Separating the Commander in Chief from the War

Rep. Greg Landsman on Iran, trust, and the role of Congress

Sarah is out today; she’ll be back on Friday. I’m joined by Congressman Greg Landsman of Ohio’s First District.

Congressman Landsman is one of four Democrats who has expressed broad but not unlimited support for the military operations in Iran. I wanted to talk with him because I find that position genuinely difficult and genuinely interesting. I knew he’d be willing to work through the hard parts with me rather than retreating to talking points, and he was.

This is a conversation that asks some patience of you. I came away understanding Rep. Landsman’s position better and respecting his thinking about it. I also am clearer about my own discomfort with and opposition to the strikes in Iran. - Beth

Topics Discussed

• What “being done” looks like and whether that’s realistic with this president

• The difference between Iran and what’s happening in Venezuela and Cuba

• Congress’s role in military action and Landsman’s 30-day War Powers Resolution

• Whether the 2026 midterms can actually constrain this administration

• The Anthropic/Department of Defense standoff and why Landsman wants a Department of AI

• New Year’s resolution check-ins (gluten-free life, no-shopping challenges, and sleep studies)

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Episode Resources

• Greg Landsman (Congress)

• Greg Landsman (@greglandsman) (Instagram)

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Episode Transcript

Beth Silvers [00:00:08] This is Beth Silvers. You’re listening to Pantsuit Politics. Sarah is out today, she’ll be back here on Friday. I am joined by a very special co-host, Congressman Greg Landsman of Ohio’s first district is here to talk with me. Congressman Landsman is one of four Democrats who has expressed broad but not unlimited support for the administration’s military operations in Iran. So I was both excited and nervous to talk with him today. I knew that we would have some disagreements. I was interested in learning about where he’s coming from because I know he’s a thoughtful member, and so I wanted to really slow down and understand how he’s thinking about this and express how I’m thinking about it and see where we landed. So this conversation will take some time and patience and I really appreciate you giving that to us and I hope that you’ll find it worthwhile, I certainly did. So we talk about the war in Iran. We talk about the administration’s relationship with Congress. We talk a little bit about AI. And Outside of Politics, we talk about where we are on New Year’s resolutions one quarter into 2026. Sarah and I are very excited to be coming to Minneapolis at the end of August. Tickets for our one and only live show this year and all the surrounding events-- which are going to be so much fun, we’ve been working on planning them and I’m so excited. All those tickets go on sale this week. They are open to premium members today, Tuesday, March 10th. They will be open to everyone on Thursday, March 12th. There are limited seats, so please check out our show notes for more information, and we hope that you’ll join us in Minneapolis in August. And now without further ado, here is Congressman Greg Landsman of Ohio. Representative Landsman, welcome back to Pantsuit Politics.

Rep Greg Landsman [00:01:53] I’m so glad to be here, how are you doing?

Beth Silvers [00:01:55] I’m good. I was thinking about our last conversation, which was on January 31st of last year. You had this very memorable way of talking about the Trump administration when we last talked. You said that Trump was on a bender.

Rep Greg Landsman [00:02:08] Oh, yeah.

Beth Silvers [00:02:09] And I was thinking about how that was before Liberation Day and the tariffs and before bombing boats at random in the ocean and before demolishing the East Wing and before Minneapolis, before the Epstein files became such a scandal for him. So I just kind of wondered how that metaphor is holding up for you and if it implied to you that maybe the bender would end someday and has it. Like how are you thinking about that now?

Rep Greg Landsman [00:02:35] Yeah, it’s really interesting. I mean, the bender hasn’t ended. So is it a bender or is this guy just addicted to the chaos and the constant turmoil? I mean, he seems like he needs there to be not just attention on him, but the kind of attention that is full of drama and chaos. So he’s always been for me a chaos agent. I’ve always thought of him as somebody who just does chaos. That’s his superpower is that he does chaos and he’s obviously pushing the power of the office to the limits, and not in a good way. We’ll get to Iran even though I would have said yes to the operation. The way in which he’s handled it, it’s he’s all over the place. He just creates so much uncertainty. So going back to the sort of language of bender, bender suggests like this is a person who’s out there just on a couple day, just a wild ride. I think this guy this is who he is. And I don’t think it’s going to ease up ever until we’re done, until we have a new president.

Beth Silvers [00:04:04] And that’s tough because we have such a long time left. And I was thinking about this watching the State of the Union and how his words were just dripping with disdain for the Congress. How does that strike you? Like, it seems much more pronounced to me. I felt in the first term that he at least paid some lip service to the role of Congress, but this time it just seems profoundly uninteresting to him.

