{"id":902132,"date":"2026-04-28T03:34:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T08:34:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/28\/transcript-trump-has-no-idea-how-to-end-the-war-against-iran\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T03:34:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T08:34:12","slug":"transcript-trump-has-no-idea-how-to-end-the-war-against-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/28\/transcript-trump-has-no-idea-how-to-end-the-war-against-iran\/","title":{"rendered":"Transcript: Trump Has No Idea How To End the War Against Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div>\n<p><i>This is a lightly edited transcript of the March 19 edition of <\/i>Right Now With Perry Bacon<i>. You can watch the video <a href=\"https:\/\/newrepublic.com\/article\/207992\/trump-no-idea-end-war-iran\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">here<\/a> or by following this show on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/playlist?list=PL4S1YFDv9yIJZ_fo2PO8ieTl3O7bQm8V4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">YouTube<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/newrepublic.substack.com\/podcast\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Substack<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n<p><strong>Perry Bacon:<\/strong> We\u2019re going to talk about this war in Iran, where it\u2019s been almost three weeks. Let me start with, maybe, a positive way to frame this. Have we achieved any successes? Is there anything you would say is successful here?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><strong>Matt Duss:<\/strong><span> We\u2019ve blown up a lot of things. We\u2019ve killed a lot of people\u2014killed a lot of Iranian leaders, including some who could,<\/span><span> <\/span><span>from my understanding, have helped negotiate an off-ramp and an end to this war. It\u2019s unclear to me that we\u2019ve actually advanced American security at all.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>I think we\u2019ve done the opposite. Clearly we\u2019ve managed to raise the price of oil&#8230;. Iran has closed the Strait of Hormuz and threatened shipping through the <span>Strait of Hormuz<\/span><span>, which raises the price of oil even more. But again, if you ask me what we\u2019ve achieved: The problem is that the Trump administration has not really articulated any clear goals here, other than this nonsensical claim that we\u2019re trying to prevent an Iranian nuclear weapon.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Iran was nowhere close to having the capability of producing a nuclear weapon. Our own intelligence services believe that Iran had not decided to pursue a nuclear weapon, even if they were keeping that option open. Unfortunately, this war could make that decision for them. So again, you ask what we\u2019ve achieved\u2014I think we\u2019ve achieved, unfortunately, nothing good at all for the American people.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><strong>Bacon:<\/strong> Even three weeks ago it wasn\u2019t totally clear from the Trump administration why we were doing this at this time. But let me ask: There\u2019s been some reporting that Israel maybe pushed us into it in a certain way. From the Israeli perspective, they had goals\u2014talk about their goals for this war.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Duss:<\/strong> Israel\u2019s main goal here is to destroy Iran\u2019s ballistic missiles, their missile launchers, their missile manufacturing capacity. This is really what is driving this war right now. This is something I heard from Israeli officials myself when I was in Israel back in October. <\/p>\n<p>In the wake of last June\u2019s brief war, the 12-day war, Iran was rebuilding its missile capacity much quicker than expected, and that was very concerning. Obviously these missiles are a retaliatory measure for the region\u2014but also, particularly, in Israel. They did enormous damage to Israeli military sites and in Israeli cities, far more than was reported, given that there is very strict censorship of the news in Israel. I don\u2019t think Americans quite understood how damaging these missiles were.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>But again, these missiles are a form of deterrence\u2014not to defend the use of missiles launched into cities. That is indefensible. However, Iran sees them as part of their deterrence: <i>If you attack us, we understand that we cannot face off militarily head-to-head against Israel, and we certainly cannot against the United States. However, we do have the ability to create enormous pain in other ways.<\/i> This has been part of their strategic doctrine for a very long time: the use of missiles, and the relationships with militant groups like Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and militias in Yemen and Iraq. To say that <i>while we cannot prevail in a conventional conflict, we have other ways to raise costs for you<\/i>. That\u2019s the role the missiles play here.