Trump & Hegseth Are Increasingly Delusional on Hormuz; TACO Incoming? | Morning Chaser

All right, I think we are live. Hello, everybody out there in TV land. My name is Andrew Egger with The Bulwark. Welcome to Morning Chaser. I am joined as always on Tuesday mornings by my Morning Shots co-author, Bill Kristol, editor at large of The Bulwark.

We write the Morning Shots newsletter. We did another one this morning, as we do every morning, Monday through Friday. We're here to talk a little bit about it, a little bit about some other stuff that's going on in the world too. Bill, are you sick yet of talking about the straight up whore moose, of talking about, you know, what's going on in the world of oil and all the bad things that are piling up around us?

Or is this the sort of thing that gets you out of bed in the morning? Andrew, good to be with you, first of all. I like your retro TV land. Shouldn't you be saying video land or YouTube land or podcast land or sub stack land or something? But anyway, not to criticize, that's okay if you want to cater to the, but you're too young to have grown up. Well, I guess even you grew up in TV land, right?

Yeah, I mean, people watch this stuff on their TV. Well, that's a good point. That shows how out of touch. Everything is totally dislocated, right? Nobody has any idea who's coming where, from where, where it's being received, where it's being sent from. You're at home. I'm in the Bulwark office right now. I mean, people might see some contractors over my shoulder who are around, you know,

putting TVs up on walls and doing things that you need in a modern office space. But yes, you're correct, I should have said, out in the modern world of streaming. No, you're right to correct my correction

because it fits into the topic of the day, which is the Trump administration's a little confused about what world we're in, I would say. I know, I don't get, I mean, look, it's important. Obviously, it's very important. I do think it's the biggest decision

of Trump's second term, probably. I guess maybe going with the mass deportation agenda might compete with that. But I think Iran will end up having even, well, not bigger, but it will have major, major consequences on Trump's presidency, but more importantly, on US foreign policy

and on the world and the global economy and global geopolitics. So it's a big moment. And I argued this morning that Trump is likely to, I've been arguing this for three, four weeks, and I've gone back and forth, actually, it's not certainly uncertain with Trump, but uncertain in general, but I think

he's backing off. I think he's heading for the exits on Iran. But you know, I already got a text from a good friend saying, you're probably right, but very important to emphasize, and I do think I make this point quickly, at least in the newsletter, it's still a bad outcome. And I think it is a less bad outcome than escalating to ground troops. But either way, I think the whole thing has been a fiasco. But you've been focusing a lot on the economic side of it.

Did you, what's happening and how much of that already is, whatever he does now is already built in. So maybe talk about that a little bit. Yes, let's talk.

Unless you're too tired of Iran to talk about it. I don't know. No, I'm a sicko for this stuff. I mean, I'm very fascinated by this story. Let me set the table a little bit here for what kind of the up-to-the-minute thing is. Because in some respects, it's the same story it's been all along, right? The Strait of Hormuz is closed, and that's

horrible for everybody. Um, you know, for a long time, it was the story was the straight of Hormuz is closed and it's horrible for everybody, but people are kind of hoping there will be a relatively prompt resolution. Um, and so everyone's just sort of holding their cards and trying to brace in the short term and we'll see what happens next. And I think we're starting to see it, uh, a page turn on that to kind of a second act in all of this. So let me just put up a couple of headlines here. This is from Bloomberg a couple of days ago. The Strait of Hormuz oil shock is now heading west.

