Liz, let's go to that because uh you've been reporting on the situation with the aircraft car Abraham Lincoln.

Um you know it's been become a very big story.

Again, part of the possible miscalculation or series of miscalculations made by the US.

Trump wanted a quick war.

This is not a quick war.

Tell us what you're hearing about the situation on the Lincoln and how it relates to what Dan is talking about right now in terms of long-term stress.

Well, we spoke earlier today with the former chief of naval operations, Admiral Gary Ruffett, who was explaining basically what Dan was saying, which is that part of the reason that the USS Abraham Lincoln has been there for so long and these sailors are uh so desperate, some of them, not all of them, there are 5,000 people on that boat of course, but some of them are trying to go overboard there.

and he said that it's become a logistical problem because typically what happens is that these uh aircraft carriers can go to port and some of these ports that they would typically go to.

He pointed to uh Bahrain in the past had been a place that the US could go dock that's not accessible anymore because Iran has a strangle hold on these passageways.

So he was saying that part of the blockade has created this own problem now that the US military is dealing with in a very acute way.

And I think that this news in particular this week about the USS Lincoln really has broken through.

And we've seen um Secretary Hegsth was a bit I would say dismissive um when he was asked about this on an official visit in Panama.

The president was too today.

Uh it seems like Hegath is kind of walking back those comments.

Yeah.

Just listen to what the president um said uh just earlier today actually.

Has gone off too long?

No, no, no.

Not nearly long enough.

You cover the man.

That just seems like one of his sort of oppositional answers.

Yeah, it's kind of a throwaway comment for him, but it's already enraging according to several news outlets that have spoken just in the last few hours with these family members of these uh men and women who are deployed on the ship that they're already upset about these comments.

And it's it's insensitive.

Right.

Elizabeth, you have a situation that they're describing in which the blockade is being enforced by Navy ships that can't go to the ports in the Gulf that are set up for American Navy ships to be repaired, resupplied.

Obviously, RNR for for sailors.

Um, again, it's it it it comes back to this idea that when they're sitting there in the Pentagon and choosing or sitting in the White House and choosing to launch this latest round of attacks on Iran starting 6 months ago, that the second order, third order, fourth order consequences, correct, were not contemplated.

Well, as we know, the president thought this was going to be Venezuela, that he was going to ma do a massive bombing campaign and that Iran would would uh would say give up and come to the negotiating table.

And it was total miscalculation as we have seen.

And it is the reason that previous presidents did not do what Donald Trump did which because of the un because of the inevitable consequences of of basically um igniting a a regional war in the Middle East and um closing the straight of Hormuz which was always any kind of battletop exercises always predicted that was be the first thing the Iranians did.

Right.

Right.

Dan, one more question for you on this and and you cover the Pentagon.

Obviously, it's much harder to cover the Pentagon these days because they've sealed it off from members of the press.

U but nevertheless, you seem to get a lot of good stories.

Uh are people inside the Pentagon talking about all of these miscalculations made by the White House?

What what are you picking up on that?

Yeah, I mean I think especially on the military side, the officer core and and so forth, there are folks who are thrilled with the amount of money they're looking to put into the military.

they see some benefit to the Trump administration and changes they've made, but when it comes to thing like how do you get into this war?

How do you get out of this war?

Yeah, there's growing frustration and concern I think on what this means long term, how long does it take?

How do you get out of this?

And how do you prepare for the next thing?

Right.

Right.

Um, let me turn to domestic politics, although this also shadows domestic politics.

Um, the Republicans don't have necessarily a lot going for them leading up to the midterms, but as is often the case, they can sort of wait and and hope that the Democrats mess up.

One possible way the Democrats are messing up uh is by nominating people who come from the far-left spectrum of the Democratic party.

We saw this in Wisconsin, the apparent limits of DSA kind of politics when uh a seemingly popular candidate was defeated, a more mainstream Democrat came in.

Obviously, the Republicans in Wisconsin wanted the DSA, wanted to run against a hard-left DSA candidate.

We see this now in in Michigan, uh with the Democratic nominee, uh being the preferred choice of the Republicans of Michigan.

That's that's a much closer race than what Wisconsin looked like.

Um, Adam, is there a seal?

Are we discovering this week the ceiling that the DSA has created for the Democrats?

