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Does President Trump Make Decisions Based On Analysis Or Instinct; NYT: Iran "Unable To Find" Mines Planted In Hormuz Strait; CNN: China Preparing Arms Shipment To Iran; Artemis II Astronauts Return To Earth After Historic Moon Mission; US-Iran Direct Talks In Pakistan Mark First Since 1979. Aired 9-10a ET

Aired April 11, 2026 - 09:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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[09:00:37]

MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN ANCHOR: A crazy person doesn't live in the White House. A person who plays a crazy person a lot on T.V. lives there. I'm Michael Smerconish in the Philly burbs.

Bill Maher said those words last spring after having dinner with President Trump at the White House. And then he added, which I know is effed up. It's just not as effed up as I thought it was. A hue and cry followed. Festivus ensued when Larry David satirized Maher in the New York Times under the headline My Dinner with Adolf.

And in a choice between two of my favorite comedians, I stood with Maher on theory that it's better to have dialogue and to break bread than to demonize. Maher was mingling with the president of the United States, and guess what? When the dinner ended, he went right back on T.V. and continued his biting analysis of Trump. And of course, the president eventually took to Truth Social to hit back at Bill Maher.

The Maher dinner has been on my mind this week, watching Trump's Truth Social posts amidst the war in Iran. You've seen them by now. Easter Sunday, "Open the effing strait, you crazy bastards." And then on Tuesday, "A whole civilization will die tonight." The reaction at home was fierce.

Unhinged screamed a Drudge headline. Others called for invocation of the 25th Amendment on the grounds that Trump had demonstrated he was unable to perform his duties. And Democrats, anticipating retaking the House in November, began using the I word, impeachment.

Still 90 minutes before Trump's Tuesday night 8:00 p.m. Eastern deadline, a two week ceasefire brokered by Pakistan was announced. And something else happened On Tuesday, the New York Times published a deep dive by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, sharing reporting from their forthcoming book "Regime Change." This was a granular reconstruction of Trump's decision to go to war with Iran. For example, Haberman and Swan didn't just summarize what happened on February 11 when Benjamin Netanyahu came to the White House to sell an attack on Iran. They detail what was said by each participant in the Situation Room and also exactly where in the room everybody was seated by this account, Netanyahu and Trump were aligned in hawkish thinking.

But there was skepticism raised by Trump's team. The following day when the Americans met without Israeli counterparts, CIA Director John Ratcliffe told Trump that Netanyahu's regime change scenarios were farcical. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, it's bullshit. Vice President J.D. Vance was the most doubtful of the group. Quote, "Nobody in Mr. Trump's inner circle was more worried about the prospect of war with Iran or did more to stop it, than the vice president."

General Caine, Chair of the Joint Chiefs, said the Israelis, quote, oversell their plans and are not always well developed. Notably by this account, Trump was dismissive of Caine's concern that the Strait of Hormuz might be blocked by Iran. And then, in the final days of February, new intelligence revealed that the Ayatollah would be meeting above ground with other top officials from the regime in broad daylight and wide open to air attack. The president gave Iran another chance to strike a deal. But Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner reported from Geneva that the Iranians were playing games.

On February 26, another meeting in the Situation Room ensued, and during the course of an hour and a half, the president said he, quote, "wanted to go around the table and hear everyone's views." Vance repeated that an attack on Iran was a bad idea, but that he'd support the president's position. After CIA Director Ratcliffe discussed the stunning intel that the Iranian leadership was about to gather above ground in broad daylight at the Ayatollahs compound, the White House counsel, David Warrington, offered the opinion that the plan being presented to the president was legally permissible. General Caine told Trump he needed to decide by 4:00 p.m. the following day. Aboard Air Force One the next afternoon, 22 minutes before Caine's deadline, Trump gave the order.

Operation Epic Fury is approved. No aborts. Good luck.

I don't think that the Times reporting was a result of leaks. I think the administration wanted this story in the public domain. In contrast to those offensive and intemperate Truth Social posts which were intended for Tehran, this window into pre-war decision making was for the Americans.