Obviously, the biggest problem so far in the immediate term was in Asia, in China especially, where a lot of this oil was bound. Oil does not come out of the Strait of Hormuz to go to the United States of America. So all of the issues that we were feeling

in terms of higher gas prices and all of that, that was all very indirect. But the direct stock is already hitting in Asia. They're seeing not only high prices, but actually shortages, which are a different sort of beast altogether. And energy analysts are starting to warn,

that is not going to remain purely an Asian problem either. You know, we've seen these upticks in the prices of oil. You know, they're north of $100 a barrel now. You're setting new highs again this morning. Analysts are warning, that could be nothing. You know, that could be, we could see $200 a barrel before the end of all of

this. So we're very, very early days. As far as the actual straight itself is concerned, we've got some numbers on that too. Let's throw this up. Subtle rise in non-Iranian trade through Hormuz. We're starting to see a very few vessels that are not Iranian vessels moving through a handful every day, as Iran sets up basically a permitting system, a toll booth, a checkpoint to basically say, pull up to us, give us a little bit of money, a couple million dollars, and we'll let you through and we won't try to drive a speedboat into the side of your vessel or hit you with a

drone. So there's a little bit of this, a little bit of a tick northward of this. But go to the third slide here. This is from Gulf Business. I mean, it is still a trickle of a trickle compared to what we were seeing before.

I'll just read here. Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has slowed to a near standstill, with 181 vessels recorded passing through the waterway between March 1st and March 30th of 2026, down from about 138 a day as the pre-existing status quo. So like I said, a fraction of a fraction here.

And this is after weeks and weeks of war, right? So you've got the president weighing in on this. You've got Secretary Hegseth, who just did a briefing about an hour ago, weighing in on some of this too. I was not particularly reassured by any of this. So let's hit what Hegseth had to say this morning about the Strait. Hormuz, there are many more vessels flowing through today than there were,

as the president has arranged. The president's been clear to Iran, open it for business, or we have options, and we certainly do. And when you look at what the chairman laid out with the Navy, with the Navy industrial base, with coastal cruise missiles, with UAVs, with counter mine capabilities, we've been focused from the beginning on a treading and defeating those capabilities and limiting their options. Yeah. And I could go through a critique of like why that's kind of a crazy way of looking at it, but I actually don't have to do that because the president himself in a cabinet meeting on Tuesday basically laid out why this sort of military only strategy to the straight of we're just gonna keep bombing them and bombing them and bombing them until the straight is magically reopened, doesn't

really work. It's not actually effective when it comes to achieving the objectives of getting these companies to feel comfortable and safe moving their ships through the straight again. So let's play Trump from the cabinet meeting on Tuesday.

Probably the straits is this. Let's say we do a great job. We say we got 99%. 1% is unacceptable. Because 1% is a missile going into the hull of a ship that cost a billion dollars, right? So 1% is, if we do a 99% decimation, that's no good.

Yeah, I guess I said Tuesday that was from last week. I can't remember now at the top of my head if I'm actually correctly saying it was Tuesday. That was the cabinet meeting last week. But that's the whole problem, right? I mean, that's that's the problem that they're basically stuck with is is they they continue to to trumpet their military capabilities here. But meanwhile, Iran, as it has all along, is exercising complete

economic control of the strait, and it seems to have no interest in letting that number of ships take up. Meanwhile, you have the strange split screen of Trump viewing each individual ship that passes through as an objective achieved. Iran lets six ships through on a day and Trump calls it like this amazing prize that they gave us or they let eight ships through the next day and Pete Hegseth gets up there, you know, look what the president has arranged,

as he said in that clip. I mean, it's the disconnect between the actual facts on the ground and the actual crisis that that is that is engendering in real time right now. And this insane sort of lackadaisical, totally divorced from reality way that the administration talks about it is, I mean, it's unbelievable. It's striking. So you, Bill, you wrote a little bit about this today. I mean, I think you're correct. Like the status quo cannot continue like this. But I mean, what do you see,

what are kind of the tea leaves that you're reading as far as, you know, where this goes from here with this administration's rhetoric.

I mean, you're right about the magnitude of it. People haven't maybe quite internalized that yet. I mean, if you go from 20% of the world's oil flowing through there to, I guess, what is it? One or 2% now, really, right? I mean, it's a massive drop.

And so how do you make up for that remaining 17 to 18%? Well, you get a, obviously you can increase the production elsewhere and ship some stuff around various other, in other ways, but that's a big hit for oil, but also petrochemicals and so forth, things that are essential to so much of the world's economy, basically.

