Leighton Smith Podcast #320 - March 18th 2026 - Patrick Basham - The Leighton Smith Podcast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
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Speaker 2 (00:28):
Welcome to podcast three hundred and twenty for March eighteen,
twenty twenty six. Patrick Basham, director of the Democracy Institute
in Washington, DC, has guested many times since he first
visited New Zealand and appeared on the radio program in
twenty thirteen. More recently, his organization has conducted surveys for

(00:49):
the London Daily Express, the results of which have been
very accurate. They're mostly political. The latest was on the
Iran War and indicate less support from the American public
than President Trump would appreciate. This lengthy discussion on the
era war was I have to say, fascinating. Whether you're

(01:12):
a Trump supporter or a critic, there is something in
it for everybody, and I'll be very interested in your feedback.
But first, yesterday I received a text. It was sent
to me ten minutes after the official announcement was made.
New Zealand formally rejects WHO Pandemic Treaty. I texted back
to my advisor and I said wow, And I got

(01:35):
an immediate response that said big wow, and both of
us were very happy. So were a lot or so
are a lot of other people. Of course. So today,
the eighteenth of March, The Epic Times writes New Zealand
has formally rejected amendments to the International Health Regulations the IHR,

(01:57):
which lay out how the World Health Organization the WHO
member countries will handle future pandemics. New Zealand's Ministry of
Health described the IHR as the principal international legal framework
for preventing and controlling the spread of disease between countries.
The Foreign Minister Winston Peters announced the decision on X

(02:19):
on March seventeen, saying his party has always said that
any decisions about the health of Kiwis should be made
from Wellington, not Geneva. Quote. We have fought on your
behalf for these IHR amendments to be fully rejected. We
made a promise to put the national interests of New
Zealanders first, to maintain our sovereign decision making, and to

(02:42):
push back on globalist bureaucrats, and we have kept that promise.
Peter said New Zealand's Permanent Mission to the UN had
informed the who's Director General on the decision. Now, for
those who are unfamiliar with it, the who's new amendments
were passed in June of twenty four, but we're not

(03:03):
binding on member countries, giving those who disagreed the option
of opting out without leaving the organization. At the time
the amendments were passed, the Director General, doctor ted Ros Gavrisis,
said the decision demonstrated a common desire by member states
to protect their own people and the worlds from the

(03:24):
shared risk of public health emergencies and future pandemics, built
on commitment to equity and understanding that health threats do
not recognize national borders and that preparedness is a collective endeavor. Now.
That sixty two page document introduced a definition of a
pandemic emergency, which would trigger obligations for international collaboration. Countries

(03:50):
that agreed to the amendments would have to report potential
public health emergencies within twenty four hours of becoming aware,
to respond to WHO requests for a similar timeframe, and
to consult WHO on appropriate health measures for aventants. That
do not require notification but may still pose a risk.

(04:13):
It also empowers who's Director General to declare emergencies, including pandemics,
which then obliges countries to implement prompt and effective public
health responses, including measures such as isolation, quarantine, vaccination, and treatment,
and so it goes on. Several of the clauses impose

(04:35):
compulsory obligations on states, including the establishment of a national
IHR Authority, which would coordinate the implementation regulations and if necessary,
by adjusting their domestic legislative and or administrative arrangements. Governments
were also obligated to develop response plans and would receive

(04:58):
technical guidance from the WHO. You can read into that
whatever you want, but it ultimately, for instance, would receive
technical guidance would be more like bullying. Now you'll be
interested to know that there is a There's not entire
agreement about this. Response to New Zealand's announcement, groups such

(05:21):
as Voice for Freedom and New Zealand Doctors Speaking Out
with Science were supportive of Peter's announcement. Nz DOS is
an association of medical professionals challenging the safety of COVID
nineteen vaccines. Yet Helen Batusius Harris, Associate professor at the

(05:44):
University of Auckland and co director at the Global Vaccine
Data Network, said that while Peters was correct to emphasize
national sovereignty and transparency in treaty commitments, the suggestion that
the WHO Agreement threatens that sovereignty is inconsistent with the
actual text. He said, If anything, the treaty goes out

(06:07):
of its way to reaffirm state control over public health decisions.
The WH Pandemic Agreement is like a global fire alarm
system that shared hoses, ladders and escape plans, so no
country is left to battle the blaze alone. She said.
Health Minister Simeon Brown has not commented on the measure,

(06:27):
and the Prime Minister Christopher Luxeen is a way overseas.
Of course. The bottom line is that those with experience
and hindsight are aware of the pressures that can be
brought to bear on individuals and countries at particular moments
and time. And I congratulate Winston Peters and New Zealand first.

(06:53):
And it goes to show that even politicians can learn
things about behavior. And while many will say that it
was Winston's fault that we had the worst government we've
ever had. At least his moves to rectify that mistake
have become obvious. Now at the end of the podcast,
there is going to be some interesting commentary too on

(07:16):
the Iron War that you would not have heard anywhere else.
But after a short break, Patrick Basham. Buccolan is a
natural oral vaccine in a tablet form called bacterial nicate.
It'll boost your natural protection against bacterial infections in your

(07:36):
chest and throat. A three day course of seven Buckland
tablets will help your body build up to three months
of immunity against bugs which cause bacterial cold symptoms. So
who can take buccolan well, the whole family From two
years of age and upwards. A course of buckelan tablets
offers cost effective and safe protection from colds and chills.
Protection becomes effective a few days after you take buccolan

(08:00):
and lasts for up to three months following the three
day course. Buccolan can be taken throughout the cold season,
over winter, or all the year round. And remember, Buckelan
is not intended as an alternative to influenza vaccination, but
may be used along with the flu vaccination for added
protection and keep in mind that millions of doses have
been taken by Kiwi's for over fifty years. Only available

(08:23):
from your pharmacist. Always read the label and users directed
and see your doctor if systems persist. Farmer Broker or clumb.

Speaker 3 (08:37):
Layton Smith.

Speaker 2 (08:40):
In June of last year, when I interviewed Patrick Masham,
I got some considerable feedback. Well that's not unusual. But
there's one short note that I got from Paul who
wrote the following the most coherent and valid discussion of
the Trump presidency, the Trump administration's domestic and foreign policy, etc.
Which leads to the obvious conclusion of yep, he's fixing America.

(09:02):
Brilliant podcast. Now, I think that summarized the feeling that
a lot of a lot of people contributed. But that
was the shortest and easiest one for me to deliver,
So with that in mind, the director of the Democracy
Institute in Washington, d C. It is once again a
great pleasure to welcome you to the Lakensworth Podcast and
you are always appreciated.

Speaker 4 (09:24):
Thank you late, and I always appreciate the invitation, always
look forward to an opportunity to speak with you and
indirectly with your fine audience.

Speaker 2 (09:32):
Indeed, I was going through some new articles this morning
as they arrived, and I saw a headline that doesn't
have any detail to it because it got closed off.
It was a payers only, but he was the headline
every week in twenty twenty six is felt like a year.
Top Goldman macro Trader ruminates on everything, everywhere, all at once,

(09:55):
and so far there's no letting up and nowhere to hide.
How does that describe the scenario that you're confronted with
every day in Washington.

Speaker 3 (10:04):
Oh, pretty well.

Speaker 4 (10:05):
I mean the old saying about sometimes I think happens
for a decade, and then a decade happens in a week.
In terms of events and important things, it's very much
that way. It's felt that way really ever since Trump
was reinaugurated in January of last year. Things that domestically
and on the foreign front, you know, just seem to

(10:28):
continue to gain momentum in whichever direction. I think everybody,
whatever their political views, whatever their alliances or sympathies, feel
that a lot is happening and it's not apparently going
to stop. More of the same, And of course events
of the last fortnight or so have just reinvested.

Speaker 2 (10:51):
How is how is Trump fairing? Do you think.

Speaker 4 (10:56):
You're talking politically in terms of how he's faring across
the country? Ye, specifically, yeah, not great. It's I mean,
it's always important. It was often useful at least to
step back and say, okay, however he's doing, how is
he doing visa VI you know, your standard president or
at least his predecessors. And if you do that and

(11:19):
you take the average of all of the published opinion polls,
you will see that Trump has an approval rating there's
a little bit better than Obama or Biden or George W.
Bush had at this same point in their second term.
So you have to say, well, that's not too bad,

(11:40):
and it's not too bad.

Speaker 3 (11:42):
It's also just not too good.

Speaker 4 (11:44):
And it also just looking at it like that ignores
the fact that Trump was doing far better last year
than he's been doing this year. I mean, you know,
most presidents there's something of a honeymoon period. He didn't
get that.

Speaker 3 (11:58):
In his first term, but he did get in his second.

Speaker 4 (12:01):
They really hit the ground running with all kinds of
policy directives and instructions and initiative that really really followed
on from their campaign explicit campaign promises in twenty twenty four,
and the public his his voters responded to it, but
also there were others who hadn't voted for him who

(12:21):
started to take a second look at him, and the
poll our polling and other polling tended to reflect that.
But over the last several months, for a variety of reasons,
much of it prior to the Iran War kicking off
a couple of weeks ago, Trump's numbers have dipped. That

(12:42):
dipped in our polls, that dipped in I think pretty
much everybody's polls, to varying degrees. So he's gone from
being a comparatively popular second term president to sort of
average level of popularity for a second term president, at
least in terms of his most recent for this century's

(13:03):
presidents that we have the data on.

Speaker 3 (13:07):
So it's, you know, it's it a glass half empty
or glass half full. I think for.

Speaker 4 (13:12):
Most, if not all, of those who didn't vote for him,
especially those who didn't vote for him three times, they
can't believe that forty forty five percent of the country
thinks he's doing a good job. But for those who
did vote for him, I'd say about half two thirds

(13:33):
think that he's doing a better job than he's given
credit for, whereas about a third think he's actually quite
fortunate to be where he is in the in the
polling because he has, in particularly this year, the last
well last several months, I would say, late twenty five
into twenty twenty six, he has disappointed them sufficiently and

(13:55):
continues to do so that they they they think he's
actually sort of getting away with it a little bit
more than they would actually like to see.

Speaker 2 (14:04):
So is this born out of shall we say, political
beliefs on those individuals' paths, or is it born out
of confusion?

Speaker 3 (14:16):
It's well, I think it's it's born out of a
lot of things.

