6/16/25: Missiles Rain In Israel & Iran, Dave Smith Says Impeach Trump, US On Brink Of Joining Iran War

Krystal and Saagar discuss missiles rain down in Iran and Israel, Dave Smith says impeach Trump over Iran, US on the brink of offensive bombing.

 

To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.com

Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election,
and we are so excited about what that means for
the future of this show.

Speaker 1 (00:08):
This is the only place where you can find honest
perspectives from the left and the right that simply does
not exist anywhere else.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
So if that is something that's important to you, please
go to Breakingpoints dot com. Become a member today and
you'll access to our full shows, unedited, ad free, and
all put together for you every morning in your inbox.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
We need your help to build the future of independent
news media and we hope to see you at Breakingpoints
dot com. Good morning, everybody, Happy Monday. We have an
extraordinary show for everybody today. We're largely going to be
focusing with the conflict of Israel and Iran our involvement.
We've got a lot of guests here in the show.

Speaker 3 (00:42):
So what do we have today?

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Go Yeah, We're going to look at this from every angle.
We're going to break down for you the very latest.
There was some significant strikes inside of Israel yesterday. We'll
show you some of that damage and what we can
say about where we are with regard to the conflict.
Very late latest in terms of statements from Trump. We're
also going to have Dave Smith join us for a
couple of blocks to talk about the possibility that this
is not just about Iran's nuclear program, that this is

(01:06):
in out and out regime change program. You've got a
number of members of Congress, Republican members of Congress calling
for precisely fat We're also going to look at the
likelihood or potential that the US, which is already supporting
Israel in attacking Iran, is going to get even more
directly involved. So we'll try to evaluate exactly where we
are with that. With Dave Smith, We're also going to

(01:28):
be very fortunate to be joined by Dan Caldwell. Now,
Dan was previously at the Pentagon under Pete Hegseth. He
was pushed down under extraordinary circumstances, but he is a
true insider, you know, would have a lot of insight
into the conversations that were happening behind the scenes about
negotiations with Iran. I want to talk to him about
you know, we now have reporting that at least some

(01:49):
of that diplomacy was effectively a ruse. How long has
that been a ruse? Were they serious? About it at all,
So there's a lot we want to get to. I
also want to ask him about some of that internal
termoi oil as much as he can tell us, while
you know, he's got legal limits of what exactly he
can say, but extraordinary to get to speak with him,
and we're looking forward to that. We're going to take
a look at some of the MAGA infighting and reaction

(02:13):
and also have a great clip from Tim Dillan a
little bit of levity.

Speaker 4 (02:16):
Yeah yeah, here, yeah, levity.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
But you know, one of the important things about pop
culture in the year two thousand and three is that,
by and large, you know, save for like the punk community,
most of the American media was on the side, including
pop culture, of the US War in Iraq, and it
took several years for it to turn against that. So
as we are on the brink of possibly our own interval,

(02:38):
I mean we're already you know, intervening in some respects,
but full on offensive interact involvement, it's important to check
in with pop culture taste makers and others and get
a lay of the land in this new media environment.
Be like, okay, like who people are listening to, how
do they feel about it? Because that's vitally important, especially
because Tim, by his own admission, was an Iraq war supporter.
Although I think you wes, I didn't realize, he said.

(03:00):
I think he is like high on percocet and selling
cars or something at the time. But yeah, that's Kyle's story.

Speaker 2 (03:07):
The two of them, Kim bond over that he was
anti Iraq wars, but the high on perkset and the car.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
Dealership, so before we it might have been mortgages. I
forget exactly before we get to that. Thank you everybody.
I know that during conflict with a lot of influx,
which is deeply appreciate it. So many, you know, thousands
of you signed up at Breakingpoints dot com for our
monthly free trial. That free trial is over. You can
still join to support our show. It's what enabled you know,
all of our weekend coverage and more. Team has been

(03:34):
working literally around the clock ever since the outbreak of conflict.
I anticipate that will probably be the case now for
some weeks, months, years, unfortunately. So let's go ahead and
update everybody on what has happened in the last seventy
two hours.