[09:05:02]

It shows airing of competing views, some open to dissent, reliance on legal counsel, and a deliberative process, not the impulsivity with which Trump is so often associated. There's nothing in the Times behind closed doors account of an unstable Trump at the same time that he was playing the madman card in public.

You'd expect the guy that posts about a whole civilization dying would be simultaneously busting up the White House furniture. But there's never been any reporting of Trump like that behind closed doors. In other words, it's not that there's a method to his madness, it's that the madness is his method. The trouble for the president is that he may have played that role too often.

During Trump 1.0, the world didn't know what to expect. There was the British ambassador to the U.S. who resigned in 2019 after memos that he's written to the mother country came to light. One of which, he wrote, said this, "We don't really believe this administration is going to become substantially more normal, less dysfunctional, less unpredictable, less faction driven, less diplomatically clumsy and inept." But now, writing in the Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan said she found the Truth Social posts horrifying, hitting a new bottom and ineffective. The reason the madman theory worked for Richard Nixon, she wrote, if it did, was that world leaders knew he wasn't crazy, but might be tripped into extreme behaviors by an adversary's intransigence.

Donald Trump plays the part of the madman every day. His head fake would be sanity. If his advisors thought this was a good negotiating tactic, give him a little madman theory, Mr. President. They really are hicks.

What the Haberman and Swan reporting ultimately reveals much like what Bill Maher saw at dinner, is that Donald Trump is capable of exactly what his critics say he isn't, patience, process, and genuine deliberation. He went around the table. He heard the dissent. He consulted the lawyers, he made a hard call under enormous pressure. And 90 minutes before his own deadline, a ceasefire materialized.

That's not nothing, and it's certainly not the behavior of someone who needs the 25th amendment invoked or warrants impeaching.

Mr. President, here's some free advice. You don't need the Madman Act. It's no longer necessary. The real Trump, the one sitting at the head of the table in the Situation Room, is a more formidable figure than the one rage posting on Truth Social at midnight. Let the former lead. You don't need all theater. And the results, they might speak for themselves.

I want to know what you think. Go to my website this hour at smerconish.com and answer today's poll question. Does President Trump make consequential decisions based mostly on analysis or gut instinct?

Joining me now is Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, Senior Associate Dean for Leadership Studies and the Lester Crown professor in the Practice of Management at Yale University. And he's the co-author of the new book "Trump's Ten Commandments," currently a bestseller, according to the New York Times, Amazon and USA Today.

Professor, so many books have been written about Donald Trump, but yours is unique because you're a leadership scholar and you've known him for 25 years. So here's the question that I most want to ask you, does he make decisions based on analysis or instinct?

JEFFREY SONNENFELD, PROFESSOR IN THE PRACTICE OF MANAGEMENT, YALE UNIVERSITY: He does it by a little bit of a combination of both. But more, believe it or not, analysis than instinct. He's been doing these same things for the entirety of his career, these same 10 levers and sometimes they're delivered with in an emotional, impulsive seeming way, perhaps at a Truth Social tweet that comes out at midnight. But these are not truly impulsive. These are deliberate strategic choices.

SMERCONISH: The perception is one of impulsivity and impatience. Are you telling me he's strategic?

SONNENFELD: He absolutely is strategic, Michael. When he divides and conquers, whether or not he doesn't like NAFTA, NATO, the Business Roundtable, whatever it is, this is something he's done his entire life. He knows that collective action is the way you counter somebody like him. Frankly, that's how a bully gets countered. He also knows that if he keeps repeating information, whether or not it's completely accurate or even completely false, is that eventually it will get traction and stick.

So, you know, you can get 22 percent of the country to believe that Haitian refugees are eating their neighbor's pets. The Ohio governor, Republican and mayor and police chief saying it's not true.