Speaker 4 (14:18):
I mean to simplify it, not because your audience needs
to be simplified, but because it's my brain can deal
with this in simplistic terms. I think there's at least
three or four primary reasons for this. I mean, one
is this you touch on there late in your question,
is that you know, America remains very divided, and the
divisions are really hard, you know, they're really set in.

(14:42):
So it's almost impossible for a for a candidate or
a president to be voted for light to proved by
sixty percent or more of the country.

Speaker 3 (14:52):
The sort of things that you know Ronald.

Speaker 4 (14:54):
Reagan would achieve or you know, that kind of that
kind of popularity just doesn't happen. There are just too
many people who are never going to give the other
side a look in, at least not for the foreseeable future.
Just so so you've got that, and that is always
puts a lid on it anybody's presidency, but it does
on Trumps for sure. Especially is because you know, he
continues to receive the most negative, terrible media coverage of

(15:17):
any president anyone can remember, and he's always had to
battle against that, and that has always limited his appeal
for a variety of reasons, some of which are to
his credit and others are others to other credit or
sort of cultural political economic trends. He's been able to

(15:38):
get around that, rise above that obviously at least twice
out of three times, if not all three, depending on
how you like to count the twenty twenty election. But
it's also about what he has and hasn't done, and
within that, parenthetically, what he's perceived to have done or
not done. So you have, you know, on the folks

(15:59):
who are never going to give him a chance, never
going to give him a second look or third look.
You know, they either think he hasn't done anything, or
he's done a lot of things that are terrible. So
we sort of you have to put those aside. You
can't get anywhere there. What he what he has done,
unquestionably is achieved some of his campaign promises, particularly on immigration,

(16:19):
securing the southern border. That's that those sort of core
issue in terms of why people supported him.

Speaker 2 (16:27):
It's almost that's that's almost ancient history now, isn't it.

Speaker 3 (16:31):
Well, there's this, this is the thing.

Speaker 4 (16:32):
He was so successful so quickly that it's it's less
of an issue than it was. However, the caveat, and
it's an important caveat politically electorally, is that while the
southern border was secured almost overnight, the deportation issue is
still still humming along because the administration has made efforts

(16:57):
to deport and they have deported arguably a million to
two million people, but they don't seem to be particularly
enthusiastic about carrying on until they you know, capture and
capture and release on the other side of the border.
The remaining fifteen to twenty million which is worrying a
lot of his voters. Now one of there's a couple

(17:18):
of million self deportees who have sort of saw the
writing on the wall and have high tailed it, and
probably war will do so. So it's even on the
issue that you would think on paper would be the
one that he is strongest with those who voted for him,
there's a there are caveats there. They're not sure whether

(17:38):
he thinks he's sort of done enough and it's not
worth the fight that it would take for the rest
of his term. And then you see, there was so
much of the energy and enthusiasm and all of the
initiative that the DOGE work early early last year, so
much of that the air went out of those balloons,

(17:59):
a large part because of the Republicans on Capitol Hill
who wouldn't past the legislation that he wanted and that
his voters wanted. Also partly because Trump has decided, it seems,
on many of these issues, oh well, I can't get
what I want, or I can only get part of
what I want, So I guess that's it. You know,
we move on. You can argue whether those are good.

(18:20):
There's a smart political calculations or not. But the bottom
line is those things that his voters wanted haven't happened.

Speaker 3 (18:28):
And then there hasn't been.

Speaker 4 (18:32):
Seemingly much effort, if any, to deal with all of
the what I would call of the political issues of
the previous several years, the persecutions of Trump, or the lawfare,
the Russia hoax business, or the mess that COVID was,

(18:52):
all of these things that the twenty twenty election, the
persecution of his supporters, you know, the most ordinary people
in prison for years. All of these things were explicitly
told to his voters, his would be voters, that something
would be done. And on most of those those fronts,
on those files, little apparently has been done, or at

(19:15):
least little appears to have reached an obvious conclusion. I mean,
there haven't been prosecutions. Let'll anybody go into prison, these
sorts of things that his voters thought were given.

Speaker 3 (19:24):
After all, when they.

Speaker 4 (19:25):
Try to kill you twice and they try to bankrupt you,
they try to put you in prison, and you beat
them anyway, so fair and square, you figure the guys,
you know, not gonna not going to pull back from
the rest of the fight. But there's a perception that
either he has or at least the people he has
appointed in those roles that would be the obvious ones

(19:46):
to go forward with that kind of work haven't, for
one reason or another, decided to do so.

Speaker 3 (19:52):
And so that's that's that's very.

Speaker 4 (19:54):
Disappointing, to put it, quite euphemistically, for a good chunk
of his voters.

Speaker 2 (19:58):
Indeed, could you could you not reap home to the well,
let's isolate them the Supreme Court, for instance, uh, for
their their approach to dealing with those issues. And as
they climb up the up the scale of courts and
get closer and closer, it becomes, shall we say, more

(20:19):
obvious that the power of judges in the United States
is way over what it should be, and they're getting
away with it. And if you embroiler yourself in his thinking,
I'm trying to put my mind into his him. His
thinking might just be that I can't spend time on

(20:43):
stirring the pot this way because it's not going anywhere,
and it's likely to get beaten in the end anyway
by the Supreme Court, and there therefore we're bugging.

Speaker 3 (20:53):
Sure.

Speaker 4 (20:53):
I mean, first I would say something specifically on the
court problem and then maybe make a large hopefully make
something of a larger point. But how that ties into
other issues and other calculations of Trump himself. But on
the court, there's no question that the Democrats decided that
twenty twenty they were able to find enough extra ballots
to quote unquote beat Trump twenty four they weren't.

Speaker 3 (21:14):
So what can they do to stymy him?

Speaker 4 (21:16):
Well, we use we use the court system, which is
full of liberal judges and far more anti Trump Republican
judges quote unquote conservative judges than Trump judges as part
in part because while Trump was president twenty seventeen to
twenty twenty, he appointed a lot of folks who didn't

(21:37):
really care for him, but he did what he was
advised to do by.

Speaker 3 (21:40):
People who quote unquote knew better.

Speaker 4 (21:42):
And as a theme of his presidency in terms of
personnel decisions that have come back to haunt him, how
are well intentioned he may have been? And so the courts,
the judges have taken it upon themselves, cheered on by
the Democrats and the media, to stop, halt, push back
against as much of Trump's second term agender as possible

(22:04):
right and they have been quite successful at doing that.

Speaker 3 (22:08):
And to be fair, to Trump.

Speaker 4 (22:11):
You know, he can only deal with that hand that
he's dealt in terms of the courts, and they have
to you know, go back and redo the legislation or
try somewhere else, make a different argument, these kinds of things,
and we get the situation recently, fairly recently with the
Supreme Court throwing out his tariffs, most of.

Speaker 3 (22:29):
His tariff program.

Speaker 4 (22:30):
Now, of course, that is this is one of these
double edged swords in terms of where I want to
fix his blame, because there's no question that the Supreme Court,
that the judges who voted that way, you know, looking
to give him a black eye. But at the same
time he was warned, and without warning your audience by
getting into the weeds on this, that the way they
went about the tariffs was unnecessarily sort of provocative to

(22:55):
the courts in the He could have if he made
the effort to get congressional approval prior then this thing
would have even if they had been pushed to that level,
it wouldn't have survived the Supreme Court left, but he didn't,
and there we are. So what he's achieved is less
than he would have if the court system, the judiciary

(23:16):
in America was more balanced and fair minded, if there
was more justice in the judicial system, there's no question
about that. But at the same time, he has chosen
to pick his fights. Now, you know, if you're if
you're a president in the in the electoral landscape, political
landscape I've described for your audience, where it's very you know,

(23:36):
it's it's either side of fifty percent either way, then
you can make an argument, as I'm sure the White
House is doing that.

Speaker 3 (23:44):
We have to.

Speaker 4 (23:45):
We have so much political capital, so much time, we
have to pick our fights. But the fights that they
haven't picked are either coincidentally ironically the ones that are
nearest and dearest to many of the voters. And so
the vote, many of his voters voted not just for

(24:06):
reform but for radical change in Washington, right, So they
loved it when they started firing government workers.

Speaker 3 (24:15):
But where are the top level.

Speaker 4 (24:17):
Government people who who acted like kings for four years
and in eight years under Obama? Why do they still
have their jobs? That type of thing. So it's you know,
it's it's there's something for everyone to get mad about,
something for everyone to be happy about. But the bottom
line is you have put that all in the blender

(24:38):
and what comes out is Trump in this prior to
the war, anyway around war, in a position where he
is he's not weak politically, but he's not as strong
as he was or as he could and should be.

Speaker 2 (24:54):
Which makes things rather difficult for him and confusing for
so many people. I want to turn our attention to
something that I talked about in the in the podcast
last week, and it was something that not many people
know about even now. This was the interview that Micha

(25:14):
Levin did on his talk program with Trump's Middle East envoy,
Steve Whitcoff. May I ask you have you heard that?

Speaker 4 (25:23):
I've seen clips of it at the time shortly afterwards,
but I can't claim I haven't watched.

Speaker 3 (25:30):
The whole thing.

Speaker 2 (25:30):
Now, Steve Witkoff did something for me, and I know
it's having the same effect on a hell of a
lot of people, not necessarily in this country, but in
other places where Witkoff did this interview with Mark Levin
and described the meetings that he'd had, specifically the last

(25:53):
meeting that he had along with Trump's son in law,
because the two of them were a team, and this
was with the two representatives from Iran, so they were
head to head in the discussion. He described the first
comments that were made to them in this last attempt

(26:15):
were laying it on the line that the Iranians had
enough sixty percent grade to make eleven bombs and they
had the right to do it, and they would do it,
and they weren't surrendering it, and they would never surrender it.
And they lay it straight out on the line. It
was obvious that they were not going to participate in

(26:35):
any deal. And so the two the two reps for Trump,
went back to Washington and told the President what they'd said. Now,
he said Whitcof said they had been grilled by Trump
looking for the truth, and once it was established that
there was not going to be a peace steel, Trump
pulled the plug.

Speaker 3 (26:56):
He certainly did that.

Speaker 2 (26:58):
Or push the button might be a better waiter.

Speaker 3 (27:01):
Yeah. Yes.