Rep Greg Landsman [00:04:30] Yeah, he doesn’t really come clearly. He’s a guy who thinks he’s the best. He’s the most important, no one else matters but him. There’s no real respect for anything or anyone. I mean, he just outside of his adoration for himself. I mean, he just loves himself so much and that’s been a constant throughout his entire career life. Like he is first. And so, I think he feels the same way about the United States Congress as he probably feels about the Supreme Court, as he feels about courts in general, as he feel about world leaders. I think unless you’re serving him, he just doesn’t have a lot of respect for folks. And I think this is where he is obsessed with the money folks, like the big money, the billionaire class. He loves those folks because they can give him stuff, in particular money. But Congress, no, I think it’s Republicans, too. I just don’t think he cares. I think he thinks this is a nuisance. So, look, there’s going to have to be a group of leaders of us that help the country get back to not just the politics that we had because I think we can do a lot better, but something infinitely better where Congress gets back to regular order and we’re passing stuff and it’s meaningful and it’s bipartisan and people are digging into actual policy, and it’s informed by leaders and constituents. And you have a president who’s showing up working alongside of the United States Congress to get something done, that to me is we’ve had it, I’ve seen it in my lifetime. In the early 90s you had the president and Congress working together.

[00:06:20] And it started to fall apart when Clinton lost the Congress in 1994 to Newt Gingrich, and Gingrige really stopped regular order in terms of the committees doing their work. And it’s gotten us to this place where Congress is weak, and the president just shits all over it all the time. And yes, on the Iran stuff, to me, targeted strikes are different. And I have a different line. Constitutionally, I think the president can and should preemptively deal with threats when it’s going to be a longer situation where you really do need the United States Congress to say, yes, we’re going to support this. He’s got to come. And as long as the strikes are limited, I think he probably was fine, but it would have been better for him to come to the United State Congress, make his case. And I have a war powers resolution that we’ll vote on next, next week, that says, look, you usually have 60 days. The president has 60 days to get a vote. My resolution says considering this guy and the way he’s handled himself and this particular situation, he gets half of that. He gets 30 days, which means he only has a couple of days when we vote on it left to get to vote before they need to stop.

Beth Silvers [00:07:47] I want to take that apart a little bit and ask you about the position that it puts Congress in that Trump just does things first, and then you’re in this reactive posture. I was thinking about the Massey and Conner resolution that you voted against and how difficult that resolution is to think through in terms of if Congress had passed it, what would its effect have been since he was already doing it? So can you talk a little about how you analyze that in terms the timing of things?

Rep Greg Landsman [00:08:15] I’ve been thinking about Massey resolution because I think it’s really more him than anyone else. Massey hates us getting involved anywhere. The big issue was, for me, an immediate end to the strike. So it would have pulled the rug out from underneath the military. The military has, I think, a very specific set of objectives, which is, look, we’re not going to do regime change. We’re not going put troops on the ground. but we got to get rid of this missile shield that they were building up around their enrichment work, otherwise it may be too late. So get rid of the missiles, get rid of the launchers, get rid of the rockets, and really set them back even further. I mean, big time in terms of their military capabilities and then be done. That’s how I understand it. And the resolution would have required them to immediately stop that. However, to your point, I just don’t know what this-- unless it’s a big bipartisan effort, I’m not sure what this president does, even if it had passed, and of course it had already failed the Senate.

Beth Silvers [00:09:20] That was a more coherent explanation of the military objective than I’ve heard. How did you come to understand what the military objective is here? And do you think that everyone’s on the same page about what the military objective is?

Rep Greg Landsman [00:09:33] I think the generals are, the Joint Chiefs, General Cain, he’s been very clear about it, Rubio’s been clear about it, where this White House and this administration loses the narrative or the argument is you have Trump talking, Hegseth, and then, is it Levitt, the press secretary? And those are massive spokespeople, right? Like they should have their shit together and they should be following the lead of the generals. When general Caine talks, he’s very, very clear about the objectives, same with Rubio. But the Hegseth has to add the bravado and the bullshit and the, well, this is possible and that’s possible. And we may do this. And, of course, Trump has to say everything in these hyperbolic terms: it’s going to be massive and we’re going to do whatever. And all that other nonsense because they’re bros and they’re playing some other game, which is absurd and not the way presidents or secretaries of defense should behave. I mean, they have absolutely blown the communications around this, like blown it. But if you talk to Caine and you listen to just the Pentagon briefings, the objective is very clear. Look, they were building up. The regime has been a pain and a huge problem for the region for decades. We spend billions of dollars, not just with Israel, but we spend billions in Jordan and Egypt and with our bases in Qatar and Saudi Arabia. All of that’s because of Iran, all of it. And so if we can defang the regime, destroy what they were building up, which was this weapon system that would allow them to go back to enriching uranium underground, if we can destroy that before they get it up and running, then we halt their nuclear program. So that’s our objective. Now our allies have other objectives, and so that also confuses the situation because they took out the Ayatollah, they’re taking out people in the regime, that’s separate from the objectives as laid out by the military leadership.

Beth Silvers [00:11:50] So I always want to talk about foreign policy with humility because I don’t have access to the military leadership and I want to understand. Help me put together the pieces of the previous strike. When we did the previous strike on the nuclear facilities, I said on the show, this seems to me like something that any of the previous administrations in my lifetime would have done. This seems like a normal use of the military to try to get in front of something at a time when Iran was particularly vulnerable to that strike. I am having trouble connecting the dots from there to here. Can you help me with that?