And people are saying it's the biggest supply side shock in modern time, recent times. And I do have the sense from talking to a few people and reading a little bit of stuff here that it's, as you say, first week or two, very unfortunate, pay a little price, but, you know,

kind of a big disruption, but manageable. A month, eek, you know, serious effects. And clearly the markets are beginning to, are seeing those. Six weeks, eight weeks, you start hitting some cliffs. You know, their businesses have 30 days, 45 days of backup often of, you know, what they need.

Taiwan supposedly has what it needs for its chips for another 10, 12 days. They don't have two or three months often of backup. And if some of this stuff isn't coming through, it's not coming through, or if the price is doubling or tripling

or quadrupling or whatever. And so the real world effects, I think, it's not just incremental, it's not just it gets one or two percent worse each day, it sort of gets worse gradually and then suddenly you start hitting some cliffs. So I think that's the sense of urgency. That sense of urgency has led Trump at times and Heg Seth, I guess, fairly seemingly fairly often, and certainly plenty of foreign policy analysts to say, well, I guess he has to go in with troops and, you know, sort of really resolve the situation.

The trouble is every military person, I happened to talk to some this weekend, who has looked at this seriously thinks the ground troops can't resolve the situation. I mean, unless you have a hundred thousand troops and you were gonna go in and basically conquer whole chunks of Iran and so forth. If you don't have regime change, and if you don't have a large number of ground troops, really large number of ground troops, they can lob stuff at wherever we put our troop marines

or soldiers on the shore of the Strait or in Karg Island or whatever, we can escort some ships through, probably we can if we really wanted to devote big resources, big parts of the Navy to doing that, but then you're escorting a handful of ships through, right? And Trump's correct, remains correct. Doesn't solve the problem of regular merchant marine ships,

not being, insurance not paying for, not willing to insure ships to go through. So it really has hit, I think, something of a crisis point, which means it's either escalation or kind of finding a face-saving or not so face-saving deal by Trump. I do think he's been signaling,

I mean, there's so much bluster, there's so many contradictions, there's so much just craziness in everything he says and does. Some of it, maybe you want to give him a little credit, intentional misdirection or bluffing,

but a lot of it just Trump being Trump. That, who knows, I mean, I think it's 60-40 or two to one maybe that he now is basically in a head for the exits, find a way out mode, but it's two to one, not 10 to one. So I wouldn't be wildly surprised if we have ground troops landing in two days or something. I think that scenario is so bad

that the kind of trying to find a way out, Iran won't quite open the strait right away. There'll be negotiations, third parties, Pakistanis, Oman, Japan, there'll be implicit bribes maybe to the Iranian regime to step up. And maybe two, three weeks from now, Trump will be able to say, see, it is kind of opened up and we damaged Iran's ballistic missile and other offensive capabilities.

It took a little hit to the economy, but now the trade's back open and all is well. Just final point of, is I would say, it all is not well. I mean, Iran will have established the principle that it can close the strait and not pay a massive price. It's already paid a big price,

and obviously in terms of all the bombing, but not pay the fundamental price of regime change or anything. Very, very bad precedent to take, to make, to establish. I think we've, of course, our allies are all just, can't believe we've done this with no consultation. And so recklessly and foolishly,

the Gulf States are all sitting around thinking, you know, they go in halfway against our wishes and then they don't finish the job against our wishes. Is this really the kind of ally we want? So I think it's a big disaster for US foreign policy and really for the world in terms of global stability and not good for the economy either. Having said all that, I guess my current thought,

speculation I think I said in the newsletter, is that Trump is looking to head for the exits rather than escalate.

Yeah, and there are, obviously, he is a famously mercurial guy. He could turn on a dime and move in a different direction. But I totally agree with you. Right now, the tea leaves are 100% pointing in that direction. One of the ways that you can see this,

I'm going to jump ahead a little bit in the elements. But one of the ways that you can see this is in the ways that they're talking about regime change, right? The way that in just the last couple of days, the president and then especially Pete Hegseth this morning have basically said, well, if you really squint, if you think about it,

we killed all the leaders who were running things before. We have different leaders now. We have every confidence that these leaders are going to be easier to work with. So regime change has basically already happened. play a clip of Pete Hegseth again, just about an hour ago, saying that at the press conference this morning.