Speaker 2 (27:03):
The reason I'm raising this is because to understand why
he's done it is really the reason why did he
do it? And why did he do it? Now? It's
seen more than one headline, well why did he do it? Now?
The answer is in that interview and it's as plain
as day. So you're left, you're left with a choice.
If you're making a personal choice of accepting that Trump

(27:27):
was right or Trump was wrong, and it's very hard
to accept that he was wrong. And there is a
there is another another headline that I'd refer you to,
Britain can learn from Trump's moral clarity over Iran published
today in the in the Spectator, and that in itself
is a very is a very intriguing article. Would you

(27:48):
say that the use of moral clarity is applicable.

Speaker 3 (27:53):
I wouldn't.

Speaker 4 (27:55):
It's not that one can't support the war on Iran
on moral grounds or that in the past, you know,
people haven't made strong cases, you know, with morality is
central to their perspective. It's that Trump's decision and his

(28:15):
and other's explanation for the decision has been so all
over the place that there has been there there's been
really no attempt to buy the White House administration to
make the case in those terms right. I mean, what

(28:36):
you what you have relayed in terms of what is
known that Kushner and Witkoff told him is one of
the one of the answers he's given to why did
you do this?

Speaker 3 (28:47):
Right or partial answer?

Speaker 4 (28:49):
The way do you do this? Maybe why he did it?
We don't know because the answer keeps changing, both from
him and from his secretary of state or his press
secretary or et cetera, et cetera, and so so many
of the answers have not been couched in moral all.
None of them have been coached into moral terms. That is,

(29:11):
I think it's hard, certainly in the moment, to sort
of make that argument. I mean, this is politically it was.
It was looking bad for anybody, for him or anyone
who tempted to go after Iran at the moment, rightly
or wrongly. That's how Americans felt about it in the
week to preceding. But that has been really in my view,

(29:35):
are polling, and not all the polling, but enough of
the other polling I believe has shown that that hasn't
changed much, if at all, partly because there was never
a case made before the war, and there has not
been a uniform case made since. Because whatever case you make,
whether it's particularly weak one or particularly strong one, you
sort of need that to be the one, right. But

(29:59):
when there are sort of it depends who's counting six, eight, ten,
twelve different reasons why there are the reason we did this,
we're doing this. It's different cult to you know, accepting
that half the country's almost half the country is going
to oppose him anyway, it's difficult to get anybody who
is persuadable to think, oh, okay, let me think about

(30:20):
that for a second, maybe he's got a point there,
when it's not quite clear, you know, what his point was.
So it's just been the optics have been politically, the
optics have been absolutely horrendous, and they've given the impression
of really just making it up as they went as

(30:41):
they go, and of not having either militarily or politically,
having planned this out beforehand. And what I think is
particularly hurt him, well especially hurt him, is the fact
that a good slice of his voters can't get beyond

(31:01):
the fact that this is explicitly what he said repeatedly
for years, including quite recently, that he would never do.

Speaker 3 (31:09):
Is the fact that it is it is clear that.

Speaker 4 (31:16):
What they thought would happen if they acted with this
sort of moral clarity.

Speaker 3 (31:23):
Is not what.

Speaker 4 (31:24):
Did happen, and they didn't have they had whatever the whatever,
the whatever, the utility of their plan A. You would
presume that at that level you would have just in case,
a plan B, maybe a C, D E and F
and seemingly there was no plan B. So it's it's
been a really, really tough sell and it's hard to

(31:44):
see how it doesn't continue to be so for as
long as you know, the US remains.

Speaker 2 (31:49):
Evolved, you're making it difficult for me. I ll experience them.
I interviewed him once, right at the beginning of COVID.
He made it in just in time to promote his
book on marijuana, Anti Marijuana. But I have I have
his collection of novels, which runs second for me only

(32:15):
to Daniel Silver in their character and or characters and
the stories they tell. But that's just that's just by
the bye. But he's he's written today again, and I
think if I can insert this now, I think this
is part of the problem so much that keeps coming out,

(32:37):
so much that gets fired at the public and at
Trump for various things, various reasons, various explanations, because there
are so many people with various opinions and our experience,
and of course is one of them. But here's what
he wrote. It's not just about the Strait of Hormuz.
Here's a slightly more detailed version of a thread that

(32:58):
I just posted on X What they're not telling you
because they don't want to scare you. Iran can already
his emphasis, Iran can already make a nuke with its
current uranium stock. Depending on its engineering school, this would
explode either as a subcritical dirty bomb, killing thousands and

(33:19):
leaving swathes of Televiv and Manhattan uninhabitable for decades, or
a Hiroshima sized nuke, killing hundreds of thousands and likely
leading us to retaliate with nuclear strikes that would destroy
irm the truth, even if you'd rather not hear it
and I'd rather not write it. If it makes a bomb,
Iran will not know how big it may be until

(33:40):
it detonates. And he goes into a bit of detail.
But he fronts up with a reasonable theory, I think
a contributory argument.

Speaker 4 (33:49):
You say, well, the problem okay, just if you bear
with me, if you want to spares with me for
a moment, just to give a little preface here, So
in terms of just so everyone is reminded where I'm
coming from, I mean, I've long always considered, since the
revolution is something not considered around, to be a bad
actor in the region and globally sponsored terrorism repressed if

(34:12):
at home cause as much trouble as they can in
the region. Would like Israel not to be there if
they could help, you know, if they could do anything
about etc.

Speaker 3 (34:18):
Etc.

Speaker 4 (34:20):
No fan of Israel, and I think we've from my
memory serves me late, and we've spoken at times over
the months and years where I've been castigating Obama and
then Biden for their appeasement of Iran and praising Trump
during his term for standing up to them. So I,
you know, just to sort of put my chips on
the table in that regard. And in addition to that,

(34:40):
the Trump administration overall is a million times better than
what preceded and what would have happened if Herrot's taken over.
And I would like Donald Trump to do as well
as possible and be as popular as possible. But however,
that said, the truth of the matter is that for
a couple of decades, there has always been at least
one very bright informed person or government official or prime

(35:02):
minister or someone somewhere who has told us that Iran
is two weeks away from having a bomb. Okay, yeah,
And last summer the Twelve Day War, as it became
known at that time, insiders were saying, oh yes, you know, yes,
we're negotiating, and Trump says, the negotiations are going, well,
we've got.

Speaker 3 (35:22):
To do something about it. We did. We started doing
a little negotiations.

Speaker 4 (35:24):
We just started bombing them in a more targeted, sort
of specific, localized way in terms of their facilities.

Speaker 3 (35:31):
Now that that tough very time.

Speaker 4 (35:35):
The likes of Tulsi Gabbard in charge of national Intelligence,
the likes of the Israeli government, we're both telling Trump
that that Tehran is at least a year or two
away from capability of doing what they we fear they
might want to do. To say Israel, now, he took
a preemptive act, did a preemptive measure, and you you know,

(35:55):
say okay, and he said that was the end of it.
They're finished with You know that tune has changed. That's
another thing you see when you say you've got them,
you did it successful in and out, clean as it were,
and then several months later it's we got to stop
hold everything because we've got to go in there and
bomb the heck out of that country. That also is
a little tough for people to understand appreciate why why

(36:19):
we got what I thought we we'd want thought we
did it.

Speaker 3 (36:21):
We haven't to be able to do it again, Okay.
And then you have.

Speaker 4 (36:25):
The problem of when they first came out with the
reasons for doing this, there was stuff about regime change,
which seems to be central for some people. But Trump
would say, well, I'm an imminent threat to America, and
then it was an eminent threat to Israel, and then
it was an eminent threats to US interests in the
Middle East. And it turns out right in real time
that the Pentagon and the CIA, for example, we're both

(36:48):
telling Trump all along, ten years till these Raelians considered
the Iranians as another Freudian slip, ten years till the
Iranians will be able to do anything to us in America,
and it's several years before they can do anything to Israel.
And the reason that Trump would say, yeah, they're threatening
to you know, to bomb ups, Well, yeah, they're saying

(37:10):
that if we attack them, they'll bomb our bases. But
it turns out we attacked them and they bombed our basis.
So it's not a question. I mean, most Americans are
not don't need persuading that Iran is a bad actor,
and we wish it was a different governments, and we
wish that they weren't who they are and they haven't
behaved the way they have behaved. But that's a million

(37:33):
miles politically from persuading most people that suddenly everything has
to be put on hold and we have to risk
everything economically, politically, domestic in terms of domestically to do this,
especially in addition when Trump quite explicitly says that, well,

(37:56):
you know, yeah, it is kind of risky doing this
sort of thing, but you know, the Israelis want us
to do it. You know, that's okay. So it doesn't
compute for most people. Now, maybe you know, historians will
look back ten her twenty years from now and say
that it was exactly as Trump said it was, and
it was all necessary and we haven't had a peep
out of Iran since. But in real time, which is

(38:19):
the only context in which most people can try to
assess this cost benefit wise, it's just it appears to
be contrary to what Trump says some days, it does
appear to be not a war of necessity but a
war of choice. And as a war of choice, then
everyone then starts thinking, well, should we have chosen chosen
to go this route? And most people think on balance, well, no,

(38:44):
especially as it hasn't. It's not as if it's gone well,
and is there always cost to a war, even a
successful war. It's gone well, and we don't like the costs.
It's not gone very well so far. And this doesn't
look like going any better the further we go. So
it you know, it just doesn't. It just doesn't play

(39:06):
doesn't pass the sniff test from people.

Speaker 2 (39:09):
Well, maybe those people should see their doctors.

Speaker 4 (39:13):
That's just not a boy you with the with the
too much detail.

Speaker 2 (39:19):
Historically, you can't. You can't do that.

Speaker 3 (39:22):
Ah? Is that? Is that a dare very late? Uh?

Speaker 4 (39:26):
Is that?

Speaker 3 (39:28):
For?

Speaker 4 (39:28):
One of the things that was explained to Trump beforehand
and before other people came in the room and explained
how things were different.

Speaker 3 (39:36):
One of the things that was explained to him is that.

Speaker 4 (39:40):
Wars go go a very predictable way, with probably the
exception only of the Second World War, go a very
predictable way in terms of the American public opinion, right
whatever the level of support for the war going in,
and sometimes it's quite high, and it always declines, sometimes
quite quickly, sometimes gradually, but orways declines as blood and

(40:02):
treasure you know, start being tallied up.

Speaker 3 (40:06):
Okay, so that's that's number one.

Speaker 4 (40:07):
So whatever you are now, mister president, you're only going
to get the war's only gonna get less popular.

Speaker 1 (40:12):
Now.

