197. Vance Vs Hegseth: Who Takes the Fall for Trump’s Iran Deal?

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Subject to Terms and Conditions. Offer expires October 28th. Hello and welcome to The Rest Is Politics US with me, Cathy Kaye. And welcome to the bizarre history of the United States, Versailles and Donald Trump with me, Anthony Scaramucci. Okay, Cathy, what the hell is going on? Let's start talking like Trump. What the hell is going on, Cathy? What is going on? What is going on? We know there was a lot of gold which the president likes. We'll get to that in just a minute. Okay. Today, guys, we are going to talk about the details that we've learned from the U.S.-Iran deal. We're going to talk about the U.S.-Iran deal. We've clearly got a situation where America is offering political and financial concessions to Tehran. The bloody conflict has ended up, I would argue, with a deal that is significantly worse than the one that Barack Obama got over a decade ago. We're going to go through all of that. This exercise in hubris in the first half of the show. In the second half of the show, we're going to talk about the launch of J.D. Vance's new book, Communion, Finding My Way Back to Faith. We'll get into what Vance is trying to achieve with the release of this book and all of the slew of interviews that he has done remaking himself into a softer, cuddlier J.D. Vance. Let's start with Iran. Okay, Antony, I bought a prop. I bought, for those of you watching, a time machine. I know it looks like a Kleenex box, it's not. It's a time machine. And you, Antony Scaramucci, are going to enter this time machine and you are going to go back to your days as White House communications director. Oh my God. I thought you would enjoy a little bit of role playing. And somewhere in the bottle of this box of Kleenex, which is actually now your White House communications director office, I'm going to ask you to explain how this deal that President Trump signed last night in Versailles very proudly with his signature showed up. The paper to everybody, there is Emmanuel Macron sitting next to him. Marco Rubio standing looking like, oh my God, he wanted to be anywhere else, right behind him. Mr. Communications Director, how is this a good deal for the United States of America? Please explain. Hold on a second. Sarah, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, pass me the bottle of Ativan. Bring it over here. Let me chug a few of those. Okay, I'm ready now, Katty. I'm ready. Okay. So the first thing is you have a blithering idiot and that would be Howard Lutnick. And I would just ask you, please, if you like theater and kabuki theater and stupidity, watch the facial expressions and the gesticulations of Howard Lutnick as the orange buffoon is talking nonsense, like saying the kids at Hamas are born with machine guns in their hand. And Rubio's like this, shoot me now, Rubio. And Lutnick is like this. I mean, ha, ha, ha, ha. I mean, you got to be, I mean, I don't even understand how you could be standing there and actually acting like that. I mean, I don't even, I don't even get that. We'll study that forever. There'll be a new book called The Emperor Really Does Have No Clothes and He Lives in Versailles. But I'm just going to say a couple of things. Okay. Number one, it's a terrible deal. By the way, you have now just been fired again as communications director, just putting it out there. You didn't actually last 11 seconds, let alone 11 days. Of course, because as I have said on this program, Lincoln had a team of rivals. Trump has a hall of mirrors, which is appropriate for Versailles. He's standing there and they just want to reflect back to him who they think he is and what they think he wants. But I literally watched Fox News all morning because I wanted to see what the right-wing propagandists were going to say about the deal. They don't like the deal. They're even citing the Wall Street Journal on Fox News about how absolutely horrific the deal is. And so, Katty, the real question is, will this deal last three days of Trump watching cable television in the study off the Oval Office where he has that big flat screen and he's fumbling around with the remote? Will it last three days? And my guess is it won't actually. This is going to be a quagmire-ish nightmare. But Katty, I got to take people back for 30 seconds in history. And I want to go back to the Sykes-Picot Treaty, which we are still living with. And of course, this was a secret deal between the French and the British where they carved up the Middle East and they created as a result of these borders, tribal disputes that still last in the Middle East today. But I just want to say this to people, and please remember this when you're thinking about the Middle East. Over the last 110 years, every negotiation has been about what the powers say they're doing, which is self-determination and