Tom Malinowski

Listen to Eisenhower on the men who perished on D-Day: They "gave us a chance, and bought time for us, so that we could do better than we have before." cbsnews.com/video/eisenhow… via @CBSNLive

Maybe AI can run the Department of Education and Linda McMahon can just "monitor what's going on."

"The cost of replacing the first four days' worth of munitions would be $20bn-26bn. The problem, however, is more to do with scarcity than cost. America is thought to have used more than 300 Tomahawk cruise missiles in the opening days of the war, but the Pentagon had planned to buy just 57 new ones in the current fiscal year. There have been no deliveries of THAAD interceptors since 2023 and the Pentagon has not placed any new orders this year. A puny 39 interceptors are slated for delivery in 2027—six years after they were ordered." economist.com/briefing/2026/…

Dems should not back Iran funding for anything beyond replenishing spent munitions, and even then only if: - the war ends - Russia sanctions & Ukraine aid reinstated - FBI/DHS counterterrorism & cyber defense efforts restored - funding is offset with cuts to ICE supplemental

This is misleading. Other than Patriots (of which we have only provided 3 systems, I believe) the weapons and munitions used against Iran are not what we were giving to Ukraine. If U.S. stockpiles are running low for Iran operations Ukraine is *not* the reason.

Supporters of the war in Iran have increasingly begun to acknowledge the high "costs of action" but to claim they are still lower than the "costs of inaction." Fair enough as a framework, and maybe even compelling if the result of the war was the permanent elimination of Iran's nuclear, missile, and drone programs or the installation of a new, less threatening, and more tolerant leadership. In the absence of achieving those goals, however, their case depends on arguing that degrading Iran's conventional military capabilities (a valid objective) is worth large numbers of civilian deaths and wounded, U.S. military casualties, soaring energy and food prices, mounting costs to U.S. taxpayers (now reflected in a potential supplemental funding request of $200bn), rising inflation and interest rates and recession risk, a financial and strategic windfall for Russia, the diversion of military assets from the Indo-Pacific and Europe, the risk of U.S. and allied missile-defense interceptor shortages, stress on U.S. force readiness, growing tensions within NATO and the transatlantic relationship, further erosion of U.S. "soft power," the collapse of trust in Washington, civil aviation and shipping disruptions, costs to Gulf economies and their reputations for stability, rising violence and instability in Lebanon and Iraq, the possibility of Iran sliding into enduring internal chaos, conflict, and violence, and whatever other unintended consequences may emerge down the road. That is a hard case to make that is getting harder every day.

Pro-Israel movement deciding to go all-in to stop this guy is real 2010s thinking. They're going to need to carve out space for liberal pro-Israel/anti-war voices to have any hope of containing further left. At this rate, they'll wish they had more Dan Biss types soon.

Remember that 20 million people saw their health care premiums double because $30 billion was too expensive.

Also, $200 billion is just crazy -- no way it should be anywhere near that much unless they are planning for a multi-year war. Congress should place strict guardrails on the mission, too.

This $ is mostly not for ongoing ops in Iran, but to replenish the munitions being used. Which we'll unfortunately have to do despite the stupidity of this war. But no Democrat should vote for it unless it costs Trump something, too -- take it out of the massive ICE budget.

I'm thrilled Biss made it. But it's sad that the big story from Illinois is about which dark money group trying to buy a Congressional seat - AIPAC, crypto, AI - won or lost. These groups all want to be seen as bipartisan. Democrats should collectively disavow them all.

If Republican Senators actually believed that millions of undocumented immigrants were voting, they would absolutely scrap the filibuster to stop it.

"We never needed the help of the countries that until a few minutes ago I was begging for help."

Almost always happy to have senior officials resigning over a war I disagree with. But the antisemitic stuff in here blaming Israel for the Iraq war and a secret conspiracy of the media and Israelis to deceive Trump into going to war with Iran is ugly stuff that plays on the worst antisemitic tropes. Donald Trump is the President of the United States and he is the one ultimately responsible for sending American troops into harms way.

The sophisticated empirical arguments against immigration are disproven, but all the objections that matter most politically are just complete nonsense that you don't need any complex analysis to reject: -On crime: They increase crime *levels*! -On economics: They took our jobs! -On budgets: They consume >$0 in benefits! -On politics: Illegal aliens elected Biden! -On assimilation: They speak foreign languages! -On legality: They should all just come legally!

Not that we're anywhere near this, but the biggest threat to the authoritarian Gulf States going forward would be a democratic Iran. It's a good thing for MBS that Trump cares as much about democracy in Iran as he does in Saudi Arabia.

