Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here,
Speaker 1: and we here at breaking Points, are already thinking of
Speaker 1: ways we can up our game for this critical election.
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Speaker 2: But enough with that, let's get to the show.
Speaker 1: Good morning, everybody, Happy Friday. We've got the whole team here,
Speaker 1: plus special guests. Congressman Rocana, fresh off a THEO Von appearance.
Speaker 3: Great to see Zar, great to say you not quite
Speaker 3: a breaking points appearance, but you know it was a
Speaker 3: good lot.
Speaker 4: This is are you yeah, what are you talking about?
Speaker 2: You get the full team, very rarely the team he's.
Speaker 1: Talking about THEO Von does. It isn't quite as big
Speaker 1: as the Breaking Points appearent, but you know that's very kind,
Speaker 1: you know. So we're gonna talk to the Congressman here
Speaker 1: for a little while. Then he's gonna run and catch
Speaker 1: a flight. There's a bunch of updates with regard to
Speaker 1: Iron and Israel we want to get to. We'll see
Speaker 1: how far we are able to get with that. We've
Speaker 1: also got some Zora on news we might jump on.
Speaker 1: We've got some Obama comments we might get to here
Speaker 1: is she ask the congressman about the Obama comments, and
Speaker 1: then Ryan is turtle Boy joining? Is that a thing
Speaker 1: that's happening?
Speaker 5: Oh you're muted, Ryan, Yes, Producer Griffin says, the Turtle
Speaker 5: Boy will be in the back end of the show.
Speaker 5: So if there's ever been a reason to become a
Speaker 5: paying subscriber, that's the guy.
Speaker 6: I was thinking that when I get off, I've Google
Speaker 6: I heard her boy, I.
Speaker 3: Just have never heard.
Speaker 5: I don't have to mean make sure it's doctor you
Speaker 5: google doctor turtle Boy, not just turtle Boy. He's the
Speaker 5: he's the local Massachusetts reporter who kind of broke the
Speaker 5: Karen Reid's story out into in a national view and
Speaker 5: he's so he's now on taking his victory laps.
Speaker 2: After her acquittal.
Speaker 4: Gotcha.
Speaker 1: Okay, So lots to get to you in the show.
Speaker 1: So first, Congressman, I wanted to start off by getting
Speaker 1: you to react to a little bit of you and
Speaker 1: just play a little piece of this. Theovan appearance can
Speaker 1: tell us what your you know, what your experience was
Speaker 1: and what he sort of wanted to focus on here.
Speaker 4: I thought, I thought this part was interesting.
Speaker 3: He started off the podcast world run Now you like
Speaker 3: react to yourself on podcasts exactly?
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, and this is, you know, exclusive, your first reaction
Speaker 1: to you being on So in any case, he wanted
Speaker 1: to start off talking about Ron talking about Gaza. I'm
Speaker 1: about like thirty minutes into the podcast thus far. But
Speaker 1: let's go ahead and pick up with this part and
Speaker 1: then we'll get your reaction.
Speaker 7: It is trumple is ilmly Trump afraid of it?
Speaker 6: Yah.
Speaker 7: I I don't understand that, you know, because Trump certainly
Speaker 7: feels like he's seems he is a guy who does
Speaker 7: not seem afraid to say what he wants to say.
Speaker 8: I don't think I don't know what it is because
Speaker 8: I I want Trump to do the right thing, Like
Speaker 8: I want him to start to end the war in Gaza,
Speaker 8: to actually figure out how we get peace there.
Speaker 4: And I think he could.
Speaker 8: He could if he picks up the phone and he says,
Speaker 8: then yell, you're done, then you know is going to
Speaker 8: stop the bombing. And then you know, I was going
Speaker 8: to say, okay, but we got Jmas. I can't stay
Speaker 8: here with him, and Trump can say, Okay, I'm going
Speaker 8: to help you get rid of Hamas, but you can't
Speaker 8: keep bombing and killing women and children. That's not getting
Speaker 8: rid of Hamas.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's freaking crazy, dude.
Speaker 2: I mean it's just like.
Speaker 8: So, you get Egypt, you get Jordan, you get Saudi Arabia.
Speaker 8: I call it the twenty three state solution. You get
Speaker 8: all of those erabors.
Speaker 7: Mississippi, dude, I'll tell you that we can give Mississippi
Speaker 7: to palaes On I've been saying that, for give.
Speaker 1: Mississippi to palestinevonnssolves finds Middle East piece. But Congressman, what
Speaker 1: was your experience and were there any particular moments that
Speaker 1: we should really pay attention to or that you found
Speaker 1: particularly noteworthy.
Speaker 3: I was amazed by his passion, his empathy, his outrage
Speaker 3: with what's going on in Gaza.
Speaker 6: I mean you could just see it in his voice.
Speaker 3: It was just this utter frustration that the United States
Speaker 3: was complicit in the killing.
Speaker 6: Of women and children.
Speaker 3: And theobon is always someone who takes the side of
Speaker 3: the under and also kind of just reflects American values
Speaker 3: of someone who hasn't thought read every bookings paper.
Speaker 6: He's just like, look, this is wrong.
Speaker 3: And I was also struck by how concerned scare outraging
Speaker 3: was that we were thinking of getting into another more
Speaker 3: in Iran.
Speaker 2: That's so Congress, and that's actually one of the main
Speaker 2: things we wanted to focus on with you is the
Speaker 2: role here of the Democratic Party and of the opposition.
Speaker 2: One of the things that's really rhyming for me going
Speaker 2: back and really thinking about what happened in Iraq is
Speaker 2: I don't see a mobilization of the Democratic establishment on
Speaker 2: the Iran question. You know, we've had Thomas Massey and
Speaker 2: leaders like you who have introduced, you know, the need
Speaker 2: for a declaration or an approval by Congress. I guess
Speaker 2: we can give it to the Bush administration at least
Speaker 2: they went to the links with that. But here the
Speaker 2: Trump administration has taken completely unilateral approach and we have
Speaker 2: not yet seen calls from major Democratic leaders you know
Speaker 2: for this, Yeah, exactly, Like as you say here, what
Speaker 2: does this mean from Senator Schumer, I'm just wondering if
Speaker 2: you could expound on that and the lack of leadership
Speaker 2: right now from the Democratic Party on the Iran war question.
Speaker 3: It's deeply disappointing. This is like the Iraq War moment.
Speaker 3: The Democratic Party should be in unison, screaming from the rooftop,
Speaker 3: we don't want another war in the Middle East. Donald
Speaker 3: Trump won the presidency because he said that the Iraq
Speaker 3: War was a disaster, and Jeb Bush wasn't willing to
Speaker 3: say that. He won over a lot of people who
Speaker 3: previously supported Democrats because he committed that we weren't going
Speaker 3: to get into another war in the Middle East.
Speaker 6: We've had Iraq War cheerleaders.
Speaker 3: In our party who ran for president John Kerry, Hillary Clinton,
Speaker 3: John Edwards. It didn't work out so well for them.
Speaker 3: And then we had people who stood opposed to the war,
Speaker 3: like Barack Obama, who did very very well at Bertie Sanders.
Speaker 3: My view is that this is the moment the Democratic
Speaker 3: Party can reclaim the anti war mantle. Obviously, we should
Speaker 3: have unison of Democrats on my War Powers Resolution in
Speaker 3: the House. This isn't even a close call, and we
Speaker 3: should have Senator Schumer instead of saying, oh, I don't know,
Speaker 3: maybe they should strike him.
Speaker 6: Maybe Trump isn't tough enough.
Speaker 3: He should be behind Tim Kaine and saying every Democrat
Speaker 3: needs to oppose this war.
Speaker 5: Yeah, just from a cynical perspective, it seems like if
Speaker 5: you're a politician looking for future advantage, the play here
Speaker 5: would be, even if you're not against war, would be
Speaker 5: to speak out against war and reap those benefits going forward.
Speaker 5: At the same time, the No King's protests had, you know,
Speaker 5: hundreds of thousands of people around the country. You have
Speaker 5: Democrats saying that he's an authoritarian, that he's a threat
Speaker 5: to democracy. They've been saying that for a very long time.
Speaker 5: How do they lend this idea that Okay, yes, he's
Speaker 5: a threat to democracy's authoritarian tyrant maybe, but I'm okay
Speaker 5: with this war, that this tyrant is going to operate.
Speaker 5: When you talk to people privately, what is holding them
Speaker 5: back from just coming out with a full throated opposition
Speaker 5: to Donald Trump just launching a war against Iran.
