Jonathan V. Last

Does this sound like a good idea?

Does this make sense?

And then we'll kick it around for 40 minutes and either not come to a conclusion or two weeks later, we'll be like, yeah, actually, that was wrong.

I'm working through ideas with you here, Tim.

So Donald Trump has...

has created a real innovation in American statecraft.

Prior to Donald Trump, the way American foreign policy worked was that America has national interests, and these national state interests governed our foreign policy.

And so that would mean Israel was our ally, not because we liked Israel, but because Israel was a key country in the Middle East.

The Middle East was an important region of the world.

We had leverage over Israel.

And yes, there's more component to it, et cetera, et cetera.

Sure.

But, you know, this is it's all about state interest.

And it was important for America.

Not 0%.

But again, history of foreign policy is that the determinative things are really about interests.

And, you know, you can overlook dealing with not nice governments, like the Saudi government, because...

National interests dictate it, right?

You got to do business with bad people because this is what the country needs.

Trump has inverted that.