Tom Nichols

It's going to be within the MAGA coalition

And even I'm there's a part of me that says, you know, step back from that and let them fight it out rather than giving them an opposition to coalesce against.

Because if he does put boots on the ground and I think that we're heading that way.

I mean, he's talking out of one side of his mouth about negotiations and sending, you know, the 82nd Airborne Command structure over there now.

I think that would be a politically disastrous thing to do.

But, again, I'm not sure – I mean, I guess we're in kind of heated agreement about it would be great if somebody could step up and say this is a war that was started by one man on his own authority and his own whim.

Are you going to send Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff to do direct negotiations with the Iranians?

Beats me.

The Iranians keep saying that they're not talking to him, and he keeps saying that he's talking to Iranians, and they've given him a great big expensive gift.

This always happens when we try to kind of get inside Donald Trump's head.

and parse what he's saying.

So it could be that there have been some low-level contacts or contacts for a third party, or he could just be making it up.

I suspect part of what's going on is that he is

alternately juggling with things that he says like this he's juggling several different things the markets which he clearly is he's clearly trying to affect the markets and and massage them um do you think it was Market manipulation since you went there yesterday morning when he put out that social that truth social post just before the markets opened

I can't prove market manipulation, and I don't know if he's trying to manipulate the markets, but I think he's certainly trying to calm the markets alternately with trying to stumble through this war that I don't think he believed would go on for four weeks at this point.

I think the other thing he's doing is he's sending troops to the region and trying to kind of play both sides of that issue, which is I'm not going to put troops on the ground, but I'm sending troops to the region, but I'm talking to people, but I'm really not talking to people.

And then, of course, Hegseth gets up there and says, we negotiate with bombs.

I don't think this administration knows what it's doing.

I think they're improvising at this point because they again,

I shouldn't say day.