Speaker 3: Well, your first point, Garry Ryan, was kay that it's
Speaker 3: not just that we should be opposed to this war,
Speaker 3: but we should be opposed to Donald Trump waking up
Speaker 3: and deciding whether to commit us to a war based
Speaker 3: on the last conversation he had. I mean, everyone should
Speaker 3: be for this coming to Congress, especially if you think
Speaker 3: that Crump has overreached his constitutional authority and consolidated power
Speaker 3: a number of people or they have been itching, some
Speaker 3: of them candidly in the Congress to take out Iran's
Speaker 3: nuclear facilities. And this is something that there are a
Speaker 3: number of Democrats and Republicans that they want to do this,
Speaker 3: and they think magically, Okay, we're going to have a
Speaker 3: military strike against Ferdoh and Iran will not have a
Speaker 3: nuclear bomb and then everything will be peaceful in the
Speaker 3: Middle East. Well, first of all, we know that this
Speaker 3: story has been told before. We're going to have a
Speaker 3: successful military operation. Everything will work out. We took out
Speaker 3: saddamusin then what happened. We got stuck for almost a
Speaker 3: decade in Iraq. We're going to get rid of l
Speaker 3: Kaida in Afghaniskan. Everything will be fine. We got to
Speaker 3: stuck for nearly twenty years in Afghanistan. The idea that
Speaker 3: we can strike for Doh and that Iran isn't going
Speaker 3: to retaliate against American troops in Iraq, that they aren't
Speaker 3: going to retaliate, but counter terrorism against Americans is utter
Speaker 3: naive thinking. It's going to draw us into a conflict
Speaker 3: and for what we don't even know if the bunker
Speaker 3: bombs can destroy the entire Ferdeau site, at best, it's
Speaker 3: going to push Iran back two to three years in
Speaker 3: developing nuclear weapons. And they're going to get then rip
Speaker 3: up the NPT. They're a put involvement in the NPT.
Speaker 3: They're going to push out all inspectors. And we know
Speaker 3: in the past, the Obama deal had it so that
Speaker 3: Iran couldn't enrich beyond.
Speaker 6: Five percent at any place other than the Tans.
Speaker 3: Now they're enriching at sixty percent at Florideaux. We know
Speaker 3: we've had a deal before. Even if you think the
Speaker 3: deal wasn't perfect, it was much much, much better than
Speaker 3: the situation we have now or the situation we will
Speaker 3: have if Iran gets out of the NPT and kicks
Speaker 3: out all the inspectors. So those are just the facts.
Speaker 3: I don't know why the Democratic Party isn't bolder. It's
Speaker 3: a symptom not just of being acquiescent to another war.
Speaker 6: It's a symptom of a lack of leadership.
Speaker 3: You know, I almost see more conviction on Lindsay Graham
Speaker 3: being like, let's Obama.
Speaker 4: Mean, yeah, I don't right position, that's.
Speaker 9: The worst of all world well, in Congrison, can I
Speaker 9: ask to what extent you assess? I mean, we are
Speaker 9: all looking around and thinking why Democrats, even from the
Speaker 9: cynical perspective that Ryan raised, are you not, you know,
Speaker 9: mustering the same level of opposition that Soccer pointed out
Speaker 9: you used to see during.
Speaker 4: The Iraq War.
Speaker 2: Why is that not happening?
Speaker 9: And to what extent would you attribute that to the
Speaker 9: donor class of the Democratic Party? Do you think that's
Speaker 9: who's in the ear of truck Schumer, stopping him and
Speaker 9: other high profile Democrats from going all in with a
Speaker 9: sense of conviction, first of all on the war powers
Speaker 9: question and then on the question of the war itself.
Speaker 3: I think it's the foreign policy hawks in the belt
Speaker 3: Way that people listen to.
Speaker 6: I'm sure there is.
Speaker 4: I mean, Schumer wasn't for the Obama nuclear deal.
Speaker 6: So Obama neclearion. He was one of the cheerleaders for
Speaker 6: the war in Iraq.
Speaker 3: Like, how are these people still around with credibility of
Speaker 3: Ford policy?
Speaker 6: Why should we care at all?
Speaker 4: Should he resign.
Speaker 6: Another war in the Middle East?
Speaker 1: Like why did you think he resigned? Congressman? At this point, it.
Speaker 6: Almost doesn't matter.
Speaker 3: He should be seen as totally irrelevant, like the average
Speaker 3: person on the street had more.
Speaker 6: Common sense at the Middle East than Chuck Schumer.
Speaker 3: Chuck Schumer's record on the Middle East is opposing Obama Iran.
Speaker 3: Deal is cheerleading George W. Bush to get into a
Speaker 3: war in ira is now having nonsensical statements about Tim
Speaker 3: Kaine's war power resolution.
Speaker 6: Why does he matter on this debate? What does matter?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 3: People say, oh, go on podcasts, go on theovon, and
Speaker 3: they're usually thinking about it from an electoral perspective, And
Speaker 3: of course they're right that we should be going on
Speaker 3: these podcasts. But you know why they should go on
Speaker 3: theovon because Deal levonn talks to truck drivers and talks
Speaker 3: to folks or working in construction and industry and young
Speaker 3: kids or recent college graduates, and he's reflecting what most
Speaker 3: Americans are thinking about issues. Agree with him or not,
Speaker 3: And he is saying overwhelmingly, people don't want another war.
Speaker 3: They're afraid that they may get called up and have
Speaker 3: to serve in Iran. They're concerned about the costs. They're
Speaker 3: wondering why we're not spending that money in time in
Speaker 3: the United States. And I feel like instead of listening
Speaker 3: to the people at Basing Chuck sure where maybe this
Speaker 3: party should be listening to people who are talking to
Speaker 3: theobon and we do much better in terms of building
Speaker 3: a coalition, and we one need these ridiculous twenty million
Speaker 3: consultant studies that are going.
Speaker 6: To go to the same people that are advising Chuck Schumer.
Speaker 1: Unbelievable And I wanted to ask you about this though.
Speaker 1: We've got Thomas Massey sponsored the War Power Resolution. You're
Speaker 1: one of the you know, the lead co sponsors here.
Speaker 1: There's no other Republicans on it though, So for all
Speaker 1: the talk of America, first, you know the split in
Speaker 1: MAGA et cetera. And there's zero Republicans on the Senate
Speaker 1: version of it. So what is the reluctance here? What's
Speaker 1: going on?
Speaker 6: You're right?
Speaker 3: I mean at the base of MAGA, I would say
Speaker 3: at least a third of them don't want this war.
Speaker 3: And you have very outspoken people like Tucker Carlton, like
Speaker 3: Steve Bannon, like marsh Leay Taylor Green. What they're saying.
Speaker 3: The reason they're giving for us for not getting on
Speaker 3: this War Power Resolution as well, there's not a war. Well,
Speaker 3: don't you think traders should weigh in before there's a war.
Speaker 4: I mean, also there is a war.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's just a nonsense way of thinking about it,
Speaker 1: but go ahead, yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean they're saying, well, we haven't struck Iran yet,
Speaker 3: that the United States hasn't tried now. Ted Cruz admitted
Speaker 3: on that Pepper Carlton tape that the clip that we
Speaker 3: are helping Israel in the bombing of a run. But
Speaker 3: the point is that they're trying to avoid the issue
Speaker 3: because they don't want to get in the cross heres
Speaker 3: of Donald Trump. I believe that the pressure is going
Speaker 3: to build on the MAGA base for some of these
Speaker 3: Republicans to break and look, people say it doesn't matter.
Speaker 3: I do think the fact that Trump is saying now,
Speaker 3: I'm going to wait two weeks is partly a recognition
Speaker 3: that the bunker bombs may not even achieve the objective.
Speaker 6: But it's also.
Speaker 3: Partly a recognition that a lot of the MAGA base
Speaker 3: is upset and he's hearing the anti war sentiment. And
Speaker 3: if the Democratic Party was unified in our opposition, maybe
Speaker 3: we could actually prevent this war. I mean, it would
Speaker 3: influence Donald Trump, who's so susceptible to where public opinion
Speaker 3: is it is not just a lack of leadership for
Speaker 3: how do we win? It's an actual moral moment. Like
Speaker 3: you're in Congress for these big decisions, and the vast
Speaker 3: majority of members of Congress have just been solid.
Speaker 2: Yeah, go ahead, Ryan.
