Iran. They don’t really want Iran to exist anywhere close to its current form. I guess I just my sense is just that these things from watching Republican foreign policy in this administration and previously that these things are overdetermined and that it ends up being easy for the anti side to say, well, it’s just Israel. And if we fix America’s relationship to Israel, I think it’s a huge deal. I mean, do you think this would be happy without Israel. I don’t think it would be happening without Israel in the sense that if an entirely different Middle East least existed, the world would be entirely different. But I can certainly tell a very straightforward story where the U.S. relationship to Saudi Arabia, Cold War issues, the Iranian revolution, a lot of different things lead to a long standing U.S. rivalry with Iran without Israel being part of that story. Yes, I can certainly tell that story. I think that Israel matters profoundly to in part for reasons related to what actual Republican voters believe, which is something that I think you think is more valuable. We’re going to be a naturally good relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran. I think we’re a long way from that happening. If the Islamic Republic of Iran exists in a year. I think the story, though, is why is this a crisis. Why do we have to do this now. Why do countries have to be evacuated of U.S. citizens. Why does oil prices have to go up potentially $100 a barrel. Why is the administration seemingly more interested in being defiant on this issue than its central issue. Immigration I mean, say what you will, and I don’t want to debate Minnesota, but the administration caved on that, and they may cave because it’s too much on this, but they are really putting their back into this one in a way they didn’t do on their central issue. Yes but part of that is that presidents in second terms can find foreign policy crises easier to feel like they have freedom of movement in than domestic policy. And Trump himself is but he had a lot of freedom of movement on immigration. I mean, what the Congress doesn’t really stopping him. Congress isn’t stopping him. But I think that courts and public opinion are from his perspective, actually more difficult adversaries than foreign dictators seem to be, especially in the aftermath of Venezuela, which again, to me has more explanatory power. But I think that has a lot of explanatory. I’m not discounting that at all. I think he has become. Besotted with these Quick Actions. So the assassination of Soleimani, the 12 Day War, the abduction of Nicolas Maduro. No, I think that was a huge story. And why he thought, O.K, there’s all this pressure on me. A major part of my coalition is losing its mind about Iran. We got to do everything the Israeli hard line wants, but maybe it won’t be so bad, right. And then additionally, there are a number of smart conservatives that are I think, basically doing the anti what we’re putting forth. They’re not putting forward 2002, 2003 neoconservatism. And I think I sense it in the tone of your voice a little bit maybe my view is overheated. Maybe it’s too much. Maybe I drew too many lessons from the 2000. And I don’t this looks pretty bad. So let’s say it’s pretty bad just to take your own language. You get state collapse in Iran. We don’t make any kind of Venezuelan style deal. I don’t think the U.S. stays at war with Iran for six months or puts 50,000 troops in, I don’t know. I don’t know. The government is I mean, it’s very tellingly, move the Overton window on that immediately. Now, troops are possible. Now forever wars now forever. Wars are sneer quoted. But let me I’ll just give you a scenario where we don’t do that. But it is perceived in six months that this was a failure. And Iran is a kind of festering landscape. There’s civil there’s some kind of Civil War inside Iran. Maybe we are backing Kurdish militias. O.K, we’ve stopped bombing. There is a more hard line government in power in Tehran that can’t control its provinces. Let’s say just as a scenario that is not maybe the worst case, but is quite bad. And people agree this policy has gone badly. What does that do to Republican politics and conservative politics in going into 2027 2028 and successors to Donald Trump Yeah, I think there are probably two main views on where the party and where the movement can go, and I think this has been true throughout the Trump era. There is view number one, and it is that it is a cult and it is just Trump as a celebrity. And once you get rid of Trump, once he’s off the scene, then it can go back to business as usual 2013, 2014, 2015. Status quo ante. The other view and these are obviously extremes. And so I think there’s truth in both perspectives. The other view is that the ideology really does matter. And additionally. The fact that the reigning ideology keeps failing will create a more and more radicalized polity that is actually going to that Trump will look in some ways like a moderate. And we’ve kind of talked about it before. It’s like this. This is the idea of I would say President Tucker Carlson, something like that. Like, this is the real thing. This time that Trump will be remembered as this, wobbly, interregnum before we get real right wing policy or something like that. I think obviously both of these things are kind of extremes that you just said, but I’m far more towards that. And I think because why I support the Iran war. Because it doesn’t work. And I think when it doesn’t work, it is actually going to be accelerationist. Do you think Republicans conservatives turn on Trump explicitly in that scenario. The way to some degree, they turned on Bush. I was just looking at Tucker’s his post Iran ran episode right, and it had a title like Israel’s war on Iran. He didn’t call it Trump’s war on Iran. Is there and you see a lot. I think there it breaks for the record, I think they’re equally culpable. I just want to be absolutely clear. I think Israel and that dynamic set the table. But I think President Trump is Responsive Web Design. President Trump is 50. O.K percent blame. So Trump do we get to a point where conservatives and Republicans agree with that, where anyone from Tucker to Megyn Kelly to Bannon and beyond is saying not the neocons have failed, but Trump has failed. The economy sets the tone. So it all depends what the economy looks like. Let’s say we keep the same economy roughly. We’re keeping the money machine going on. We’re going into debt. We’ve basically been doing the same thing more or less since 2009. I think you will see the administration if this war goes on for a while, or if we go into something that’s Iran looks like a disaster. What you described, say, in