Speaker 4 (40:12):
It's important then to note that despite the polls that
Trump was relying on, most polls showed that, you know,
it was two thirds one third against beforehand and at
the outset, So you're starting out from a weak position.
Number two, That rally around the flag effect, which can
be real where people go, oh my goodness, we're at war,

(40:33):
we must support the president, which some poles say it
has been a little bit of others don't. That always fades,
That always fades quite quickly. And thirdly, and this is
really the most depressing thing if you just in general,
if you're in favor of at times America intervening militarily
around the world, is that no matter how just your

(40:53):
cause might be, no matter how successful the war is
and how successful it's seen it is perceived to have been,
it's still you still don't gain politically from it. A
president can only survive a war, survive foreign policy generally,
he can't really gain from it only in the most
short term sense. And so Trump start out with an

(41:16):
unpopular but what would be you know, if if he
president does this, what do you think we don't like
the idea he does it, doesn't explain much about it beforehand,
can't get his story straight while it's happening, doesn't seem
to be going that well. None of the evidence is
that he's He or the war.

Speaker 3 (41:33):
Itself are gaining in popularity, you know, And so you've
got that.

Speaker 4 (41:38):
You have the situation where this is why so many people,
not everybody, but so many of the political people in
the White House are telling him, you know, whatever, whether
it's right or wrong about what you we have done,
you need to pull the plug in as fast and
dignified a way as possible, because you know, domestically, we're

(41:58):
gonna get we're gonna get crushed, and we don't know
how long that crushing will go on for right and
it's so rightly or wrongly, this is not This has
been a very very bad move politically for Trump and
most frustratingly for his supporters.

Speaker 3 (42:14):
It's self inflicted.

Speaker 4 (42:15):
Now, I'm sure he had the best of intentions, but
that's how it's seen and it will take quite a
turn around.

Speaker 3 (42:21):
Both in the Middle.

Speaker 4 (42:21):
East, and in terms of people, in terms of public
opinion for that to change. But as I've been saying,
there's no historical evidence that even if it goes from
being a this isn't going so well kind of a
war to way, oh my goodness, that was ended up
being a cake walk. Doesn't mean that come November or
November of twenty twenty eight, then anybody's going to give
him any credit for that.

Speaker 2 (42:42):
So you're suggesting he's on a loser.

Speaker 4 (42:45):
Oh, absolutely, no question about it. And I think he knows.
I think he knows he's not a loser. I mean, see,
this is somebody who, to his credit and long before
he was you know, in politics, always argued against regime change, wars, forever, wars,
endless wars, all the rest of its particularly in the
Middle East.

Speaker 3 (43:05):
And whether you think that's.

Speaker 4 (43:06):
Correct or not, he had a principled position which he
stuck to and articulated and enunciated very well.

Speaker 3 (43:13):
He did it all the way through all three of
his campaigns.

Speaker 4 (43:15):
One of his last conversation with Charlie Kirk was Trump
promising Charlie Kirk that he would never do what he's
done because Charlie Kirk in recent times.

Speaker 3 (43:25):
This was his you know, policy terms.

Speaker 4 (43:28):
Charlie was involved, you know, obviously in interested in a
lot of larger cultural issues, but in terms of policy,
the thing that mattered most to him is that we
didn't start a war with Iran because he foresaw what
many of us do in terms of the negative continent
and negative ramifications. Trump promised him he wouldn't do it.

(43:48):
And Trump has is now in a position where he's
gone against not just what a lot of people told
him he should should or shouldn't do, but he's gone
completely one eighty against what he always said. I mean,
along with being in favor of tariffs, I'm trying to think,
I'm trying to think of an issue.

Speaker 3 (44:08):
That Trump so long held on to.

Speaker 4 (44:11):
It was a signature issue, and he I think recognizes
that he has been persuaded kind of at the last minute,
whether it's wit Coffin, Kushner, whether it's Rubio, whatever the
specific reason, you know that he was persuaded the last minute,
and maybe it was you know, the late the last

(44:32):
phone call he had from bb let Nayu, but that
he probably.

Speaker 3 (44:38):
Shouldn't have done what he did. But now he's in it.

Speaker 4 (44:41):
He doesn't know how to like most most of us,
you make a mistake, you realize it fairly quickly, you've
made a mistake, but often it's too late to change it.
And so how do you minimize the damage. And what
he appears to be doing, I don't think it's what
he wants to do.

Speaker 3 (44:55):
What he appears to be.

Speaker 4 (44:57):
Advised in a sort of military sense, geop strategic sense,
is to do what most leaders do in these situations
when it isn't going well, which is double down and
see whether blowing up more buildings and killing more people
can have the effect that blowing up half as many
buildings and killing half as many people didn't have in
terms of the larger picture, in the apparent goals. When

(45:21):
if he would only declare victory, point to one of
these things, one of the reasons he's given for doing this,
and say, look, we achieved that, we put them back
in their box. We're victorious, We're on our way home.
We never we never meant to be here for the
rest of our lives. He would have a chance to
climb out of this political trap that he set for himself.

Speaker 2 (45:40):
I'm wondering whether he can conclude this militarily by going
all out. Would you say that there was no chance
whatsoever of using a small nuclear weapon.

Speaker 4 (45:54):
I would say, I say this very little. But there
are there are one or two neo can't advisers to
him who would be able would be able to do that,
They would be able to advise that he did that
if they thought it was necessary. So I wouldn't rule
it out completely. But no, I mean this is a

(46:14):
this is a classic case. I mean, this is if
if if Iraq was difficult to conquer and achieve successful
regime change in, and if Afghanistan was, I mean, they
are picnics compared with what Iran would be for all
kinds of reasons, from geography to population, to topography, to
the culture, to the military preparedness and all the rest

(46:37):
of it. The only way you could win this thing militarily.
I mean, it's it's a it's a question, it's a case.
This is one of these situations late and I think
where you know, one country or two countries have so
much more at their disposal right in than the country
that they are attacking, and they win almost every battle,

(46:57):
but they end up losing the war because we didn't say,
as we did last summer we're doing this to knock
out this, this, and this, so they can't have to.

Speaker 3 (47:06):
Build that, that, that and that, and they'll be they'll
be and they'll be mad to do so because we'll
come back again.

Speaker 4 (47:13):
We're saying, regime change, liberate the people, and take care
of the nuclear program and bring prosperity and this and
the other.

Speaker 3 (47:22):
We set the bar.

Speaker 4 (47:22):
This is I mean, this is to talk about over
promising and under delivering. We've set the bar so high
you almost can't help but not win. Whereas the Iranians,
that is the regime. All they have to do is
survive and they've won and that is what they clearly
are doing and having prepared.

Speaker 3 (47:43):
See, we've one of the mistakes.

Speaker 4 (47:45):
I mean, it's human nature, but you think at that
at this high level, that high level, it shouldn't happen.

Speaker 3 (47:50):
You know.

Speaker 4 (47:50):
We it's very hard for us when people when we
disagree with people, we ppercially even think we're they're bad
people and we don't actually know them, but we know
the reputation. They know they do bad things and evil
things and all the rest of it. We also tend
to think that they are incompetent as well. Is if
the two who aren't mutually exclusive, but they are. Some

(48:12):
bad people are incompetent, and they end up getting caught
and they end up spend their lives in prison. But
there's a lot of very bad people who are quite
confident and quite right, and quite tactically and strategically.

Speaker 3 (48:23):
Skilled, and they do very well for themselves, thank you
very much.

Speaker 4 (48:27):
And so when we have a bad actor like the
Iranian regime, it's all the evidence so far is that
the most influential voices, the deciding voices in with and
around Trump before making this decision, we're telling him that

(48:50):
not only are these guys bad, and they pose a threat,
and we just can't put up with this madness anymore.
In Israel, shouldn't have to live with this nightmare in
their own backyard, all this kind of stuff. But they
don't know what they're doing. They're just literally going to
lay down their arms. Hence the call for the Revolutionary
Guard folks to give up their arms, and you know,
you won't be you won't be punished. You know, will

(49:12):
decapitate the regimes leadership and the whole thing that people
will rise up, everyone will be happy and all the
rest of it, right, because these guys have because the
Iranian regime has don't have a clue, you know there is.
They used to say they can't organize their way of
a wet paper bag. But of course the opposite was
true in the tastes of the Iranians, which is part

(49:33):
of the reason they've been so successful. It being such
bad actors for so long. So you know, they were ready.
They were as ready as you can be. You have
a situation where Israel and the US, because think of
it like as a poker game. Israel in the US
began with quite strong hands, right. I don't think they've
played them very well, but they had strong hands. The

(49:53):
Iranians had comparatively weak hands, not not not fought terrible
hands to play, but much less value than the than
the Israelis and the Americans. But the Iranians have played
them artfully. They've played their hand really, really well. And
not because they were spontaneously, oh let's suddenly off the
top of our heads, let's do this, this, and this,

(50:14):
because they planned it out. They knew exactly what they
were going to do and how they were going to
do it, and they knew what the Americans would do,
which is what the Americans always do shockun ow. Let's just,
you know, we kill enough people and blow enough things up,
everything will be fine. And it's you know, so we've massively,
massively underestimated and underappreciated our enemy.

Speaker 3 (50:35):
And you know this is a result.

Speaker 4 (50:37):
But the fact that it's happened just decades from the
Afghanistan debacle and the Rack debacle, and at the instruction
of the person one of the people most aware of
what went wrong in America's meddling in the Middle East
and was most committed to it not happening again is

(50:59):
beyond baffling for most people on his side of the
political aisle, who took him at his word that he
just wouldn't do this kind of thing again.

Speaker 2 (51:10):
But let's assume that the the facts are right with
regard to that that whitcof report. Let's assume that it's
all true that there are only two weeks away from
converting sixty sixty proof my terminology, I think, but sixty

(51:32):
proof into into a proper weapon only a couple of
only a couple of weeks, and in those in those
two weeks, nothing else has resolved. And so the next
thing you find out is that they've pulled a Hiroshima
on America and New York's gone down the toilet or something.

(51:54):
That's that's the reference most people make, right, what would
you how would how would you get over that in
any which way, whichever side of the argument you were ontistics.

Speaker 3 (52:09):
Of it as it were.