Speaker 2 (03:46):
Yeah, one quick update before we jump in. One other
small piece of good news. They found the suspect in
Minnesota killing an attack of killing of one lawmaker attack
on another lawmaker. After a multi day manhunt, they were
able to apprehend him pretty close to his home. Residents
saw him on a trail camera and so they were
able to send in drones and locate him and apprehend him.

(04:08):
So a little bit of good news before we jump
into the war here.

Speaker 4 (04:12):
All right.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
That being said, let's go ahead and put some of
these images up on the screen. This is some of
the fallout from attacks lobby at Israel from Iran. So
these are images from inside of Israel.

Speaker 4 (04:26):
You can see some direct strikes here.

Speaker 2 (04:29):
Obviously they have iron dome and dome and other ways
of intercepting some of the missile barrage, but quite a
number we're able still to get through. You know, we're
somewhat limited in being able to assess specifically the damage
within Israel. They try to keep under wraps some of
the extent of the damage. Will give you an example
of that in just a moment. But while the hits

(04:50):
inflicted on Iran appear to be much more significant, Israel
has taken damage. Let's go ahead and put the next
images up on the screen. These are coming from Iran specifically,
a number of these are from Tehran. Over the past
several days, as this war has been ongoing, Israel of
course launching an aggressive, illegal, unprovoked series of strikes on

(05:14):
Iran to kick off this war with the support of
the US. Here you can see an apartment building that
was targeted. We know that there were a number of
assassinations both of military political leaders in Iran as well
as some nuclear scientists, and you can see, you know,
some of the catastrophic damage that we have quite a

(05:35):
number of civilians who've been killed in Iran. At this point,
let's go ahead and go to the next piece. As
I said, the damage in Iran appears to be much
more significant, both in terms of the death toll and
the you know, the the damage they've been.

Speaker 4 (05:49):
Able to exact.

Speaker 2 (05:51):
However, there have been some significant strikes within Israel. Let's
go ahead and take a look at Trey Ynks, the
Fox News reporter, has been doing a great job on
the ground there trying to cover exactly what is unfolding.
Talking about one of the early strikes that hit the
equivalent of Israel's Pentagon, and you'll see that there's a
quick intervention from Israeli there on the scene to try

(06:13):
to block this information from getting out.

Speaker 4 (06:15):
Let's take a look at that.

Speaker 5 (06:16):
The Iranians have responded with three waves of ballistic missiles.
This is Israel's version of the Pentagon, the Kuria, and
the building on this compound was.

Speaker 4 (06:26):
Just hit back go back base.

Speaker 5 (06:29):
You can understand here it's very tense at this specific
location because the Iranians are now targeting the defense establishment
of Israel. And so I'm gonna have my caravan pan
up here to this building just across the street from Securio.

Speaker 2 (06:49):
And so so clearly Simon I'm not too happy about
him recording there. And he's taken a lot of heat
online just for being a journalist, and.

Speaker 1 (06:58):
They've hated him for years now, especially since October seventh,
because he had the audacity to humanize some people in
Gaza and speak out for Palacindi journalists. Now as usual,
all he was doing was his job. When you're a
wartime correspondent, what do you do? You go where we're
ballistic missile falls and then you report it. But unfortunately,
the Israeli government and many of its apperatics on social

(07:20):
media have been attacking him, saying that he is providing
battle damage assessments, and there has been an intense censorship
regime inside of Israel for the location of those strikes.
It's extraordinary just to see these images Tel Aviv, and
I mean basically all of Israel has never received this
level of Bob Barden from a foreign actor. I mean,
even in the breakout of the sixty seven or the

(07:40):
seventy three wars like that was obviously a very high
level of conflict, but this is not something that they
were seeing in the individual streets of Tel Aviv. I mean,
for example, for the Pentagon their version to be hit,
which is literally in a downtown civilian area, that's extraordinary
to watch. You're also watching something what I think dispelled

(08:00):
a lot of the myths around Iron Dome or David
Sling or any of these other programs that they have.
Keep in mind, we have seen missiles rain down now
on Israel multiple times. You know, I can't even keep
counting the number of barrages. And this is with the
massive assistance of the United States military. I've tried to
highlight here that if it weren't for us, they would
be getting it even way more on the Chin, and