Rep Greg Landsman [00:12:32] Yeah, the best way to do it or at least the best explanation was what they were building up, the intelligence and then this has been reported, although they just have not stuck to it or Trump takes your attention in all different directions, but they were building up their missile capabilities, their ballistic missile capabilities in a way that would have created a shield around the enrichment work. So the strikes on the enrichment facilities did enormous damage. He obviously was misleading when he said we obliterated those facilities. Of course, we did not. We set them back. We just destroyed big pieces of the facilities that would make it very difficult for them to continue with the momentum they had. So it was a big setback for them. However, they were going to start back up. In order to do that, they needed to create essentially a shield around their enrichment activities, which is what they were building. And the question became, do you wait until the shield is fully operational? Not to use some Star Wars language, but or do you go in now? And the call, as I understand it, was go in now. And I would have made the same call, so that’s part of why I approached it the way I did. It would have been dishonest and disingenuous for me to say, like, well, I would have made that call, which is I’m not waiting. I’m not going to wait until they build up a missile shield around their enrichment activities. I’m going to try to destroy this now. And no regime change. Again, no boots on the ground, but take out the launchers, the missiles, the drones. And because of their ability to cut off energy sources, the Navy too. And that will hopefully create the kind of not instability in the region, but instability in their regime that should lead to, or could lead to some big changes in terms of their disposition towards the world where they’re like this is so dumb that we continue to try to build this enrichment work, that we continued to fund terror. Like, can we just enter the global community and be done with all the chaos, all the mayhem.

Beth Silvers [00:14:51] Okay, I want to see if I can say that back to you because I feel like for people going to work and doing laundry and getting the kids to all their activities, what is the threat to America is a hard thing to put your arms around here. So if I’m hearing you correctly, I hear Iran has nuclear ambition, has for decades. The regime in Iran is brutal to its own people to the region and certainly has no love for the United States; explicitly says, death to America, that kind of thing. Okay, so they’ve been working on building nuclear weapons, which is a years long process. We did a strike, we set them back to some extent, but not fully. They were trying to regroup. Step one maybe of regrouping was building this defense shield around the facility so we could not do a similar strike in the future. And we decide let’s take out that defense of their ability to regroup on their nuclear program so that we hopefully get to stop worrying about their nuclear ambitions, which someday might pose a threat to the United States. Is that it?

Rep Greg Landsman [00:16:00] Yeah, I think the someday piece is the big, very dangerous, terrifying question mark, which is like, when is someday and what does that look like? And there are reports that they have some enriched uranium and it’s sitting in those underground facilities. It’s not attached to a weapon yet, but the question becomes if they have the shield, can they attach it to a weapons, what kind of weapon, does it have to be ballistic missile? Can it be something that they just hand to their terror proxies, Hezbollah, Hamas, and they move it closer to or send it to an American base, to an American city? This is the challenge with this regime because the Supreme Leader was an apocalyptic theocrat who really believed that he was an instrument of God. And the goal was to just get rid of the infidels, right? The non-believers. And them having that kind of weapon could be catastrophic. So that to me is about as serious of a threat as you get. We have three big adversaries, threats to global stability and our national security: China, Russia, and Iran. Russia has been weakened because of the Ukrainian war, but still an enormously powerful country. China, very powerful. Iran, this is about as weak as Iran’s ever been. And so the question is, could we end this and get to a place where we only have two big adversaries and we’ve conquered one.

Beth Silvers [00:17:47] North Korea’s off your list?

Rep Greg Landsman [00:17:48] North Korea has got the bomb, which makes them pretty terrifying, but they say put. I think of these three as being more problematic because they’re empire building. They’re trying to take over spaces, other people’s countries. So Russia’s obviously invaded Ukraine. I don’t think they’re done there. They want to keep going. They’ve had huge problems. Otherwise, I think they would have taken Ukraine and then gone to Poland or whatever. They want to rebuild the Russian empire as they see it. China’s empire building, and Iran was. I mean, Iran’s been meddling in Lebanon, in the Palestinian territories, in Gaza, in the West Bank, in Syria, in Iraq, and Yemen. And this would conceivably pull them or end that kind of mayhem and allow those countries to rebuild and have their countries back.

Beth Silvers [00:18:50] The way that I hear you describing this sounds to me like the kind of operation that we’ve been doing for 25 years, sort of counter-terrorism, a surgical approach to a limited problem. And if I think about that kind of compartmentalized, it makes a lot of sense to me. The timing, to me, makes it hard to understand how it could stay compartmentalized. How are you thinking about that? Israel’s mood seems to be we want to once and for all end all of our problems in this region. Post-October 7th, that’s been my read, that Israel’s done. All of the things that have been precarious for years, they’re done and Netanyahu specifically wants to just end it. And this morning I was reading reports that our military is already like, whoa, we didn’t mean all this infrastructure gets taken out, the civilian infrastructure gets taken out. So how do you think about the fact that we can’t compartmentalize these strikes the way maybe we would at another time?