Speaker 5: So, just speaking of going on THEO Vaughn, have you
Speaker 5: reached out all to Bannon or Tucker Carlson to appear
Speaker 5: on their program, because that seems like the kind of
Speaker 5: seal that hasn't been hasn't been broken yet. But if
Speaker 5: you listen to you know, as you have been lately,
Speaker 5: a lot of you know, Tucker Carlson, like you know,
Speaker 5: eighty percent of the time he's making he's making a
Speaker 5: lot of sense. Then he goes then yeah.
Speaker 3: Tucker, and on some of the clips, I'm just concidered
Speaker 3: b I go on, He's going to start asking me
Speaker 3: the population of every country.
Speaker 2: Do your job and study. I have no sympathy.
Speaker 4: You can handle that a little better, guy.
Speaker 5: But also if you say, look, I don't want to
Speaker 5: invade that country, therefore I don't need to know their population,
Speaker 5: but you know, I do.
Speaker 6: Think we need to.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'd be open to going on. But more importantly,
Speaker 3: I think we need to be sharing their clubs, sharing
Speaker 3: what they're saying. Again, I was on CNN and they
Speaker 3: thought they had a gotcha question saying, oh, that means
Speaker 3: you agree with Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlton, And yes
Speaker 3: it does.
Speaker 6: On this issue, I agree with them, and.
Speaker 3: I'm hoping that they actually can convince some of the
Speaker 3: Republicans to get.
Speaker 2: On one of the things. Congressmen, I know you're on
Speaker 2: the Senate Armed Services Committee, so maybe you can speak
Speaker 2: a little bit to this. There has been now open
Speaker 2: questioning by Donald Trump and actually a lot in the
Speaker 2: open source environment as to whether these massive ordinance penetrators
Speaker 2: could even accomplish the goal of taking out the fourdoh
Speaker 2: nuclear facility. So I'm wondering, you know, based on your
Speaker 2: own knowledge, I'm sure you've said in briefings and others,
Speaker 2: what your assessment of this easy strike which is being
Speaker 2: pushed by the Sentcom Commander Carilla, and what the reality
Speaker 2: of something like that could look like?
Speaker 6: Well, based on.
Speaker 3: Public information, I don't know, and I don't think most
Speaker 3: people knows the real issue. I mean, first of all,
Speaker 3: maybe it's fifty to fifty over, but it could be
Speaker 3: too deep. Maybe we hit some of it, but don't
Speaker 3: get all of it. And the reality is the best
Speaker 3: case scenario that we hit all of it. We don't
Speaker 3: know how widespread Iran's nuclear capability is. We know that
Speaker 3: they have scientists who can rebuild it. We know they
Speaker 3: have spare centrifuges. You're not going to destroy all of it,
Speaker 3: and we know that within a year to three years
Speaker 3: they can start to rebuild their nuclear sites. Then why
Speaker 3: because they're going to then kick out the inspectors. We
Speaker 3: won't even know where they're building it. And the lesson
Speaker 3: they'll draw is the lesson that Pakistan and North Korean
Speaker 3: drove that if you have nuclear bomb you're safe from
Speaker 3: American invasion. If you don't, you could be Livia, Iraq,
Speaker 3: or Afghanistan or Iran. The logic on this makes makes
Speaker 3: no sense for us to get and especially when we
Speaker 3: had a deal where Iran was committed to less than
Speaker 3: five percent in rich Even if they were cheating, let's
Speaker 3: say they were at ten percent fifty percent, they weren't
Speaker 3: at sixty percent, and so the effort needs to be
Speaker 3: to get a deal.
Speaker 6: I was one of the Democrats, so I got criticized
Speaker 6: for this too. I don't make every call.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: I was cheering Donald Trump when he said let's get
Speaker 3: a deal Trump. Schumer was saying, oh, you're making side
Speaker 3: deals with a rod. I was like, great, let him
Speaker 3: make a deal.
Speaker 6: With it, right.
Speaker 1: Taco Trump making me no, no, no, let him let
Speaker 1: him do.
Speaker 2: Taco might be one of the most destructive like things
Speaker 2: that's ever happened to Wall Street.
Speaker 1: Yeah, horrible, horrible, All right, Congress, I know we got
Speaker 1: to let you go. Thank you so much for jumping
Speaker 1: on this morning. It's almost craz photography and get your insights.
Speaker 2: Thank you, We appreciate it.
Speaker 6: Take care.
Speaker 1: So he brought up the two weeks thing. The White
Speaker 1: House is floating. Caroline Lovitt said, like, oh, Trump's going
Speaker 1: to decide in the next two weeks. I mean, I
Speaker 1: just like, I don't know what do you guys make
Speaker 1: of it, because I just you can't trust anything these
Speaker 1: people say. It could be another faint to just, you know,
Speaker 1: let the Iranian sort of relax again before they bomb
Speaker 1: them in five minutes.
Speaker 4: I don't know what's yours.
Speaker 2: What I think And this is based on a little
Speaker 2: bit of some people I've had it to is and
Speaker 2: at first time he's at the stage. What we're dealing with.
Speaker 2: This is not a normal White House. We are basically
Speaker 2: in the court of Versailles, all right. No one can
Speaker 2: criticize the legitimacy of the monarch. So that's why, you know,
Speaker 2: Steve Bannon and Tucker have to target the neo cons
Speaker 2: who were talking with him. Everything is about gaining the
Speaker 2: audience of the king and of the ear of the king.
Speaker 2: And the king can vacillate from time to time, but
Speaker 2: his own legitimacy of the throne cannot be called into question.
Speaker 2: He's all powerful and he's all knowing. So what's really
Speaker 2: happened I think over the last couple of days is
Speaker 2: I can say equivocally the Bannon lunch was a pivotal moment.
Speaker 2: So Steve Bannon was yesterday at the White House, had
Speaker 2: lunch with Donald Trump. I don't think he said anything
Speaker 2: different in his private comments than he did publicly. So
Speaker 2: that's very encouraging, and that did lead to the so
Speaker 2: called two week debt.
Speaker 6: Life.
Speaker 2: Now, if it were up to Donald Trump, I'm actually
Speaker 2: relatively confident that we would be heading towards some sort
Speaker 2: of diplomatic solution. The problem is, of course, the Israeli
Speaker 2: question on the side, because what Israel now has is
Speaker 2: two weeks to mount the pressure campaign of the century.
Speaker 2: First and foremost, there's a credible report out today from
Speaker 2: the Iranian Foreign minister who's in Geneva to speak with
Speaker 2: the European foreign ministers, that somebody tried to kill him,
Speaker 2: possibly even the Israelis and or advisors around them. Remember,
Speaker 2: they already took out one of the negotiators who spoke
Speaker 2: with Steve Wikoff. There's also crystal maybe you can pull
Speaker 2: this up. I tweeted it out from the Times of Israel,
Speaker 2: the Israeli Foreign the Israeli Defense Minister today said he
Speaker 2: has officially greenlit strikes on the regime. We're not even
Speaker 2: talking specifically about nuclear facilities. They are in the next
Speaker 2: two weeks basically have a free military hand to ramp
Speaker 2: up military strikes on the Iranian regime and specifically to
Speaker 2: try to kill all of the people around the Ayatola. So,
Speaker 2: like I said, if it were just up to Donald Trump,
Speaker 2: I genuinely do believe we would be heading to this.
Speaker 2: It does seem that he's been spooked a bit by
Speaker 2: some of these reports and questioning the scentcom intelligence as
Speaker 2: to whether the fod Oho facility really could be taken
Speaker 2: out by the US military. But Israel really could, you know,
Speaker 2: really could force our hand. Yeah, you could see it
Speaker 2: right there. Katz instructs the IDF to quote destabilize the
Speaker 2: Iranian regime with intensified air strikes. And Israel they're not
Speaker 2: doing well right now. I mean, I know that sounds
Speaker 2: crazy to say, because of all their propaganda, they're running
Speaker 2: out of interceptors. The war is costing Israel hundreds of
Speaker 2: millions of dollars per day, per the Wall Street Journal.
Speaker 2: Commercial air shutdown is devastating the economy. Nobody's going to work.
Speaker 2: You know, how can you work when every single night
Speaker 2: you're spending in a bomb shelter looking at your phone.