Speaker 4 (52:12):
Well, I mean, again, it presumes that they are the
Iranians in this case. You can you know, you talk
about other bad actor regimes around the world, current and
recent history. It presumes that they are acting a very
different way to most human beings do. So that is,

(52:33):
it presumes that they are suicidal. Right, Well, okay, that's
that's that's a fair I mean, that's a fair response.
That is a you know, that's that's sort of topic
worthy of of of serious debate. I would say that
there is no question that they that that the more

(52:53):
devout followers of the faith are willing to die for
the cause. But I don't think there's a lot of
evidence that they that the country is willing to die.
I sort of pre proactively for the cause. That is,
we're worried about them doing something to us or to Israel.

(53:16):
Now the reason they have, I mean that they have
they want nuclear weapons for two reasons.

Speaker 3 (53:23):
One that the baddest actors among them.

Speaker 4 (53:26):
Would like to have that in their back pocket in
case they thought they could get away with doing something
to Israel, or they could somehow reach America and the
American president was not up to the job and wouldn't
wipe them off the face of the earth. Right, there's
always the possibility that people are, you know, misjudging us,
just as we misjudge them. But there's also the element

(53:49):
of the regime, as there are in most such regimes,
where nuclear weapons gives them security. It's it's a secure
it's a it's a literal security blanket. It inoculates them, right,
I see one of the problems with our we told
as we go back too far. But you know when
we told the Kadaffi and Libya part of the access

(54:10):
of evil after nine to eleven, you know, give up
your give up your your bad your nasty tools and instruments,
and everything will be fine. And of course they did,
he did, and we killed him anyway. So the message,
the message for decades has been well heard around the
world in these nasty backwaters and back alleys, as it were,

(54:34):
that the own America can't be trusted, whether you think
that's true or not. We have to understand what the
bad actors are thinking. And as far as they're concerned
to a man as it were, if I may be
some politically incorrect to a man, to a government, to
a regime, they are adamant that America cannot be trusted.
And the Iranians would say, most recently, well, last summer
we were negotiating with them, they started bombing us. This

(54:56):
summer we were negotiating with them, they started to start
bombing us. All these sorts of things that have built
up their view of us, however wrong, that may be inaccurate,
that may be they believe that the only thing that
that the only thing that ensures their survival is nuclear weapons.

Speaker 3 (55:16):
They believe. It's why we don't like.

Speaker 4 (55:20):
The guy in North Korea, but we kind of leave
him alone, don't we. Why is that we don't Well,
the merits Biden installed them, uh coued the democratic who
elected prime minister of Pakistan. But we've never really done
a lot about Pakistan because what they got nuclear weapons,
don't they. We kind of let the Chinese push us
around most of the time, because well, you know, they

(55:41):
got a lot.

Speaker 3 (55:41):
Of things, including nuclear weapons.

Speaker 4 (55:43):
So the Iranians, for bad actor regimes, it's a race.

Speaker 3 (55:48):
It's a race from their point of view, a race
to survival.

Speaker 4 (55:51):
We think of it as they're racing to help then
get those weapons so they can hit us and our allies.
And as I say, some of them may be thinking
that absolutely, but for most of them, it's how quickly
can we ensure that they never attack us? Because they
know they can't. So if if we know there's two
weeks to go, it only takes one phone call to
ensure that they understand what happens. If we get the

(56:15):
slightest width that something is afoot right and you know
it's it's the mutually assured destruction that we used successfully
with the Soviet Union for a generation.

Speaker 2 (56:27):
Then then I've got to I've got to pick I
have to interrupt and pick up on this. Yeah, and
I'll utilize this quite before I forget it. But it
only takes one nuke to ruin a day.

Speaker 1 (56:43):
Now.

Speaker 2 (56:44):
The point that I'm that I was going to make, though,
is with with your with's your argument about Iran wanting
it for self defense? For instance? Why would they need it?
Why would they need it? They if they are a
peace loving country and they just want to be left alone,

(57:05):
then they will be left alone. No one's going if
they're not a threat to anybody, no one's going to
bother about them. But when you've got a when you've
got an administration that started its career back in when
was it eighty nine or ninety nine with taking over
the American embassy, and then they have killed so many

(57:30):
of their own Iranian people, and only recently for the
last episode where the numbers are unknown, but I've heard
every number from ten thousand to fifty thousand. I don't
believe the fifty, but I could accept thirty or something.
But the point being that they just go out and
wipe them out in the street with machine guns, kill

(57:51):
them their own people. What sort of government is that
does it care about its people? Obviously not so what
is this motive? And the motive is because they believe
that they it's their responsibility that Alah has been structed
them to basically take over the world.

Speaker 4 (58:14):
Well, it's it's the combination of you know, religious religious
fanaticism and then just straight human nature in terms of desire.

Speaker 3 (58:21):
For power right.

Speaker 4 (58:23):
And their their view of taking care of their people
is very different to hopefully our view of taking care
of our people.

Speaker 3 (58:32):
But I mean there is that.

Speaker 4 (58:34):
It just not to go back to that issue in
a moment later in about sort of how it is
there and what people think of it.

Speaker 3 (58:40):
There the issue of the nuclear weapons and the.

Speaker 4 (58:45):
Uh, you know, we we have we have allies with
nuclear weapons, and we have enemies with nuclear weapons, and
I've had both for a long time. No one has
attacked us or our allies with them, right, I would
suggest that's a rather strong stream of evidence that the threat,
the the known threat, the known old to mate them,

(59:08):
that they that our enemies, bad actors, have.

Speaker 3 (59:13):
Carries the day.

Speaker 4 (59:14):
So far, you know, the weight of the evidence is
in favor of those say who say that these people.

Speaker 3 (59:18):
Are not suicidal.

Speaker 4 (59:20):
Doesn't mean that none of them are suicidal, but the
ones who actually control the you know, control the button
that counts aren't. And you know it's and then when
it's so, I don't think we have to again we
have to recognize that they they are acting in their
what they believe to be their own self interest, which

(59:43):
is what everybody does accept most Western nations, right, And
part of the reason we don't do that is we
don't understand why they're acting the way they are. I
guess what I'm trying to suggest to your audience is
that we may hate everything that they do and say,
but some of the things they do and say makes
sense given who they are, in their position in the world,

(01:00:04):
their position in the Middle East, et cetera. Right, and
and and the nuclear program. This I'm not trying to suggest.
I'm not going to suggest that what I'm what I
say next is the number one reason for it. Far
from it, or that that should be the oh we
should just say, well, there's no problem then. But it
is also in a in a society that's so nationalistic,

(01:00:26):
it is a it is a it is a symbol
of national and cultural pride. Right that they that they
have something that they will have hope to have something
like that at their disposal, that they have achieved that
against all the odds.

Speaker 3 (01:00:40):
You know.

Speaker 4 (01:00:41):
So whether it's the pakistanis the North Koreans, the Chinese,
or whomever it is, the French, arguably, you know, this
is something that we we say, you know, signify symbolizes
that we count right, and that's that's another one of
the reasons why they have it but everything we're doing
is encouraging them to get there as fast as possible.

(01:01:03):
And you may say, well, they're going to want to
get as fas as possible anyway, so it doesn't matter, right.

Speaker 3 (01:01:09):
But.

Speaker 4 (01:01:11):
We you know, we don't have we have we have
no evidence that they we are say, our own in them.
I'm not suggesting that they said to us across the table,
to to Witkoff and Pushner, look, you know, we'll never
use this stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:01:26):
We're never actually going to do it. I'm not saying
that at all.

Speaker 4 (01:01:29):
What I'm saying is that our own experts said they're
not They're not going to have be able to do
this to us for a decade.

Speaker 3 (01:01:37):
I can't do it to Israel either, right. So what
Trump has.

Speaker 4 (01:01:41):
Done, and maybe he'll be proven correct in the long term,
what he's done is he said, he has said that
the military people and the nuclear people and the technical
people who we pay the big bucks to let us
know what hell's.

Speaker 3 (01:01:55):
Going on, have told me one thing.

Speaker 4 (01:01:58):
And I'm gonna go with my gut or I'm going
to go with what Pushner and Witcoff picked up.

Speaker 3 (01:02:04):
You know, Mano and Mano across the table, and we're
gonna We're gonna go for it.

Speaker 4 (01:02:08):
I mean, the Chief of the Joint Chairman of the
Juant chiefs of Staff, the head military man, presidence made
military advisor.

Speaker 3 (01:02:16):
He only could he not guarantee.

Speaker 4 (01:02:18):
He didn't even get into the regime idea, which was
never going to be achieved. But he said, I can't
guarantee you that even militarily, we're going to win this.
I mean, we should probably will, but I can't guarantee
you that we will, or how long it will last,
or how many people will die, or how much it
will cost, and all the rest of it. And you know,
it was when it's when it is, from my perspective,

(01:02:41):
a war of choice. You want to be a little
more certain and more certainty on a number of these
things before you go forward. And in one of them,
of course, is the real elephant in the room, is
the regime change business. Which because when when I woke
up on the Saturday morning here and a few hours earlier,
I guess the tax had begun, and I was reading

(01:03:02):
Trump's initial statement and he about what was going on,
and I was absolutely gobsmacked that he headlined the regime
changed part of it, because I thought, if he ended
up doing this. He would say, we kind of missed
something last summer, and those buggers are back at it again,
and we're going to go in and we're going to
take it, do what we finished the job and I

(01:03:23):
and fair.

Speaker 3 (01:03:23):
Enough, Okay, let's hope that works and all the rest
of it.

Speaker 4 (01:03:26):
But he actually headlined regime change, and that's been central
to most of the explanations and the answers to what
are we what the heck are we doing there?

Speaker 3 (01:03:35):
And then that presumes, of course.

Speaker 4 (01:03:38):
That the people in Iran, if you bomb them enough,
they will welcome you as liberators and want to overthrow
their government. Maybe they should, but that's in human history.
That doesn't happen very often, right. Uh, you know, we
could bomb them into liberation. This is this is this

(01:03:59):
is our argument actually yea, And of course it's not
our argument. Argue against myself for a moment, because what
we were saying, what we were thinking, we weren't thinking
we'd have to bomb them into liberation. We were thinking
we'd kill the top guys, the people we'd identified as
the people we could quote unquote work with, would take over.
The people would rise up in happiness, and it would

(01:04:20):
all be over by Sunday night, Monday morning, stock market's good, everybody,
you know, Bang, we're in, We're out.

Speaker 3 (01:04:26):
Iran has been has been saved. Israel has been saved.
We've been saved.