Well, I I think it's it's hard to know for sure just based on this week, right?

Uh because because Franchesca Hung lost by about 4,000 votes um and this race in which she did not run a single television ad DSA insurgent candidate.

And um meanwhile, right, you have several um folks who've dropped out in recent weeks.

And so the the polling that actually sort of reflected her like a ceiling of around 39 40% was effectively what she landed on.

Um there were about 34 35% of undecided voters in that race and they did they they went towards the more established candidate once he received the endorsement from from Governor Ivers.

But I think that the thing that um we are seeing out of this um in part because it's it if somebody had argued in 2015 that uh the Republicans were making a a mistake by nominating Donald Trump as the far the further right candidate, right?

So, so I think that there's a sort of um we want to better understand what the middle wants, but but those polls are actually pulling uh American politics in a really strong direction.

And it's it's politics is not a science.

it can be studied as one.

Um, but the sort of electability argument is is floundering in.

Did you just invent political science?

You know, I tried.

I tried the uh No, but you make a certain you make a very obvious point for any reporter, which is this Trump asterisk on everything that will ever happen in American politics, which is on the one hand that doesn't make sense.

On the other hand, Donald Trump has won the presidency twice.

So all all the rules are one question I I have for you, you cover this very closely.

uh the DSA is having trouble convincing bluecollar and not blue collar black voters uh to come on board.

That's I mean historically you you have a lot of black voters who are if not sort of um conservative in the in the most general sense but but more traditional Democratic candidates, right?

There's this belief that um a candidate needs to be proven.

Um there's if you think about Barack Obama, he he benefited from winning Iowa.

Um and and then you move towards South Carolina, it's like, well, he has shown that he can that white people will vote for him.

Um right.

And and so there there has to be a belief that other people will will vote for you.

And and this has been kind of across campaigns, the ones that I've covered, where you have voters starting to to talk like talking heads.

You interview them and they're like, "Well, I just don't know if this person is electable.

I don't know if they will vote for We've all had that weird experience.

Exactly.

And and so when you when you hear it and when you see it, um they're going into the the polling booth sort of thinking about what everyone else is thinking as opposed to what they're thinking.

Right.

Right.

One one other problem and to put a finer point on it, the party has developed something of a a Hassan [ __ ] problem.

This is a popular hard-left uh Twitch streamer um who has said that America deserve 911, that Jews are inbred.

He's praised Mao.

Um he's praised the Houthi terrorists and so on.

Um Democrats are extremely worried about the presence of people like this who are no longer at the margin who are creating let's say loads of new ads if nothing else for Republicans.

Yeah.

No, it's a it's it's a problem for Democrats.

There's no no question.

And it's a was a it's been a problem for El in Michigan who was associated with him, right?

Uh it's a big problem.

I do think though that in Wisconsin uh it show it does at least in that state it shows the limits of of the Democratic socialists because Francesca Hong as we all know in the last weeks of the race you know the tweet earlier's um you know post media uh social media post came out that she was you know opposed to Thanksgiving.

It was a it was all about colonialism.

This did not help in Wisconsin.

I think there it was a bridge too far even in Wisconsin for for um ultra liberal candidate.

It is a truism that really just don't attack Thanksgiving.

Yeah.

Or Valentine's Day.

She was not big on that either.

So I could see that one that that that I'm a little divided on.

Go ahead.

Last word to you too about what Adam was mentioning about um just the appeal of the the DSA in general and why people are looking at this.

I spoke with Jeff Weaver who was the campaign manager for Bernie Sanders, America's best known Democratic socialist, and was asking Jeff what he thought of this race.

And he said, "Look, Franchesca Hong wasn't that well known in Wisconsin."

So, that obviously played a factor, too.

But he also made the point to me that he said the Democrats are not fighting back against Trump uh enough according to a lot of the party and the base and Republicans are not doing anything at all.

So he said that's why he thinks this moment is appealing and DSA candidates are appealing to people who feel like they are politically unmed.

Right.

Well, we are going to track this issue among other issues uh very closely, but we are going to have to leave it there for now.

I want to thank our guests for joining me and thank you at home for watching us.

For a look at the Republican party's evolution, please listen to Adam's interview with former Republican Senator Jeff Flank at Radio Atlantic.

I'm Jeffrey Goldberg.

Good night from Washington.