The Iranian regime should know that by now. This new regime, because regime change has occurred, should be wiser than the last. President Trump will make a deal, he is willing. And the terms of the deal are known to them. If Iran is not willing, then the United States War Department will continue with even more intensity. Yeah. And I want to play one more

clip from Pete here in a second, just to really kind of highlight how just sort of silly, I mean, this whole business of like, oh, you won't make a deal now, I guess we'll hit you harder tomorrow. We'll see if you'll be willing to make a deal the next day. I mean, they've been playing this public strategy now for a month, right? They have indeed succeeded in taking out

a bunch of Iranian leaders. But the ones, I mean, the idea that the ones who are now in their, we have every confidence they're going to be more willing to negotiate. I mean, the strait was open before the war, and now it's closed. It's the new leaders who are the ones who are continuing to maintain the situation. And now we would need to see it as a giant diplomatic victory

just to take the strait back to the pre-existing status quo. But just to kind of put a fine point on this, I just wanted to play a quick compilation of how Hegseth has been talking about this. We've got clips from March 13th and March 19th and then again from today, all of which are him basically saying the same thing of, you know, we are just beating the shit out of them militarily and it's weakening their position and any second now they're going to have to cry uncle and give

us what we want. But let's just play that set of clips real quick.

Well, it is unshakable. Our options maximized and our capabilities still building. We're going up. They're going down. In fact, today will be yet again, the highest volume of strikes that America has put over the skies of Iran and Tehran. The number of sorties, the number of bomber pulses, the highest yet, ramping up and only

up. And again, today will be the largest strike package yet, just like yesterday was. As I've said from day one, our capabilities continue to build. Iran's continue to degrade. On the battlefield, because of the latitude the president has given us, American firepower is only increasing. Iran's decreasing. We have more and more options and they have less. Just one month in only one month. We set the terms. The upcoming days will be decisive. Iran knows that. And there's almost nothing they can militarily do

about it. Almost nothing they can militarily do about it, but a lot they can do about it economically, which has been the problem the entire time. I don't know, Bill, is there any way to read this other than just, I mean, throwing good missiles after bad?

Yeah, they're not even, I mean, they looked like they were more disabled militarily about 10 days in, and remember their numbers were going way down in terms of missiles and also drones, drone attacks. And then they started, it turns out they had some stuff from reserve and they kind of knew what they were doing. And maybe they got some targeting help from the Russians. And suddenly they're blowing,

they're destroying an AWACS that we had on the Saudi airbase that cost $700 million, and you know, with quite a precise hit. And so yeah, I mean, Hex, that's just, I mean, but these sounds to me like a guy, I hadn't, I wrote the morning shots before his 8 a.m. thing pretty much this morning. I mean, the pathetic backpedaling. So they started off for regime change, that's gone.

Now they've, but they can't admit they didn't do that. I don't know what you're talking about, Bill, It's so laughable when it's literally the kid of the previous Ayatollah, you know, who's in there and the IOGC. I mean, I'm not shedding any tears for the people who've gone, but anyway. So yes, the regime change happened.

That's kind of a pathetic attempt to rationalize it. The nukes have receded some in the talking points. That was very clear yesterday in both Carolyn Leavitt in the White House and Rubio. And now it's sort of vague stuff about, you know, we sort of making sure they don't acquire nuclear capacity in the future.

I don't think this is what, there was that stuff over the weekend about going in to get the nuclear material. Again, this could all reverse and maybe we'll doing that tomorrow and it's all a big misdirection.