Speaker 4 (01:04:31):
Because we didn't understand, bizarrely, we didn't understand Iranian political culture.
Why Iranians, of our Iranians protesting against their regime the
prior to the war. Yes, why because they want to
overthrow the Eye tone and all of that. No, some do,
most don't. It's because the economy sucks and the standard

(01:04:54):
of living has been going down for some time, partly
because the the the Eye tollers can't you know, they
can't manage their way out of a wet paper bag,
and also because the sanctions that we've got on them.

Speaker 3 (01:05:03):
The point of the sanctions.

Speaker 4 (01:05:04):
Is to is to squeeze harder and harder on the
people till they up. Well, the people haven't risen up,
but they are mad as hell, both at us and
at their rules that they can't have a decent, decent economy.
But being upset about your economic situation is a million
miles from being willing to take up arms to overthrow

(01:05:25):
the regime.

Speaker 3 (01:05:26):
And you know, do. What those American bombers are you know,
helping us do?

Speaker 4 (01:05:32):
So, you know, every which way, we've just completely misread it.
And so we've made what was always going to be
a really tough lift, a really heavy lift, into so
much harder than it was always going to be anyway,
making it sort of from an improbability. I would say,
if you said to me the day before we're going
to start this tomorrow, how probable is it that we succeed?

(01:05:54):
I would say it was improbable. What it's possible, assuming
that we had it all planned out, We had, you know,
all kinds of backups, we had all the all the.

Speaker 3 (01:06:03):
Externalities and all the ripples on the pond. We foresaw those
and we knew what we would do. But it turns
out we didn't, right.

Speaker 4 (01:06:09):
I mean, Trump's been quite open about the fact that
we didn't expect them to fight back. He's actually said
that we just they just thought that we're just not
they expect does expect them to bomb American bases? They
didn't expect them to close the Straight of hor moves.
They didn't expect them.

Speaker 2 (01:06:26):
I'm sure that her moves was was on the list.

Speaker 3 (01:06:30):
Oh well, okay, here's the thing.

Speaker 4 (01:06:31):
Well, yes, it was just yesterday late that Trump's press
secretary said that, So they had to do this because
they knew that the straight of horror moves would be closed.
Why would it be closed, Well, because if they were attacked,
they would close it. So we attacked them and they
closed it, right. I mean, the fact that his press
secretary can't make a good case for it doesn't mean

(01:06:52):
there isn't a good case for it out there.

Speaker 3 (01:06:54):
But I'm just saying that. It's it's just it's it's it's.

Speaker 4 (01:06:57):
Symptomatic of how we just haven't we just haven't thought
this out at all, right, and then now the world
is being held hostage economically, or it looks like will
be held hostage economically, And it's so the the ripples
on the pond, it's like it's going to be a
tsunami if we don't pull the plug on this. And

(01:07:20):
it's again, it's all by choice, none of this.

Speaker 3 (01:07:23):
Obviously.

Speaker 4 (01:07:23):
If you think that there were five minutes away from
bombing New York, you know that's that, I mean, were
you know, you you go with that and you deal
with the consequences for those of us who don't, for
those of us who don't. The consequences were never entirely predictable,
but largely predictable, and now we all have to live

(01:07:44):
with them.

Speaker 2 (01:07:46):
It seems all right, So let me ask you respectfully
for a for a short answer to this question. Uh,
what you've just described is that arguably an equivalent in
today's in today's world to Troy and the horse.

Speaker 4 (01:08:08):
I think it's actually, you know, at the top of
my head, I would say, in in the the goal
of brevity here that you suggested I employ, I would
say that that's a that's a that's a pretty good
might be a bit crue, but it's a pretty good analogy. Again,
it's that, you know, making the most of your weaker
hand and not just saying not just saying, okay, there's

(01:08:32):
no way we can beat you militarily, which is true
because after all, as you say, as you said earlier,
late and come come, push, comes to shop, we just
knew them right and they know that. But we actually
are not going to just put our cards down. You
take our chips and that's it. We're actually going to
make this a fight. We're going to make this because
the goal for them they survive, that they win by surviving.

(01:08:55):
As I said earlier, their survival is based on keeping
on extending this as long as possible, because you know,
because counterintuitively, the way it works out militarily, nukes aside
is that we they can last. We can't last anything
like as long as they can in terms of lobbing
bombs at each other. Uh, And so as long as

(01:09:17):
they can do that, we're in a We're in a
tough spot and the world's in a tough spot. So yeah,
I think the I think they have they have out
forced us, out strategized us, and that is being good
for them, and give them some points on that front.
But I mean, it's it's really really embarrassing and really,

(01:09:43):
you know, unimpressive.

Speaker 2 (01:09:45):
From a man who was a Trump supporter. So what
you're doing is being honest and stating that as you
as you see it, and I admire.

Speaker 3 (01:09:55):
That, well, I appreciate that latter.

Speaker 2 (01:09:58):
And you're not even bothered with the fact that I
won't speak to you ever.

Speaker 3 (01:10:00):
Again, Well, it bothers me, but not that much.

Speaker 4 (01:10:04):
So look, if you're if missus producer stuff speaking to me,
then that will be more on different level then you also.

Speaker 2 (01:10:14):
Okay, yeah, now I'm we've overshot a bit. I'm now
trying to limit limit my or restrict my interviews to
about forty five to fifty minutes, but I make exception
for you. I've got one other question on another little matter, sure,

(01:10:36):
because it intrigues me and I get asked this quite
a bit now. The battles that are going on in
American politics, in Republican politics, the margat battles, if you
call them whatever you want, you know to which I refer,
and they're ghastly horrible. And the things that people are,

(01:10:59):
things that people who I shall we say, followed in
a shallow sort of a way. Who who have I've
had respect for just off the planet. The hatred is unbelievable.
What's going on?

Speaker 4 (01:11:21):
Well, it's some of the negative sides of human nature
are on display, aren't they?

Speaker 3 (01:11:27):
Just because we know, just.

Speaker 4 (01:11:28):
Because people are high profile, successful, well off, whatever, influential,
doesn't mean that they aren't buggers when it comes to
getting into it with people. And it's definitely, I mean,
on both sides of this war, there are prominent people
who have been lobbing rhetorical bombs and very personal ones
at one another.

Speaker 3 (01:11:48):
At this point, I can't don't.

Speaker 4 (01:11:50):
I haven't been involved in it, and I've only been
a sort of indirect victim.

Speaker 3 (01:11:57):
Of some of it more recently.

Speaker 4 (01:12:00):
But I got to know who started what, because it
depends on which two, four, six, eight people you're talking about.

Speaker 3 (01:12:05):
But yeah, really really.

Speaker 4 (01:12:06):
Prominent supporters of the president, whether in the media or
academia or you know, and social media, podcasts, etcetera.

Speaker 3 (01:12:14):
Independent media.

Speaker 4 (01:12:16):
I've just been going at one another leather and tongue,
you know, since before the war started, and it's just
got worse and worse ever since. And we're seeing this,
you know, our most recent poll, right, we're really drilled
down on Republican voters how they classified themselves and based
on that, and how they thought of how they saw

(01:12:38):
the war pose or support. And you know, it's and
it's really quite striking because you're your newer Trump voters,
the people who came on in twenty four because of
Kennedy and gabbartt the younger minority, more working class, more independent,
never voted before, either because they were too young or
just never thought there's anyone worth voting for. Those folks

(01:13:02):
who made the difference for Trump's picture over Harris, those
are the ones who are the most disappointed, not the
only ones who disappointed, but they are the most disappointed.

Speaker 3 (01:13:10):
And because their political attachment.

Speaker 4 (01:13:14):
Was only to Trump, not to the Republican Party, and
to Trump it was only one time, they're the ones
who are peeling away. They're the ones going to be
very hard to get back. They're the ones that may
not shop in the midterms, may not shop in three
years time for the presidency.

Speaker 3 (01:13:28):
You know. It's so it's.

Speaker 5 (01:13:30):
Your your older, your boomers, your your your Republican voters
who watch you know, legacy television, read the New York Times,
watching Post.

Speaker 4 (01:13:41):
Those folks are very supportive of this. But the younger
and more alternative media consumers, they're the ones who are
most opposed on the Republican side. And it's it's a
huge problem for the Republicans with just you know, several

(01:14:01):
months until the midterm elections.

Speaker 2 (01:14:04):
Indeed, speaking of such things. And finally, you have been
in the habit of going to the Middle East in
about six months time that time of the year for
the last few years. How's it looking for twenty six
in terms of going.

Speaker 4 (01:14:20):
Yeah, I mean, if if it's it's it's a it's held.

Speaker 3 (01:14:25):
In the thing I go to.

Speaker 4 (01:14:26):
The investment conference is held in read in Saudi Arabia,
so it'll be I don't at this point, I don't know.
We know, we just don't know where things will be.
I mean, if if they put it on, I will
I will.

Speaker 3 (01:14:38):
You know, if they do that, I will go. If
they really they really they rebuild it, I will go.

Speaker 4 (01:14:42):
And of course it's interesting here because the Saudis have
been the Crown Prince has apparently been one of the
strongest voices in favor of not only doing this, but
of doubling down in Trump's ear since since it kicked off.
So it just shows you how successful, for my point
of view, perversity, but how successful Trump was in his

(01:15:03):
first term and in his first year of his second
term isolating a rand from Golf States and the Kingdoms
and getting them more aligned with Israel and further and
further away from Iran, which is all good news from
my point of view.

Speaker 2 (01:15:20):
So there is actually one more thing that I needed
to ask you, or I'd be in trouble. The Iranian
soccer team in Australia. There was a question about whether
they should stay in Australia or not. Trump notified Albanesi
that if Australia didn't do it, America would, But he
said you should do it, or you must do it

(01:15:42):
or I don't know whether he made any threats. But
in the end, and it didn't take long, alban Easy
approved it. Now what's happened since, and I'm not giving
you this in necessarily the right order, but what's happened
since is that the number of them, and I think
there were at least nine who were in Sydney, the

(01:16:06):
number of them is now down to two. And by
the time that this gets broadcast it may well be nothing.
And that's because, well, can you guess why.

Speaker 4 (01:16:18):
Well, they hail from a country with a very nasty
regime that acts badly towards not just many foreigners but
many of its own people.

Speaker 3 (01:16:27):
So you know they are there.

Speaker 4 (01:16:29):
They are a constant negative externality. They are a cost
of this war, in this case inflicted by their own side.

Speaker 2 (01:16:38):
Right, So, how could anybody support a government like that?
How could anybody think that that administration, which got there
by foul means in the first place, should be allowed
to continue?