SMERCONISH: I know the way this goes. I can tell already the way this goes. OK. When Professor Sonnenfeld is gone and the social floods in, they're going to say, oh, Smerconish and Sonnenfeld, they're sane washing him. What's your response?

SONNENFELD: The response is it was Jared Kushner idea to write the book, I admit, because he said my father-in-law is very unorthodox. But his critics and his supporters don't understand them. Waving flags, honking horns or calling names doesn't really accomplish anything. Is that if you want to counter Donald Trump, you have to understand what devices he uses. You have to understand what's called the sleeper effect or the wall of sound, the constant machine of diverse -- of, you know, of different ways of distracting us that these are devices you've got to understand.

[09:10:20]

And you can't counter him just by calling him a demographic -- a demagogue or an autocrat. Andrew Young, Reverend Andrew Young, Congressman Andrew Young said at one of our CEO summits, you don't make any progress by calling an alcoholic a drunk. Let's get past the names and try to understand what does he do? If you want to counter him, what does he do?

SMERCONISH: OK, so maybe this is another tell because we've all seen the Truth Social posts, you know, open the effing straight, you crazy bastards, or a civilization ends tonight. You've known him for 25 years. You've seen him behind closed doors. Any sign of that Donald Trump in his real life? Because, professor, you would think you'd be hearing reports of him busting up the furniture and throwing chairs out of Trump Tower, but I don't see that.

SONNENFELD: Funny you should ask that. Backstage, he is not temperamental like this. He actually -- while these impulsive moves seem like they are emotional, there in fact are deliberate strategies. This divide and conquer, for example, or the sleeper effect, repeating false information or the constant diversions. But you point, you know, to another one, which is how he negotiates is he doesn't build, you know, a fight fire of trust. I'm an old boy Scout. You get Tinder kindling and things before you put on a big heavy log. He takes that log, smacks you in the nose. He doesn't want to build trust, he builds fear. Now -- but backstage, he doesn't do that. Backstage in his office, you know, and you see people there, like with Martha Stewart, who was often portrayed as the queen of mean, is the people who are there have spent most of their careers there and they like these people.

And it's -- they're pretty popular around the Trump organization or the Martha Stewart organization. So -- and backstage it can be very charming. I brought left of center political scientists in and warned them you're going to walk out of there charmed by him. Just look at Senator Elizabeth Warren, she got a phone call from him two weeks ago and she was all giggly and excited about or the embrace of Mayor Mamdani. He makes his choices.

If there's somebody who has strategic value to him, he'll make friends with them. But if Rudy Giuliani or Sarah Palin are not of value to him anymore or Kristi Noem, they become history quickly.

SMERCONISH: Thirty second answer, is Jeffrey Sonnenfeld from Yale telling us that Donald Trump is actually a rational actor.

SONNENFELD: He is rational. It doesn't mean that he always makes the right choices. It doesn't mean he's going to read -- you know, win the geography contest at University of Virginia or Yale or Harvard or Duke, and there areas where he's ignorant, but boy, he is not dumb. I argue with people on another network when they like to talk -- to say that he's dumb. He is dumb like a fox.

He's very strategic and sometimes gets it wrong and it backfires.

SMERCONISH: Can we give the mailing address in New Haven so that they can just send all the angry letters to you and to not --

SONNENFELD: Oh my God.

SMERCONISH: Your book is a bestseller. Congratulations and thank you.

SONNENFELD: Thanks a lot. I appreciate it.

SMERCONISH: All right, what are your thoughts? I can only imagine. I can only imagine the combination of me saying you weren't the intended audience. For those repulsive Truth Social posts, Tehran was. And now the legal the scholarship expert Sonnenfeld saying, hey, it's strategic.

OK, let's see it. Catherine (ph), what do we got? Social media reaction from the world of X. Michael, even if there is a method to his madness, it is still madness. Serial execution of haphazard methods do not a rational actor make.