(08:22):
I'm still uncertain as to whether they actually underestimated Iran's capability.
The propaganda machine from Israel is that they've achieved total
dominance over Iranian skies. This seems to largely be true.
They seem to have targeted in some pretty extraordinary both
assassination operations with building drone facilities inside of Iran to
target their ballistic missile stocks. And look, it's only been

(08:44):
a couple of days, so it's very possible that Iran
could exhaust all of its stocks very soon than Israel
would achieve like total dominance. But you know, they have
been able to punch back, I think in a way
that we have literally never seen before on the streets
of Israel, and that's expanding the war. I mean, let's
put a four police up on the screen. This just
shows some of the locations of all of these strikes,
so you can see on the Israeli front, you know,

(09:06):
you both have attacks on the natan's main nuclear Richmond
facility that was attacked on Friday. You've seen huge attacks
all across of Tehran, both targeted assassination strikes. That's what
a lot of those apartment building ones were from what
we can tell, is hitting the penthouse suites of a
lot of the top IRGC officials. Famously, they also hit
a bunker where there were all of these IRGC top

(09:28):
intelligence officials and commanders that were there. Many of those
deaths have been confirmed by the Iranian authorities. The Tabriz
nuclear facility has also been hit as of Friday, and
I believe there have been strikes in the Foidoh facility
as well. Another thing that everybody needs to keep in
mind here the battle damage assessments and the battle damage
denials by the Iranians and the Israelis. Neither are two believed.

(09:48):
We have no actual really idea about the facilities that
have been hit in their capabilities. We have a little
bit in terms of what the IAEA has been able
to report to us, but of course, you know, they
don't have the same view that the Iranians and or
the Israelis would have. So I really want to caution
everyone because initially, in the opening hours of the war
they were like, oh my god, this is total Israeli victory,

(10:10):
and then all of a sudden, you see Tel Aviv.
You have tel Aviv's civilians literally hiding in a bunker
watching downtown Tel Aviv taking strikes. I mean, can people
imagine I live only a few miles from the Pentagon.
If the area in between my house and there is
taking ballistic missiles to the street, sure not that many

(10:32):
people are dying. Cars are getting blown up, people's houses,
They're getting dug out of the rubble. I mean, this
is insanity if you are living in Israel. Ye.

Speaker 4 (10:39):
And I mean where we are right now, is this
a few miles literally?

Speaker 1 (10:42):
Yeah, I mean right here as well. Yeah, I mean
we're probably going to the US capital. So similarly, as
we've seen multiple Israeli strikes on the top echelons of
the government. And that's the final myth that I would
like to dispel, is that while yes, there have been
strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, a huge portion of Israeli
kinetic activity has been targeted at the top echelons of

(11:04):
the Iranian regime, at the IRGC command center, but also
many of the political leaders, including the top negotiator who
was negotiating with the United States on some sort of
Iranian deal. And we're going to talk with Dave about
how regime change is the real goal of this war,
which is something that we see consistently now in Israeli messaging,
in Israeli action. But these are just the opening strikes,

(11:27):
and we really can begin to get a site of
where we are going. This is going to be a
long campaign. By the Israeli's own admission, they have said
that this is going to take weeks, you know, in
terms of their operation, they're claiming that they expected to
take actually much more damage than this. Again, I'm not
quite sure if I believe them in terms of the

(11:49):
casualty count. We were trying to reconcile it this morning, Crystal,
but we're not one hundred percent sure exactly where things
are right now.

Speaker 4 (11:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:56):
So this is the latest numbers for the New York Times.
Best we know this more. They say Israeli strikes have
killed at least two hundred and twenty four people in Iran.
According to the iranians are predominantly civilians. The number I
saw was ninety percent civilians injured more than fourteen hundred people.

Speaker 4 (12:10):
In Israel.

