Derek Thompson

something so that he can declare victory and move on to do the next thing that he wants to do.

And I don't know that it's thought out more than the next 15 minutes or 15 seconds ahead of the present time.

That's the best I have for you.

Yeah, I think with Trump, the personal is professional for sure.

And I don't know the conversations that he had with Bibi or MBS, but surely Israel wanted to take out the Supreme Leader Khamenei and wanted to take out the other clerics that lead the Islamic Republic.

And it's clear that MBS also saw an interest in taking down the current

regime in Iran.

Maybe they got on the phone and were persuasive and maybe sort of sprinkled their conversation with allusions to future deals and Israel and Saudi Arabia.

That's totally possible.

I agree with the first thing that you said most that Trump does whatever he wants, leaves a lot

to be explicated.

Why does he want what he wants?

And there again, I think that Trump is sometimes made to be more complicated than he is.

You know, fundamentally, this is someone who likes homage, likes money, likes the feeling of winning.

And so most actions that he takes are about making more money, being dignified, feeling like he's getting one over the counterparty, feeling like he's winning a zero sum exchange.

But what exactly we're doing

in so clearly subverting one of the first principles of MAGA in the 2024 election, which is no new wars, wear the peace ticket, no foreign interventions that stay out of the Middle East as far as military engagements are involved.

It's surprising.

One way that it was explained to me, so I did a show on this with Kareem Sajjadpour, who is an Iranian analyst.

And what he said to me that I thought was kind of interesting is he said,