Trump says he never wanted regime change in Iran. He said the opposite, repeatedly, on day one of the war. Matt and CJ start with the gaslighting and end up somewhere bigger: if Trump only attacked Iran because he was captured, why can he suddenly defy Netanyahu and the whole Israel-first machine without fear?

Matt floats a theory about who actually holds the leash, CJ tests it against a couple centuries of how elites really operate, and together they walk through what Trump may have been promised, the three things that will prove whether this peace is genuine, and the outcome nobody in Washington wants to admit. Iran is stronger now. The US is weaker. Every

Republican running in the midterms is going to have to explain how that happened.

Plus the scapegoat question, the aid hidden inside the Pentagon's budget, and why a country protected by two oceans keeps going looking for fights it doesn't need.

https://x.com/matthewcarano

https://x.com/KillmerCj

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSuSWVH4XXhPkDgQSpzOTog

Matt Carano and CJ Killmer bring you the latest in news and politics.

This week, Trump's own officials leaked a call to Axios where he called Netanyahu "crazy" and "ungrateful." Hours later, Israel ran its worst bombing campaign in southern Lebanon in weeks. The feud made headlines. The policy didn't move an inch.

Matt and CJ Killmer break down why the blowup was theater, why the Iran war is the most unpopular American war in modern history yet nobody's in the streets, and what the $32 million it took to unseat Thomas Massie actually tells you about who runs US foreign policy. Plus: the case for capture, the Vietnam-era stat-juking playing out again, and the escalation that closed Kuwait's main airport.

CJ also previews the new episode of the Dangerous History Podcast — the Peloponnesian War, the Sicilian Expedition, and why a 2,400-year-old "it'll be easy" war keeps repeating.

Chapters:
00:00 CJ's new Dangerous History episodes
08:00 Warhawks vs. skeptics — Alcibiades, Nicias, and the "easy war"
28:00 Juking the stats: Vietnam, McNamara, and what "winning" hides
32:00 Two-thirds against the war, so where's the movement?
37:00 $150 oil and why Democrats won't pull the plug
49:00 The "performative" Trump-Netanyahu call
50:00 Lebanon: the real crux of the ceasefire
1:01:00 Compromat, Kushner, and the case for capture
1:09:00 What the Massie defeat actually proves
1:15:00 Tankers, Kuwait, and where we stand

New episodes weekly. Aggressive toward power, welcoming toward the curious.

On Twitter:

https://x.com/matthewcarano

https://x.com/KillmerCj

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/@BraveTheNewWrld

The media keeps insisting an Iran deal is imminent. Read the terms and it's obvious no one in Tehran would sign — not after being surprise-attacked twice mid-negotiation, including the killing of their own leader. Matt and CJ start there and end up somewhere bigger: what a declining empire does when it stops believing in limits.

From Trump threatening to "blow up" Oman over the Strait of Hormuz, to Beirut bombed over the weekend, to boats destroyed off South America with Cuba teed up next — this is a foreign policy with no brakes.

CJ brings the history: Eisenhower ending the Korean War in under a year because he understood limits, and Thucydides watching Athens chase the mad dream of conquest. Then a full breakdown of the Libertarian Party's disaster convention, the LPNH purge, and where the liberty movement should actually be fighting.

In this one:

• Why Iran negotiates from strength — and why no concessions means no signature
• The economic bill coming due: gas, inflation, fertilizer shortages, famine
• An empire that can't stop: Oman, Lebanon, Cuba, the neglected hemisphere
• Eisenhower, Thucydides, and leaders who once understood limits
• The LP convention meltdown, the 15–2 disaffiliation of LPNH, and the Massie question

Brave The New World with Matt Carano and CJ Killmer. New episodes weekly.

https://x.com/matthewcarano

https://x.com/KillmerCj