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, Israel\u2019s military view of the region\u2014backed by the Trump administration, and unfortunately, originally backed by the Biden administration\u2014is that Israel desires and believes it is now entitled to complete freedom of action across the region. Anything that might constrain Israel\u2019s ability to strike wherever, whenever, for whatever reason is now seen as an unacceptable and imminent threat.<\/p>\n<p>That is an absolutely insane policy. It\u2019s absolutely insane that the Biden administration supported it\u2014though we should acknowledge that the Biden administration did restrain Israel from attacking Iran, and did restrain it from doing a few things the Trump administration has allowed. Even though the Biden administration obviously gave Israel essentially a free hand to obliterate Gaza and commit a genocide there, which is still ongoing. And the Trump administration has pretty much backed Israel in doing whatever it wants.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><strong>Bacon:<\/strong> Both the U.S. and Israel wanted regime change\u2014for lack of a better way to say it\u2014and that has also not been achieved, right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Duss:<\/strong> I think the Israelis want regime change. It\u2019s unclear what Trump wants. They\u2019ve said so many different things, and it is in character for Trump to just throw out a bunch of different goals and objectives out there to see what sticks. A few weeks ago he was literally cold-calling journalists to workshop different goals like he\u2019s in a comedy improv group\u2014let\u2019s remember, Trump is first and foremost an entertainer. This is also so that no matter what happens, he can always point to: This is what I wanted to happen. Because, of course, Donald Trump can never fail. <\/p>\n<p>As far as the Israelis are concerned, I think their goal is regime change, or just complete state collapse. Their goal for Iran\u2014as it is for the region\u2014is just weak states. We see this in Lebanon, we see this in Yemen, we see this in Syria\u2014just to keep all these states off balance and essentially incapable of defending themselves. The old statement was \u201cIsrael has a right to defend itself,\u201d but the new doctrine seems to be that <i>only<\/i> Israel has the right to defend itself. Again, this is insane. This will not produce durable security. This is dangerous for the region, ultimately dangerous for Israel, and certainly dangerous for the United States.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><strong>Bacon:<\/strong> Talk about Iran\u2019s perspective here. As a non\u2013foreign policy expert, I [gather]<span> Iranian leaders are being killed as walk around each day. How do you keep a regime going if everyone is under threat of assassination that day and that hour?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Duss:<\/strong> That\u2019s exactly right\u2014you don\u2019t. That\u2019s the goal. We should also say here: One doesn\u2019t have to be a fan of these Iranian leaders. I\u2019m not. These are cruel, repressive, often corrupt leaders. But there is a set of norms against assassinating foreign state officials that exists for a reason\u2014you don\u2019t have to be fans of them to understand [that]. And we have simply broken through this. Now Israel, with U.S. support, is simply assassinating leaders all over the place and openly bragging about it. There are social media posts of pictures of these figures with <i>x<\/i>\u2019s across their faces. They\u2019re proud of this. This is just the latest in a set of international norms that were painstakingly created over the course of many devastating wars that have now been broken. This is a trend line that we really saw accelerate during the Gaza genocide\u2014unfortunately, with the backing of President Biden.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bacon:<\/strong> We\u2019re going to be close to week three. Do you have a sense of how long this will last? Does anybody?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><strong>Duss:<\/strong> I really don\u2019t\u2014I wish I had a better answer. It\u2019s going to last until President Trump either gets bored or is disciplined by the bond market, because this is something he pays close attention to, that ticker that scrolls at the bottom of the screen on Fox News. If he starts to see that getting too bad for him\u2014<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bacon:<\/strong> So this time, oil prices\u2014<\/p>\n<p><strong>Duss:<\/strong> Oil prices, the stock market. This is how Trump thinks. He\u2019s always been known to be very conscious of this. But the question is always: What information penetrates his little bubble? He sits there drinking Diet Cokes, watching Fox News. Who knows who\u2019s getting to him. He talks to Benjamin Netanyahu almost every day, according to Netanyahu. We know that Netanyahu just lies and manipulates him. He\u2019s surrounded by yes-people who don\u2019t want to give him bad news. That\u2019s the real question: Who can give him the bad news? Or who can, at least, give him some taste of reality that makes Trump understand he needs to get out of this war, needs an off-ramp? He can declare victory, he can do whatever he wants\u2014he just needs to wind this thing down very quickly.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><strong>Bacon:<\/strong> Do you think he will?