Rep Greg Landsman [00:19:58] Yeah, you’re an ally in the same military engagement in Israel. So that creates both opportunities and problems. Opportunities is that collectively they’ve destroyed or we’ve destroyed a ton of the missiles and the launchers and the rockets and the drones. And that’s a good thing. On the negative side, they do have their own objectives that go beyond the surgical strikes that my understanding is that we’re pursuing and that’s it for us. And I think it causes some tension, some real tension. And this is where you really do need a commander in chief that has his act together. I don’t want to say his because we’ve only had male, his or her. We need a leader who’s locked in. Part of the challenge with Trump is not only that he seems to like the drama and the chaos, is that he does not lock in these moments. This is one moment where you really need complete total leadership from all of the folks engaged here to not only be clear on our objectives, but to make sure that our allies are all rowing in the right direction. You can’t tell everybody exactly what to do, but we’re big enough to say don’t do that. And so, yeah, I think the key is for us to stay focused on the very specific set of objectives around the strikes and then be done. As it relates to Israel, they’ve got to make their own decision, their sovereign nation. But again, we have an enormous amount of power here, not just in our military capabilities, but our ability to convene European and Gulf leaders. And that would make a big difference in charting a course that’s ours, as opposed to one that is Bibi’s. Does that make sense? This is where I wish he would lock in.

Beth Silvers [00:22:08] It does. It just seems impossible to me in the current circumstances. I really appreciate the honest position that you’ve taken to say, like, if I were the commander in chief, I would have taken this shot. I think that’s brave and important.

Rep Greg Landsman [00:22:25] Thanks.

Beth Silvers [00:22:27] Also, when you say, let’s do our limited thing and be done, I think, how do we get to be done? I don’t know how we get be done here. What responsibility do we have to this country now, especially if we’re making mistakes? And the reporting seems to me like we’re making mistakes. The school, that’s terrifying to me. What is our responsibility?

Rep Greg Landsman [00:22:49] Yeah, there’s going to have to be an investigation. And you’re right, depending on that investigation, I would say we should be in to help fix or whatever it is that can be done at this point to make something so tragic, something good come from it. I think we have to lean in on that. I mean, the investigation has to be done thorough and it has to be ultimately public. So what it looks like is you go through, you get control of the airspace, which I think we have, and then you make sure that all of the targets that you understand to be there have been eliminated. Again, the launchers, the missiles, the missile factories, the drones, so on and so forth. Being done then means the strikes end, you go back, you retreat to a defensive posture. You don’t need all of that heavy equipment in the region, so we have a ton of destroyers, two aircraft carrier groups like it’s a lot. Some of those then get repositioned elsewhere. Some of it should stay so that if things pop up, military things pop up, you take care of it. And then in terms of our responsibility, the civic infrastructure, with the exception, I believe, of the oil strike-- that’s what you were referring to yesterday, which was alarming to me, too. The civic infrastructure has not been messed with the way it does during a war. You’re not seeing transportation and water, sewer, comms being destroyed.

[00:24:37] But the oil piece is a problem. And hopefully that was a way of getting the regime to say, look, we’re going to be done and we’re going to change our disposition. We’re not going to become a democracy or anything. That’s not in the cards, certainly not right now. Though I believe that every country, every group of people deserves that, but that they would at least participate in actual negotiations to be done, enriching uranium, they can work with the world to have a nuclear facility that creates energy, but it’s civil. It’s a civil program as opposed to an enrichment one where they’re creating weapons grade stuff. And I think we work with our allies to try to rebuild them. And this is the again where if you had somebody who was I’m thinking of an Obama or Clinton and hopefully the next president, they really are pulling together what to me seems like a very doable coalition of Gulf states, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, UAE, they’re all in it now. They’ve been wanting to have a new Middle East for a long time. And they all come together in an organized way to create some new regional infrastructure that is a balance to Iran so that Israel does not have to take up arms all the time. That they can be done and they can just go back to focusing on Israel and its own borders, but not having to do anything as it relates to other territories.

Beth Silvers [00:26:32] Hypothetically, that sounds great. It’s just what we have is Bibi and Trump.

Rep Greg Landsman [00:26:37] It requires leadership. Yeah, who knows what’s going to happen to Bibi? This is an election year in Israel, so they’ll have an election either this spring, this summer, or this fall, no later than the fall. And no one knows what is going to happen. It’s unlikely that the existing coalition survives. So, you’re going to see change. I believe you’ll see change in Israel. Their democracy is pretty vibrant in the sense I bet you they’ll have 80% turnout. We haven’t had 80% in a long time.

Beth Silvers [00:27:17] There’s certainly a lot to discuss within Israel and they seem to have such an active civic life there that I’m interested to see what happens with that election. I’m worried because I do feel like we have for 25 years been sending American troops and the troops of our allies to the Middle East to do this kind of targeted approach to achieve some kind of stability. And instead of continuing that effort in this operation, I think if I were a mom in Iran trying to go to work and do my laundry and take care of my kids, it looks to me like America lit a match that exploded all over this region, that Iran’s proxies throughout the region will take advantage of to do whatever they wanted to do anyway, that Israel will take of that I’m not going to differentiate between the US military objectives and what the president says out loud and what I see all around me. And that we’re creating the conditions for terrorism to thrive and intensify again. Is that unfair?