But I think on nukes, for the standard kind of US position, which is we won't allow them to get a nuclear weapon. And they all say, we're not, don't want a nuclear weapon. We just started some research and then we'll have the usual. Maybe there'll be some more bombings, six or 18 months from now or something. But, and then on the straight, they moved from back, even from the three week, one week ago position,

which was, we're determined to reopen the Strait. There's no, can't have any agreement. That's a core demand of ours. Of course, it's only closed because we started this all. But anyway, and now it's all sort of, literally yesterday, Rubio said, and I guess, certainly Rubio said, I guess Levitt said too, well, that's, we're going to get, yeah, we certainly want it to be reopened. It'll happen in the next few weeks, I think one of them said. So again, I think that's actually could well be true. But again, the degree to which the foreign policy professionals,

one talks to if they bracket the fact that Trump is president, which for me is one of the core reasons we should not be for escalation. And we should be glad honestly, if he heads for the exits

because he's so irresponsible and reckless. You don't want more war, you know? But in a normal world, this is such a defeat for the US to go to start this war and join Israel and starting this war at this time and then end up retreating without even a iron commitment, a real commitment or real evidence of opening the strait.

Now, maybe he'll get that, and maybe Iran has been pummeled a lot and they'll decide, you know what? We're gonna open it anyway, probably in two, three, four weeks we have our own interest in doing so. We're not going to play this game forever.

And so we'll open it tomorrow and have 40 ships go there. I mean, it's possible that Trump will go a little, they might decide to give Trump a little more of a face-saving victory, though that's not been their general mode of the same Iranian regime, which Trump is leaving in power. So a pretty humiliating thing all in all. I guess that's what strikes me. And again, we haven't seen, I think this is your point,

we haven't seen all the economic effects yet. And I kind of think even if the thing stops tomorrow, I think those go up, those could continue for, there'll be some of the markets will look forward and sort of start to see a bit of a sigh of relief, but those effects are not going away right away, you know, $4 gasoline and stuff.

So pretty disastrous for Trump. Don't you think politically too? I mean, I don't think these new low polls are totally unconnected from this war, which has been going a month. I mean, so there's enough time for people to assimilate

that it's been happening, right? Well, he is – I mean he is just objectively hitting new record lows, at least for his second term in terms of polls. But I think it's interesting that you bring up his sort of domestic messaging on this, right? Because I wanted to put up a truth post that he sent out just this morning, which honestly, if anything, it makes me more worried about exactly the things you're talking about, that he doesn't know how to reopen the strait. And he is already sort of seeding an argument

for how to survive this domestically by not solving this crisis that's coming, but trying to figure out some other person to blame for this crisis that's coming. So I'll read this. This is just from this morning. All of those countries that can't get jet fuel because

of the Strait of Hormuz, like the United Kingdom, which refused to get involved in the decapitation of Iran, I have a suggestion for you. Number one, buy from the US, we have plenty. And number two, build up some delayed courage, go to the Strait and just take it. You'll have to start learning how to fight for yourself. The USA won't be there to help you anymore, just like you weren't there for us. essentially, more or less decimated. The hard part is done. Go get your own oil, President Donald J. Trump. I mean, if you take him at his word there,

which is always risky with this guy, but if you're just taking the plain things that he's saying at his word, it's essentially a renunciation of culpability for the Strait of Hormuz as it exists, as it's gonna exist in the future. In theory, we're still under this like twice extended

ultimatum where the president has said, Iran, you better reopen it and get it back to normal or else the big guns are coming. This is a totally different character of thing where he's essentially, I mean, there are so many different Trump pathologies

that come into this. We've talked before about his sort of magical thinking of, if you look at it a certain way, the Strait being closed is actually good for the United States, because we are an energy exporter, and this is good for our oil companies here,

and we can sell oil to around the world and reap a big windfall. That's one part of his thinking here. But the other part of the thing here is these are just not the these are just not the the places your mind goes if you are confident that you're going to be able to reopen the strait as you are supposedly projecting

power against Iran in order to do and and to basically say well look you know six months from now gas is six dollars a gallon as people are going to the polls i mean there is no good case that he can make here but apparently the case he intends to make here is, look, don't blame me, blame the UK. You know, if they'd come in, it's their oil, we were only there to kind of help out, not withstanding the fact that we started the war, but you know, look, I mean, if they wanted an open straight,

they should have helped us out with it. They should be doing it today, you know, blame the UK or blame Germany or something like that. I mean, this is the explicit case that he's making. I just, it boggles my mind.