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Duss:<\/strong> I don\u2019t. This is already escalating. Their answer to Iran escalating is to further escalate. I thought that when we saw JD Vance leaking a couple of days ago that <span>Vance<\/span><span> opposed this. My view on that is: JD Vance understands that he cannot get too far from Donald Trump. His entire political future depends on his proximity to Donald Trump. So the fact that Vance was leaking his opposition to this suggested to me that maybe Donald Trump is OK with that\u2014maybe that suggests Donald Trump is wanting to distance himself from this. But that doesn\u2019t appear to be the case right now.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>I would add, as we saw yesterday\u2014or was it the day before? Time has no meaning anymore\u2014the Iranian official Ali Larijani\u2014a brutal Iranian leader, but one who was understood to have real authority with the security services, someone who could have overseen some kind of third-party negotiation to bring an end to this war\u2014now killed by Israel. I haven\u2019t seen firm evidence on this yet, but it does make sense to me that he would have been targeted precisely <i>because<\/i> he could have negotiated an off-ramp. That is something that Netanyahu and Israel clearly do not want.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><strong>Bacon:<\/strong> There\u2019s been debate the last few days about whether Israel drove us into this war or we decided on our own. I\u2019m not sure that matters, but I wanted to ask what you thought about that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Duss:<\/strong> Joe Kent resigned\u2014everyone\u2019s reading this letter he posted. I think some of what\u2019s in that letter is right, some of it is wrong. I think it\u2019s clearly the case that this war would not have happened without the urging of Netanyahu, w<span>ithout being pushed by Israel. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>At the same time, there is a faction of hawks in the United States who work very closely with colleagues in Israel who have been pushing for war with Iran for decades\u2014literally, decades. Netanyahu is part of this. They work closely together, they often share sources of funding, they operate in various think tanks\u2014the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, to name two. And they share a vision of U.S. and Israeli regional military hegemony.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>It\u2019s not necessarily that Israel is just pushing for its own interests\u2014these people do share a vision. They believe U.S. interests are involved here too. Now, I think that\u2019s absolutely wrong, catastrophically wrong. But while it\u2019s important to acknowledge that yes, Netanyahu played a major role, putting all the blame on Israel really lets U.S. policymakers and U.S. analysts off the hook. We need to understand that this is very much a Washington problem, not just an Israel problem. This is a problem of very well-organized and well-funded policy machinery, w<span>ho drove us into the Iraq War.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The Iraq War, I think, would have happened with or without Israel\u2019s support\u2014the George W. Bush administration decided to do that very early on. I think it was January 2002 when they made that decision. But that was a decision supported by many of these same people. It\u2019s clear that the urgency, the moment, the reason this war happened right now as it did, was largely because of Netanyahu and Israel.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bacon:<\/strong> Talk about Britain, France, and the international community, because right when we started the war, a lot of these foreign leaders said they supported it, or at least didn\u2019t oppose it. Now it seems like their populations have caught up. What\u2019s your sense of where the world is on this?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><strong>Duss:<\/strong> We saw this with Venezuela, too\u2014clearly an illegal action, clearly an act of war, completely unjustified by any rational or remotely credible interpretation of international law. Yet a lot of European leaders said, <i>We urge all sides to observe international [norms]. <\/i>Just completely cowardly, craven nonsense. But they got away with it because it didn\u2019t last long\u2014it was essentially a one-day operation, actually a matter of hours. Still completely illegal, but had it lasted as long as this did, we might have seen them shift as they have done now. Initially, their response was much the same\u2014a blatantly illegal act of aggressive war, which is one of the gravest <span>international <\/span><span>crimes any country can commit, and yet they were like, <\/span><i>We urge all sides to [show restraint].<\/i><span> Totally cowardly. Yet as this war has gone on, as its consequences have become clear, as the price of oil has continued to climb, as their own populations have started to criticize them, we\u2019ve seen them slowly\u2014painfully slowly\u2014get to a better position.