Walt, you heard Professor Sonnenfeld at the end when I directly asked him that question, is he a rational actor? He said that he is. He's been watching him for 25 years, bringing his leadership expertise that he sees in the corporate world and analyzing President Trump. Let me repeat what Jeffrey Sonnenfeld just said. It doesn't mean he makes the right decision every time. Surely not, right, but there's an additional level of analysis to this week and all week long.

Although I've had the opportunity to say these things on radio, I've been watching the story unfold and I like why isn't anybody making the observation the Americans horrified about all this. The Truth Social postings were never the intended audience. I think that matters.

I want to know what you think. Go to my website at smerconish.com, Answer today's poll question, does President Trump make consequential decisions based mostly on analysis or gut instinct? Sonnenfeld, Professor Sonnenfeld said analysis.

Up ahead, the highest level U.S. Iran talk since 1979 now underway. Vice President J.D. Vance in Pakistan meeting with Iranian officials as a fragile ceasefire hangs in the balance. And just as these negotiations kick off, CNN reporting that China preparing to send Iran new air defense systems. China says that's not true. Admiral James Stavridis, former NATO supreme allied commander, joins us to break it all down.

[09:14:56]

Don't forget, sign up for our newsletter at smerconish.com. When you vote on the poll question, you'll get the work of our editorial cartoonists, including Eric Allie.

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SMERCONISH: Ceasefire talks between the U.S. and Iran. Underway in Pakistan, Vice President J.D. Vance leading the U.S. delegation negotiating with top Iranian officials. His main task, solidify a ceasefire agreement that has been fragile from the moment President Trump announced it. The most urgent item? The Strait of Hormuz. Iran has slowed maritime traffic down to a trickle.

And now the New York Times reporting that lost Iranian mines will be making reopening a difficult project just as important. But absent from most headlines right now, Iran's nuclear program and stockpile of highly enriched nuclear fuel, what happens to that? Complicating an already tough picture for the Vance team strategic differences with Israel. At President Trump's request, Israel has scaled back its strikes on Lebanon ahead of the talks.

[09:20:03]

And CNN reporting that China preparing to send Iran anti-aircraft weapons. That's based on U.S. intelligence. Beijing has denied it.

So as Vice President Vance negotiates, the picture is chaotic, but it's notable that he's the man heading the U.S. delegation as he has argued against striking Iran in the first place.

Joining me now to make sense of all of this is CNN Senior Military Analyst, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander and Vice Chair of the Carlyle Group, Admiral James Stavridis. Admiral, I feel vindicated because on radio this week I thought I was asking a stupid question of you when I said do they know where the mines are. And now here's the Times reporting that Iran apparently doesn't know. And the president announced via Truth Social this morning that the U.S. is going to clear the straits. So please speak to that new development.

ADM. JAMES STAVRIDIS, CNN SENIOR MILITARY ANALSY: Well, just like in the world of aviation where everyone knows about smart bombs and dumb bombs. There are smart mines and there are dumb mines. So smart mines can be turned on and off. They are pretty sophisticated. You typically know exactly where they're placed.

They're tethered to the ground. You've got control of them. That's a smart minefield. I think what the Iranians have done is create kind of a dumb minefield. They probably got some smart mines in there and they probably know where some of them are.

But they've dumped a lot of big dumb iron mines into the water. Maybe they're tethered to a few bricks. Maybe they've broken loose. Maybe they are floating around. So yes, Michael, if I'm the master, the captain of a big 200,000 ton oil tanker, I'm not enthusiastic about having the honor of leading the first convoy through the strait when this thing gets cleared up.

Someone has to clear those mines. I think this final thought here is a terrific place for the Europeans to step up, cooperate with the United States. They have excellent minesweeping capability, a lot of it invested in NATO. Get those minesweepers and mine hunters to the Gulf like yesterday so we can start the process of getting the strait truly open.

SMERCONISH: I learned something about you this week that has relevance. You wrote for Bloomberg in the early '80s, while studying international maritime law for a PhD at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts, I focused on the legal nuances of this tiny body of water. Give me one takeaway that you can share with the rest of us of what you learned from that experience.