Rep Greg Landsman [00:28:24] No, it’s not unfair at all. I think we’re in the middle of it. So anyone who can tell you that it’s going to end one way or the other is full of shit. We don’t know. The reason I would have said yes is because the terrorism has been going on for decades. Hezbollah in Lebanon has really undermined that country in a way that we just don’t about. There was just a period of time where all of this was before the revolution. It was not the way it was. Beirut was a place where everyone went. I want to get back to a place I’d love to, in my lifetime, see that Beirut and Lebanon be free from Hezbollah, which only exists because of Iran. But for Iran, it doesn’t have the money. It doesn’t’ have the influence. It does not exist. I mean, Iran put it there. And arguably it’s the same as Iran, right? It’s not like Hamas, which is some different organization that Iran funds, but for Iran probably wouldn’t have much funding. Hezbollah is Iran. And so, they’ve been dealing with terrorism and these terror armies for decades. And there does seem to be a weakening. I mean, Hezbollah is at its weakest point. Iran’s at its weakest point.

Beth Silvers [00:30:00] The Houthis in Yemen.

Rep Greg Landsman [00:30:02] Yeah. So it’s like this could have lit a match and things could get worse. I believe that-- and I’m very hopeful that the opposite is true-- that this puts out the fire that has been this regime and the chaos it’s caused all over. But we won’t know that for a couple of weeks. I think the strikes will be pretty intense this week, and then I think next week my hope is that that’s really the end. But they’re not going to say that until they’ve achieved their objectives. That’s what I’m getting from the generals and the secretary of state is that, yeah, they could put a time, a day on it, but they don’t do this in the sense that they’re like, oh, well, this is going to be two weeks, then we’re done. They have a set of objectives. And they believe those objectives will be accomplished in a couple of weeks, at which point it’s going to be very uncertain in terms of what happens with the regime. And do they continue to fund terror? Do they continue cause issues? Or do we start to see cracks? My understanding is that we’re already seeing cracks and that there’s a real possibility for change. And, to me, that’s pretty great. If there isn’t change, at least the regime has been defanged. They will emerge from this having very little to hurt people with, and they don’t have the ongoing support that they had from Russia. Russia was funding a lot of this, supporting a lot, and it’s just not there anymore.

Beth Silvers [00:31:49] Is that why you think the timing was important? I’ve heard people talk about this window closing and is it because Russia is preoccupied with Ukraine?

Rep Greg Landsman [00:31:57] Yes, because Russia was preoccupied with Ukraine. And you saw this with Syria. It was the reason why Syria finally, after, I mean, the civil war in Syria because of Iran and Russia was so deadly and awful. And I don’t know what’s going to happen, but at least they have the chance of putting their country back together because Russia wasn’t there to keep propping up Assad. And the same is true now in Iran. Plus the weapons system was being rebuilt and so that window was closed.

Beth Silvers [00:32:30] Okay, tell me more about your War Powers Resolution. So you said the military has objectives, they’re not putting a timetable on it, but your resolution is a 30 day timetable. No boots on the ground as I understand it. What else should we know about what you want to vote on?

Rep Greg Landsman [00:32:45] The reason I voted against the other one wasn’t because I don’t think Congress has a role. The Congress absolutely has a roll. If it’s more than targeted strikes, if it becomes an entanglement of sorts, then you’ve got to get approval from the United States Congress. Usually of 60 days, mine says 30 just because it’s this president and he should, if they’re going to need more than 30 days, come to the United State Congress and ask for it. And he will have several days at that point to come to the United States Congress with a plan. And so my hope is that on the 24th, I’ll go to the floor, I’ll make the case and I’ll have hopefully a bunch of people joining me saying, look, if you’re going to keep doing this, if you still have time, if still have targets, then come to United States of Congress, lay it out, and get a vote. Because I think if it’s just, oh, we have these silos and these factories and that’s it, you’ll get a yes vote and then you’re done. And, to me, that’s smarter than saying we’re just going to pull the plug. Whatever you started, you can’t finish even if it was going to be something good. One thing I’ll say, my colleagues-- I don’t want to pick on anyone. I don’t want to start a fight because this is hard, this is very hard. I get a little frustrated with people who are like, oh, no, I voted to stop the strikes, but I really like that we’re doing it. I’m really glad that they’re taking care of this stuff and the regime is no longer the same regime and the Supreme Leader’s gone and I’m glad we’re taking out the missiles, but no, I would have pulled the plug. And I think that’s really the issue. It’s like if you support limited targeted strikes and you’re worried, as I am, that he’s not capable of being that disciplined, then vote on something that allows the military to finish its job. And if that job takes more than 30 days, he’s got to get a vote.

Beth Silvers [00:34:54] I just think it’s tricky for your colleagues to make this case, right? I mean, it takes a long time to justify any military action in Iran. I think what’s breaking through, what I hear from people who don’t pay attention to news and politics and definitely aren’t going to sit down and think about Iran and Hezbollah and Hamas and like the, you know what I mean? Like there’s a lot here. And I don’t blame people. We have enough on our plates in life. But to think about the images that we see in the news, and then the kind of things that do break through your normal day, chatter about holy war within the US military, conversations about a draft, the lived experiences people have on the other side of Afghanistan, it’s tough to take a vote where you say yes to anything militarily.

