It's not because politicians never get a slightly challenging interview, it's getting attention because it's Tucker Carlson.

Carlson is a notable cog in the propaganda machine - him calling out Fox News and Ted Cruz is like watching a zombie start going after the other zombies. 

Trump upset his parade wasn't more like North Korea's:

How ‘Trump walked into Israel’s trap’ by adopting ‘zero-enrichment fantasy’

Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute, a US-based think tank, says Trump’s demand during Iran nuclear talks that the country could not enrich any uranium set off the chain reaction that led to the current conflict.

“The Israelis knew very well that Iran never would agree to such capitulation [at least short of war]. Predictably, and by design, this position led to a deadlock in the talks. This deeply frustrated the impatient Trump,” Parsi wrote on X.

Then, Israel “convinced Trump to give them a yellow/green light to bomb Iran in order to soften its negotiating stance”, he continued.

“Predictably, bombing Iran hardened their position and prompted Tehran to fight back by targeting Israel with missiles. Predictably, within 24-48h, the Israelis returned to Washington and insisted that the US needed to step in to finish the war.”

Parsi said that “much indicates that this was the Israeli plan from the outset”.

“Had Trump not walked into the Israeli trap and adopted zero enrichment, there would likely have been a framework nuclear deal by now,” he said.

Important to understand how Trump got America into war with Iran despite saying he wanted peace.

The original sin is that Trump walked into Israel's trap halfway through the negotiations when he moved the goalpost and adopted zero-enrichment fantasy, i.e. that his red line was… pic.twitter.com/NFXnlTrRTr

— Trita Parsi (@tparsi) June 18, 2025

Netanyahu thanks Trump as ‘great friend’ of Israel

Israel’s prime minister praised US support as Israel continues a heavy bombing campaign across Iran.

“I want to thank President Trump, a great friend of the state of Israel,” Netanyahu said in a televised statement. “I thank him for being at our side, and I thank him for the support of the United States in defending Israel’s skies.”

Trump repeating Israeli talking points on nuclear weapons

Andreas Krieg, a senior lecturer at the School of Security Studies at King’s College London, says Trump’s claim that Iran is weeks away from a nuclear weapon is an example of the US president reiterating Israeli talking points.

“What is important to understand is the Trump administration is based on a single individual: Donald Trump. He’s surrounded by a lot of advisers, but really it’s a one-man show,” Krieg told Al Jazeera.

“The Israelis have been working on him quite extensively for the last couple of days, trying to feed him information and narratives, and I would say this entire idea of there being a secretive intelligence report [on Iranian nuclear weapons] … is a false narrative,” he said.

“I don’t think there is actually tangible evidence to suggest that Iran is days away, but he’s repeating talking points,” Krieg said, adding that Trump appears to be ignoring “the power of words of a sitting president in all of that”.

Supreme Court Deals MAJOR Blow to Trans Rights, Upholds BLATANT Discrimination

In the 6-3 decision of U.S. v. Skrmetti, the Supreme Court predictably decided to disregard the Constitution and greenlit blatant discrimination against trans and non-binary Americans by upholding Tennessee’s ban on life-saving, medically necessary healthcare for trans youth. It’s a dangerous decision that will harm trans youth and could open the door to even more anti-trans laws in the country, including bans on gender-affirming healthcare for trans adults. In this video we’ll talk about this insane decision and its ramifications.

US preparing for ‘possible strike on Iran in coming days’: Report

As Trump keeps the world guessing about US military intervention in Israel’s attacks against Iran, more reports are emerging of preparations in Washington, DC, for such action.

Bloomberg News, citing anonymous sources, is reporting that senior US officials are “preparing for the possibility of a strike on Iran in the coming days”. It says the development is a sign that Washington “is assembling the infrastructure to directly enter a conflict with Tehran”.

The people said the situation is still evolving and could change, with some of them pointing to potential plans for a weekend strike.

“Top leaders at a handful of federal agencies have also begun getting ready for an attack, one person said,” the report added.