Speaker 2 (12:11):
At least twenty four people identified as civilians have been
killed in retaliatory barrages, with roughly six hundred injured. So
you see much higher death toll being taken on the
Iranian side. But to Sagar's point, you know, the images
of destruction in central Israel, in Tel Aviv are extraordinary,
And did the Israelis expect the Iranians to be able

(12:34):
to exact this sort of price? I have no idea,
but I mean, we do know that Natan yahoo and
the successive Israeli governments have been willing to sacrifice their
own citizens behalf of whatever larger or self interested goal
that they are pursuing. So it is entirely possible that
they did expect Iran to be able to respond.

Speaker 4 (12:53):
You know, this goes back to you guys.

Speaker 2 (12:54):
Will recall we covered it extensively here, the Iranian provocations previously,
including an assassination directly on uh Iranian soil, and the
Iranian retaliation, which by all accounts was telegraphed to the US.
We assisted in defending Israel because we that's what we do,
we always do, and they you know, there was some

(13:17):
minimal damage that was exacted during that those retaliatory strikes,
and so I don't know if there was an assessment
made of basically like, oh, well, this is all they've got,
But our analysis at the time was very much that
this was a sort of you know, a demonstration, almost performative,
because they didn't want to spark a broader conflict or
a wider conflict. I mean strategically that may have been

(13:38):
an error. Iran has taken a number of blows, especially
not only in that exchange, but also you know, with
the the destruction of Hezbola, then you know, intense attacks
on has and some of their other proxies. That has
been a blow to Iran. And now Israel talks about
this octopus strategy. Now they're quote unquote going after the head.

(14:00):
What I've been reading is that the Israelis are under
no illusion that they alone without the US getting directly involved.
And again I really want to be clear, we are
already involved, have been involved. We're involved in the sutterfuge campaign,
the deception to enable this entire attack. It is our
missiles that are being sent here. We are providing extensive

(14:21):
defense and we'll talk more about that. But the question now,
so the question isn't are we involved. We're involved, right,
we are involved. The Iranian cs is being involved. Everybody
sees US as being involved. Trump acknowledges that were involved,
et cetera. Question now is do we become even more
directly involved. The Israeli seem to know they can't number one,
destroy the nuclear program within our direct involvement. I do
think the nuclear program, I mean this is a bit

(14:43):
of like a cover. It's a bit of an excuse,
a protextual excuse for effectuating what.

Speaker 4 (14:48):
They really want, which is regime change.

Speaker 2 (14:50):
And make no doubt about it when you look at
the targets of these strikes and the way that they
are going about this today. Now they're going more aggressively
after the overall energy infrastructure, the oil and gas infrastructure,
so attempting to cripple the entire economy. They've taken out
significant political and military leadership. This is driving at regime change,

(15:11):
and I think they have an understanding there too that
that also will not occur without getting the US fully
fully involved. And so no secret to anyone who watches
this show or has their eyes open and are paying
attention that that is exactly what BB NAT Yahoo ultimately wants.
Here to the point of the fact that we've got

(15:33):
more energy infrastructure being hit at this point, we've got
another Tree Yanks report about where we are and what
the Israelis are planning as best we know to do next.

Speaker 5 (15:42):
What we are seeing today Israel has never faced in
Israeli officials tell us they are fighting for their survival.
You raise an important point. This is a shared gas field.
It's the largest field in the world, and on the
Iranian side. It starts near to the city of bandar
Abas in the south, but it goes over and the
Qataris and the Americans are invested in the other side
of the gas field.

Speaker 1 (16:00):
And I spoke with.

Speaker 5 (16:01):
A source who described the Israelis strike against that as
a dangerous escalation because there is concern that if ultimately
that gas field is targeted and the Iranians start to
respond in the region, that American interests and assets could
be hit or affected, and it could lead to an
increase in energy prices. It could lead to American forces
or embassies in the region coming under attack. And so

(16:21):
there are certainly officials in this part of the world
that are concerned about the location of these strikes. But
the bottom line here is that the Israelis understand the
next step up on the escalation ladder for them is
going after the energy infrastructure in Iran.

Speaker 2 (16:35):
And we're already seeing some of that energy infrastructure targeted
oil bribe and checked this morning, but oil prices are
already shooting out. Prepare for that to be another story.
That's important to take it. Pay a lot, take a
look at Yeah, that's.