Speaker 2: So their society is in chaos. Every single time one
Speaker 2: of those interceptor gets fired, it's seven hundred thousand to
Speaker 2: two million dollars. The flight cost of an F thirty
Speaker 2: five is, like, I don't even know, thirty five thousand
Speaker 2: dollars per hour. They're going bankrupt, you know, and will,
Speaker 2: according to their own former like bank official I was
Speaker 2: reading this morning, we're looking at at a bill well
Speaker 2: over twelve billion a single month of the war in Iran,
Speaker 2: which no, not a lot for US, but that's a
Speaker 2: lot over for them. So I would say like we
Speaker 2: have had a factional victory in getting to the two
Speaker 2: week period. But obviously I really don't think Trump is
Speaker 2: the principal actor here, especially because the Iranians won't meet
Speaker 2: with us. They're meeting right now with the Europeans. It's
Speaker 2: the Israelis who are going to try to destabilize, and
Speaker 2: then it's really Trump and to the extent that he
Speaker 2: wants to insert himself as the primary policy maker in
Speaker 2: this process.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I think, sorry curious and your guys to
Speaker 5: take on this, but like if fifty years from now
Speaker 5: when they look back at kind of how the conflict
Speaker 5: overall between the United States and the up and coming
Speaker 5: powers played out, the US decision based on pressure from
Speaker 5: the military industrial complex to go into this like Rolls
Speaker 5: Royce style approach to and literally Rolls Royce is one
Speaker 5: of the main contractors for US weapons, to make it
Speaker 5: so that you have these this massively high margin industry
Speaker 5: that is making lots of people very rich, despite the
Speaker 5: fact that strategically the numbers are just idiotic. In other words,
Speaker 5: if you're spending seven hundred thousand to two million dollars
Speaker 5: on an interceptor against a missile that costs your adversary
Speaker 5: ten thousand or fifty thousand dollars to put together. In
Speaker 5: the case of Yemen, the orders of magnitude or were
Speaker 5: even further apart. Yes, we're a couple, were like a
Speaker 5: week plus into this, imagine a year out like It's
Speaker 5: as if nobody did the math on this. But the
Speaker 5: Israelis they did do the math, and the math for
Speaker 5: them is, we cannot afford this. We also cannot do
Speaker 5: it ourselves militarily, but the United States can afford it
Speaker 5: at least in the medium term. And the United States
Speaker 5: can do it militarily. So they did the math, and
Speaker 5: they didn't conclude, well, I guess we shouldn't do this.
Speaker 5: They concluded, let's do this and just bank on the
Speaker 5: fact that the United States is going to come in
Speaker 5: behind us. That's a small conflict between these two countries,
Speaker 5: Israel and Iran. If there is ever a bigger conflict,
Speaker 5: you could just see how long the United States would
Speaker 5: be able to carry on before it's it is itself
Speaker 5: bankrupt isn't the right word, but just out of ammunition,
Speaker 5: we can give the ammunition.
Speaker 1: Costs that actually let me find that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, this is a tried and true thing
Speaker 2: about countries that always you know, one of the for example,
Speaker 2: if you there's a great book behind me which is
Speaker 2: about the ammunition shortage during World War One, and the
Speaker 2: amount of ammunition they used in the first month of
Speaker 2: the war is what they projected they were going to
Speaker 2: have to use for the entire war. And so after
Speaker 2: like three weeks they're like, oh shit, They're like now what,
Speaker 2: and they're like, you know what you do? You have
Speaker 2: to go into total war. You have to lock down
Speaker 2: your economy, you have to seize control of all of
Speaker 2: the industry and basically marshal and mobilize to produce as
Speaker 2: much as humanly possible, and you will literally go bankrupt,
Speaker 2: as all of the European great powers did, basically became subservient,
Speaker 2: you know, bank bank loaners to the United States of America.
Speaker 2: That's the entire story behind the fall of the British Empire.
Speaker 2: So that is a very very good lesson. Now I'm
Speaker 2: not saying it can't be done, but the point is
Speaker 2: is that you have to marshal your entire society towards it.
Speaker 2: But you're exactly right, Ryan. From what I've read, these
Speaker 2: Raelies are like, yeah, we knew we couldn't afford it.
Speaker 2: We're just going to get America to pay for it,
Speaker 2: and that's the problem.
Speaker 4: Usually a pretty safe bet put it.
Speaker 2: On the visa. Yeah, they're right though. See that's the thing.
Speaker 2: At the end of the day, they are right. And
Speaker 2: this is why I'm still pessimist, even though I do
Speaker 2: think we have won a victory people who want to,
Speaker 2: you know, to avoid this going all out. Yet I
Speaker 2: do think we have one sum of a victory and
Speaker 2: we may still have a chance. Right the Europeans are
Speaker 2: meeting all of them. But I would still put it
Speaker 2: around twenty five thirty percent, simply because of unrestrained Israeli
Speaker 2: military action. There's a story out this morning from the
Speaker 2: New York Times. The US intelligence assesses that there's two
Speaker 2: scenarios right now where Iron goes for a nuclear bob.
Speaker 2: One is killed the Iatola. Two is the US military
Speaker 2: strikes four doo. Well, you know what is the Israeli
Speaker 2: option there? For they're going to try and kill the Ayatola.
Speaker 2: Just yesterday they hit a bunker in which the Iatola
Speaker 2: was thought to be in. Now the ostensible target was
Speaker 2: one of the Iatola's quote advisors. He's survived, by the way,
Speaker 2: at least according to the Iranians. But that's where things are,
Speaker 2: like you see the IDF action. And also they can
Speaker 2: do math too, Ryan, they can't afford this shit for
Speaker 2: too much longer. You know, already there are you know,
Speaker 2: prioritizing their interceptors. Remember the censorship blackout in Israel is real.
Speaker 2: We have no idea what is being hit or not.
Speaker 2: And there's a reason for that, and it's because these
Speaker 2: they are now having to prioritize maybe military interceptors, but
Speaker 2: they have to let civilians get hit, right, So you're
Speaker 2: gonna start to see the death toll rack up trade off. Sorry,
Speaker 2: I would, I forgot that. I'm not talking about these
Speaker 2: the most moral army in the world would never make
Speaker 2: that decision. But that's my point is the Israelis are
Speaker 2: the these Reelis are the most aggressive, you know actor
Speaker 2: in this and they just have such an incredible ability
Speaker 2: to shape events without being restrained by US policy shape events.
Speaker 2: That's very okay, I mean I know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: They can just they can just do whatever they want
Speaker 2: to do and master Trump and does not pick up
Speaker 2: the phone. I mean, it's like the one there's But this.
Speaker 1: Is Pobe's claim to fame is that he knows how
Speaker 1: to work is over and it's freaking true.
Speaker 4: I mean, he is one of us.
Speaker 6: He is an.
Speaker 2: American, He's born in Philadelphia.
Speaker 6: Okay, So I.
Speaker 4: Really want to go Emily, Emily, what are you? What
Speaker 4: are your thoughts?
Speaker 1: Like are you what are you hearing? And what are
Speaker 1: your thoughts on where we stand right now?
Speaker 9: Well, I think actually Sager just did a little like
Speaker 9: very helpful reporting by saying, having talked to folks, he
Speaker 9: thinks that ban in lunch was significant because there's a
Speaker 9: real question as to whether the two weeks is cold water,
Speaker 9: whether it is on you know, sort of the lust
Speaker 9: for another interventionist conflict, or is it a negotiating tactic
Speaker 9: where Trump is, as you said at the start of
Speaker 9: the show, Crystal, giving the two week window and then
Speaker 9: immediately going to move the next day or the day
Speaker 9: after something like that. But everything that we've just laid
Speaker 9: out about the costs and about the sort of timeline
Speaker 9: tells me two weeks is most likely going to be
Speaker 9: two days in some respect or another. I mean, I
Speaker 9: just I think the cold weeks feels like I think
Speaker 9: it feels like a sort of last ditch, helpful dose
Speaker 9: of cold water. But the machine has been turned on
Speaker 9: and it's lurching towards the conflict. I mean, at this point,
Speaker 9: it feels like turning the Titanic around to do so.
Speaker 9: The two weeks, I agree with Sager, is obviously better
Speaker 9: than you know, not having.
Speaker 1: Us being at work, you know, directly right now.
Speaker 4: But yeah, right, I mean, but for all those reasons, it's.
Speaker 1: Like I'm very cognizant of the fact that, first of all,
Speaker 1: at least according to the Trump administration, you know, the
Speaker 1: last movements towards diplomatic negotiations were.
Speaker 4: Just a ruse. So there's that.