stability and peace, and what they are actually allocating, which is oil, Katty, choke points, basing rights, capital flows. And so, ultimately, this came down to money and pressure on Donald Trump, my God. And this guy really is disinhibiting right before us. So, earlier in the year, we have more oil than we know what to do with. We're totally independent and we don't need anybody's oil. We're running out of oil, Katty Kay. And four weeks from now, if I don't have any oil, we're going to have an international crisis and an economic nightmare. And I am going to be Herbert Hoover. And that is who I do not want to be. I mean, he's literally telling us his inner fears as he's standing there at the press conference in Avion. Katty, I don't understand how people know how bad this is and they're willing to stand there. And I'm going to say something. I was very surprised that Jamie Dimon was there. Because if you watch the signing, he was sitting to Trump's left. Schwarzman, the CEO of Blackstone, and then Jamie was next to him. I love Jamie. I think he's one of the smartest people in finance. But he's being sued by Donald Trump. And yet he got his camera out and took a picture of Trump signing the deal. And so explain that to me. Help me understand that. Because Jamie, to me, super principled guy, uh got his shit together he's a great leader dude what are you doing standing here schwartzman i get but what are you doing standing okay help help me with that one help me with that one jamie diamond walks into the palace of versailles and as donald trump has been at pains to say this is not guilt this is the real thing i mean this is not the oval office guys and the liberace decoration this is the real thing and i don't know maybe even jamie diamond walks in there and he's wowed by the gold and the sense of majesty and he can't resist taking a selfie but all he needed to do was read this document look i think this is the story of hubris this is a president and a team who think they can solve difficult problems because they're smarter and stronger and better businessmen than everybody else they ignore all of the historical and logistical challenges they grab for the first solution that they can find and when it goes incredibly wrong they refuse to admit they failed bear with me for a second i want to tell you about the reflecting pool in washington dc it's a reflecting pool who cares donald trump made a big display of emptying the pool and fixing it and painting it american flag blue and it opened to great ceremony six days ago bright blue looked lovely for six days that reflecting pool is now full of algae who cares it's a pool in the great scheme of things it doesn't matter but it is symptomatic of exactly how trump runs his presidency step one you announce your intent to solve some big problem that no one else has managed to solve ukraine in one day america's trade deficit iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons or an algae ridden reflecting pool step two you ignore all of the challenges that your predecessors may have encountered and they were ignore the fact that there were reasons why you couldn't solve those things reasons that those previous attempts failed because you think your predecessors were just too stupid or too weak like barack obama then you try to solve the problem yourself you grab any idea off the shelf so long as it's quick and it involves a few bangs and then you fail spectacularly and that is what he's done he's done it with the pool he's done it with iran he's doing it with the country he's doing it with the country right now as we watch and and guess what the american taxpayer in every single case picks up the bill in the reflecting pool he didn't even put it out for tender he just gets his guy his mate who does swimming pools for his golf courses he doesn't even put it out for tender so he doesn't have competitive bids in the case of iran it's 80 billion dollars that they spent on the war and now a 300 billion dollar program that they're going to give and help contribute to rebuild iran for its reconstruction so katie i have nothing to add there because i think it's a it's an analysis that i completely agree with but i gotta ask you about hexeth so trump said something where i think ducy said to trump i do like this guy's name ducy you know if you're not american and you don't know what deuce he means okay then look it up in the urban dictionary but anyway ducy's asking trump white house correspondent from fox about jd vance and trump says yeah i sent them there if it works i take the credit for it and if it doesn't work i gotta blow him up but hexeth is actually in that crosshair he went to the podium caddy he lied every day about the war he rebuked every journalist and told them you need to cover the war this way not that way thumping the podium with his five dollar american pocket square is he in trouble here