STAVRIDIS: The Law of the Sea Treaty, which is signed by almost every country in the world, although ironically not by the United States and not by Iran. Set that aside, however, any strait that connects two big bodies of water, international waters, in this case the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean, connected by the Strait of Hormuz, that strait enjoys transit passage. That's a technical term international law. It simply means anybody, any ship, warship, merchant ship, tanker, is free to pass through that strait conducting normal operations. So for the Iranians to claim it, what I learned back in the 1980s as sovereign and to take control of it and set up a toll booth, you know, the Ayatollbooth would be a complete violation of international law and it cannot be allowed to stand.

SMERCONISH: Admiral Stavridis, respond to this CNN reporting, which we acknowledge Beijing is denying that China is preparing to deliver new air defense systems to Iran. The MANPADS shoulder fired missile systems, China says it's untrue. Why would China want to do that? Why would they want to antagonize the United States?

STAVRIDIS: It would be a mistake on their part in my view particularly. And you know this in the run up, Michael, to one of the most touted summits certainly of the year, maybe of the decade when President Trump is headed to Beijing to meet with President Xi. So A, I hope it's not true. B, if China is trying to play cute here by laundering these MANPADS, giving them to a third country that then gives them to Iran, they hope for plausible deniability. I think that's why you're seeing the government on -- our government speak on background about it.

And here's however, what really worries me, it's actually not the MANPADS. We can deal with those. What I worry about is it kind of hints at a higher level of cooperation between China and Iran. And here's where it could really hurt us, cyber. If China, which is alongside Russia, one of the two most capable offensive cyber nations, decides to share those tools with the Iranians, that's a problem.

[09:25:11]

And oh by the way, artificial intelligence is in the midst of creating new tools, so it's kind of like Ghostbusters. You don't want the streams to cross. You don't want new AI cyber tools alongside China helping Iran. That's a prescription for a major cyber event. That's something I'm worried about.

SMERCONISH: Yes, Thomas Friedman wrote about that specifically in the Times this week and he's in the on deck circle, so I'm glad that you raised it.

Admiral Stavridis, we appreciate you as always. From the social media world. This comes from X, I believe. Follow me on X also. Please become a follower on YouTube.

Why can't the UAE, Saudi Arabia and other wealthy Gulf nations help secure the strait that is in their backyard? Seems like a logical and logistical path out. Christopher, read what -- read what Admiral Stavridis wrote for Bloomberg this week because he talks about a European naval coalition. The point being that you're on the right path in saying why should it be solely our responsibility? Why should we even have to play a lead role in that regard?

I agree with you. I think the Admiral probably does as well. I want to remind everybody go to smerconish.com and answer today's poll question, does President Trump make consequential decisions based mostly on analysis or gut instinct?

And still to come, more of your social media reaction to today's program and what's going on in the world writ large. And the Artemis II space mission concluding last night with the safe return to earth of its record breaking crew. Then three time Pulitzer prize winner who I just referenced, the New York Times Foreign affairs columnist Thomas Friedman joins us to lay out what he thinks could be President Trump's way out of the war in Iran.

Sign up for my newsletter when you're voting on the poll question, you'll get the work of illustrators like Rob Rogers.

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[09:31:30]

SMERCONISH: At 8:07 p.m. last night, the capsule carrying the four astronauts of the Artemis II moon mission splashed down safely off the coast of San Diego. The intense finale of the 10-day journey saw the astronauts drop down from 400,000 feet above sea level to the Pacific Ocean in just 13 minutes, traveling at 25,000 miles per hour as they entered the atmosphere.

At those speeds, the capsule's heat shield had to withstand temperatures in excess of 5,000 degrees. But the hardware got the job done, keeping all four crew members, three Americans and one Canadian, unharmed.

