The most dangerous phase of a presidency and a war

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Lima.

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**David Pakman** (0:30)
The Iran war is going so badly that the blame game is rampant and Republicans are planning to run away from the disaster that they spent months cheering or at least letting Trump do whatever he wants. Trump, meanwhile, is doing exactly what you would expect. He's glitching through questions. He's posting really weird AI slop and he's trying to turn an apparent retreat because he's terrified into evidence that he's just so brilliant militarily. We're also going to look at Max Miller, the MAGA congressman accused of horrific domestic violence who in a very unusual attempt to defend himself has made the situation even worse with a nearly 20 minute long live stream. And then more than 300 Trump affiliated bank accounts have been closed after an anti money laundering review. Here we go again. And Robert F. Kennedy Jr. melts down when challenged on CNN by Dana Bash. I'll also talk to Rick Wilson about where this growing political collapse may be going. What a program today.
Folks Donald Trump is on the verge of straight up losing the Iran war and losing it really, really badly. This was going to be a two to three week war. We are months into this thing. Week 20, whatever, I've kind of lost track. And Donald Trump and I guess to a degree, Benjamin Netanyahu as well, believed that this was going to be quick. This was going to be decisive. Two to three weeks won't even consider boots on the ground. And we are now months into this thing. None of the central objectives to the degree that Donald Trump is able to articulate them, which is a different question. But none of the objectives, as we understand them, have been achieved.
Iran's nuclear program. It's been damaged. Sure, the ballistics missile program, it's been damaged, but none of these have been destroyed. Iran certainly hasn't surrendered. It has a new government, which is really just its latest version of the previous regime, because it's still all in the same family, is more determined. It's more radical. American troops continue to be killed, injured. The United States is now running very short on critical weapons. I remember Donald Trump, when he took over in 2017 from Barack Obama, said the cupboards are bare. Obama left the cupboards bare and wasn't true then. And now we are actually running very low on munitions. And maybe the most just humiliating, pathetic aspect of all of it is that Iran is effectively in control of the Strait of Hormuz, which is, as I'm sure most of my audience knows right now, one of the very important strategic and economic waterways on Earth involved in about one fifth of all oil transit. So now we get to a new report from The New York Times, which says that our own allies see that this is a defeat for the United States. Now understand that to lose a war, you don't have to go. We surrender and we lose. It's you fail to accomplish your strategic objectives while doing economic damage to the country and eventually retreating. You never go. We lost. Good game, right? It's not a good game, but you see the dysfunction exposed. You see growing American vulnerability. The United States can't convert what is admittedly overwhelming military power into an achievable and definable political result. And Trump's theory hasn't changed at all. It's the same kind of simplistic fantasy he's had from the beginning, which is we hit him hard enough for long enough. They will give up. Give us everything we want. And Trump even said again on just a couple of days ago on Friday, Trump goes, we're going to hit him. We're going to hit him very hard. And they're going to say, we can't take it anymore, sir. With tears in their eyes. But Iran is not saying that. And instead, the United States is kind of learning a lesson you'd think we would have learned by now from prior war escapades. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, which is, yes, we do have the superior firepower, but it doesn't guarantee that these incursions are well advised and it doesn't guarantee victory against adversaries who may be way more willing than we are to absorb punishment and just kind of wait you out. And what Iran now has, remember, Trump told Zelensky, you don't have the cards. Iran has some cards now and card number one is massive leverage over global shipping.