This Episode of the Iran War Is Brought to You by Fox News
This is a preview of The Weekender edition of the Muckrake Podcast. Please go to our Patreon to gain access to the regular Weekender episodes on Fridays.
Trump’s threats toward Iran have escalated from incoherent to terrifying—with evacuation warnings, “we’re at war” rhetoric, and reports he’s greenlit an attack. All while taking policy cues from Fox News segments.
Co-hosts Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman break down how the right-wing infotainment complex is driving foreign policy in real time and why this is sparking a telling schism in American politics.
We dig into the MAGA isolationist response—from Tulsi Gabbard downplaying Iran’s capabilities to Tucker Carlson absolutely dismantling Ted Cruz—and what it reveals about the realignment on the right. There’s more at stake here than just another war: this is about who gets to decide what America is, and who we kill for it.
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Welcome to the Weekender Edition of the McCrick Podcast.
I'm Jerry Dave Sexton, here with my friend and my compatriot, Nick Houselman.
Nick, you're gearing up for a big trip.
You're out in hot L.A., all kinds of shakings and doings.
How are you doing, my friend?
I'm doing okay.
I mean, we actually had some interesting developments here at Dodger Stadium today where people are standing up to ice, and ice is having to back down.
So, L.A., good for us.
Yeah, L.A. is doing it the right way.
I'll just say that.
So good for you, Angelinos.
Before we get going, and my God, do we have a lot to talk about today, every episode jam-packed at this point because it never, ever stops.
this absolute authoritarian hell that we have to defeat never stops a reminder head over to patreon.com slash muckrake podcast support the show keep us editorially independent and also just get Everyone who comes on over and they said they've needed to do it for a while and they're happy that they have, patreon.com slash muckrakepodcast.
Nick, since we released Tuesday's episode, a lot has been going on.
Israel and Iran have continued lobbying missiles back and forth.
Israel has apparently established a democracy dominion over the sky using drones and all of that good stuff.
Meanwhile, the situation with Donald Trump and his quote-unquote decision about whether or not the U.S. should join in the war, which it should not, Has gotten stranger and stranger.
Trump got on True Social.
He advised everyone in Tehran, I believe about 10 million people, to evacuate immediately.
Thank God nobody listened to him, but here we are.
He has also flirted openly with killing the Ayatollah for complete regime change.
He has called for a complete surrender.
The Wall Street Journal has reported that he has given the green light to attack Iran, but has given them a last chance to negotiate, whatever that means.
We've heard today before we started recording that Trump and the administration has said that they're going to have a two-week window to decide whether or not to actually join the war in Iran.
This is a big, giant mess.
For a variety of reasons that we need to talk about why this has happened, why he's in this position.
But there's no other way to put it and put your hands over your children's ears.
This is a clusterfuck of massive proportions and not a good situation in any way, shape, or form.
Right.
This is what we were always afraid of with Trump in the White House, is that something like this kind of bubbles up to the surface and he has to deal with it, because you need a deft touch here to negotiate whatever it is they're going to try and get out of this.
Now, I'm reasonably certain that this is some negotiating tactic by Trump.
I really am.
But he's going to think that this is somehow going to make Iran back down and then agree to all the concessions that he thought he was probably getting closer to.
Until about a week ago.
And there's all these questions we have to figure out whether, like, was America even apprised of the situation when Israel started lobbing these bombs into Iran?
Like, probably not, right?
It feels like there's a disconnect there between America and Israel, and there's a lot to talk about there.
We have other things to add on to that.
And then you have the connection between Trump and Putin, which is also directly connected as Iran is a, you know, we can't call them a proxy for Russia, but there's certainly – Is that good enough?
No, they're allied.
They've been allied for a long time.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So it's like that's why all these things are playing out in a way that you would need, you know, in the movie version would be like the most incredibly smartest president you've ever had who can triangulate and back channel and all sorts of things.
We don't have that right now, and that's what's so concerning.
Yeah, so just to give the overview and then the analysis of it, and we will get into the people who are championing this and the people who are against it, because all of it is fascinating how it's shaking out.
The reports are that Israel got in touch with Donald Trump about what they were planning to do, and all the reports say he didn't give them a green light, he didn't give them a red light, it's been described as a yellow light, and then he wanted to take, you know, credit for it when he thought it quote-unquote worked.
The problem here...