No, it is mind boggling. You're absolutely right to really emphasize this because it's mind boggling from a broader geopolitical, geostrategic point of view. For 50 years, it's been US doctrine, core doctrine, and we've fought wars to enforce it,

especially in 1990, 91 and the free flow of oil and of energy from the Gulf, in defending friendly regimes in the Gulf, and not letting enemy regimes, whatever setbacks we've had, not giving them clear victories if possible. I mean, this has been a kind of considered

a core US interest. Now, Trump doesn't seem to think it is. Probably doesn't really think it is. Some of his people don't because they are America, but they'd like to be isolationists of some kind or other. But I think you're absolutely right to point to his wish to have someone to kick around to blame.

And it's gonna be the allies, who are soon gonna be our ex-allies. But you know what? I really think he's laying the groundwork for it, and you can see this in some of the posts weeks, getting out of NATO. Suddenly he got obsessed with NATO, didn't you? And true social and all. Like why?

NATO is not an issue. I mean, this was never going to be a NATO war. We didn't ask that it be a NATO war. NATO didn't ask that they be involved. It was just, it was like many other wars better or worse. But I do think this is the threat. What Trump will try to turn this into is,

I'm the guy who pummeled Iran, and I'm the guy who got us out of this terrible alliance, we've been dragged into all these things by these weak-kneed countries who just wanted us to help them and never helped us. I feel like that's where we're going rhetorically

over the next several months. And it will be an acceleration of the kind of destruction of the post-World War II order and alliance structure that Trump has been on a path to destroying for 14, 15 months now. But I think this really accelerates it. I think in Asia, Japan looks at this and thinks, what?

I mean, we get so much of our oil through there and we have this close relationship and no one's talking, Trump is just making these decisions without consulting us. And maybe what we think that, you know, I just think the degree to which this is a big blow

to the whole geopolitical, geostrategic and geoeconomic order, point you've made, a point JVL has made, right? I mean, it's not like these things aren't connected. Why is the US dollar the reserve currency? Well, because we're also the core, the anchor of the defense system and of the geopolitical system. So I think it's bad,

but he's got us into this himself, into this terrible bind and there's no, I mean, he can get lucky, anything could happen. We could land some troops and suddenly the regime could collapse, who knows? But it is not a good moment for the United States of America. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, barring some sort of real change like that, I mean, that would totally scramble the playbook. Who knows, who knows how Trump might benefit economically or how, it would be hard to game out what would happen in a world where suddenly Trump's demands are being met and the regime is just sort of acquiescing. Obviously, at baseline, we can say it would be good for the global economy. It would be good for Trump politically. We should all breathe a sigh

of relief, honestly, if that happens, because barring that, who the heck knows how the Strait of Hormuz is ever going to get reopened? I mean, I think barring that situation, if we're in this world where that's not happening and where Trump is sort of trying to message this explanation for why this strait has stayed closed and the energy shock has gone on and all of these things. I mean, I think he's insane if he thinks that this will actually help him politically, if it will save him politically,

this sort of blame shifting thing. I mean, people are going to blame the president for this, for the fact that he started this war and then oil prices went berserk in perpetuity if that is indeed what happens. He will not get off the hook for that. But the fact that he is trying to make this argument means that not only will we have

this energy shock, but as you say, the other awful consequences that are going to pile up as he attempts to wriggle out of the political consequences of this oil shock that he himself launched are also going to be pretty catastrophic. The more you talk about this stupid, remarkable, insane war, I mean, you can talk until you're blue in the face and just not run out of depressing things to point out and depressing things to say about it.