The Artemis II mission broke human space flight records and was thrilling to watch last night. Here's some of your social media reaction to the program thus far. Follow me on X and YouTube and maybe I'll be reading some of your comments. Just watching your predictable apologist tour of Trump, his madness is his method. I guess the rest of the world just doesn't get his genius the way you and the rest of your MAGA crew does. We just don't have your searing insight.

Tracy. Marie, here's the argument that I was trying to advance earlier in the program. You were not the intended audience for those Truth Social posts. The people in Tehran were. I don't -- it's not language I would ever use. It's not language I want my president using. But I'm trying to go one

step beyond and to understand what would possess him to say, open the effing straight, you crazy bastards. Or, you know, a civilization may end tonight. He wants to frighten them as a strategic negotiation tactic. Whether it worked, I think it's still too soon to tell.

But this is the point that I really wanted to make. On Tuesday, which was the day of the Trump imposed 8:00 p.m. deadline, here comes this massive report from the New York Times taking you behind the scenes of the deliberative process of that led to the decision to go to war.

And it was deliberative, right? There was -- there was none of the bombastic characterization from the Truth Social posts in the Haberman and Swan report in the New York Times, Netanyahu comes. He's there to sell the administration on why they need to attack Iran. At that particular moment, the President and Netanyahu are kindred spirits as hawks.

But when Netanyahu leaves with the Israelis, there's a very candid conversation that ensues between Trump and those around him. The President gets more intel, he goes around the table, he hears a legal analysis after General Kaine presents to him one way that they can get the job done because the Ayatollah is going to be hiding in plain sight. Etcetera, Etcetera.

None of what you see in Truth Social media is evident in the reporting of the Times behind closed doors at the White House relative to actually going to war. And I think that needs to be noted. And it speaks to the fact that madness playing madness is his shtick.

Or as Bill Maher said when he came out of the White House, a madman doesn't, or a crazy person doesn't live in the White House. Somebody who's playing one does. That's not in defense, that's in explanation.

More social media reaction. I've got time for another one, I think. What do we have? Does anyone really believe Iran was going to nuke the USA? Well, let me answer it this way. Do you believe, given what we've seen of Iran's conduct since the war began, do you believe that they wouldn't use a nuke against the USA? I don't.

Do you believe in what you've seen from Iran that they'd never use a nuke against Israel? I don't believe that.

[09:35:05]

If anything, the war has convinced me that they are capable, that they are willing to use that kind of weapon if they had one. I can get it done, Catherine. Give me one more. I know I only have 15 seconds. My wife just said I think Smerconish has been drinking the KoolAid. I'm sure she's a good woman. I'm sure she's a good woman.

I'm going to let it go with that. Make sure you're voting at smerconish.com on today's poll question, does President Trump make consequential decisions based mostly on analysis or gut instinct?

Still to come, Vice President JD Vance in Pakistan for high stakes negotiations with Iran. Three time Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times foreign affairs columnist Thomas Friedman joins us to lay out some of his thinking. He offered recently a plan for President Trump to get out of the war in Iran. Sign up for my newsletter@smercondish.com when you're voting on the poll question. Steve Breen sketched this for us this week.

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[09:40:14]

SMERCONISH: Writing in the New York Times recently, foreign affairs columnist Thomas L. Friedman says that when it comes to the war in Iran, President Trump has a way out. Keeping it simple, here's what he suggests. Iran gives up its more than 950 pounds of nearly bomb grade highly enriched uranium and in return, the United States gives up on regime change. Both sides would then agree to end all hostilities and that's it. No more American and Israeli bombing, no more Iranian and Hezbollah rockets, no more Strait of Hormuz blockade, and for darn sure, no U.S. troops on the ground landing in Iran.

The three time Pulitzer Prize winner and author of the bestselling book "From Beirut to Jerusalem" joins us now. Tom, I recognize the events are very, very fluid. I wonder if the that's still your opinion or are we too late for that kind of a deal?

THOMAS FRIEDMAN, FOREIGN AFFAIRS COLUMNIST, THE NEW YORK TIMES: You know, that was written but while the war was still going on, Michael, it's probably too late for that simple a deal right now. The Iranians have recognized the leverage they've gained from getting control of the Straits of Hormuz effectively. And so there's clearly going to have to be some arrangement that addresses that as well.