Rep Greg Landsman [00:35:46] Yeah, I know. I have a really close friend. I consider him a close friend. He’s a member, I won’t say who he is, but he served-- and this is very deeply personal for him. He was a yes vote. He does not want this to continue. And I not only respect that, but I totally understand. I totally understood. Look, I get why people, and I’m similar, just focus on me, focus on the economy, make life better for me and my kids and my neighbors and my community. And that means investing all these dollars in our schools and our healthcare. And I am right there with everybody. And for the most part, that’s where I spend all my day, all my time, is on those issues. I’m a little more hawkish than others in my party in the sense that I know that there are bullies out there in the world, and they pick on people and they hurt them, and it’s hard to watch. And I can turn my attention to other things and I could turn it off, but I know what’s happening in the Sudan and I know what this regime has done, and I’m watching what’s happened in Ukraine, and it like these are bullies, these are bad, bad people. Every once in a while, it does make sense to throw a punch and punch the boy in the face. And if you have the ability to do it and it’s a smart punch, right? I box for a while, an amateur, like I’m not good, but I do learn you don’t throw a big punch unless it makes sense. Otherwise, you’re going to get knocked out. And I think with this regime they were wobbling and it was like, yeah, I’m going to throw a punch because they are bullies. They have caused so much destruction and they have undermined our national security for so long. And we don’t know because they limit and they stop a bunch of information flow about the protest, but most groups believe they killed tens of thousands of their own people in just a couple of days. They slaughtered their own people. That’s a bully. I mean, it’s an evil, awful thing.

Beth Silvers [00:38:22] I feel like a lot of the people around me who have served have that same perspective you articulated. This is an awful regime. They deserve this. Under almost any other president, I would be for it. I don’t trust this administration.

Rep Greg Landsman [00:38:37] I think that’s fair. And for better or for worse, I separated him from the decision. And I can make the argument that I was right or I could be right. I can make the argument that I was wrong because you can’t separate it from him. But I chose to believe in Caine and the Joint Chiefs and the folks on the ground and the mission and appreciate the fact that if it were me, I’d have said yes. But you’re right, it’s Trump. And I’ve heard that more than anything else. There are some people who just hate war and I get it. I love those people. And I hate war, but I also just know that sometimes you will have way worse war if you don’t do anything. In part, that’s the lesson of World War II was. We let Hitler do his thing and it got so bad that it ended up being 70 million people when it was all said and done, as opposed to stopping them in Poland or stopping them in Austria.

Beth Silvers [00:39:44] This is the hardest part of the job to me. Where is that line? Like, when do you take the punch? Because the world will always be like this. I think that’s part of what makes this moment so incendiary. I was listening to Lindsey Graham’s comments, which I’m sure you’re aware of over the weekend. And I have been watching, thinking that what we’re doing in Cuba is deeply immoral. I’m really, really struggling with the stranglehold on Cuba that we have right now. I thought what we did in Venezuela was deeply immoral, even though I think Maduro is a terrible guy, like terrible, no question. These boats in the ocean that are accused of running drugs, deeply immoral.

Rep Greg Landsman [00:40:24] Terrible. I mean, it is deeply immoral.

Beth Silvers [00:40:27] How do you think about this as a member of Congress, knowing that we’re just a year into this administration and Lindsey Graham says they’re on the march to rid the world of bad guys.

Rep Greg Landsman [00:40:36] I don’t know.

Beth Silvers [00:40:38] And I would like to write him off as Lindsey Graham as wackadoo, but I don’t know that we can.

Rep Greg Landsman [00:40:44] Yeah, I mean, look, the Iran situation has been a real situation, a real threat, a real concern for decades. Every administration has been trying to deal with this. So it’s unlike Venezuela, which came out of nowhere and obviously is led by a narco-terrorist or a bad guy or was. And same with Cuba. They’re not huge national security. I mean, Cuba was once when they were working with Russia on potentially moving a bomb over here. Remember that? During the Cuban Missile Crisis. But from that moment, after that moment these aren’t national security threats. The regime in Iran and everything happening, that is a national security issue. So I did separate it as being a real serious issue as opposed to what was going on in Venezuela, which was, I think you’re right, immoral. I mean, they were just shooting boats. Part of why I think they went after Maduro was pieces of boats were to wash up on the shores in the Caribbean. And the reporting I saw was it was charred boat parts, charred bodies, and marijuana residue, nothing else, which suggests a real awfulness to what they did. And I agree with you on Cuba. I just think Iran’s different, but you have the same players, so yeah, it’s complicated. I wish they would all lock in on the with the generals. They should follow the generals. I mean, that’s all I can say is that a commander in chief gives orders, but they follow the generals too. They don’t make their lives harder. And this guy’s making the lives harder of the people on the ground.

Beth Silvers [00:42:45] Do you think that the midterm elections will present an opportunity to reset with this administration or do you think to kind of go back to where we started that this is just what it’s going to be for the term?