Speaker 3 (01:16:50):
Well, it's the old story.

Speaker 4 (01:16:52):
You know. If we it's hard for us sometimes it's
hard for us to say, my god, how do those
Canadians be how can those Canadians be so stupid? Or
those New Zealanders, you know, depending on who they do
or don't vote for, or whether they protest or not
about certain peace of legislation. But we we usually don't
even bother to think why it is that people do

(01:17:12):
or don't do things in other countries, particularly countries that
are you know, renowned for their repression. You know, most
you know, you know most most people didn't say boo
in Hitler's Germany.

Speaker 3 (01:17:23):
Most people didn't say boo in the Soviet Union.

Speaker 4 (01:17:26):
I'm sure far more people keep quiet than say anything
in Iran, you know, for for for the same reasons,
historical reasons. There's are this thread runs throughout history. But
that is that is different the whether the regime is
a good one or not. It's totally different, in my view,

(01:17:46):
from what we do about it. The we don't we
don't like them. I don't think it. I think history
tells us in recent history that it makes no sense.
In fact, it's incredibly costly to all of us when
we say they're bad, they don't like us. If we can,
we should change their government, right because it usually doesn't

(01:18:08):
work out. And one of the many reasons that US
doesn't work out is the people themselves aren't either keen
on the type of government we think they should have,
because we all think they should have governments like our governments.

Speaker 2 (01:18:22):
Obviously, well, actually, no, give I'd give them, give them
something better.

Speaker 3 (01:18:29):
Yeah, well, indeed, right, there's that.

Speaker 4 (01:18:32):
And then there's the fact that if your if your country, know, if.

Speaker 3 (01:18:36):
America or New Zealand was under attack.

Speaker 4 (01:18:41):
From another from another a bad actor, it's unlikely that
most of us, no matter what we thought of our
current leadership, would say, my god, yes, you know, come
here liberatus.

Speaker 3 (01:18:54):
You know, it's just not how right or wrong.

Speaker 4 (01:18:56):
It's just not how human beings respond to being blown up. Right,
It's just it just doesn't. It just doesn't play out
that way, you know, almost all of the time. And
when you get to the the you know, whether there
were murmurs straight away that the Iranians you know, shouldn't
be at the World Cup, and whether they would want
to be there, all this.

Speaker 3 (01:19:15):
Sort of thing.

Speaker 4 (01:19:16):
And I mean, my big picture response on this surprise
to you or not late in is I'm completely against
any of this use of politics when it comes to sports.
I'm against the anti racism campaigns, not because I'm pro racism,
because I don't think it has a place. I think
it starts, it gets very difficult, it makes all kinds
of problems. And so the day that the Russians invaded Ukraine,

(01:19:41):
I wrote a piece for the Epoch Times arguing against
the bands on Russian players in the National Hockey League
and you know, making Chelsea's Russian owners sell the club
and all this kind of thing, because what it only
does it make a mess of everything, But what it
always demonstrates historically is how unbelievably hypocritical we are, what

(01:20:02):
double standards we have, because we always employ these heavy
handed tactics on athletics and sports and general when they
suit us, and other times it's fine, we just ignore
it completely. You know, we have Olympic Games in Beijing.
That's fine because for one reason or another we don't
like to talk about We think we're better off for that.

Speaker 3 (01:20:22):
But you know, we.

Speaker 4 (01:20:22):
Can't do this here or that there, or they can't participate,
and it's really arbitrary and it's really naked crude politics,
and I don't think it neither serves us well, nor
does it look good on us?

Speaker 2 (01:20:33):
Patrick Well said, appreciate it again and thank you, thank you, Ladon.

(01:20:54):
I went to the mail room for number three hundred
and twenty with missus producer. Good morning, hi Layton, how
are you or good evening wherever you are. I'm very well,
thank you. In fact, after a very good night's sleep,
I feel even even better. It's the morning of podcasts
released number three hundred and twenty. You're an example of
how how quickly time flies.

Speaker 6 (01:21:16):
I don't need an example.

Speaker 2 (01:21:17):
I'll give it to you. Do you remember this is
three twenty. Do you remember when we got to three hundred?
You go, wow? Who who would have thought? Well? That
was if you want twenty podcasts available? Podcast back. But
it's been longer than that because we haven't been you know,
that was during the summer period and what have you.

(01:21:39):
But nevertheless, it's it's just flashing by. I'm sure as
I'm sure President Trump is finding Yes, now, why don't
you lead?

Speaker 6 (01:21:49):
Laydon Dennis has written to you about the COVID inquiry.
He says the COVID Inquirer should raise serious questions about
Chris Hipkins leadership. So he starts by saying before you
read the report below, I feel it important for you
to read my submission to the Commission that, like other
were ignored.

Speaker 2 (01:22:10):
It is particularly.

Speaker 6 (01:22:11):
Galling to know about a huge amount of overseas research
that highlights the damage the jabs have done that.

Speaker 2 (01:22:17):
We are ignoring.

Speaker 6 (01:22:18):
Even though I had forwarded this to many MPs, I
understand acc have paid out millions to JAB injured people.
As a retired pharmacist, I became aware in twenty twenty
one of a significant number of overseas medical experts who
were questioning the safety and efficacy of the jabs. Remember

(01:22:39):
it is important to understand these jabs of gene therapy
and not like traditional vaccines, so using the term vaccine
to describe them as misleading. Concerned with what I was discovering,
I immediately set about to send details of opinions and
research to a number of members of Parliament, but sadly
just a handful personally acknowledged my efforts. The extensive information

(01:23:03):
I submitted continues to today and includes significance scientific articles
and expert opinions. It is concerning to me that publicly
there was little or no debate, and all we heard
from the government and most media outlets that the jabs
were safe and effective. Debate and review of information is

(01:23:24):
a critical part of scientific research. The fact that the
Pfizer contract details were not made public was also of concern,
especially as I believe under the emergency use only conditioned
conditions that were applied, alternative therapies like immune boosting products
and ivermectin were not allowed to be talked about. A

(01:23:47):
couple of years ago, I read Robert Kennedy Junior's book
The Real Anthony Fautschi and the Likelihood that the virus
came from gain of function research in the Wuhan Laboratory
with funding coming from the USA, where this research had
been outlawed for very ethical reasons. It has been very
clear that authorities and politicians are refusing to take a

(01:24:08):
seat serious look at the adverse effects of acting many people.
It is noteworthy that in the UK the government has
paid up to one hundred thousand pounds to some JAB
injured people. I am sadden that it seems authorities and
politicians and the media are trying to cover up what
I believe has been a very significant failure to do

(01:24:29):
the right thing. Unlike the way the Swedish government approached
the problem. Continuing to cover this up is a real
travesty of justice and I sincerely hope that those responsible
will be held accountable and they will be forced to
reveal any behind the scenes money they received as incentives.
And that's from Dennis, retired pharmacist.

Speaker 2 (01:24:50):
Dennis. That was brilliant actually, and while Carolyn was reading that,
I was sitting looking at a headline from the Epic Times.
Inquiry praises Adirn's COVID response that would be the biggest
joke of the century. And then it goes on and
says whilst out again, Inquiry praises and Dern's COVID response,

(01:25:12):
but says New Zealand is still bruised and divided. What
a cop out, and that's why inquiries not infrequently useless.
There was a There is a cowardice amongst people who
sit on their on their benches, I think in many cases. Anyway, now,

(01:25:33):
Claire Rights, your interview with Robert McCulloch was enlightening. The
New Zealand Constitution is not worth the paper it isn't
printed on. It's much like the Red Queen and says
it could mean anything that you wanted to mean. What
He's announced recently that it was closing several frozen food factories.
One reason cited was high compliance costs in New Zealand.

(01:25:56):
Not said was our high minimum wage, which can be
crippling for companies, and also the many holidays and sick days.
Here I go along with the latter. Certainly, several years
ago a friend with a small business said he had
to pay his workers for about forty days before they
earned him a cent. And that was before Matta riki,

(01:26:18):
which I'm in favor of. But only if another holiday
such as the King's Birthday is removed, more and more
businesses will close in the years ahead, pushing more and
more bright kiwis off shore did. When was the last
time that there was a comparison drawn study, a comparison

(01:26:39):
study between New Zealand and Australia and incomes wages, how
things work in this regard and why one is better
than the other. Mind you, they're not doing quite so
flashly at the moment, Claire, thank you appreciated.

Speaker 6 (01:26:57):
Layton Colin says he starts actually with a quote, and
the quote is you can crucify freedom, but the human
soul knows no shackles. These words, says Co addressed to
the Soviet socialist elite, accurately described the absence of fundamental
freedoms for people living in the nineteen seventies. In the
USSR Union of Soviet Socialist Republics protest artists, Julian Oleg

(01:27:23):
wrote these words on a public building in Leningrad in
nineteen seventy five, and saying this truth contributed to each
writer receiving prison terms of over five years in labor camps.
In twenty twenty six, as we prepare to vote in
our general election, let's embrace the fact we live in
a Western democracy. We are not under the autocratic rule

(01:27:46):
of a socialist elite as the USSR was in the
nineteen seventies. In New Zealand, our style of democracy gives
us the best opportunity of any political system to use
our freedom to express our human soul.

Speaker 2 (01:28:00):
Beautifully written, who was that, Colin? Colin? I sort of
found myself saying no, I don't quite agree with that
A couple of times through there, For instance, can you
read the bit about the last bit?

Speaker 3 (01:28:12):
Again?

Speaker 2 (01:28:12):
I do agree.

Speaker 6 (01:28:13):
In New Zealand our style of democracy, our style of
democracy gives us the best opportunity of any political system
to use our freedom to express our human soul.

Speaker 2 (01:28:24):
Okay, so where was that during the lockdown? That's my point.
It comes with limits, or it comes with it comes
with abuse.

Speaker 6 (01:28:35):
Well, Colin does say the best opportunity, Well not every opportunity.

Speaker 2 (01:28:40):
Okay, there's room for improvement, and I think we all
know that, don't we. Very interesting discussion, Thanks Layton. With
Robert McCulloch writes, Noel, I still struggle with the AML
impositions on innocent citizens while gangs etc. Continue to well
continue with the illegal drug trade. I think Robert may

(01:29:01):
have misunderstood your question about who was responsible for the
sudden emphasis on banks providing cash facilities because his response
related to digital currency. While I accept there are downsides
with a digital currency, there could be some benefits if
it could be used in conjunction with retaining separate bank accounts.