US Embassy in Israel has "no announcement about assisting private US citizens to depart"

The US Embassy in Israel said in their latest security alert that it has “no announcement about assisting private U.S. citizens to depart at this time.” This came hours after US Ambassador Mike Huckabee said on X that the embassy was “working on evacuation flights & cruise ship departures.”

The updated alert from the embassy, sent Thursday local time, said the State Department “is always planning for contingencies to assist with private U.S. citizens’ departure from crisis areas.”

“We will alert the U.S. citizen community if there is additional information to share regarding departure options,” the alert said.

The alert states Ben Gurion Airport remains closed and gave guidance on land crossings.

Meanwhile other countries are assisting their citizens to leave Israel...

One of Jon Stewart's best ever monologues:

Trump looks at the Declaration of Independence and connects it with the Civil War. He is such an idiot. Not to mention that his syntax is one of a man whose brain deteriorates.

I gotta say, everyone is still talking about that Ted Cruz interview with Tucker Carlson, but Tucker Carlson's interviewing tactics were legitimately ass. His questions were garbage and were basically all lame gotchas. He just starts doing trivia with him and then gets all bent that Ted doesn't know the answers? Like, it really doesn't matter what the population of Iran is, and if for some reason he needs to know, Google is at your fingertips. I don't need to know the population of Iran to be against this war.

Similarly, it felt like Tucker almost had a point with that bible stuff he was doing, but he couldn't drive it home.

I know we all love to see MAGA eating themselves, but this shouldn't be the standard of interviews that we aspire to. Absolute trash.

Strong disagree here. Any war with a country will have costs and risks super-linearly proportional to the population of the country. Knowing the population helps us estimate costs (and risks) in various what-if scenarios. 

And that is if we take a purely sociopathic cost-benefit-risk analysis approach, purely interested in the effect on the U.S or Americans and not the effect on Iranians or the region.

Tucker Carlson's point isn't that Ted Cruz doesn't know the exact population statistic, but that he is advocating to go to (or potentially escalate a) war with a country he barely knows anything about and therefore hasn't actually done the cost-benefit-risk analysis for the effect on the U.S. He's done it purely because he knows his Christian nationalist/fundamentalist base supports Israel unconditionally, because of their religious views.

If Ted Cruz said something like "approximately 80-90 million" or "I am not sure the exact number, maybe 85 million?" then nobody would think much about it. Instead he couldn't even give a rough estimate. 

Same thing with the ethnic-group question. How can Ted Cruz push to go to a war with another country without estimating the potential fallout and blowback? 

Even if it isn't a full-blown war, regime change attempts can mean a civil war that tears Iran apart along ethnic and religious lines and lead to increased terrorism as different groups attempt to fill a power-vacuum. It could mean genocide of minorities. 

We saw this with Iraq, Syria, etc. 

The problem isn't that Cruz can't remember specific details, it's that he can't even make rough guesses because he hasn't put the work in to inform himself. He doesn't support war with Iran on some rational analysis of how it would benefit the U.S, but because of the religious views of his voters.

I remember ten years ago the Libertarian Gary Johnson said something like "what is Aleppo?" at the start of the Syrian Civil War, and it was a big gaffe. This is on that level, if not greater.

I don't know man.

Of course population size isn't irrelevant, but I don't really think it makes sense to expect a senator to be the one doing the math to make these estimations. The side of the cost benefit analysis that they should predominantly be concerned with imo should be the outputs, not the inputs. 

Similar to the questions regarding the Bible that I discussed earlier, I kind of understand what he was going for, but it was just done so poorly, it felt kind of stupid.

Do I think that Ted Cruz has done a good analysis on whether or not we should go to war? Of course not, but I think that could be communicated so much more effectively than some chud doing trivia at him. 

I feel like we've lowered the bar way too much if that is passing as a good interview. 

For the record, the Gary Johnson clip played out roughly as follows:

Interviewer: What would you do if you were elected, about Aleppo.

Johnson: And what is Aleppo?

I think the difference between the two gaffes should be clear.