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Bacon:<\/strong> Is the Venezuela parallel relevant here? Two questions: Did the U.S. have someone they thought would take over after the ayatollah was killed who was favorable to us? And did Trump think this would go well because of what happened in Venezuela, which was pretty quick and relatively bloodless?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Duss:<\/strong> I think he did. Venezuela and last summer\u2019s 12-day war were both relatively short. Venezuela was very short, as he saw it. He\u2019s someone who has enormous confidence in his own abilities, regardless. But he saw at both of those operations and [figured]: <i>Sure, people might not have liked it, but the naysayers were proven wrong\u2014let\u2019s go do it again.<\/i> He knows nothing about Iran to start with, and he\u2019s surrounded by people like Netanyahu, Lindsey Graham, Tom Cotton, and some of these other goofballs who were telling him: <i>It\u2019s going to be easy, we\u2019ll just knock them out, it\u2019ll go just like Venezuela, American military power is magic, you should just use it, it\u2019s going to go great<\/i>. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>You look at some of the comments he\u2019s made in various news conferences: He\u2019s like, <i>Oh, we didn\u2019t know they were going to close the Strait of Hormuz. That\u2019s really surprising.<\/i> The Pentagon has been war-gaming this for decades. We absolutely knew they were going to do this. Iran has said they were going to do this. There is absolutely no excuse not to know this. But as we already know, Trump doesn\u2019t do the reading. That\u2019s how we got here.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bacon:<\/strong> The thing that captured a lot of my attention was the bombing of the school\u2014160 people [and 60 or more children] dying. How do you assess that? Is this the worst thing that\u2019s happened in this war so far? Does that change things, because of this very memorable killing of children at a school by the U.S.? How does that make this war perhaps different or distinct?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Duss:<\/strong> I don\u2019t know that it makes it distinct from war\u2014this happens in war. That\u2019s why we should avoid war unless there is absolutely no other option. That\u2019s certainly not the case here. But the fact that this happened literally on the first day, within the first hours of this war, has characterized this war from the very beginning. This is an unnecessary war, it\u2019s an illegal war, and it reveals exactly why we avoid war. You can come up with all the justifications\u2014was it an error, was it not\u2014and we\u2019ve certainly spent the past two-plus years watching the Israeli military essentially murder children by the thousands in Gaza. So it\u2019s unfortunately not surprising. Nor is the fact that no one is really being held accountable. And this is not a problem that began with this administration. This is a problem of our foreign policy establishment generally\u2014a bipartisan problem, a problem of elite impunity, a problem of zero accountability.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><strong>Bacon:<\/strong> A couple of questions, pivoting a little away from the Iran situation. Do you think we\u2019re going to go into Cuba now? How serious do you think that is? It\u2019s was reported a little bit, and Trump\u2019s been hinting at it for a while.<\/p>\n<p><b>Duss:<\/b> I don\u2019t know. Trump has his eye on Cuba now. I can imagine him being frustrated with Iran, so this idea that <i>I need another win to balance out Iran\u2014<\/i>unfortunately, that seems to be how he thinks. Now, if he becomes convinced that Cuba will not be as easy as he imagines, I don\u2019t know. But from the way he\u2019s talking, he does seem intent on making Cuba next.<\/p>\n<p><b>Bacon:<\/b> You mentioned this is a U.S. <span>foreign policy issue,<\/span><span> not necessarily a Trump issue. I want to talk about that frame a little bit.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><span>I assume you think the Biden administration should have worked harder to restart the Iran nuclear deal, or something like that?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Duss:<\/b> Absolutely. Joe Biden, before he was elected, said that he was going to do that. He wrote a piece in October of 2020\u2014or at least it was published under his name\u2014describing that as exactly what he was going to do. He had enormous support to do that. This was a deal that was negotiated by Barack Obama, Americans overwhelmingly supported it, it was a very good deal, and he campaigned on rejoining it. And then once in office he decided: <i>No, I\u2019m going to slow-walk it, we\u2019re going to get a better deal. <\/i><\/p>\n<p>It was a horrible decision. Eventually they got around to trying to negotiate with the Iranians to get back into the deal, but by that time the administration in Iran had been replaced by a much harder-line one that realized it just could not trust the United States\u2014either Trump or Biden. Biden squandered a hugely important opportunity early in his presidency to simply rejoin the deal. He chose to listen to some of the hawks in the party\u2014people like Bob Menendez, people like Chris Coons\u2014who offered him very bad advice: <i>Oh no, let\u2019s take our time<\/i>. That is part of how we got here, because Joe Biden broke his promise.