is he going to get blown out by trump it's a great question jd vance clearly being set up for the war and he's going to get blown out by trump as the fall guy going around on american television telling us that what that after 47 years suddenly the ayatollahs and the they need rockets everybody's got rockets they need a few rockets too and a nuclear program hey i mean the neighbors have a nuclear program why not give them a nuclear program and jd is literally going on american television including fox news and saying iran is a normal country now and jared kushner and steve wickhoff are such brilliant negotiators that they have what persuaded the iranians to abandon 47 years of death to america for okay let's be pals and business partners and this is going to be rosy i mean jd i'm sorry that wood chipper that wood chipper has your name on it this week the wood chipper has caught on caddy people walk by me and say oh the wood chipper they see jd in the wood chipper they see the jd but we got that eight months ago we knew he was going into woodchipper we just know trump you know right in there but you're right on hegseth i think that's so interesting because hegseth is the one who told us that it was death fire and fury onto iran this was the holy war that we were winning i understand that republicans are particularly mad at hegseth for lying to the country and for lying to the president and making those you remember those incredible videos he made at the of america at war drawn from a hollywood plot or the kind of ipad that he would show donald trump in cabinet briefings of stuff just random stuff being blown up and it turns out that actually that was not the strategy that most military commanders thought it might needed to be so i'm seeing the pushback from republicans i mean it's very interesting i had a conversation last night with a senator who is on the foreign relations committee and i asked him about what have he thought and he told me he's seen a lot of intelligence around iran in the last few days and i asked him what he thought of this deal his words ludicrous ill-informed fantastical he said it reveals the depths of their mistaken belief that just by saying it you can make it so but here's what i think is interesting about what he is seeing the intelligence is suggesting that the irgc is more hardline now and in control and consolidated their power than they were at the beginning of the war and there is no way they are becoming switzerland and they will use this big injection of cash that they are going to get on day one from oil sales they will use that to shore up their weaponry in a way that puts america and american allies at risk so the mou effectively that has been signed is hurting america's national security and i and and i think it's as this senator pointed out to me kushner has always had this belief that you could just do a business deal with people and that would override all of their historical or ideological or theocratic um beliefs and i remember having conversations with jared kushner telling me that you know if you just gave the palestinians tiny condos during the first term he would say we can fix the israeli palestinian issue because we understand that they are just like us and we can basically buy them off and i think that's what is so absurd here when you've got jd vance going around saying trying to get us to believe that this is a country that it has abandoned the ideology that it's held so dear for the last 47 years to be what you know like a business partner i just they totally misunderstand what it means to be involved with a fanatical regime and that was the exact criticism believe it or not on fox news and from the wall street journal 47 years later they're not abandoning the fanaticism and the theocracy but caddy i want to posit something agree or disagree here's the iranian playbook uh dissected over 47 years we're going to negotiate we're going to relieve pressure on ourselves and try to get some sanctioned relief and then we're going to preserve our regime just like you just said we're going to get the refinancing of the irgc and oh the other thing we're going to do we're always going to wait out the american electoral clock because we don't have an electoral clock but they do and they've done it to every administration okay so the the regime is not measuring time in news cycles it's decades and this is something that trump's team i don't know who's advising them but why did they sit down and say okay here's what's going on right you know scott anderson who i think you know wrote a great book last year called king of kings about the mistakes that we make he opens up the book and this is of course about the fall of the shop and he opens up the book and the first sentence is from a cia security report it says in march of 1979 we expect the iranian regime under the shah to be durable long-term and sustainable