(01:29:22):
As I recall, Robert talked about the ABNZ check accounts,
whereas my interest is in savings accounts. During the COVID era,
Reserve Bank of New Zealand was paying interest on funds
that banks lodged with the RBNZ, as well as offering
low interest borrowing facilities. According to Dr Google, they still

(01:29:46):
pay the OCR on deposits the big banks make That
is way better than us me immortals can get for
on call deposits with the banks. Kiwibank is probably the
best of the major safe banks at one point five percent,
but well short of the ocr's two point twenty five percent.
You've got me confused with the kiwibank and one point

(01:30:09):
I'm getting a massive one point eight at the moment
on a term deposit one point eight Who would have thought,
anyway if the RBNZ digital account gave us the same
facilities as they provided the big banks, including on call
savings accounts, it would be worthwhile if we could choose
the facilities we want without being committed to use RBNZ

(01:30:33):
for everything. Go along with that. To illustrate the concept
at present, I use Kiwi Bank for most on call
savings and then transfer the funds to Westpac to make payments.
I might be a bit short in information, but I
don't quite get the purpose of that. Noel, if you
feel like it, give me more and missus producer, would

(01:30:58):
you like to have a look at that one?

Speaker 6 (01:31:02):
Malcolm says, We so look forward to Wednesdays and your
excellent podcasts. Really enjoy listening to tonight's guest and would
love to know what as an economist, Professor Robert thinks
about government's printing money. To me, it is theft from
hardworking folk who have money in the bank as it
waters its value down. It should be illegal, as I'm

(01:31:22):
damn sure I'd be put in jail if I did it.
I understand Grant Robertson printed millions of dollars when he
was Minister of Finance. I wonder if this coalition does
it too. Thank you again for your wonderful podcasts. That's
from Malcolm.

Speaker 2 (01:31:36):
Malcolm, very nice of you. That's been happening for a
long time. Of course, not a lot has changed, except
the extent to which some governments extend themselves or to themselves.
Even and finally, when Robert McCulloch said that national and
labor are full of chums, I cast my mind back

(01:31:56):
to May last year when he decided to shut down
his earth Kiwi blog due to threats from National Labor
and big business New Zealand Incorporated, such as big bank,
supermarkets and building firm I Reckon. The pressure was so
intense that it probably caused occasional wobbles in the way
he carried himself. What I do like about Robert McCulloch

(01:32:17):
is that he speaks his mind and he doesn't care
who might be offended, whether the left or the right.
It's part of the process in seeking truths, and I
agree with that completely. There is a bit of an
ideological civil war for truce going on in the center
right lately with prominent figures and raised I raised this

(01:32:38):
in the discussion today, of course, with Patrick, with prominent
figures like Ben Shapiro, Douglas, Murray Tucker, Carlson, Candas Owens,
and Megan Kelly, all verbally sparring, vehemently, high conviction. Robust
debates are healthy because out of the ashes of the
debates emerges the real truth. Well sometimes, but they just

(01:33:00):
need to be careful not to inadvertently turn into new
leftists by employing leftist tactics such as the platform, hate speech,
and the suppression of truth. When truth is surrounded by lies,
we need to fight real hard to get to it.
Roll on election promises, you know, going back to that

(01:33:21):
list Missus producer, Ben Shapiro, Douglas Murray, Tucker, Carlson, Candace Owens,
Meghan Kelly. Megan Kelly was the I'd have to say,
was the least of them to me, because she was
I don't know, she wasn't she wasn't really there all
the time. But they're all they've all been sparring, they've

(01:33:42):
all been pitching about each other, and they're all being
unkind about each other. To put it politely, this producer
gets a bit offended if I use some language. And
I have to say, the only ones that I still
have any faith in Ben Shapiro, Douglas Murray, full stop,

(01:34:04):
Tucker Carlson when he was on Fox, I thought was great.
I think it's I think he's gone slightly crazy. Slightly
might be an understatement. And Megan Kelly and Candace are ones.
I'm sorry. I mean when she was declined entry into
New Zealand, she was, wasn't she and it was canceled,
her visit was canceled. I was not paying a great

(01:34:26):
deal of attention to her, and I thought, well, that's
a bit rough. Spent a bit of time listening to
her these days, and you think maybe it was a
good thing. Nevertheless, free speech is free speech versus producer.
Thank you, Layton, thank you for yours. Thank you, and
we'll see you next week. Layton Smith to conclude podcasts

(01:34:55):
three hundred and twenty. I said at the beginning that
I was going to add some further on the war,
and there are two things to bring together. One is
that I asked Patrick yesterday a question about new clear
device and whether that could put paid to the war
once and for all. Would it happen or is it likely?
And he gave us a good answer. Then I was

(01:35:17):
looking for something else when I came across in my
list on the computer, I came across Martin Armstrong's site,
and as I do on occasions, I had a good
look at it because I hadn't seen it for I
don't know, a couple of weeks. And out of that
came something that I thought was very interesting, starting with

(01:35:40):
the fact that the headline was Iran's war tactics and
risk of nuclear war. So what I want to do is,
because he answers questions on a daily basis for his client,
tele is quote you this question and then have a
look at it, and I probably should edit it, but
I'll just read it as it all is. Question is well,

(01:36:04):
it looks like David Sachs has publicly stated that there
can be nuclear war if Israel runs out of AMMO
and is on the verge of being defeated. You warned
about this. You have not commented on whether Netunya, who
is dead, or if Iran has sunk an American destroyer.
The supreme leader they killed had agreed no nuclear weapon

(01:36:24):
and said that was against his religion, which is bes
of course, it seems Netnya, who is the dark evil
in the mix, who is intentionally leading the world into
the end times, nobody has contacts like you, nor are
they as objective. Would you address these questions? Signed Frank T.

(01:36:47):
And here is some Armstrong's answer. There is no question
that Ai is complicating everything. I do not believe Nettnya,
who is dead. I've said he's a very dark soul
and a staunch neocon who wants the destruction of Iran.
No matter what, there is no way Israel would admit
that Netnya who is dead publicly or that would create panic,

(01:37:10):
to say the least. The same is true about Iran
reporting that they didn't sink A destroyed. There's no way
that the Pentagon will publicly admit to that. Either we
know that Iran has amassed a major stockpile of ballistic
missiles and drones, and they would use them to overwhelm
the Israeli defense, pushing them to the point that they

(01:37:30):
are running out of interceptors. They can inflict massive economic
losses on Israel and strike at the very heart of
their morale. Let's make one thing. Let's make one thing clear.
The neocons in league with NETTNYA, who have pushed Trump
into this war with the promise it will be short
and sweet. It it's always the same scenario. Even look

(01:37:53):
at Vietnam. President Lyndon B. Johnson was not told the
war would be brief. When he committed the first ground
troops in nineteen sixty five, he stated the initial deployment
would last only about six months. There was zero planning
for the closing of the Strait of Hillmus. Of course,
they knew this would be a choke point. The problem

(01:38:14):
is that they assumed that they would score an easy,
fast victory. Granted, they struck some seven thousand targets and
have degraded Iran's conventional capabilities. However, a single terrorist with
a shoulder mounted missile can take out a ship. Iran
has been reduced to missile Iran has been reduced to

(01:38:34):
missile warfare, terrorism, activating terrorist cells, and cyber warfare. Even
with Iraq taking down the leadership did not end the war.
General Jack Keane WARN's US cannot secure straits of her
moves alone as Iran tension surge. While President Trump wants

(01:38:55):
NATO allies to join the fight to keep the straight open,
mostly rejecting his call like Australia, I'll move on, Secretary
of State Marco Rubio has directed US diplomats around the
world to urge foreign governments to move expeditiously to diminish
the capabilities of Iran and iran Alian terrorist groups from

(01:39:16):
attacking our respective nations and citizens. Close quote, Armstrong ads
this war is by no means going to be brief.
Then moves on to economic warfare, which I won't touch.
And from there the part that does matter. For the
sake of this part of the conversation, the question becomes,

(01:39:38):
at what point will Netanyahu push the button? Will he
even tell Trump in advance? But Armstrong rights, I have
studied history intently. He has actually the only way to
achieve peace is that you must listen to the other
side's demands for their security. This is why NATO and
the EU refuse to come to terms with Russia, because

(01:39:59):
they refuse to listen to what security concerns Russia has
regarding Ukraine. Here with Iran, why they're rejecting a cease
fire is simple. There is no negotiation whatsoever that listens
to their concerns. They have articulated that the US should
close all bases and exit the Middle East. I think
you would sooner see John Bolton's head spin around whilst

(01:40:21):
viewing out of green fluid. The solution is not that hard.
All the Golf states where the US has bases have
proven that instead of providing security, they become targets. They
have not benefited from having these bases, and now they
stand in the way of peace. So how do we
get around this problem? Those Golf states must retake their

(01:40:43):
sovereignty over those bases and guarantee that they will not
be used to launch future attacks on a run without
their permission. The US keeps the bases, but they cannot
operate unilaterally, as is the case in Europe. The only
way to ensure lasting peace is that Israel must accept
a Palestinian state. This has been even voted for in

(01:41:04):
the United Nations. The only reason it does not take
place is because of the United States. Unless this is done,
it's hard to see how there can ever be a
lasting peace. This has been the primary reason why letnya
who has wanted to overthrow Iran. He assumes that the

(01:41:24):
elimination of Iran will prevent any Palestinian state. Let's face
the facts. Unless some states is established, there is no
hope of ending terrorism and war. Now, I disagree with
much of what he's said. What I've just read very
good with economics than some other things. But in this

(01:41:46):
particular case, I think he's missing well, I think he's
missing the signs. But I could be wrong. What would
I know compared with him with his backup and information
and machinery and all sorts of things. But I still
don't agree with much of what I just read. Just
to confirm it, take us out for podcast number three

(01:42:10):
hundred twenty if you would like to write to us
Latent at newstalksb dot co dot Nz Carolyn at NEWSTALKSIB
dot co dot Nz. We shall return shortly with podcasts
number three hundred and twenty one. In the meantime, thank
you for listening, and why don't you send us a note.

Speaker 1 (01:42:34):
Thank you for more from NEWSTALKSB, Listen live on air
or online, and keep our shows with you wherever you
go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio.

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Leighton Smith Podcast #320 - March 18th 2026 - Patrick Basham

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Leighton Smith Podcast #320 - March 18th 2026 - Patrick Basham