Jeffrey Goldberg: Liz, let's go to that because you've been reporting on the situation with the aircraft carrier, the Abraham Lincoln.

You know, it's become a very big story.

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

Liz Landers, White House Correspondent, PBS NewsHour: Well, we spoke earlier today with the former chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Gary Roughead, who was explaining basically what Dan was saying, which is that part of the reason that the U.S.S Abraham Lincoln has been there for so long, and these sailors are 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 aircraft carriers can go to port, and some of these ports that they would typically go to, he pointed to Bahrain in the past had been a place that the U.S.

could go dock.

That's not accessible anymore because Iran has a stranglehold on these passageways.

So, he was saying that part of the blockade has created this own problem now that the U.S.

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 Secretary Hegseth was a bit, I would say, dismissive when he was asked about this on an official visit in Panama.

The president was too today.

It seems like Hegseth is kind of walking back those comments.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Yes.

Let's just listen to what the president said just earlier today actually.

Reporter: Has the deployment gone on too long?

Trump: No.

Reporter: Are you worried about the mental health concerns?

Trump: Not nearly long enough.

Jeffrey Goldberg: You cover the man.

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

Liz Landers: Yes, 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 men and women who are deployed on the ship, that they're already upset about these comments and it's insensitive, I think.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Elisabeth, 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 R&R for sailors.

Again, 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 six months ago, that the second order, third order, fourth order consequences were not contemplated.

Elisabeth Bumiller, Writer at Large, The New York Times: Well, as we know, the president thought this was going to be Venezuela, that he was going to do a massive bombing campaign and that Iran would say, give up and come to the negotiating table, and it was a 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 inevitable consequences of basically igniting a regional war in the Middle East, and closing the Strait of Hormuz, which was always any kind of battle top exercises always predicted that was to be the first thing the Iranians did.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Dan, one more question for you on this, 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, but, nevertheless, you seem to get a lot of good stories.

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

What are you picking up on that?

Dan Lamothe, National Security Reporter, The Washington Post: Yes.

I mean, I think, especially on the military side, the officer corps 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, yes, 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?

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Let me turn to domestic politics, although this also shadows domestic politics.

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 hope that the Democrats mess up.

One possible way the Democrats are messing up 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 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 Michigan with the Democratic nominee being the preferred choice of the Republicans of Michigan.

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

Adam, is there a -- are we discovering this week the ceiling that the DSA has created for the Democrats?

Adam Harris, Staff Writer, The Atlantic: Well, I think it's hard to know for sure just based on this week, right, because Francesca Hong lost by about 4,000 votes in this race in which she did not run a single television ad.

Jeffrey Goldberg: She was the Wisconsin DSA insurgent.

Adam Harris: DSA insurgent candidate.

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

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

There were about 34, 35 percent of undecided voters in that race, and they did they.

They went towards the more established candidate once he received the endorsement from Governor Evers.

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

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

And politics is not a science.

It can be studied as one, but the sort of electability argument is floundering in a lot of ways.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Did you just invent political science?

Adam Harris: You know, I tried.

I tried.

Jeffrey Goldberg: The -- no, but you make a -- 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 the rules are -- one question I have for you, you cover this very closely, the DSA is having trouble convincing blue collar, and not blue collar, black voters to come on board.

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

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

There's -- if you think about Barack Obama, he benefited from winning Iowa.

And then you move towards South Carolina, it's like, well, he has shown that he can - - that white people will vote for him, right?

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

And this has been kind of across campaigns, the ones that I've covered, where you have voters starting 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 them.

Jeffrey Goldberg: We've all had that weird experience.

Adam Harris: Exactly.

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

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

One other problem, and to put a finer point on it, the party has developed something of a Hasan Piker problem.

This is a popular hard left Twitch streamer who has said that America deserved 9/11, that Jews are inbred.

He's praised Mao.

He's praised Houthi terrorists and so on.

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.

Elisabeth Bumiller: Yes.

No, it's a problem for Democrats.

There's no question, and it's been a problem for El-Sayed in Michigan, who was associated with him.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Elisabeth Bumiller: It's a big problem.

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

It was all about colonialism.

This did not help in Wisconsin.

And I think there, it was a bridge too far, even in Wisconsin for an ultra-liberal candidate.

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

Elisabeth Bumiller: Yes, or Valentine's Day.

She was not big on that, either.

So -- Jeffrey Goldberg: I could see that one.

That I'm a little divided on.

Go ahead, Liz, last word to you.

Liz Landers: Can I just say too about what Adam was mentioning about just the appeal of 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, Francesca 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 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 unmoored.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Well, we are going to track this issue, among other issues, 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 Flake at Radio Atlantic.

I'm Jeffrey Goldberg.

Good night from Washington.