and six months later we're in a wild crisis in iran getting everything wrong we got it wrong with the coup with most a day in 1953 we got it wrong with propping up the shah and not understanding the fanaticism it's 47 years later and we're still getting it wrong and i'm just saying to my fellow The American centrism doesn't work. You got to get in the boots of the people that you're negotiating with. Let me tell you another thing that doesn't work, the bombs don't work anymore. Because you can bomb the people, and if you go to bankrupt Iran, guess what happens? It becomes more unstable, and it becomes more theocratic, and it becomes more repressive. So it reminds me of what Kennedy once said, he said, "I don't have a lot of power in the job." Yes, we're the "most powerful country" with the "most powerful military," but you know what? It doesn't work that way. We learned that in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, and now we're learning it again in Iran. And I'm telling you, Cady, I don't know what leader is going to emerge in the United States that is going to call BS on all of this nonsense, but they're clapping for him in Versailles. Did you see the clapping, Cady? He's signing it with the cardiac arrest. He's got a signature, like a bad EKG signature, and they're, "Oh, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho." What? Guys? Are you kidding me, guys? What are you doing, guys? I thought if you looked at President Macron, it was pretty muted clapping, and Marco Rubio looks like he's in hostage video and wants to be anywhere else. And is not commenting on the deal. And Marco Rubio has gone radio silent, as our friend Mark Polymeropoulos has pointed out. He is hoping that this is his 2028 moment, and that J.D. Vance gets pinned with this, and is the fall guy, as the president even said at that press conference to Peter Doocy's question. He said, "Yeah, if this fails, I'll pin it on J.D. Vance." But that's not even how the media works, Cady. So channel Marco Rubio. Mr. Rubio, Secretary of State, what are your thoughts on the deal? Go ahead. Channel your best Marco Rubio. What is he going to say? This is the problem, that he is not going to say anything, and this is why you and I were talking a few months ago. And what was Marco Rubio's smartest play about six months ago? Resign from this administration. That is the only way Marco Rubio can go to the country and say, as Senator Cassidy is calling it, Republican Senator Cassidy, part of the YOLO caucus, or as Jeffrey Goldberg at the Atlantic likes to call it, the Janis Joplin caucus, freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose, is out there saying this is the worst foreign policy blunder ever. In decades, Marco Rubio, if he's going to be a serious candidate in 2028, he needed to get out before the worst foreign policy blunder in decades. He's not going to do that, but I'm going to say this before we go to a break and talk about my fellow Catholic, J.D. Vance, we'll talk about the irony of that. But Cady's not going to do that. But I'll tell you what he should do, because he's tight with Susie Wiles, he should stage a glide path out of the administration. Because Trump is going to fire him, and Trump is going to humiliate him. And if Rubio's smart, he'll be like, "Okay, Susie, I'm preparing for my 2028 presidential race, and so therefore I've got to glide myself out of here, and I'm sure some rich guy will pay Trump 50, 100 million dollars to be Secretary of State for the last couple of years here. Let me and you figure out a plan to get me out of here before Trump decapitates me." He's not going to do that. The brave thing, like saying, "Hey, dude, you're a crazy person, I resign," he's not going to do that. You know, he's afraid of Trump's primary, the hold that Trump has on the primary caucus. Trump has just put a millstone around the necks of J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio, and it is going to take a heck of a lot of explaining, because there are not many people who think this is going to serve America well. It's cost an awful amount of money. Thirteen Americans have died, 500 Americans have been injured, countless Iranians have also died. And Iran ends up in a stronger position. So taking this defeat, which is what it was, America has just negotiated the terms of its surrender and trying to explain that when you're running for President of the United States in only a year's time, which is when the primaries really kick off, Trump has just made it a heck of a lot harder for both J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio. Worth reading, guys. We're going to go to a break and talk about J.D. Vance's book launch, but it is worth reading. I'm going to take a break, and we'll be right back after this break. We're going to take a break, and we'll be right back after this break. to himself because he has changed his