I just want to do one more second on Hegseth just because it is obvious that they have sort of backed themselves into a corner here. And really all that is left in terms of Hegseth to sell this conflict is to do the stuff he's been doing all along, where he gets really dewy about our great troops and how noble and capable and good

they are, and then sort of seasons it all with Christian language about God being on our side in this conflict. So let's just get a little taste of Hegset this morning on that front before we leave the Iran talk behind.

Standing here this morning in this briefing room, in my mind's eye, I'm actually looking out at the groups I met this weekend. The pilots, the logisticians, the intel analysts, the targeters, the sustainers, the flight crews, the air defenders, the base security, those maintainers who we walked up at sunset with the chill in the air on the flight line. May God watch over all of them each day and each night. May his almighty and eternal arms

of providence stretch over them and protect them and bring them peace. In the

name of Jesus Christ, and amen. I mean there you go, that's basically the way they're selling the war as a vibe. I'm a Christian, I pray for our country, I pray for the safety of our troops abroad. I have no problem with that, but I do have a bit of a problem with the Secretary. With the fact that they are the ones who put these people in this war, we're achieving military successes, but they're the ones who pulled the trigger on this conflict that seems to have no easy exit

or no good exit, and you just have to kind of, I mean, what do you even say? Do you have anything to say?

No, that was well said.

I don't know.

It's really grim, it's really grim. I don't know, should we do a couple of minutes? We were gonna do a whole bit on the Midwest and politics and get into the crunchy. I wrote for more, we haven't even talked for a second about what I wrote about in Morning Shot this morning, which is this guy who's running for governor in Iowa

as a Democrat, Rob Sand. He's the state auditor right now. And he's, Democrats see him as maybe this guy who can sort of pick the lock of Iowa, even though it's kind of a red state now, win the governorship there on sort of this populist accountability platform.

I don't know. Should we do that, Bill? Do you wanna do five minutes on Iowa and Kansas or should we jump straight to the chaser here?

Maybe go to the chaser. People should read Andrew's excellent piece on this Democratic governor candidate in Iowa. I think it's a similar Democratic governor candidate. And Iowa, I think, is a similar Democratic Senate candidate in Kansas, who also has a real chance. I just wanna say, my 20 seconds would be that

I think a lot of states are in play this fall as the wave gets bigger. And I think especially those Midwestern states where the farming economy's paid a huge price for tariffs, and now compounded, of course, by the fertilizer and other issues caused by the war.

But I think that was an interesting piece. People should read it, but let's go to, I know you're, and you love, you love the Trump, the Trump presidential library. I know you're moved by the architecture and stuff.

The last thing I'll say about Rob Sand is that I did a video interview for the Bulwark with him in October or November, you can go watch that. Just Rob Sand, like the stuff that's on the seashore, Andrea or the Bulwark, type it into YouTube. When you're done here, don't leave yet, because we do have one more thing. And this is just empty calories.

But we got a why not roll around in the grotesqueries of it all a little bit more. Eric Trump has been a little bit out of the limelight recently. He's off. He's running the president's crypto businesses. He's lining the Trump family's pockets with Petrobarons crypto money.

I'm a little curious what's been going on with all of that as we have suddenly choked off the aorta going to the UAE and Qatar and all of these countries. But anyway, Eric Trump has also, in addition to all of those sorts of things, apparently been working on Donald Trump's presidential library behind the scenes. And he tweeted out this sort of sizzle reel of the Donald J. Trump presidential library and museum, which apparently is going up in Miami, like downtown Miami, according to Eric.

So let's just see what they've been up to. Let's just play a little bit of the video.

We'll see what we think. Nice little gold statue of Trump up on the stage.

Isn't that nice? What do you think, Bill? What do you make of the sizzle reel?