Rep Greg Landsman [00:42:58] I mean, it’s going to be an opportunity for the American people to say, we don’t like this. We’re going to go in a different direction and we’re going put in place a Congress that has the ability to fundamentally hold you accountable. Whether it’s my war resolution or Massey’s, I still agree that Congress has to say yes to anything that is more than just some strikes. In terms of what he will do, I think he will always be like this until the last day of his presidency, until we have a new president. I think the question becomes how far can he go because he no longer has a Congress enabling him. I mean, this Congress has enabled him. They’re giving him everything he wants in terms of tariffs. When we take over the House, we will end the tarriffs. They spent trillions on tax cuts for the super wealthy and cut people’s healthcare. We’ll work to restore people’s health care. And it will look much different when you have a Congress with us at the helm issuing subpoenas and saying, what the fuck happened with the school? We want to know.

Beth Silvers [00:44:10] Yeah.

Rep Greg Landsman [00:44:10] And what’s going on with your DOJ and what’s going on with the Epstein files and why is Kristi Noem flying around in this jet and why is Kash Patel’s girlfriend using secret service or whatever protection in order to go to Starbucks? Like it’s all insane and you have to come now and be held accountable. That yes, Kash Patel goes to the United States Senate and comes over to the house and so does Bondi. But we don’t have the gavels. So we’re not subpoenaing. We don’t control the meetings. We get five minutes. Now, if we manage the oversight, you’re talking about holding people accountable, like genuinely holding people responsible. And that makes life much more difficult for him.

Beth Silvers [00:44:55] And do you think it can do more than that? Can it make life more than difficult for him? Can it meaningfully limit his actions?

Rep Greg Landsman [00:45:02] Yeah, I think so. The litigation has obviously helped to limit the damage he’s done. And a democratic controlled Congress will 100% be able to limit the damage he has done. Will we be able to pass things that he’ll sign into law? Maybe. But part of that means getting to a point where the American people have clearly abandoned him and you’re starting to see that. I mean, once he drops below 35 and he’s close, you’re going to see more and more Republicans joining us.

Beth Silvers [00:45:38] Well, in 2028 hanging out there, I think changes the game for everyone. Do you think that a Democratic Congress can lock in and be strategic about the power of Congress when there’s a 2028 primary hanging out there?

Rep Greg Landsman [00:45:49] I don’t know. I hope so. I mean, what I would like to see, and I say this to our leadership all the time, is be super focused on the economy and public safety and make sure that people walk away and say, oh, okay, yeah, they’re holding Trump accountable, I like that, but what they’re really doing is they’re passing things that would lower my utility bill and it would make health insurance more affordable for me. And they’re really taking on big tech and dealing with all the social media crap that I’m working on with my kids and struggling with. And they seem to have really solid plans to handle AI, to protect us. And it’s just one thing after another where we’re solving actual problems and keeping people safe and making the economy better.

Beth Silvers [00:46:41] That would be super. I would love to see anybody with a real vision about AI. That would make me very excited.

Rep Greg Landsman [00:46:46] Yeah, this is big for me. It’s saying to them, by the way, this quest they-- it comes up in our committee in energy and commerce. So we had some of these guys in last week and they’re like, well, the race to win AI is the most important thing. So let’s build all these data centers and just no regulation. It’s like, no, no. The race is not to have more data centers or to have some sort of next-gen algorithm, the race is whatever country figures out how to harness it for good and protect us from the harm, that’s the winner of the race.

Beth Silvers [00:47:26] I would love to talk about that for a second because I am curious, given that you are paying attention to this issue, and I’m glad, what you think about the situation with Anthropic and the Department of Defense? For listeners who aren’t following this, Anthropic makes Claude, which is one of the large language models that has really taken off. Anthropic has said to the Department of Defense, and correct me if I’m getting any of the details wrong here, that they’re already fully baked into lots of military operating systems. We used Claude apparently in Venezuela, using it in Iran, but Anthropic wants to have some say over the conditions under which it’s used when it relates to mass surveillance of American citizens and the deployment of certain weapons without a human involved. And the Department of War is extremely offended by that and has said we are now thinking about calling you a threat to the supply chain. Do I have those details right? And what do you think about this situation?

Rep Greg Landsman [00:48:23] You have the details right. It is a very serious situation. And one of what will be many examples of AI and whether or not we have a government that can handle regulating this technology in a way that produces the good. I was reading an article the other day about how some doctors were using it, used it to deal with a rare disease issue and they’re saving this girl’s life because they were able to sort out this rare disease in a way that means that she’s going to be okay. And they say without AI they would not have been able to break the case or crack the case. So that’s wonderful. We need a government, a department of technology, a department of AI that focuses entirely on managing this technology so that it’s used only for good and not for bad. And so, because we don’t have that leadership or that infrastructure, you got Hegseth saying we want this technology to be used in a way where it kills people without a single person involved. That’s insane. That is insane. And or that it is collecting all kinds of information on us, also insane. And so, yeah, to me, it’s like, one, the Department of Defense should not be pursuing AI this way, it is incredibly dangerous.