mind. changed his mind and he's morphed himself five or six times politically to pursue his ambition. And so if he was a straight up guy caddy, he would be like, hey man, this is how I grew up. This is what I learned at Yale Law School. I actually have a high IQ and I grew up in a blue collar neighborhood. And so it's just like, I've said this to you off air caddy. I was at Harvard and I had these whiny boarding school types waxing and waning. And I'd look over at them and say, hey dude, there are kids putting in sheetrock in my neighborhood that are smarter than you, but you know what? The father puts in sheetrock and that's why they're putting in sheetrock. So why don't you take a breath here? And that's the part of the book that I like about J.D. Vance. He's a very, very smart guy, but he's lost his way. He's trying to tell you that his Catholicism has re-anchored him into a less material position, but the words that come out of his mouth, and I'll let you address the book. The Catholic tour is really about the staging ground for his ambition. And it's very disingenuous caddy. So if you took the two books and you read them and J.D. Vance was not pursuing this wild ambition and doing stuff in his political career that he knows is wrong, then you'd look at them and say, this is a guy that is on a journey of self-discovery, like a Joseph Campbell journey, rite of passage. But what this really is, is a staging book for his ambition. And by the way, you know this caddy, he just hired one of Trump's deputy chiefs of staff to replace his chief of staff. So he's telling you, first of all, I am running. Remember I said, I wasn't sure if he was running. He's telling you, I am running and I'm running full MAGA with Trump's MAGA team. One last point, he got permission from the White House and Trump's inner circle. Of course, Trump himself didn't read the book, but they gave him permission. So he's telling you, I am running and I'm running full MAGA. Give him the thumbs up on the book because he's going full MAGA. Okay, so that's all I have to say. But I would recommend to somebody that hates J.D. Vance, by the way, actually read his book. Yeah. No, I'm definitely going to get a copy now. Because you need to understand him because this son of a bitch could end up as president of the United States. We have another nut as the president of the United States and you better get yourself at least some understanding of who he is. We're going to do a series over the summer on J.D. Vance because- Yes, he is running. And I think that the irony, the disconnect of somebody saying, as he does in the book, because I've read the reviews of the book, I've got my ambition in check. Am I, where did he write the book from, Anthony? I'm just trying to think, where was he living when he was writing the book? I mean, what was he doing? Hanging out with his family in Ohio? No, he was writing the book from the vice president's mansion. Yeah, the Naval Observatory. I don't think you can, with a straight face, claim that you have your ambition in check and write a book from the vice president's mansion. But I think you're right. And this is one of the things I want to talk about on the book tour that I thought was interesting, because one of the things he writes about in the book is that in 2021, he goes out on one of the shows and says that liberal women without kids are ruining America. The cat lady comment. The cat lady comment, that they are cat ladies without kids and they are ruining America. They were resurfaced in the 2024 campaign. And in the book, he now says that that was a boneheaded comment. And he wants to go on the TV shows and he's going on The View, which is a soft TV shows. And he's wanting to tell people that he's apologizing for that comment. And actually, he's become a sort of more softer, empathetic man. But actually, this shift isn't moral growth. This is just responsiveness to whatever is politically expedient in that moment. In 2021, it was expedient for him to perform at full cat lady, anti-woke Magary. In 2026, his numbers are underwater with female voters. So it's expedient for him to apologize. That isn't a man finding his values. That is a man finding his market. It's a very different proposition. And I think that was my takeaway from even that incident. But you see him on these shows. He goes on The View, which is a left-leaning show. He comes out because he is so smart. This is an intelligent guy and super articulate. And he's kind of unflappable. So he comes out onto the set of The View and he's looking tanned and he's looking relaxed. And he starts off with a joke, about how, so this is a show of MAGA Republicans, right? That's what my comms team told me. And it sounds kind of horribly sort of awkward and canned, but he's trying to do the self-deprecating thing. And he's trying to be J.D. Vance, who is accessible and wants to talk about his kids and