Speaker 1 (16:46):
Right, you can. You can blame Donald Trump and bb
net and Yahoo for that one whenever you're paying more
at the gas pump. Already just this morning from the
Israeli Ministry of Defense, this is breaking as of this morning. Quote,
the residents of Tehran will pay the price and soon
because the arrogant dictator from Tehran has become a cowardly
murderer who fires targetedge shots at the civilian home front
in Israel to deter the idea from continuing the attack

(17:09):
that is collapsing its capabilities. I will say, look, I
don't celebrate the attacks on any civilians. I have friends
who live in Tel Aviv in Israel I literally am
I'm so worried about them. But it's a little, you know,
it's a little on the nose to be talking about
civilian attacks and civilian infrastructure hits from the head of
the Israeli military. However, look, what we do know, as
you said, is that the damage on Iran. I don't

(17:32):
want anyone to take away from this at Israel has
taken more damage. No, they've taken more damage than most
people expected for a massively militarized Western nation with the
full support of the Western Empire. But you know, Iran
has been taking an absolute beating here. They have hundreds
of civilians and or military leaders that have been killed.
Of course it's always difficult to know which, but you

(17:52):
know the idea that, especially with their air defense, as
to where it is right now, they're trying and they
have some capability, but they have not you know, the
Israelis are claiming total air superiority. If they want to
start leveling massive you know, neighborhoods in Tehran, it's gonna happen,
and it will, unfortunately very happen, likely very quickly. Last thing, also,
just to show everybody the level of penetration the Israelis

(18:14):
have inside of Tehran, can we go ahead and play
a eight please and show people this. This is flagged
by friend of our show, Trita Parsi. Do you actually
have car bombs that were being set off around downtown Tehran?
Treta Parsi says, this is quote literally the definition of terrorism.
A lot of it are targeted assassinations. There's been stories
of this probably for the last decade or so, right

(18:35):
of his real Iranian nuclear scientists getting into their car
only for it to explode. But the level of penetration,
obviously that Mosad had in the IRGC is unbelievable. I mean,
at just from a fear like craft perspective, They're able
to build a drone facility and all in there, and
this was a lot of this was being pumped out
into the sphere in the immediate times of the war.
But that's part of why I found the strikes on

(18:58):
Tel Aviv so amazing just to the eye, because the
way they had been talking, it was like, oh, they
wiped out their entire ballistic missile capability, and then I
don't know, hours later, downtown tel Aviv Pentagon is taking
a hit by a ballistic missile. I mean, I just
think that's absolutely crazy. They continue these really strikes on
a lot of Iranian capability to defend itself with these

(19:20):
ballistic missiles. Will continue to see. Iran still has quite
a bit stockpile, a couple thousand. I was just last
flag year in terms of the United States, the US
THAD batteries, these missile defense batteries have been pounding Iranian
missiles just so everybody knows we can. We produced here
in the United States about twelve to fifteen a year.
That's about how long it takes.

Speaker 4 (19:40):
So yeah, yeah, not unlimited supply.

Speaker 1 (19:42):
Oh, it's actually the opposite. Y, it's the ultimate limited supply.
So hope some shit doesn't happen somewhere else. That's actually
pretty important to the United States. But we'll talk about
that in a little bit later.

Speaker 2 (19:51):
Yeah, I mean, listen, Iran is a giant country, the
population of Israel, and this is an existential fight. I mean,
I don't think there's any I don't think they have
any illusions about the goals here being complete regime change,
turning them into you know, a failed state a La
Syria or you know, or Libya or one of the

(20:12):
other you know places where we had our foreign adventures
in the Middle East before. And it just seems like
we ever freaking learn, Like we never learn. I see
the same level of triumphalism of like this is going
to be so easy. Yep, you might as well put
up the freaking mission accomplished banner like the the I
am getting so many flashbacks to the run up and
the build up to the Iraq War. And one of

(20:32):
the crazy things to me here is that they didn't
even like, really do a full sale propaganda pitch before
just going all in and expecting, you know, expecting us,
the American people to be down for another forever war
against a country that has vastly more size and capabilities
than Iraq ever did. So, you know, that's that's where