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><b>Bacon:<\/b> You mentioned Gaza, and the last time we talked you mentioned the idea that we need some accountability for the people in the Biden administration who perpetuated what you\u2019ve described as a genocide. Talk about what that would look like. Does it just mean Jake Sullivan and Tony Blinken shouldn\u2019t get jobs with President Shapiro, or <span>President Buttigieg<\/span><span>\u2014or do you mean something more serious?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Duss:<\/b> God, yeah\u2014for starters, let\u2019s just say that. We need to &#8230; declassify the information they had during the Gaza war. We need to know what they knew, when they knew it. We already have reporting indicating that they understood what Israel was doing\u2014they understood that international law and international humanitarian law were being violated constantly, and they understood that U.S. law governing the provision of U.S. military support was therefore being violated. If they believe their actions in support of the Gaza war were defensible, they should have no problem standing by their decisions, letting this all be made public, and letting the American people and the world see what they knew and what was guiding their decision-making. And the same is true for the Trump administration. We need to know what information they had that led to these decisions\u2014not just in Iran but in Venezuela.<\/p>\n<p>This is a problem that goes back to the Iraq War. Barack Obama was elected largely on his opposition to the Iraq War and opposition to the global war on terror. But once in office, he decided that we were not going to seek real accountability for the previous administration and the officials who broke laws regarding torture, kidnapping, and a whole range of important international norms and laws that the United States itself had very painstakingly helped create in the wake of two devastating world wars. If we\u2019re going to rebuild any credibility\u2014either domestically or on the global stage\u2014we need to show that we are holding our own government officials accountable. This is not just for America\u2019s credibility around the world; it is part of repairing our own politics, because the problem with our politics\u2014whether on foreign policy or any other issue\u2014is elite impunity. The fact that the wealthy, the powerful, the influential get to operate according to a different set of rules from the rest of us. That is part of what has led to this legitimation crisis we\u2019re in the midst of.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><b>Bacon:<\/b> You used the term \u201cgenocide\u201d earlier to describe what happened in Gaza. I mention this because we\u2019re now in the early rounds of the presidential primary. Gavin Newsom has written a book and is going around talking about it, and so is Josh Shapiro. Newsom used the term \u201capartheid\u201d to describe what\u2019s happening in Israel\u2014and I think he backtracked, but not really.<\/p>\n<p><b>Duss:<\/b> You\u2019re telling me Gavin Newsom is trying to have it both ways? That\u2019s crazy.<\/p>\n<p><b>Bacon:<\/b> Shapiro said we shouldn\u2019t use that word, but didn\u2019t really disagree with it. To zone in: Do you think using the words \u201cgenocide\u201d and \u201capartheid\u201d are necessary for people running for president as Democrats? Is it important to use those words to describe what\u2019s happening in Israel?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><b>Duss:<\/b> I think we should have politicians who tell the truth. I\u2019ve been to Israel and Palestine probably 30 times\u2014I\u2019ve seen it up close. I think the word \u201capartheid,\u201d frankly, <span>for the occupied territories, <\/span><span>is too weak a word. I know there are people who lived under apartheid who agree. But it\u2019s not just me and not just them: There are Israeli human rights groups, like B\u2019Tselem, one of Israel\u2019s most prominent human rights organizations, that use this term. Certainly Palestinians have said for years that they live under apartheid, and unfortunately we don\u2019t allow Palestinians to narrate their own experiences the way that we should. The same is true for \u201cgenocide.\u201d We were watching this unfold in real time on our phones. Multiple organizations and multiple credible scholars and experts on genocide have now affirmed that this meets the definition of the crime of genocide.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Now, do candidates need to say this? It goes back to what I said: We\u2019re in a moment where people have lost faith in our politics because our leaders just don\u2019t tell us the truth. I want leaders to tell the truth. They should reflect reality as it is. This is something that Shapiro, interestingly, said\u2014we should talk about reality as it is\u2014and I agree. <\/p>\n<p><b>Bacon: <\/b>But he\u2019s not talking about reality <span>on this issue.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><b>Duss: <\/b>Right! If he perceives reality differently, I would love to hear more from him. Let\u2019s have that conversation\u2014let\u2019s have this debate constructively and as respectfully as possible, without swinging invective at each other. But I think we have to acknowledge with both of those terms that there is a very large and growing consensus that they both apply.