can bat away because he's smart. He bats away their questions about policy and immigration and detention centers. And he's clever enough. To not say anything that's going to get him in trouble with the boss, but he's also got a real keen eye on trying to be the more personable, self-deprecating J.D. Vance. But then he goes on Fox and a different J.D. Vance appears. And this is the J.D. Vance who is contemptuous and combative and dismisses congressional Republicans as quote, it doesn't bother me that congressional Democrats disagree with our policies. It bothers me that they are just terrible people, so many of them. How does the terrible people, J.D. Vance, fit with the guy on The View who is talking about how he's been boneheaded and wants to appeal to everybody and is being self-deprecating? It's not working for him, as you know. It's not working for him. It doesn't land because it's not authentic. That's the problem. But Katie, I want to give another piece of evidence to what you're saying right out of the book. I went back and compared Communion to Hillbilly Elegy to see the comparable writing styles. He says in the book, and I quote, my family's problems were not created by governments or corporations or anyone else. He's now writing in Communion, no, I got that wrong. My family's problems were created by governments and corporations through free trade and offshoring. It can't be both. He also talks about Anne Rand who wrote Atlas Shrugged. She comes out of communism in Russia and she becomes this wild free market libertarian. He and Peter Thiel are acolytes of hers. Now he's transitioning from that into something that's more populist and protectionist. There's no core to the moral anchor. Again, I'm not defending myself. I'm just explaining myself for a moment. I see what's going on in the country. I'm traveling with Trump. I'm like, all right, 69, 70-year-old guy, he might be able to help create a post-partisan presidency and transform the country. Man, did I get that wrong and I've had to eat crow for the last decade. But at least I'm honest about it. Vance is not doing that. Vance is like, hey man, I want to be president so badly that I'm going to keep flipping my position. When Hillary took the Chicago Cub hat because she was in Chicago and then she flew to New York and put the Yankee hat on. That was it. You can't do that. What's your British football team? Do you have a British football team? Well, Tom supports Man City, so I guess that's, but Felix supports Arsenal, so I've got two. That's a problem when they play against each other, but there we go. Let's go with Man City. I can't be a Man United supporter. If you're running for office and you were a Man City supporter as a kid and you moved and now you're going to be a Man United or whatever, the people are going to look at you and say, they're going to give you that. They're going to eat. No. This is what Vance is doing. The title of the book should have been Weathervane for my ambition. But having said all that, it is a really good book. If you're a bookworm and you like good writing, this guy knows how to write, Katty. He knows how to write and he knows how to talk. And he's a very good writer. He's a very smart guy. I would love to sit down with Vance and say, hey, dude, knock it off. If you really want to be president, knock it off. If you want to be president at a time of your nation's peril, talk the truth to the people. And I don't know that he is capable of that. Definitely not. Or rather, it's possible that if we were to say, will the real J.D. Vance stand up? The real J.D. Vance is the guy that goes to the Munich Security Conference and slams America's allies. Possibly. The real J.D. Vance is the guy that gets Zelensky into the Oval Office and berates a wartime leader in a way that he doesn't want to. That is mortifying to Zelensky and actually to Vance himself. That's the real J.D. Vance. It's not the guy who is trying to be cuddly and self-deprecating. That's the show he puts on when the room wants to see it. But it's a show. And I think we are living in a time where audiences and voters will reward this weird commodity called authenticity. And you can't play act at authenticity. It's a hard thing for you to put on as a coat of armor. You just have to have it. And Trump has it. Trump has authenticity. He doesn't give a shit. He'll say, oh yeah, give them missiles. Having spent the last 10 years saying, don't give them any missiles. Give them money. Having spent the last 10 years. And he doesn't care. That's his brand. That's his brand. He's got two things that come out of his mouth at the same time. But JD's brand is inauthentic. And I think that makes it very hard for him to win over voters. So before we go, from your journalistic eyes, as objective as possible, what do you think the generic opinion is of the American voter of J.D. Vance? Like you said, okay, here's