Three weeks into the war with Iran, a number of observations as someone who spent years war-gaming this scenario. 1. The U.S. and Israel may have produced regime transition in the worst possible way. Ali Khamenei was 86 and had survived multiple bouts of prostate cancer. His death in the coming years would likely have triggered a real internal reckoning in Iran, potentially opening the door to somewhat more pragmatic leadership, especially after the protests and crackdown last month. Instead, the regime made its most consequential decision under existential external threat giving the hardliners a clear upperhand. Now we appear to have a successor who is 30 years younger, deeply tied to the IRGC, and radicalized by the war itself – including the killing of family members. Disastrous. 2. About seven years ago at CNAS, I helped convene a group of security, energy, and economic experts to walk through scenarios for a U.S.--Iran war and the implications for global oil prices. What we’re seeing now was considered one of the least likely but worst outcomes. The modeling assumed the Strait of Hormuz could close for 4–10 weeks, with 1–3 years required to restore oil production once you factored in infrastructure damage. Prices could spike from around $65 to $175–$200 per barrel, before eventually settling in the $80–$100 range a year later in a new normal. 3. One surprising development: Iran is still moving oil through the Strait of Hormuz while disrupting everyone else. In most war games I participated in, we assumed Iran couldn’t close the Strait and still use it themselves. That would have made the move extremely self-defeating. But Iran appears capable of harassing global shipping while still pushing some of its own exports through. That changes the calculus. 4. The U.S. now finds itself in the naval and air equivalent of the dynamic we faced in Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s a recipe for a quagmire where we win every battle and lose the war. We have overwhelming military dominance and are exacting a tremendous cost. But Iran doesn’t need to win battles. They just need occasional successes. A small boat hitting a tanker. A drone slipping through defenses in the Gulf. A strike on a hotel or oil facility. Each incident creates insecurity and drives costs up while remind everyone that the regime is surviving and fighting. 5. The deeper problem is that U.S. objectives were set far too high. Once “regime change” becomes the implicit or explicit goal, the bar for American success becomes enormous. Iran’s bar is simple: survive and keep causing disruption. 6. The options for ending this war now are all bad. You can try to secure the entire Gulf and Middle East indefinitely – extremely expensive and maybe impossible. You can invade Iran and replace the regime, but nobody is seriously going to do that. Costs are astronomical. You can try to destabilize the regime by supporting separatist groups. It probably won’t work and if it does you’ll most likely spark a civil war producing years of bloody chaos the U.S. will get blamed for. None of these are good outcomes. 7. The other escalatory options being discussed are taking the nuclear material out of Esfahan or taking Kargh Island. Esfahan is not really workable. Huge risk. You’d have been on the ground for a LONG time to safely dig in and get the nuclear material out in the middle of the country giving Iran time to reinforce from all over and over run the American position. 8. Kharg Island can be appealing to Trump. He’d love to take Iran’s ability to export oil off the map and try to coerce them to end the war. It’s much easier because it’s not in the middle of IRan. But it’s still a potentially costly ground operation. And again. Again, the Iranian government only has to survive to win and they can probably do that even without Kargh. 9. The least bad option is the classic diplomatic off-ramp. The U.S. declares that Iran’s military capabilities have been significantly degraded, which is how the Pentagon always saw the purpose of the war. Iran declares victory for surviving and demonstrating it can still threaten regional actors. It would feel unsatisfying. But this is the inevitable outcome anyway. Better to stop now than after five or ten more years of escalating costs. Remember in Afghanistan we turned down a deal very early in the war with the Taliban that looked amazing 20 years later. Don’t need to repeat that kind of mistake. 10. The U.S. and Israel are not perfectly aligned here. Trump just needs a limited win and would see long-term instability as a negative whereas for Netanyahu a weak unstable Iran that bogs the U.S. down in the MIddle East is a fine outcome. If President Trump decided he wanted Israel to stop, he likely has the leverage to push it in that direction just as he pressured Netanyahu to take a deal last fall on Gaza. 11. When this is over, the Gulf states will have to rethink their entire security strategy. They are stuck in the absolute worst place. They didn’t start this war and didn’t want it and now they are taking with some of the worst consequences. Neither doubling down with the U.S. and Israel nor placating the Iranians seems overwhelmingly appealing. 12. One clear geopolitical winner so far: Russia. Oil prices are rising. Sanctions are coming off. Western attention and military resources are shifting away from Ukraine. From Moscow’s perspective, this war is a win win win. 13. At some point China may have a role to play here. It is the world’s largest oil importer, and much of that supply comes from the Middle East. Yes they are still getting oil from Iran. But they also buy from the rest of the Middle East, and a prolonged disruption in the Gulf hits Beijing hard. That gives China a real incentive to help push toward an end to the conflict.

The allies should demand 1) end of the tariffs and 2) restoration of U.S. support for Ukraine. The resulting deal would be great for both them and us. Trump’s tariffs and alignment with Putin are very damaging to the U.S. as well as the Western alliance generally.

He threatens NATO but once again refuses to criticize Russia for giving Iran intelligence on U.S. forces and bases in the Mideast.

If I weren’t so adamantly against voter suppression bills, I would actually flip to support - for this reason. The only problem is, the actual outcome of passing a bill like this only 7.5 months before an election will unleash complete and total electoral chaos. Reminder, the Real ID law was passed in 2005 and it took a full TWENTY YEARS for all states to update their systems to be compliant. To rewrite election law 7.5 months before an election and expect compliance for the very next election? Chaos is the goal.

The SAVE Act is a terrible bill as a matter of principle. But I wonder if Republicans have really thought through the implications for the midterms of only letting people with passports vote.