[00:49:55] And two, we need something that oversees the whole thing with credible folks, actual experts and citizens who are working to say yes or no on these things. And it would create a very powerful new regulatory entity within the federal government, a cabinet position that also answers to the United States Congress because we don’t have that right now. And you’re seeing the absence of that. It’s causing huge challenges. The Defense Department in AI being able to just go and make a decision about bombing something without a human being there, which is absolutely wrong. And then on the other side of the fence, also in our committee you got AI being used to deny seniors medical care through Medicaid, which is something I’m fighting, these AI death panels. I got a bill banning the use of AI to deny people their care. But they want to use AI to speed up the process of saying no. And if they got it wrong, which they do all the time, it’s doctors who are on the hook to pay the bill. That’s outrageous. Like we are not set up to handle AI. And Congress can pass some bills, for sure. I’m all in and I have several AI bills, but we have a Department of Commerce, we have a Department of Transportation, we need a Department of AI.

Beth Silvers [00:51:22] I think that makes a lot of sense because, yeah, Congress is not built to move at this speed and to tackle the economic side, which is a whole other can of worms. It makes a lot of sense to me that we need an administrative agency. I know that you are running short on time and I appreciate how generous you’ve been with your time. We always end with something Outside of Politics and I feel like we really need to do that when we’ve asked people to spend an hour with us talking about war and AI. So tell me about quarter into the new year, how your new year’s resolutions are going.

Rep Greg Landsman [00:51:59] They’re good. I set mine out like my resolutions are things that I really want to do. And I think that’s a different kind of approach than like, gosh, I feel like I have to get this right or--

Beth Silvers [00:52:10] I really should drink more water this year.

Rep Greg Landsman [00:52:12] Yeah, gluten is not great for me. So I was like I really need to just lock in and like be done. So I really I’ve been gluten-free. I’m crushing that and I feel so much better.

Beth Silvers [00:52:22] That’s a hard one.

Rep Greg Landsman [00:52:24] It’s a hard one. And every once in a while I’ll grab like a power bar or whatever, a protein bar, because I haven’t had a chance to get a real meal. But for the most part, I’ve been gluten-free and I’m going to keep going because I feel better. I’m exercising three, four days a week, which has been great. And the one that I screwed up with this week because of the Iran stuff, I just needed to like-- I’ve been trying to go live on social media once a week to get into a rhythm because I really want to have that relationship with folks because I know that’s the next sort of opportunity to build community. And I just got to get in the habit. So I thought, well, I’m not going to go live all the time but I’ll do once a week. And I’ve done it once a week with the exception of this week, which I just needed to just get home and not think for a couple of days.

Beth Silvers [00:53:24] What platform are you going live on?

Rep Greg Landsman [00:53:26] TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Substack.

Beth Silvers [00:53:33] That’s a lot.

Rep Greg Landsman [00:53:33] I know, I’m just trying to figure it out. But I think it’s important, I don’t know. It feels like a really important way to talk to people. Obviously, the real in real life opportunities are still the way to go, in my opinion, and my town halls and my community conversations are the best, but I want to make sure that I’m getting onto these platforms and doing it in a way where people are like, oh, this is real.

Beth Silvers [00:53:58] Well, I set out to curb my bad shopping habit. And so I decided that I would only once a month buy something that I don’t need. So I can just that one time. And I am really proud to report that I have not purchased a single item of clothing this calendar year. I know it’s only March, but that’s big for me. I am a shopper. I have a problem. So it’s been really good. I bought myself a puzzle in January and a plant stand in February and that’s it so far.

Rep Greg Landsman [00:54:26] The only other one I had is like sleep, really protecting my like... I don’t know if it’s maybe it’s just because I’m almost 50, but if I do not get a decent amount of sleep, I can be a punk and I hate that.

Beth Silvers [00:54:43] Do you wear an Oura ring?

Rep Greg Landsman [00:54:44] No. No.

Beth Silvers [00:54:48] It’s very helpful on sleep.

Rep Greg Landsman [00:54:49] The key for me is to go to bed at a decent time.

Beth Silvers [00:54:54] Yeah, and the same time they say, every night, right? Same time out of bed, same time in bed.

Rep Greg Landsman [00:54:59] Correct, yeah. So I’m trying. I’m not sure that was a resolution. I just knew it was one of the things I needed to get better at and I feel like I’m doing better. I did a sleep study too, by the way, which if anyone out there who has sleeping issues, which I do and did, or like really did, the sleep study was super helpful. It’s a commitment, but it’s good.

Beth Silvers [00:55:20] I’m not trying to be a commercial, I’m just going to tell you the Oura Ring is kind of like a mini sleep study every day. It really has made a difference for me on my sleep. For what it’s worth.

Rep Greg Landsman [00:55:31] Alright.

Beth Silvers [00:55:31] It was great to talk with you. Thank you for spending time with us.

Rep Greg Landsman [00:55:34] Always.

Beth Silvers [00:55:35] Good luck with your live communications on social media and in Congress.

Rep Greg Landsman [00:55:39] All right, thanks.

Beth Silvers [00:55:40] Thank you so much to Congressman Landsman and his staff for joining us today. Thank you to all of you. Please don’t forget to check out our show notes to get your tickets to join Sarah and me in Minneapolis. We’ll be back here together on Friday for a brand new episode. Lots of things happening on Substack between now and then. We hope you’ll join us everywhere. Until then, have the best week available to you.

Show Credits

Pantsuit Politics is hosted by Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers. The show is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our Managing Director and Maggie Penton is our Director of Community Engagement.

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