SMERCONISH: With regard to the enriched uranium, I noticed that has dropped in and out of things that the President and Secretary Rubio have during the course of time. But after you published that piece on Truth Social, and we'll put this up on the screen, he said there will be no enrichment of uranium and the United States will working with Iran, dig up and remove all of the deeply buried nuclear dust.

And then, Tom, yesterday the president said this from the tarmac at Andrews. Roll that tape.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: No nuclear weapons, number one. You know, I think it's already been regime change, but we never had that as a criteria. No nuclear weapon. That's 99 percent of us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SMERCONISH: Maybe you played a role in elevating it again on his agenda. But how do you see a possible solution given how events have transpired?

FRIEDMAN: You know, Michael, this has really become such a wicked problem that there's not going to be an easy one that doesn't involve Trump eating a full plate of crow and maybe the Iranians to some extent as well. The only stable solution has to be to go back to the situation in the Strait of Hormuz before the war where you had simply free passage for everybody.

And that is going to be, I think, the most critical point from an American point of view. We will give up on regime change. At the same time, though, the Iranians are going to insist, you can be sure of this, on at least the right to continue to enrich uranium. That will drive the Israelis crazy and some on Trump's right in America as well. That's not going to be an easy one to resolve.

Then there's Lebanon. Iran insisting on its right to support Hezbollah in its -- in effect occupation of Lebanon. Israel will resist that. So, you know, one of the problems here is that there are so many moving parts. It's such a Rubik's cube that to find the perfect equilibrium point is going to be really challenging.

SMERCONISH: You've written yourself that you would welcome regime change. The president claims that there's been regime change, there's been leadership change, but there hasn't been regime change. True.

FRIEDMAN: Yes, there's been some leadership change. Obviously certain people have been killed. But this is the Iranian regime. It goes right down to the mayoral level. All the institutions are there are the same.

Yes. I find myself, Michael, in a situation where I really want to see Iran defeated militarily because this regime is a terrible regime for its people in the region. And nothing would improve the region more than the replacement of this regime with a regime in Iran that was focused on enabling its people to realize their full potential and integrating peacefully with other countries and stop occupying Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

So I'm all for that. The problem is I really don't want to see Bibi Netanyahu or Donald Trump politically strengthened by this war because they are two awful human beings. They are both engaged in anti- democratic projects in their own countries. They're both alleged crooks. They are terrible, terrible people doing terrible things to America's standing in the world and Israel standing in the world.

And so I really find myself torn. I want to see Iran militarily defeated, but I do not want to see these two terrible people strengthened.

SMERCONISH: A related subject, Anthropic Mythos. Anthropic Mythos, the piece that you wrote about that, essentially you said, I interrupt my thought process relative to the war on Iran because something big has just taken place this week.

[09:45:02]

Would you provide the CliffsNote version for those who haven't read what Thomas L. Friedman recently wrote?

FRIEDMAN: Sure. Basically, Anthropic came out with its latest model, LLM and discovered two things. One is, it's amazingly effective at writing code in a way that the most technologically illiterate person could become a code writer. But it was also amazing at finding errors and holes and vulnerabilities in everyone else's code.

And Anthropic said, when we say everyone else's, we mean everyone else's. All of the key operating systems that run, you know, power grids and phone companies and water systems and airlines around the world. So they kind of did. Oh, my God. We better first create a limited release where we just give this to the biggest banks and the biggest software providers in the world.

We're talking about Microsoft, Amazon, you know, their competitors, basically, to make sure they fill these holes, that they find their vulnerabilities before this software gets any wider release or leaks out, falls into the hands of bad guys, and then they're going to have a field day.

SMERCONISH: OK, you're the person more than anyone else who made us appreciate that the world is flat, that we are interconnected. But now you're saying we need to recognize that we are interdependent. How in the world do you get the United States and China and Russia on the same page to say we have our differences, serious differences, but this is bigger than all of us combined?

