Ep. 84: At Least Trae Crowder Can Make Us Smile
Hey FRs,
ICYMI, this week we had Trae Crowder join us to talk about a war no one except Netanyahu seems able to make sense of, a strait that continues to be held hostage, and a potentially (maybe, hopefully, please?) crumbling Trump base.
Did we really go to war with Iran because Netanyahu finally found his moment (and his man)?
Sadly, it seems so. Netanyahu has been pushing for U.S. military action against Iran for over two decades. What changed in 2025 was access: Bibi in the Situation Room, a president who responds to presentations and pictures over facts and analysis.
That's not a commander-in-chief deciding to go to war. That's an overconfident, shallow thinker getting played.
Is Iran's nuclear program more dangerous now than before the war?
Damn right. The previous Supreme Leader — 87 years old and not, shall we say, the picture of health — was not ideologically committed to building a weapon. His son, who inherited power after the U.S. and Israel killed his father and made him a martyr, just watched his family get assassinated and, unsurprisingly, does not have the same level of restraint. The logic that military strikes set back Iran's nuclear timeline ignores what it accelerated: the political will to actually use one. You cannot bomb your way to nonproliferation when the bombing is the radicalization. We never learn.
Why doesn't Iran need to close the Strait of Hormuz to win the economic war?
Because the threat itself does the work. When Iran sends the signal that the Strait is unsafe, tanker insurance rates spike immediately, shipping companies reroute, and the global economy absorbs the cost whether or not a single vessel is touched. Even better, to retaliate to a $15,000 Iranian drone the U.S. is forced to send a $5 million interceptor missile.
The asymmetry isn't a bug in Iran's strategy. It is the strategy.
Why are some of MAGA's loudest voices — Tucker, MTG, Alex Jones — breaking with Trump over this war?
What's the expression? Even a broken clock is right twice a day? Or, to be kinder, maybe because "no new wars" was the one promise the America First coalition actually believed. That said, while the fracture is real, it's limited: defections among rank-and-file supporters are starting to show up in polling, but most disaffected Trump voters aren't moving left, they're just threatening to stay home. That could be meaningful for the midterms, but it's not a realignment. And it doesn't seem likely to be unless the Dems can get their shit together.
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