It's a Numbers Game: The Iran War DESTROYED the GOP—And Republicans Refuse to Admit It!

Ryan Girdusky (0:01)

Welcome back to A Numbers Game with Ryan Girdusky. Thank you guys for being here. So in the fallout from the midterm blowout, where Republicans had one of the worst losses since the Watergate scandal, a lot of Republicans have been looking at root causes. How do we get here and how did it come so badly for the GOP?

And even I questioned it, right? I did Friday's episode, I questioned a lot of things, including immigration policy, which I'm fairly a hawk on. And I said, how do Republicans take a softer approach to still achieve mass deportations, right? So we should go after employers, we should freeze bank accounts for illegal aliens, they shouldn't be allowed to open a bank account. Like there's ways to do it where it's not so visibly concerning, where it's people knocking down homes and draggled from cars and whatnot, and really the mismanagement and the visible mismanagement under Christie. No, I think it's healthy for everyone to say, okay, where could things go better? Well, if you turn on social media or concert or podcast or talk radio or cable TV over the last week or so, less than a week, six days, you may have heard a lot of people talking about the Iran War and how it really wasn't on the ballot, that it really was about corruption or the economy or mishandling of the Epstein files or tariffs or liberation day. But the Iran War, absolutely not. It was not about the Iran War, not about $4 at the pump, $6 or $7 for diesel. It was not about any of that stuff. It was the Republicans, Americans didn't care. They didn't care. They didn't care about Iran. They didn't care about any economic fallout. Don't be crazy. It's about corruption. It was something completely something else. That is the message you have heard going out from a lot of people who were gung-ho about this war. They have been in absolute refusal to acknowledge that maybe it was a bad idea. Right? Don't touch their sake or cow. Vice President, Jamie Vance blamed the war, blame rising gas prices and said the United States need to need to reorganize itself, its relationship with Israel. And it earned him pronounced denouncements, including from congressmen like Randy Fine from Florida and Marlon Sutsman from Indiana. Right? Marlon Sutsman is a huge supporter of amnesty for illegal immigrants.

Yeah, it's just some of the worst people in the world are the ones who have to get on their high horse. President Trump, though, did an interview on Sunday for 60 Minutes. And it was taped. I think it's a very important context. It was taped after the firing of Susie Wiles, before the appointment of Stephen Miller as chief of staff, which I'm going to get into on a different episode. There's too much to cover in this episode, but it was done in that time was pre-taped. I think it's a very important context for some things that he said, which we will get to. But he says that he thinks that Americans were mad about the war, and they were mad about high gas prices, and a lot of Americans really don't like Israel. It was the most introspective time I've ever seen Trump, where he's not just saying, it was because I was on the ballots, because Americans didn't see their president, who they love so much. He was actually pretty thoughtful, which I mean, I give President Trump credit, he is not often thoughtful. So for him to have any introspection is pretty amazing, and he got to the same place roughly that JD Vance was in. I mean, not exactly the same, but very close to it. But for the Republican commentator class, and I don't want to name them all just because I don't want to have that podcast where I'm just bashing other people constantly. If you see, if you know who I'm talking about, you know who I'm talking about, right? There's a bunch of them. Their unwillingness to say to themselves, how did this war hurt Republicans?

That's insane to me. It's insane that they are unwilling. This is the hill they're willing to die on. This is actually, if you think about it, you always hear the expression, this is not the hill to die on. They believe this is actually the hill to die on, this endless war in Iraq, in Iran rather. And I'm not saying Iran is a good actor. I'm not saying that we should elevate Iran on the world level stage. I'm not saying Iran doesn't want to do bad things to Americans, that they don't have all these proxies all over the world, that who want to harm is America. I'm not saying that they are a good actor. Trust me. I'm not defending Iran.