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><b>Bacon:<\/b> You advise Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She went to Munich\u2014I think that was last month, time is hard to keep track of\u2014and you worked with her on her remarks. I wanted to ask about two things. The first is this idea that she answered some questions and &#8230; a lot of the coverage suggested she seemed not up to it, as I would describe it. How do you respond to that? I didn\u2019t feel that way, but some of the coverage was that she wasn\u2019t up to it, she didn\u2019t answer a question about Taiwan precisely. How did you view that? People were treating it as a test for her, and to some extent, there were questions of whether she \u201cpassed it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><b>Duss:<\/b> I thought the obsession over her answer on Taiwan was just stupid. She hesitated and got to the right answer. Frankly, I wish more politicians would think for a minute before blurting out whatever pops into their head. There\u2019s no question she\u2019s very thoughtful on a whole range of issues. If you look at her other comments\u2014both in Munich and at the public event she did in Berlin later that weekend\u2014I think her remarks were tremendous. She\u2019s offering a vision. And obviously I\u2019m biased here, I\u2019ve been working [on this], cards on the table. But the vision of a working-class centered foreign policy\u2014to combat the right, to combat corruption, to combat oligarchy, to combat authoritarianism\u2014is really the vision for the moment we\u2019re in. I thought it was very inspiring.<\/p>\n<p><b>Bacon:<\/b> The other thing I want to ask about\u2014she made the argument that authoritarianism is growing because of income inequality&#8230;. <span>It\u2019s not entirely clear to me. If you look at India, the U.S., Brazil, we\u2019re talking about very different economies. Authoritarian leaders are being elected in all kinds of different contexts. Le Pen is gaining in the polls, Farage in Britain\u2014these countries\u2019 economies are not perfect, but I\u2019m struggling to figure out\u2014are we sure? Is authoritarianism is growing because of social media? Or religion? Why do you think it\u2019s about income inequality?<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><b>Duss:<\/b> There are multiple reasons, but on the issue of inequality, this is an analysis that goes back to John Maynard Keynes, and even further. Keynes, in one of his first famous books\u2014<i>The Economic Consequences of the Peace<\/i>, about the end of World War I and the massive reparations imposed on Germany\u2014his warning was: <i>This is going to create massive inflation, massive inequality, people are just not going to be able to survive, and this is going to power very dark forces in these societies. It\u2019s going to power authoritarianism and fascism.<\/i> He was absolutely correct. That is the analysis she\u2019s getting at, and I think it still holds.<\/p>\n<p>Obviously there are other causes: social media, sure; issues of identity, people who feel the character of their country is being undermined by the influx of immigrants; certainly racism is part of this. But she clearly has this understanding that there is a relationship between economic inequality and ethnic bigotry and people\u2019s concerns about their own future and their children\u2019s future. When you have demagogues like Donald Trump, like Le Pen, like Farage, who come along and say, <i>It\u2019s the immigrants\u2019 fault, it\u2019s the LGBTQ people\u2019s fault, it\u2019s whatever disfavored group\u2019s fault<\/i>\u2014rather than pointing the finger where it belongs, which is at the economic elite who take power for themselves.<\/p>\n<p><b>Bacon:<\/b> I think that\u2019s a good place to end on. Matt, good to see you. Thanks for joining me.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/newrepublic.com\/article\/207993\/transcript-trump-no-idea-end-war-iran\" class=\"button purchase\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is a lightly edited transcript of the March 19 edition of Right Now With Perry Bacon. You can watch the video here or by following this show on YouTube or Substack. Perry Bacon: We\u2019re going to talk about this war in Iran, where it\u2019s been almost three weeks. Let me start with, maybe, a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":902133,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22350,4,104640],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-902132","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-transcript","8":"category-trump","9":"category-youtube-videos"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=902132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902132\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/902133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=902132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=902132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=902132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}