Ben Rhodes

And so I sometimes get frustrated by the kind of confusion at this.

Not from you, because you're, I think, very consistent on this.

Why is this so complicated?

If you only dislike the autocrats who are geopolitical adversaries of the United States or ideological opponents of, you know, they're on the left or the right,

That to me is what's confusing.

Like, I just don't like autocrats.

I just don't get why it's so complicated.

But anyway, I do think that I would advise Democrats, and this is where, you know, I'm probably not bulwarkian.

I think what we've seen...

in Minneapolis and Iran is like the final spasms of a war on terror framework filtered through the stupidest fascist kind of government that we could possibly have under Donald Trump.

In other words,

Yes, Trump was necessary for Iran and Minneapolis to happen, but so was the war on terror.

All of that ICE infrastructure has been built for 20 years under Republican and Democratic administrations, including ourselves.

All of the infrastructure in the Middle East, why do we have like a million bases there?

Why are we...

Why are we so concerned about the Iranian Navy, you know, like that we are going to war over it?

Like there's an absurdity to this, that we can control events.

And so I do think Democrats should be like, this is over.

Like we are an anti-war party right now.

Like we are not going to get into these wars in the Middle East.