Speaker 1: There also previously were these reports out that effectively the
Speaker 1: plan was to give Ran one final deal ultimatum that
Speaker 1: contains in it the sort of poison pills that we
Speaker 1: know will make it, you know, guaranteed that the Iranians
Speaker 1: won't take it. Not to mention, if you're the Iranians
Speaker 1: at this point, how can you negotiate with these people?
Speaker 1: Like on every level, not only did you already negotiate
Speaker 1: a deal with them that they just were like, yeah, well,
Speaker 1: we're not going to do that anymore. But then they're
Speaker 1: broadcasting to the world that like, yeah, we pretended we
Speaker 1: were going to go forward with these negotiations. We were
Speaker 1: just tricking you so that you could be attacked and destroyed.
Speaker 9: So Iranian nationalism is mounting because.
Speaker 4: Of all of that, Oh yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. By the way, they took to the streets
Speaker 2: on Friday, and actually across the Muslim world, Friday prayers
Speaker 2: have reportedly been like overwhelming in their support for the Iranians,
Speaker 2: even amongst the Sunni populations, which that's hard to do. Yeah,
Speaker 2: for for everybody out there.
Speaker 1: I mean that's what you know. Sorab and Trita have
Speaker 1: been telling us. They've you know, they're seeing unfold this
Speaker 1: rally around the I mean.
Speaker 4: It's entirely predictable. It's entirely predictable.
Speaker 1: Think about us after nine to eleven, right, George Wish
Speaker 1: had like a ninety percent approval rating, and I was like, yes,
Speaker 1: let's go.
Speaker 4: So of course that's going to happen.
Speaker 1: And I just you know, obviously the space for negotiating
Speaker 1: a deal has dramatically, dramatically closed. And then to your point,
Speaker 1: Cyber like, you have this incredibly nefarious actor in Netanyahu
Speaker 1: who you can't put anything past this guy in terms
Speaker 1: of what he's willing to do to make sure that
Speaker 1: working to be there to help him effactuate the plans
Speaker 1: that he has had for decades at this point.
Speaker 4: So it's you know, precarious.
Speaker 1: Is like the probably like lowest nicest thing I could
Speaker 1: say about where we sit right now.
Speaker 4: It's really quite dire.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's not good until I well go ahead, Ryan,
Speaker 5: just real quickly to respond to what Chrystal said, I
Speaker 5: actually I put that question that you asked about how
Speaker 5: can they trust us to get back into negotiations directly
Speaker 5: to a couple of Iranian sources, and they said, well, look,
Speaker 5: the thing you have to understand is like maybe you
Speaker 5: had a better perception of the United States ten years ago.
Speaker 5: We never did. Like, we have never trusted the United States,
Speaker 5: no matter who the president was, and so we were
Speaker 5: not shocked that they pulled out of the JCPOA, and
Speaker 5: we were not shocked that they attacked us. You know,
Speaker 5: they in Israel attacked us. They expected it, they saw
Speaker 5: it coming. So their answer was, you know, you make
Speaker 5: deals not based on trust, but you know, expediency, necessity,
Speaker 5: and then you put everything into the deal that you
Speaker 5: possibly can to make it enforceable. And that's why, you know,
Speaker 5: the Russians and the Europeans were part of the JCPOA.
Speaker 2: There's some hope that.
Speaker 5: Like you know, global involvement, you know, would would pressure
Speaker 5: the United States to want Yeah, thinking it obviously didn't,
Speaker 5: but go ahead, Yeah, let.
Speaker 2: Me pick up on that, because this is actually one
Speaker 2: thing that gives me a little bit of hope is
Speaker 2: that the main parties meeting with the Iranians today are
Speaker 2: the European powers and Macron actually has a quote comprehensive
Speaker 2: offer to Tehran. I can read a little bit from this,
Speaker 2: and I'm reading from the Financial Times Crystal. It says
Speaker 2: Macrone said negotiations have to move towards the zero and
Speaker 2: uranium enrichment as and foreign ministers will meet with them
Speaker 2: and they will present to them this quote comprehensive negotiation offer,
Speaker 2: which would put an end to the hostilities. Namely, it
Speaker 2: would cause a ceasefire as well as lead to zero
Speaker 2: enrichment from the Iranians. Again, I don't know if that's
Speaker 2: what the Iranians would agree to. But really the real
Speaker 2: problem here is that the so called comprehensive offer, even
Speaker 2: according to the French and the Europeans, is that it
Speaker 2: also has to be acceptable to Israel. I just don't
Speaker 2: think that there is any deal at this point which
Speaker 2: is acceptable to Israel, which again is one of those
Speaker 2: things where it's the United States of America who would
Speaker 2: probably take that deal, but the Israelis would be like, oh,
Speaker 2: how can we trust it?
Speaker 1: Another yeah?
Speaker 2: Right, but even with zero and Richmond, they would say,
Speaker 2: how can we trust you that you're not going to
Speaker 2: They'd be like, you need to basically let me occupy
Speaker 2: your nuclear facility. Right, They're gonna be no, that's not
Speaker 2: going to happen. Another really nightmas ut, Yeah right, but
Speaker 2: one like nightmare scenario I see right now is Israelis
Speaker 2: are now talking about some sort of grand commando raid
Speaker 2: on the four Todah facility, like occupying the way that
Speaker 2: they did in Syria. But I mean, look, the risk
Speaker 2: there is just so insanely fraught, and especially if it
Speaker 2: were to become a disaster, and then you could easily
Speaker 2: see how things snowball from there have failed Israeli commando
Speaker 2: slash strike ray that fails to take out power, doesn't
Speaker 2: finish the job, and then the Iranians are like, screw it,
Speaker 2: let's go sprint to the bomb, right. I mean, there's
Speaker 2: so much here which would obviously just almost immediately draw
Speaker 2: America in. So I'm like cautiously, like twenty five percent
Speaker 2: optimistic about this, but I just I don't see how
Speaker 2: we can surmount, you know, the Israeli I don't see
Speaker 2: how we can surmount like all of their clear strategic
Speaker 2: objectives at this point, unless a different Donald Trump emerges
Speaker 2: who is like, no, we're done. This is what we're doing.
Speaker 2: But I mean, he couldn't even stop Israel from striking Iran,
Speaker 2: if that's even to be believed.
Speaker 4: You know, they wanted to, he didn't want to. I mean,
Speaker 4: let's not be foolish here, right.
Speaker 1: And I think Ken Cleppenstein, and now his reporting was
Speaker 1: confirmed by Reuters, I think that, you know, Trump for
Speaker 1: a while, and Biden too, by the way, was like, no,
Speaker 1: you're not doing that, You're not doing that, You're not
Speaker 1: doing that. And then Trump was doing the same for
Speaker 1: a while and then he stopped saying no. And that
Speaker 1: is the equivalent of a green light. Now maybe you
Speaker 1: know that way you have plausible deniability that you didn't
Speaker 1: affirmatively say yes, go ahead. But of course the Israelis
Speaker 1: are going to know as soon as you are like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: do what you want to do, they know exactly what
Speaker 1: that means. And so you know, Trump knew exactly what
Speaker 1: was unfolding here. He he green lit this. I mean,
Speaker 1: we saw the build up. We all were watching closely
Speaker 1: as to what was ultimately going to unfold.
Speaker 4: So he wanted this to happen. He green lit it.
Speaker 1: We shipped hundreds of hellfire missiles to Israel in advance
Speaker 1: of these strikes. So you know, it's like, I don't
Speaker 1: want to Yes, Nan Yahoo is doing everything he can
Speaker 1: to create that outcome. But ultimately it's Donald Trump who decided, yes,
Speaker 1: this is this is the direction that we're ultimately going
Speaker 1: to go, and we're going to let Israel attack ran
Speaker 1: days before we're supposed to have the next round of negotiations.
Speaker 1: Even though I mean, from all indications, there was a
Speaker 1: plausible chance of actually being able to seal some sort
Speaker 1: of a deal and achieve a diplomatic solution, which is
Speaker 1: much more unlikely at this point after you know, after
Speaker 1: we blew up our own our own deal making ability.
Speaker 5: And we have some relevant comments I can put up
Speaker 5: from a senior arining advisor that goes exactly to this point.