(20:55):
we are. And I think there's a lot of you know,
a lot of uncertainty about where things go. So next,
Trump of course, has been all over the map in
terms of what he has been saying. Actually, let's go
ahead real quick before we bring Dave Smith and go
back to A six, and we can put some of
the Trump comments up on the screen, because I think
this is important. You know, First, he was very triumphant
like triumphalists, saying, two months ago I gave Iran a

(21:17):
sixty day ultimatum to make a deal. They should have
done it. Today is day sixty one. I told them
what to do. They just couldn't get there. Now they
have perhaps a second chance. Another commentary, he was saying that,
you know, the people, he was bragging about the fact
that the people they were negotiating with are now dead,
so taking absolute credit being delighted by the outcome year
and making it quite clear how involved we were in

(21:38):
the strikes. And then we have other comments from him
as well as put the next one up on the screen.

Speaker 4 (21:43):
Here.

Speaker 2 (21:44):
Now he's saying Iran and Israel should make a deal
and will make a deal, just like I got Indian
Pakistan to make. I mean, if you think that is
going to be easy, you're an absolute fool. At this point,
let's put the next one up on the screen. You
have him saying, now the US had nothing to do
with the attack on Iran tonight, like you already said, oh,
this was day sixty one and that's why this was happening.
Now you already celebrated it, and now you want to

(22:06):
pretend like you had nothing to do with it. Okay,
let's go ahead and the next take a look at
the next thing.

Speaker 4 (22:10):
He had a call with President Putin.

Speaker 2 (22:12):
He said, he called this morning to very nicely wish
me a happy birthday and more importantly talk about Iran.
We talked at length. Much less time was spent talking
about Russia Ukraine. That'll be for next week. He's doing
the planned prisoner swaps. The call lasted an hour. He feels,
as I do, this war in Israel and Iran should end,
to which I explained his war should also and Sager
before we get to to Dave Smith. I mean, it

(22:34):
looks like there are two possible outcomes here. One is
Trump forces this to stop, which of course he has
the capability to. Hey, we're not going to protect you.
You're going to have to actually bear the consequences Israel if.

Speaker 1 (22:46):
You're at I know, not only that, and we're not
going to sell you the munition We're not going to see.
By Trump's own admission, there are bombs, as he bragged
about in his truth social posts, just so everybody knows exactly.
They don't make any bad missile defense system in Israel.
How's your David Sling working out for you? If it
weren't for the full force of the US Empire, Tel
Aviv would be freaking rocked way more than it is
right now.

Speaker 2 (23:06):
So he either makes this end or we're getting pulled in.
I mean, those are the those are the two directions
that we could go in. So With that being said,
let's go ahead and bring in Dave Smith to get
his reaction to the latest.

Speaker 1 (23:19):
We're very excited now to be joined by friend of
the show, Dave Smith. We're going to be talking about
the fallout here from the US involvement in the war
between Israel and Iran. But most importantly we want to
get to the actual goal here of the Israeli military campaign.
Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu really giving the game away yesterday
in an interview with Fox News where he calls for

(23:40):
regime change with Iran. Let's take a listen.

Speaker 3 (23:42):
So is regime change part of the effort here?

Speaker 6 (23:47):
Could certainly be the result because the Iran regime is
very weak. I think it's basically left with two things.
It's plans to have atomic bombs and ballistic missiles. That's
basically what Iran has. They certainly don't have the peap
eighty percent of the people will throw these theological thugs out.
I mean they murder them, they oppress them for forty
six years. They've yearned for freedom. I mean they shoot

(24:10):
women because their hair is uncovered, they shoot students. They
just suck the oxygen from this brave and gifted people,
the Iranian people.

Speaker 7 (24:20):
I want to talk about the nuclear threat and I
want to talk about President Trump. You just said Iron
tried to assassinate President Trump twice. Do you have intel
that the assassination attempts on President Trump were directly from Iran.