First things first, Donald Trump is not good at any of this.
He's not intelligent.
He's not curious.
He's not actually even decisive.
He is a very malleable, sad little poor man who doesn't understand what he's doing.
When it comes to MAGA, the sort of coordinating gravity to it was what should happen in the United States of America.
And that was going after, you know, political enemies, going after marginalized people, scapegoating immigrants and people of color, getting rid of taxes and regulation on behalf of the wealth class, and prioritizing cultural changes that, you know, the right would want to have.
That was the driving purpose of MAGA.
And what happened now is that you have the circumstance, and we've talked about it over and over, Israel's doing what it wants to do.
When the gossip thing happened, all of the Israeli leaders were like, eventually America will tell us to stop and we'll stop.
Well, guess what?
Biden and the administration didn't tell them to stop for a variety of reasons, including the decline of American influence.
And now Israel is just like, we have a blank check.
Let's do what we want to do.
And they have now created this situation with Iran that we now have to respond to and show leadership.
And Donald Trump doesn't want to do it.
And we're even getting reports that Nick, He's getting high on his own supply watching Fox News and being influenced by the way that they're portraying the situation to their viewership.
And now the President of the United States, who doesn't actually have an ideology in all this, and who is torn between so many different elements of the MAGA right-wing movement, which are contradictory and they have a ton of friction against each other, which is what we're seeing and we'll talk about even further.
You do not have a person who can make decisions, a person who has actual principles, or any sort of a vision for the future.
You have probably the least adept and least talented, capable person in the middle of one of the worst situations and one of the most combustible situations that we've seen in a very long time.
I will push back, I think, a little bit on the notion that they were going to begin this process figuring that America would then stop them and then they would listen to that.
Maybe not in Iran, but that's what happened with Gaza.
Well, I just don't know if Netanyahu is that person who would have listened to Biden, for instance, who said you've got to stop, or even Trump at this point.
I think what Trump is realizing is that he doesn't have any influence.
He probably thought, oh, he could tell Putin, hey, let's get this thing done and Ukraine will make it all happen, and he cannot have that.
It's not working.
I think that whatever connection he thought he had with Putin is frayed on that end as well.
And I certainly think it's the same thing happening here where they don't necessarily have any control.
So now the question here is, is this what Trump is doing?
Does he feel left out?
And so he feels like, well, I'm going to get in.
He's now trying to take some credit for the bombing initially, the surprise bombing of Iran, right?
Even though, again, I don't know if he really had a lot of advance notice.
And then he's like, well, if I'm not going to be involved, I can't influence.
Well, I'm just going to join in and then I'll get some credit that way.
You know what I mean?
Well, and we're going to talk more about the Putin aspect of it because it's essential in understanding everything that's occurring here.
But it's also important to point out that the driver of everything that has happened and everything that's actually been accomplished so far has happened because of Project 2025.
Everything that we've been going through has been planned, meticulously carried out by the wealth class and their think tanks and their institutes.
These weren't brain children of Donald Trump.
It wasn't something that he stayed up late like jotting this stuff down.
He is now in an unpredictable, uncomfortable situation.
And the thing about leadership is occasionally you're going to be in a situation where And I want to put my cards on the table.
We should not go to war with Iran.
It is a massive, massive mistake in the waiting.
This is the wrong choice.
But what you just brought up is important, which is what matters to Donald Trump isn't what's going to happen in the future because he doesn't plan for the future.
What matters to Donald Trump is how he is perceived.
And in this situation, it is presumed.
And when the American empire is in decline, that's the worst person that you want in charge.
I mean, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, he's actually been sidelined.
I want people to understand that.
The head of the Department of Defense isn't even really being involved in this.
Do you know who's filling that vacuum, Nick?
Fox News.
Fox News and the worst war hawks who can't go to sleep at night because they're so sexually excited about attacking Iran.
We have seen, actually, a vacuum of power in this country that is now being taken up by the neoconservatives that were unseated by Trump and MAGA.
And they have been wanting to do this for forever.
If you came back from the future and told me that John Bolton was back in the Trump administration within the next week, I wouldn't be surprised.
It's the fact that these people can't actually handle this job.
And so that power vacuum is being taken up by everybody from generals to a media apparatus like Fox News.
And if that sounds terrifying, it should.
That's why this person should not be in charge for a variety of reasons besides that.
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