Speaker 5: Let me put this up where basically he's saying do
Speaker 5: and this is a close advisor to the IOTOL saying
Speaker 5: that it is it would be a mistake to reach
Speaker 5: a ceasefire at this point because Israel is going to
Speaker 5: break the ceasefire in two months and they will use
Speaker 5: the two months or whatever the period is to restock
Speaker 5: their supplies, particularly of interceptor missiles. So any cease fire
Speaker 5: that is implemented now will lead to renewed war. We
Speaker 5: should not allow the enemy, which is currently in a
Speaker 5: weak position, to revive itself with a ceasefire. And he
Speaker 5: goes on through, you know, with that analysis. But I
Speaker 5: think this is a consequence of you know, the US
Speaker 5: and Israel not abiding by any of its agreements, whether
Speaker 5: it's the January ceasefire that they reached with Hamas and
Speaker 5: then said they were going to break and then broke broke,
Speaker 5: whether it was the deal over Eaton Alexander where they said,
Speaker 5: if you release eat On Alexander, will let in aid
Speaker 5: and we'll push for a ceasefire and they and they
Speaker 5: did none of that. Whether it's you know, assassinating Hondya
Speaker 5: in Tehran as they're getting very close to a deal,
Speaker 5: and on and on. If you believe that a ceasefire
Speaker 5: can't be trusted, then then why reach a ceasefire unless
Speaker 5: you are fit on the brink of like regiment elimination.
Speaker 1: Let me put this up on the screen and get
Speaker 1: your reaction to it. This was the just to put
Speaker 1: it out there. This is the reporting from sihirsh of
Speaker 1: what his sources are telling him it's going to happen. Say,
Speaker 1: mixed bag in terms of his reporting accuracy, but I
Speaker 1: think it's good to put it all on the table.
Speaker 1: Michael Tracy tweeted these portions. So he, according to is
Speaker 1: reporting this report on what was most likely to happen
Speaker 1: in Iran as early as this weekend. According to is
Speaker 1: really and and American officials I've relied upon for decades,
Speaker 1: will entail heavy American bombing. I have vetted this report
Speaker 1: with a long time US official, and Washington told me
Speaker 1: that it will all be under control if Iran Supreme
Speaker 1: leader Ali Commany departs.
Speaker 4: Just how that might happen short of his assassinations not known.
Speaker 1: There's been a great deal of talk about American firepower
Speaker 1: targets inside Iran, but little practical thinking, as far as
Speaker 1: I can tell, about how to remove a revered religious
Speaker 1: leader with an enormous following. Next piece, here he says,
Speaker 1: I've been told the White House is signed off on
Speaker 1: an all out bombing campaign in Iran, But the ultimate targets,
Speaker 1: the centrifuge, is buried at least eighty meters below the
Speaker 1: surface at four dough will as of this writing, not
Speaker 1: be struck until the weekend. Delay has come at Trump's insistence,
Speaker 1: because now this does kind of ring true. The president
Speaker 1: wants the shock of the bombing to be diminished before
Speaker 1: the opening of Wall Street trading on Monday. Trump took
Speaker 1: issue on social media this morning with the Wall Street
Speaker 1: Journal report that said he had decided on the attack
Speaker 1: on Iran riding he had yet to decide on a
Speaker 1: path forward.
Speaker 4: So what are saying, Chrystal?
Speaker 2: Could you Okay? So I was going to say keep
Speaker 2: that up? Yeah, there was sorry, I'll reach heare no, no.
Speaker 9: Because I just wanted to zoom in on Thean. A
Speaker 9: post about the disputed accuracy of sy Hirsch's record, because
Speaker 9: Hanania sort of has this like snarky reply. I remember
Speaker 9: Seymour Hirsch reporting that we were sent to bomb Iran
Speaker 9: during the Bush administration, and I know what he's saying,
Speaker 9: but I actually think that's an interesting point because it
Speaker 9: tells you who has been leaking over the course of
Speaker 9: decades to try to force a bombing of Iran. And
Speaker 9: I think that's like whether or not this report specifically
Speaker 9: is an accurate assessment of Trump's thinking. What it is
Speaker 9: is Seymour Hirsh having a source who he is describing
Speaker 9: accurately as a senior US official.
Speaker 4: I'm sure that part is.
Speaker 9: True talking to him and saying that this is what's
Speaker 9: being discussed in a serious way. So I actually, I mean, yes,
Speaker 9: take it with a grain of salt, but I think
Speaker 9: it's actually not insane that this is likely a serious,
Speaker 9: high level conversation that's happening. I don't know how this
Speaker 9: is going to be affected by Trump's Bannon lunch yesterday
Speaker 9: and the two week I don't know what we call it,
Speaker 9: like deadline extension, but it did feel like we were
Speaker 9: in a forty eight hour window and I don't know
Speaker 9: that we actually are out of the forty eight hour
Speaker 9: window at all, because it's hard to know when Trump'
Speaker 9: has two weeks what he's trying to telegraph to Iran.
Speaker 9: It's hard to know what Israel then does. There's no
Speaker 9: way that Noahu is happy with Trump's two week announcement yesterday,
Speaker 9: and so do they escalate in a way that forces
Speaker 9: the hand? I don't know, but that reporting to me
Speaker 9: doesn't seem insane.
Speaker 1: Sager, what do you make of this tactical nukes talk?
Speaker 2: Oh my god, don't even get me started. I'm getting me.
Speaker 4: Started, buddy, let me pull it up. I got it here.
Speaker 1: Let's go ahead and play it.
Speaker 7: It's a senior White House correspondent, Jackie heinright the cot.
Speaker 10: Away from the shots Son headlines this afternoon one from
Speaker 10: The Guardian that claimed that US military has doubts about
Speaker 10: whether the bunker buster bombs could get the job done
Speaker 10: and further claiming that only a tactical nuke may be
Speaker 10: finish it. And it further stated that the President is
Speaker 10: not considering a tactical nuke, that it was not one
Speaker 10: of the options.
Speaker 4: That was presented to him.
Speaker 10: I was just told by a top officials here that
Speaker 10: none of that report is true, that none of the
Speaker 10: options are off the table, and the US military is
Speaker 10: very confident that bunker busters could get the job done
Speaker 10: at Porto.
Speaker 4: The President is giving so she says that it's not
Speaker 4: the tactical none of it's true. The tactical nukes are
Speaker 4: actually not off the table.
Speaker 2: Tactical nukes are on the table.
Speaker 4: She kind of buries the lead there.
Speaker 1: You kind of have to like really listen in in,
Speaker 1: which seems kind of significant.
Speaker 2: It's insane preposterous. It also though, I really want people
Speaker 2: to see here how the slippery slope happens. First, it's
Speaker 2: just we just one bomb, that's all it is. Oh,
Speaker 2: actually it's a couple of bombs, and that's why you
Speaker 2: leak this stuff.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 2: Maybe the bombs though, can actually do the job. So
Speaker 2: then it was only a tactical nuke. Oh so you
Speaker 2: drop a tactical nuke on here. Now we're in a
Speaker 2: whole different other world. And you know, this just demonstrates, Look,
Speaker 2: these generals, they make all kinds of promises from what
Speaker 2: I hear General Gorilla has been, you know, in all
Speaker 2: these like meetings with the President being like mister President,
Speaker 2: we can do this. He wants to cement his legacy
Speaker 2: as the guy who took out the Iranian nuclear program.
Speaker 2: His term is up in only two weeks, and he's
Speaker 2: given all these pie in this guy bullshit military assessments
Speaker 2: to Donald Trump. Of course Donald Trump is loving it, right.
Speaker 2: Gorilla is like jacked. He looks good. He's got a
Speaker 2: nice figure on camera, straight out of Central casting, as
Speaker 2: Trump would say. So this is the Listen the gorilla,
Speaker 2: the gorilla, Gorilla, the gorilla. So like, we can all
Speaker 2: see how the wheels are turning. It's obviously it would
Speaker 2: be devastating. I think one of the main reasons they're
Speaker 2: keeping it open is just basically to scare the shit
Speaker 2: out of the Iranians. But really what it's about is
Speaker 2: they are being so reckless in their rhetoric that they're
Speaker 2: actually again just increasing the odds of the Iranians being like,
Speaker 2: you people are crazy, we are just going to sprint
Speaker 2: to the bomb. And the only reason why this really
Speaker 2: is all happening is again because of Israel's actions basically
Speaker 2: ratcheting up where the US has to go from the
Speaker 2: escalation ladder. Also, can we all keep in mind that
Speaker 2: when Russia was even openly talking about a tactical nuclear
Speaker 2: weapon in Ukraine. That everyone was like that would be
Speaker 2: a red line and that we should basically go to
Speaker 2: war with Russia. So should Russia go to war with us?