FRIEDMAN: Well, you know, the point I've been making, Michael, is we are at a fundamental inflection point in the world. In my life, in yours, we're probably roughly the same age. We've seen the world go from interconnected to interdependent. My teacher and friend Dov Seidman likes to say interdependence is no longer our choice, it's now our condition.

Unfortunately, we really haven't realized that. But we're going to have to realize that. And it's going to start. It's been driven by AI, because these AI systems, Michael, they're going to threaten China and America much more by bad actors both within their countries and without. Then the two of us are ever going to threaten each other. We both need an orderly world.

And I think this is going to be one of the key drivers that's going to pull people to the realization that we have to de tribalize and depolarize ourselves as a species now faster than we ever have before in our -- in our history, because we face a set of planetary problems, whether it's climate or AI or nuclear weapons that only have planetary solutions.

Now people will say to me, Michael, that is so naive, the U.S. and China collaborating on AI. I say, no, no, no. Here's what's naive. Thinking we're going to be OK or they're going to be okay if we don't.

SMERCONISH: The recent piece is really worthy and I highly recommend it and I thank Thomas Friedman from the New York Times.

Social media reaction today's program. What else do we have, Catherine, from the world of X. When it comes to Iran, Mr. Trump has been consistent with just one message. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. I just don't see a way out that doesn't at least include that path.

Well, Janette, that's why I was so eager to have Tom Friedman on the program, because I appreciated the simplicity of what he authored. To be fair to him, it was probably two or three weeks ago and a lot has happened. But he said that we need control of the enriched, the highly enriched uranium.

And in response for that, the United States stands down in relative other matters that we've been pursuing that seems to have fallen off the radar. I was happy to hear the president say what he said yesterday at Andrews and that's why we played the tape.

You still have time to vote on today's poll question at smercondish.com, which asks does President Trump make consequential decisions based more mostly some of you objecting to mostly like hey, why isn't there answer of both? No, I wanted it to be binary. Mostly on analysis or gut instinct. Subscribe to my newsletter while you're there. You'll get exclusive editorial cartoons from the likes of Jack Ohman.

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[09:53:30]

SMERCONISH: All right, there are the poll. Wow. 93 percent say gut instinct. 7 percent, how many voted? Now in excess of 37,000. Does President Trump make consequential decisions based mostly on analysis or gut instinct? 93 percent say gut instinct, only 7 percent say analysis. Here's some of the social media reaction from those watching the program so far.

What do we have from X? Oh, Michael, so disappointed to hear you this morning. Crediting that slime ball with deliberative thought. Carole Dowling, how else do you explain the juxtaposition of the president setting that Tuesday 8:00 p.m. deadline with those intemperate and offensive truth social posts? Open the effing Strait, you crazy bastards. You know what they are. I don't have to even do them from memory.

Juxtaposed with the New York Times giving you a seat in the Oval Office, in the Situation Room, as the president is interacting with all of his inner circle and with Prime Minister Netanyahu and they're making decision as to whether they're going to try and take out the senior leadership of Iran because they couldn't be more night and day different.

That's my thesis. That's what I'm arguing. So that the impulsivity and the seat of the pants depiction that he likes to portray for his enemies is not the way this decision was made. By the way, remember me? I'm the guy who didn't want us to go to Iran because they never met the immediacy test in my mind of the threat.

[09:55:00]

But now that we're in it, I want to see us control that enriched uranium. I don't want the mission shut down without that. But that's the point that I was trying to make. And I don't think that you can understand my thinking unless you invest the time and read the reporting from Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan. It is night and day, and what's the lesson? The lesson is, as Bill Maher told us from dinner, he's a different guy. And the public shtick is not the way he operates in private, which I think makes sense.

If you missed any of today's program, you can always listen anywhere you get your podcasts. Thank you so much for watching and we'll see you next week.

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