Welcome to the best.

Expect the words.

Some drink and pain.

Some die of first.

The way of knowing which way it's going.

Hope for the best.

Expect the worst. Welcome to the commentary magazine Daily Podcast. Today is Tuesday, May 26, 2026. I'm John Podhor. It's the editor of Commentary Magazine. With me, as always, Executive Editor Abe Greenwald. Hi, Abe. Hi, Jim. Senior editor Seth Manbell. Hi, Seth. Hi, John. Social commentary columnist Christine Rosen. Hi, Christine. Hi, John. And Washington Free Beacon editor Eliana Johnson. Hi, Eliana. Hi, John. Well, I could use a vacation after this weekend. the stress of following the news this weekend, unlike pretty much any such stress I've ever experienced except like in the week leading up to a presidential election whose outcome is not yet determined.

The peace deal that basically was announced on Saturday morning, which to me looked like

Munich 2, JCPOA 3, you know, Rocky 4.

I mean, everything bad.

I guess people like Rocky 4, but I don't.

Then, you know, automatically began to crumble, and it all seemed as though the reason that

we believed that a deal was imminent was leaking entirely from interested parties not only inside the administration

seeming to come from the more, I would call the MAGA side of the administration, as well as

supposedly diplomatic sources in the Middle East, who seemed to be trying to intercept a ceasefire

out of their own heads when the Iranians weren't even responding to our proposal,

whatever our proposal was. And then if they were responding, we're responding on Twitter

that they weren't agreeing to anything.

And so, oh, gradually, over the 48 hours from which this started, it became clear that there was no deal, there could be no deal, and indeed then we went kinetic with an actual sea battle. I know it's not really a battle.

The Iranians were trying to lay mines and we fired on them and blew up their ships.

But it's a little bit of a sea battle, you know, like if it were, if it were the 19th century

and the barbary pirates versus, you know, the U.S. Navy, that would be,

...