the autumn. I think you will see an administration that will be in the low seconds, maybe even the high seconds of approval rating. So today, I think Trump is in the high seconds. So I’m postulating a 5 to seven point knock on his approval rating. I think you will see them. This is just projection. I think you will see them in this scenario. If Trump hasn’t cut bait, which I think he still very well might. But just to pause, even if he cuts bait, if Iran is a disaster area, the policy is still a source of ongoing unpopularity. I mean, are they I mean, is the IRGC government lobbying missiles and drones at the Gulf still. I mean, to an extent that would imply that we can’t get out at that point. And we have to get back into defend our assets and defend commerce and air traffic, et cetera, et cetera. So I think this projection is hard to do, but I think what you’re asking is like, what does it look like if this actually takes a chunk out of his approval rating. And how does the intra right dynamics go from there. I think you will see an administration that you’re already seeing elements of this leaning Vance and Rubio get all the attention. But like aesthetically and spiritually, this is very Scythian, which is just like it’s screaming at the media. It’s absolute fetishization of combats and the troops. It’s leaning into the most loyal Republicans, which are often religious Republicans. I mean, some of the reporting and the language out of the Pentagon on why we’re doing this is pretty astonishing. I think you will see the White House do that. I think you will not see them denounce Trump outside. Outside critics, you mean Yeah. I mean, look, they didn’t the Democrats never denounced Biden until they cooed him. So, I think this is the equal and opposite on the Republican side. But I think you will see and this will be criticized. You will see would be successors, and you will see the right wing dialogue be all but explicitly condemnatory of Trump, not him. And there is the perspective that this is cowardice. Tucker’s attacked, just denounced Trump, et cetera, et cetera. Why won’t you. Because I think it’s not actually. The zone of argument that will make the most impact. And so I think you will see the primary debate be pretty vicious and openly condemnatory of the policy. Maybe not the person. And so what happens to the vice president, JD Vance, in that scenario Vance is someone who is very explicitly, as we’ve said earlier in this conversation, associated with some kind of politics of restraint. He is someone who is friends with Tucker Carlson is broadly associated with anti-interventionist populism. You’re telling a story where there’s a big breakdown and attack on the administration from the anti right. What happens to Vance Well, I think, number one, the biggest macro question is whether or not Rubio is going to run against Vance would be my number one. And I think it’s a weird zone where Rubio actually profits politically from the administration failing. So I think if the 2028 primary race is not attractive, he’ll just pass. And in 2032, he’ll be remembered as this grand man of state representing a Republican super state, Latino Yeah, he was for the Iran stuff, but it wasn’t his thing. Venezuela and Latin America is his thing. You could see him like people thought Condi Rice could run. It’s just she had more going on than just that. It wasn’t Dick Cheney running. And I think that could be very attractive to Rubio because the reality is Rubio being VP with Vance all that attractive. I mean, if they win, he has to wait eight more years to run in 2036 if they lose. I mean, not since FDR has a losing vice president on the ticket become the president. So it’s not great. So I think that’s the first open question because you could imagine a Vance Rubio dual. And then I think this stuff actually becomes extremely salient because Vance is clear. Allies are the interventionists. But Rubio is clearly the establishment. But Vance can’t make an argument that his own administration’s policies have failed. I think he might have to. I want to be clear. So what was the central mistake that Kamala Harris made among many. But the central one was, I think, the no daylight policy with Biden. I think Vance is going to have to innovate beyond that if he wants to be the president. And is there anyone besides Tucker who you imagine as a standard bearer for a right wing insurgent campaign Yeah is there going to be a right wing insurgent campaign. Challenge to Vance. So Vance is we’re talking about flanks basically here. So there’s the establishment flank. You got DeSantis, Haley Cruz. Those people are all going to try to flank Vance from it’s just a cult. We can go back. But if the Iraq war. Sorry Freudian slip happening. Here we go. Everyone who’s for the war is doing this. This is where we end with the Freudian slip. If the Iran war is seen as a failure, it seems to me that the action in the party is not Ron DeSantis running against Ron DeSantis. I’m not saying what will. I’m not saying what the party party elites think. I’m just saying the action is who becomes the voice of this failed narrative. You’re saying one it could be Vance himself is the Sanders lane. Like that’s what Sanders did in 2016. He implicitly critical of the incumbent Democratic president. But it seems to me, incredibly difficult for Vance to do it — Yeah, I agree. So then it’s Tucker. Is there anyone else. Well, yes, I think it depends how many of them run. But I think there’s clearly four potential anti-interventionist critics of Vance who could run. It is Carlson. It is Bannon. It is Marjorie Taylor Greene. It is Thomas Massie. Those were the four I flag I struggle to imagine any of those four winning a one on one race. But it may be against Vance against Vance. My imagination is not going to be a one on one race. I mean, I think it’s very clear that Vance will probably have at least one competitor within his own administration. So if it’s not Rubio Hegseth, Kristi Noem I think I’ve been talked to. Sorry I’m smiling. I’m smiling. Seriously tiptoed. No well, Corey Lewandowski’s managed one successful last then last question is this, though. If the war goes if the war goes badly, does any of this conversation matter or is it just a poisoned chalice and no one should want to. That’s what. That’s what I’m arguing. That’s why Rubio senators are so perverse. I think he is the most untrustworthy politically in the administration. And because you think he benefits from I think he Iran failure, I think he benefits from Iran failure. O.K I’m skeptical that he thinks that way, but I think we’ve argued enough. Curt Mills, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you.