Speaker 2: You know that Rana is technically their client state in
Speaker 2: a similar manner. It's maybe not exactly the same, but
Speaker 2: everyone just see how crazy this all is. And this
Speaker 2: is again you know where I've been going back and
Speaker 2: I've been reading even more about all these these military
Speaker 2: guys are the kings of over promising and under delivering.
Speaker 2: So we can all talk about Libya. We actually delivered
Speaker 2: in Libya. We took out their air defense. It was
Speaker 2: just the strategic problem of the fact that the country
Speaker 2: collapse into civil war. But what about Serbia? Serbia is
Speaker 2: actually a very apt example. So in nineteen ninety nine,
Speaker 2: NATO and the United States wanted to take out Melosovich
Speaker 2: and basically get to stop the civil war and all
Speaker 2: of his actions. Right, well, the US military predicted and
Speaker 2: NATO said it will just take three days of bombing
Speaker 2: to get Melosovich to back down. It took eleven weeks,
Speaker 2: and at the end of those eleven weeks, the US
Speaker 2: military was presenting options to President Clinton to fully invade
Speaker 2: and to take over Serbia because air power could not
Speaker 2: get the job done. We have to just keep learning
Speaker 2: these lessons over and over and over and over again.
Speaker 2: These guys don't actually know what they're talking about. They
Speaker 2: said Iraq was going to be a cakewalk. One hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty thousand troops, mister President, no question, no problem. Afghanistan,
Speaker 2: don't worry about it. We should get a couple of
Speaker 2: special forces overthrow the government. We could take out the
Speaker 2: Taliban with limited air strikes. It never works. It's always
Speaker 2: going to lead to the ground troop and or way
Speaker 2: more than we ever thought from the very beginning.
Speaker 6: Go at.
Speaker 9: The incredible irony of all of this is that Iran
Speaker 9: itself should have been the first lesson of this decade ago.
Speaker 9: This is the text book example playing out in front
Speaker 9: of us. So it's a tragic irony that, you know, again,
Speaker 9: they thought they had that completely under control, no unintended
Speaker 9: consequences that happened down the line from meddling, and here
Speaker 9: we are in twenty twenty five, still groping to figure
Speaker 9: out what happens.
Speaker 1: Talking about bringing back the Shaw's son too yet learning
Speaker 1: any lessons.
Speaker 2: Okay, I talk about that too. Fox News is referring
Speaker 2: to this guy as his Royal Highness.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, No they aren't.
Speaker 2: No, no, they are.
Speaker 3: Check it out.
Speaker 2: You can tweeted it out. They go his Royal Highness
Speaker 2: the show, I go, Where am I on bizarro planet?
Speaker 2: What's happening? You know, just being the son of a
Speaker 2: deposed king does not make you hrh is a title.
Speaker 2: It has meaning. Okay, I mean, I don't know what
Speaker 2: are we doing here, not to be a royal expert
Speaker 2: or whatever. But you know it's like if we had
Speaker 2: on Edward Habsburg and we're like, his Royal Highness of
Speaker 2: lost your hungary, Like what but I think he's like
Speaker 2: a banker in Switzerland.
Speaker 3: Poem.
Speaker 2: He'd be like, I'm Edward, you don't have to call
Speaker 2: me that. And he's like the dynasty is gone. You
Speaker 2: know when you when you get thrown out, you don't
Speaker 2: get the title anymore. I thought we all acknowledge that,
Speaker 2: but they're seriously having this guy on and he's like, Oh,
Speaker 2: Iranians cry out for monarchy and for its insanity, the sanity.
Speaker 1: We I have the media clips on here, the coverage,
Speaker 1: the level of undul I don't even know what to say.
Speaker 1: I mean, we truly do, like cable news really does
Speaker 1: never learn anything. Ever, it's so wild to see the
Speaker 1: propaganda march and it matters. I mean, we were covering
Speaker 1: that polling where it really depends people feel about this
Speaker 1: all kinds of ways, depending on how it's framed. So
Speaker 1: I guarantee if you ask people do you want to
Speaker 1: get America entrenched in some like potentially catastrophic regime change
Speaker 1: or regime collapse war, they could be like are you hot?
Speaker 4: Like what, why would we do that?
Speaker 6: Why?
Speaker 4: I think it would be ninety ten. But if you ask,
Speaker 4: you know, oh.
Speaker 1: Well, should Orn have a nuke? Well? Should we let
Speaker 1: Israel strike Roan to get rid of their nuclear proga?
Speaker 4: Who could object to that?
Speaker 1: Well? Should we supply the weapons that Israel useless? Well,
Speaker 1: you know, should we maybe be the ones just to
Speaker 1: go ahead and take out these nuclear weapons? Because you've
Speaker 1: already said Oran can't have a nuke. When it's framed
Speaker 1: in that way, suddenly you get a disturbing amount of
Speaker 1: public consensus. And we also have to be real about
Speaker 1: the quote unquote anti war mega base. The Republican base
Speaker 1: is vastly more pro war than the Democratic base. They
Speaker 1: will go and support whatever Donald Trump wants to do,
Speaker 1: including Steve Bannon, who already has told the Financial Times
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, Me Tucker, Marjorie Taylor Green,
Speaker 1: all these people will support the president's decision and just
Speaker 1: assume he has more intelligence and more wisdom and more
Speaker 1: understanding that we do.
Speaker 4: At the end of the day, they will all bend
Speaker 4: the ney to whatever it is that Trump decides.
Speaker 2: Most of them will, and most of the base will.
Speaker 2: But you know, you made an important point yesterday, Chrystal
Speaker 2: on our show. Independence won't And.
Speaker 4: That's yeah, that difficult, absolutely, and that's why.
Speaker 2: That show does matter. And you know, I want to
Speaker 2: get this guy on the show, this guy Rich Barris.
Speaker 2: He's like a maga like aligned Ulster, and he's been
Speaker 2: making some great points where he's like, hey, guys, Trump's
Speaker 2: entire margin of victory in Michigan is the anti war
Speaker 2: independent base. He's like the dearborn people who voted for
Speaker 2: Trump and or people who were union and anti Iraq war.
Speaker 2: That is the margin of victory. So Donald Trump, it's
Speaker 2: striking the parallels with George W. Bush, Like if you
Speaker 2: look at the ninety six electoral map and the two
Speaker 2: thousand electoral map. It's actually insane how much things can
Speaker 2: change in just four years. George W. Bush, everybody forgets this.
Speaker 2: He ran as a restraintist. He thought that the US
Speaker 2: can pain in Serbia was a disaster. He was like,
Speaker 2: that's not something that I'm interested in doing. He ran
Speaker 2: on reducing America's footprint abroad. And then of course we
Speaker 2: got you know, mister Neocon himself. Things changed a lot
Speaker 2: after nine to eleven because he literally had a messianic
Speaker 2: complex where he believed he was put on earth by
Speaker 2: God to be there at nine to eleven and to
Speaker 2: destroy the access of evil, which is telling Trump right now,
Speaker 2: this is look, I'm trying to drop parallels here.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he believes it.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's raw by Huckabye. There's a reason why
Speaker 1: he shared that text. And he talked about himself this way.
Speaker 1: I mean his inaugural speech, he talked about how you know,
Speaker 1: he's basically put there by God for this great moment.
Speaker 1: And so when I mean, Emily, you're gonna have to
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to be my deacoder in some of
Speaker 1: this stuff. But the religious fervor of you know, the
Speaker 1: Israeli fanatics, and then you've got the Huckabee End Times
Speaker 1: people and Ted Cruz, and then you've got you know,
Speaker 1: Trump believing he's, you know, the second coming of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: To me, this is a terrifying mix, a totally terrifying mix,
Speaker 1: because then you're like, you can't presume anyone's even acting
Speaker 1: rationally when you have this divine justification behind you, when
Speaker 1: you believe that it's your mission from God, as Ted
Speaker 1: Cruz explained, to always serve the government of met Yahoo.
Speaker 9: Yeah, the so I do have good news on that front,
Speaker 9: which is that's so boomer brain. Even in evangelical circles,
Speaker 9: it's people like there was this time before Y two
Speaker 9: K where the Left Behind series and this millenarian Christianity
Speaker 9: pointed straight towards Israel and created this real, very like,
Speaker 9: very very serious political support for Israel that we all
Speaker 9: kind of think of when we think of American evangelicals.
Speaker 2: That has not really trickled down.