the tear sheet. Like you and I, let's say we had a British football player. Here's the scouting report. What is the tear sheet on J.D. Vance? I actually don't think they have one very much at the moment. And that's why he's doing this book tour now, because he knows he's got to get out there and he has to at least get people to have an opinion of him. But if they have an opinion at all, it's the opinion of the vice president. He hasn't said terribly much. He's a guy who, if you were going to start replaying the clips, what's the highlight reel that will inform people's opinion going into 28? The highlight reel has to include his dressing down of Zelensky in the Oval Office. It has to include the Munich Security Conference. And then you'll get a little bit of this view interview, which was a little shambolic and chaotic, thrown in where he's trying to be, I'm just a regular guy whose wife is having another baby and give me a onesie and I'll make a silly joke about myself. So it's a confused view. All right. Well, let me read. Let me rephrase the question. Is it working for him, what he's trying to do? All of the poly markets and the betting markets and the opinion polls show it's not working for him, Anthony. He was ahead in the polling to be the 28 Republican nominee, but he is sinking fast and Marco Rubio is rising fast. So at the moment, I don't think it's working for him. What do you think? Let me throw the question back to you. I don't think it's working for him. And I would also say that. But it could work for him. I would also say that it could work for him. It's not going to work for him. We did a special on Rubio. Our founding membership got to view that two-part special on Rubio. We're going to do it on Vance, as you said. But to understand Rubio, Rubio is way more cunning. And Rubio knows when to talk and when not to talk. And he got hammered by Trump after his Munich Security Conference speech. See, Vance played to the audience of one. Rubio played to the European audience. And when he came home, he got hammered. And Trump literally said at an open mic, if he speaks like that again, I may fire him. And ho, ho, ha, ha. And he was joking. But there's a lot of seriousness in that. But Rubio is more cunning than Vance. And so I think Vance is also. Because he's unanchored. Like Rubio is unanchored and he doesn't give a shit about being unanchored. Vance is unanchored, but he's trying to write in the book Communion that he's anchored. Do you see what I mean? And you're almost better off saying, you know what, my brand is I'm unanchored. I'm going to say whatever. That at least is authentic. Right. I'm unanchored, but I'm going to try to prove to you that I'm anchored. My brand is that I am super ambitious and I want to become president of the United States. Exactly. That's the authentic J.D. Vance. Exactly. But he doesn't want to say that. He wants to say, I'm what? Hanging out with my family and finding God. One last thing which I think is important here is that the Catholic vote, 70 million Catholics, a 2% swing in the Catholics in the swing states could solve the election. And if you're not a New York Knick fan, you may have missed this, but Spike Lee, a personal friend of mine and the Oscar winning director, was wearing a Pope Leo jersey. New York Knick, Pope Leo jersey, signed. Signed by Pope Leo. Okay. And if you didn't get the symbolism of that, if you're Marco Rubio or J.D. Vance and you're not paying close enough attention, because we know that Spike Lee dislikes both those guys, and we also know the Pope dislikes both those guys as evidenced by that. These guys are going to have trouble, both of them. With the Catholic vote, without the support of the Pope. So don't forget that in this whole equation. So, you know, the book is not working, brother. I'm just letting you know the book is not working because people see through your malarkey. We're going to leave it there. But do join us when we start that series for our founding members. You can become a founding member at therestispoliticsus.com. We're going to release that over the summer. So we'll let you know when that is coming out because J.D. Vance could be the next president. And I'm excited to dig into his profile more and see if we can find some redeeming, authentic qualities to the vice president of the United States. Wait a minute. Sarah Huckabee, we're done now. A little tissue box. I'm going to dig you out. Hold on a second. 40 minutes of podcasting. I've been fired again, Sarah. Go back to being governor of Arkansas. All right. Thank you, guys. We'll see you next week. Afternoon glare totally ruined my watch party for the big game. That's when my buddy recommended Blinds.com. With custom window treatments made to fit your style, space, and budget, customers who shop at Blinds.com experienced overwhelming satisfaction. 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