It'll be good when he's not in the real Oval Office and is, I guess, if and when he's sitting in his fake Oval Office in the Trump Tower in Miami. I love the idea of having his name on it. The whole thing, these presidential libraries have been getting a little worse, honestly, over the years in terms of sort of more, a little more vulgar boasting than the old fashioned ones, which really were libraries. I mean, they sort of, you go into some of the old ones,

I've been in a couple of them, and it's like, you know, sort of someone greets you and asks, what papers are you looking for, you know? I mean, they've always to a new level of boastfulness and vulgarity. Yeah, I don't think I've ever been

to anybody's presidential library. So I kind of wanted to ask you, like this strangeness of the sort of like replica rooms and things, like that was obviously the Oval Office, but then also apparently they're recreating Trump's whole new ballroom, like behind plate glass

as like, obviously he himself sees that as like one of his biggest contributions to the health of the nation. So I guess I'm not surprised at that level that he put it in there. But I mean, that sort of like replicas of parts

of the Oval Office, is that ordinary?

Is that normal?

I don't know where it began. I mean, I certainly, with Reagan, I think there's a fake Oval Office there and there. But it's sort of nice. I mean, some of it you can defend. I mean, little kids go and they scale, this is what it's like, and it's to scale. And it's good, you know, not a lot of, not everyone gets to go to Washington

and go on a White House tour, obviously, so why not? You know, but I think generally, and they have the plane there, so. Of course, one of us retired, I can't remember. But anyway, I do think it's gotten a little out of hand, but Trump has always take, we'll take it to another level. Also, these things usually aren't, the people do wait until they leave office and then they find a location.

It's why it takes so long. Obama left office in 2017, right? And aren't they opening his library later this year? So nine years later. So they sort of have the decency on being president. But someone there was that, well, you had this in Morning Shot yesterday, you found that tweet. I don't remember the name of the person whose tweet it was, but Trump is clearly, you know, when he was showing on the plane, I guess he was showing all the reporters quite detailed

accounts of the ballroom, right, and the Corinthian columns and this and that. It's clear he's been focused much more on the details of his stupid and annoying and bad ballroom than on actually learning about what's happening in the war. For the war, he depends on Fox News. The ballroom, he's willing to spend hours going over in detail, you know?

Truly wonderful, wonderful.

No, it's amazing. Would you believe I've actually never been on a White House tour either? I've never been in the Oval Office. I am our White House correspondent. I have a White House press pass, but the only room in that whole space I've ever been in is the horrible little briefing room

that you can get into. I'll call Carolyn Levin and get you the Oval Office

to interview with Trump. I've never tried.

I've never gone for it. No, you should ask.

I should. You should call up

and just say, look,, you know? Right, right, right. Well, that would be really nice of them. I mean, my main takeaway of the whole thing is, I mean, it's just a Trump building, right? It's like the Trump Tower, Miami, but it's, you know, it's the same guy, same as he ever was, right? He's the guy who puts his name really big on big buildings. He's put his name really big on the United States of America. And he is, I guess, correct.

I mean, it looks like a pretty good representation of what this presidency has been all about in that sense. You get Trump way up on the top in giant letters, and then about halfway down, much smaller, you get a little American flag, just to remind everybody that's what it is.

So I don't know. Those are my thoughts. Hope you guys all liked the presidential library tour sizzle reel as much as we did. I don't know exactly how they're going to put that ballroom in the skyscraper, but whatever, we'll figure that out. All of that is to be determined.

I guess we can leave it there. I should have said this halfway through and I never did, but I'm Andrew Egger. I said it at the top. correspondent for The Bulwark, Bill Kristol, editor-at-large of The Bulwark. We write The Morning Shot's newsletter. And thanks to you all out there who are watching. Thanks for subscribing to our YouTube feed. If you don't do that yet, hope you will now. Hope you will head over to thebulwark.com and sign up for our Morning Shot's newsletter in your inbox every Monday through Friday at or around 9 to 9.30-ish AM, depending on how fast, really, I personally have gone.

I tend to be the bottleneck. But thanks, Bill, for coming on. Thanks, everybody, for watching. We'll see you next week. And we'll have, I'm sure, a lot more really pleasant things to say about the Strait of Hormuz and America in general.

to say about the Strait of Hormuz and America in general. So thanks for watching, and we'll see you all next time.