Speaker 9: And in fact, what I saw of the last like
Speaker 9: forty eight hours after the Huckaby thing and after the
Speaker 9: cruising in particular, was a ton of pushback. For example,
Speaker 9: the Federalists published a long pushback to what Ted Cruz
Speaker 9: was saying, and I don't think that would have happened
Speaker 9: fifteen years ago. It doesn't make it any less frightening
Speaker 9: that Mike Kakabee, who has played very fast in loose
Speaker 9: with whether he's a dispensationalist or not, is there. I mean,
Speaker 9: I think in all likelihood, yes, Mike Kaukabee believes that
Speaker 9: political Israel is. You can sort of swap that in
Speaker 9: and out with when the Bible refers to the nation
Speaker 9: of Israel that today twenty twenty five political nation state
Speaker 9: Israel is. You can read that into scripture.
Speaker 2: You could read that it's a revelation.
Speaker 9: It's completely ridiculous, but it's it is popular where with
Speaker 9: evangelical boomers like Mike Huckabee, so to the extent that
Speaker 9: Huckabee is the ambassador to Israel, that matters. But I
Speaker 9: don't think that's it's certainly now not how like a
Speaker 9: Catholic like Jdevance or Mark or Rubio is seeing this.
Speaker 2: I know that's cold comfort to everyone.
Speaker 9: But the good news is the boom and brain dispensationalism
Speaker 9: hasn't trickled down to millennials, right now.
Speaker 4: I guess I wanted to get your Okay, good to know.
Speaker 1: Hopefully we all survive until those millennials have a little
Speaker 1: more power.
Speaker 4: Right, you'll know when we're not raptured. Okay, all right,
Speaker 4: good to know.
Speaker 1: I wanted to get you to explain Ryan this report
Speaker 1: from drop site about how the Israelis are reposting some
Speaker 1: of the same strike footage from Moz obviously, you know,
Speaker 1: has been tracking this and broke down this reporting. So
Speaker 1: what should people like, what's the significance here?
Speaker 4: What is he finding?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, so this is allegedly two different strikes
Speaker 5: on two different days posted by the Israeli military, and
Speaker 5: as as Moz points out, like if you look closely,
Speaker 5: there's just a little bit of tweaking done to the
Speaker 5: color and to the angle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's blurred a little bit.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but if you look at it, if you look
Speaker 5: at that kind of the markings around the rest of
Speaker 5: the image, you're like, oh, you know, it doesn't take
Speaker 5: you know, pH D and osent to be like this
Speaker 5: is actually the same picture.
Speaker 1: And so.
Speaker 5: It raises the question of, you know, have they exhausted
Speaker 5: kind of a target bank in the sense that they're
Speaker 5: not you know, they're not able to produce new pictures,
Speaker 5: which is strange because they have you know, free reign
Speaker 5: over the Iranian sky and.
Speaker 3: All.
Speaker 2: This is not exclusive to Israel.
Speaker 5: All of these belligerent powers are capable of bombing even
Speaker 5: something that has nothing, no military value whatsoever and putting
Speaker 5: a clip out and saying that it's a command and
Speaker 5: control center. So it's not like they have a shortage
Speaker 5: of videos. It's just it shows I think it shows
Speaker 5: a sloppiness and potentially shows you know that they're that
Speaker 5: they're really scraping the bottom of the barrel at this point.
Speaker 1: Well, and this was also a significant in that vein
Speaker 1: NBC News is reporting that according to the seniors really
Speaker 1: intelligence official, only sixty five percent of Iranian missiles were
Speaker 1: intercepted in the past twenty four hours. That's down from
Speaker 1: nearly ninety percent the day before. And we have other
Speaker 1: reports as well that they're having to ration interceptors. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is something something that Soccer was talking about before.
Speaker 1: It's just part of why you know, they're obviously we
Speaker 1: have to be involved. We've been and not have to be,
Speaker 1: but we choose to be involved and have been from
Speaker 1: the beginning and I think this is one of the
Speaker 1: hopes of the Iranians probably is that they can learn
Speaker 1: more about the missile defense systems and that as time
Speaker 1: goes on, they will you know, have to further ration interceptors,
Speaker 1: and also that they will have more understanding of how
Speaker 1: to evade those interceptors and those missile defense systems.
Speaker 5: And on top of that they use their older and
Speaker 5: crappier missiles as as you would expect logically, the first
Speaker 5: ones out of the gate were the cheap, cheap, old
Speaker 5: guys that aren't as good because so do.
Speaker 1: We know, we know that for a fact, because I
Speaker 1: saw that speculation.
Speaker 2: Too, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5: And so because you know that when when your first
Speaker 5: volley comes in, they're gonna they have their entire bank
Speaker 5: of interceptors ready to go. So you throw the cheapest
Speaker 5: stuff that's the worst, and so the interceptors then take
Speaker 5: all of that out and then gradually you start you know,
Speaker 5: using their that and you know, hypersonic missiles and you know,
Speaker 5: yesterday they fired fired one. It sounds like one missile
Speaker 5: at Bearsheva and it got through, but it seems to
Speaker 5: maybe have missed his target. It landed right near the
Speaker 5: Microsoft building there, and then the IRGC said they were
Speaker 5: actually aiming for the Microsoft building, which may have been
Speaker 5: because you know, citing Microsoft's role and in Israeli industrial complex,
Speaker 5: which may have been kind of reverse engineered. Cope like that,
Speaker 5: they're probably aiming for Elbot Systems, which is nearby there,
Speaker 5: but hit closer to Microsoft, so that they're like, you know,
Speaker 5: there's a lot of reverse engineering. We're like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 5: that's definitely what we were aiming for. After you try
Speaker 5: to figure out where it landed. And then we're getting
Speaker 5: reports right now that there was another missile landed right
Speaker 5: around Bearsheva. So you know, if they're two for two
Speaker 5: in Beersheva getting through you know, missile defenses, that allows
Speaker 5: them to shoot many fewer missiles and still have the
Speaker 5: same amount of impact. You know, if they were firing
Speaker 5: off you know, three hundred in the beginning just to
Speaker 5: land ten or twenty, that's not a sustainable pace if
Speaker 5: you have, you know, a missiles missile stockpile in the
Speaker 5: low thousands. But if you're hitting at a fifty to
Speaker 5: one hundred percent clip, that causes a lot more damage
Speaker 5: and helps you win in a war of attrition.
Speaker 4: I think sager.
Speaker 1: Do you have to jump?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I do, unfortunately, but yeah, just last thoughts is
Speaker 2: I think we have a twenty five percent chance of
Speaker 2: avoiding miss probably seventy five percent chance. By the way,
Speaker 2: literally as we're talking, Israel's getting rocked by ballistic missiles.
Speaker 2: In terms of at least some of the images that
Speaker 2: have made it out. They are going to come under
Speaker 2: intense pressure in the government. They are going to ramp
Speaker 2: up regime change and destabilization efforts to the best of
Speaker 2: their possible ability. And yeah, I think it's going to
Speaker 2: be a very, very dangerous two weeks. But you know,
Speaker 2: I'm hoping for some success coming out of Europe and
Speaker 2: at least see what they're able to get out of
Speaker 2: the Uranians and publicly as well, you know, some of
Speaker 2: the statements to get them on the record, and presumably
Speaker 2: a press conference with some statements from the Iranian foreign minister,
Speaker 2: they could at least keep us out of the woods.
Speaker 2: But I also want to echo Emily's warning, we could
Speaker 2: be in a forty eight hour time window. This could
Speaker 2: all be fake, and this could buy Monday on our show,
Speaker 2: we can be covering a four dough strike.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, Well, as we let Sager go. I
Speaker 1: think we're also going to conclude the free portion. Premiums,
Speaker 1: We're going to cover a bunch of more stuff. I've
Speaker 1: got a bunch of clips I got Dave Smith on
Speaker 1: Piers Morgan. You guys, now you don't want to miss
Speaker 1: on on that. I've had it lady. Even Emily has
Speaker 1: to admit she was kind of cooking on CNN. She's
Speaker 1: like more based than we expected her to be, so
Speaker 1: that's kind of cool. We've got more coming out of Israel,
Speaker 1: in particular BBNAT and Yahoo is paying a personal price, guys,
Speaker 1: and I want to share with you what that personal
Speaker 1: price is. And we all should thoughts in prayers with
Speaker 1: Bib and his family during this very difficult time. And
Speaker 1: so in any case, a bunch of stuff to get to.
Speaker 1: We'll try to get to zor On maybe talk about Obama.
Speaker 1: See how much we get to. But for those of
Speaker 1: you who want to join us for the full show
Speaker 1: Breakingpoints dot Com, that monthly subscription is back.
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