Speaker 6 (24:33):
Through proxies, Yes, through their intel. Yes, they want to
kill and look, he's enemy number one. He's a decisive leader.
He never took the path that others took to try
to bargain with them in a way that is weak,
giving them, giving them basically a pathway to a rich uranium,
which means a pathway to the bomb, patting it with
billions and billions of dollars. He took up his fake

(24:56):
agreement and basically tore it up. He killed the cast
suler money. He said, made it very clear, including now
you cannot have a nuclear weapon, which means you cannot
en which he's been very forceful. So for them, he's
he's enemy number one. Yeah, look there who tried to
kill me. But I'm his junior partner. You understand that
President Trump is a great threat to Ron's plans to

(25:19):
weaponize nuclear weapons and use them.

Speaker 7 (25:20):
When did you tell President Trump you were going to
launch these strikes.

Speaker 6 (25:25):
Look, I've been in contents, in constant contact with President Trump.
We've known each other for many years, and obviously we
informed our American friends and President Trump, our great friend,
ahead of time. Did he knew about it, of course.

Speaker 7 (25:39):
I mean there were reports that President Trump kind of
helped you achieve your strategic surprise by publica or urging
you not to attack when he already knew you had
decided to do it. So you were closely coordinating with
the US throughout this process.

Speaker 6 (25:53):
Look, we're fully coordinated. But understand that America under President
Trump will make President Trump will make the decisions that
are best for America. And that's the way it is.
He understands that I, as the Prime Minister of Israel,
the one and only Jewish state, must make the decisions
that are important for the survival of my country, and
he will do what is best for America. That is

(26:14):
a relationship of mutual respect and mutual confidence.

Speaker 1 (26:18):
I mean, there's so much going on there, Dave. There
is regime change. There is the flattery and the lies
potentially about this some so called Iranian plot to assassinate Trump.
And then finally there there is the you know, really
buttering it up, but calling Trump to join him in
this war on regime, just broadly, we want to give
you the floor both to react to that and to

(26:38):
the entire situation here.

Speaker 3 (26:40):
Yeah. Well, you know, it's just you.

Speaker 8 (26:42):
You're allowed to throw as many lies at the wall
as you want to when you're selling a war, so
that you know there's there's a lot there to kind
of unpack.

Speaker 3 (26:49):
Number one, I would just say, first of the accusation.

Speaker 8 (26:52):
That Iran was trying to assassinate Donald Trump just doesn't
meet the most basic of smell tests. I like, so
you're telling me that the Iranian regime essentially declared war
on the United States of America, already tried to murder
the sitting president, and yet his response was to try
to negotiate with them for a couple months until finally

(27:14):
we had Israel attack. Though, does that make sense to anybody?
They tried to murder Donald Trump and then he entered
negotiations with the Come on, it's too ridiculous, and you know,
you could go back. You know, the thing about Saddam
Hussein that a lot of people kind of forget in
history is that it is true that at one point
Saddam Hussein did have what you could call weapons of

(27:35):
mass destruction. He used chemical weapons in his nineteen eighty
through nineteen eighty six war with Iran and was supported
by the United States.

Speaker 3 (27:43):
Of America while he did it.

Speaker 8 (27:44):
He then got rid of those weapons programs and the
neo cons and Benjamin Netanyahu himself you can read in
his writing in the nineties when he was telling us
that Iran was a few years away from a nuclear weapon,
all the way back then, but he was also saying
that they wanted to overthrow Saddam Hussein for other reasons
for their Clean Break strategy. You could read about this
in the Project for a New American Century in the

(28:06):
Clean Break Memo written by Richard Pearl and David Wormsar.
They talked about this over and over and over again,
and then after nine to eleven they said, the issue
here is weapons of mass destruction, but that was they
always wanted the regime change, and so it's the same
thing again. The goal here has been regime change in Iran.
He's been open about this, he even admitted it a
little bit there.

Speaker 3 (28:26):
But let's just.

Speaker 8 (28:26):
Take them Look, let's just really assess the situation where
we are right now, Let's take them by their own logic.
If as all the Hawks are bragging right now or
saying that essentially Israel was already at war with Iran
because Iran attacked first on October seventh, they are proxies
attacked And.

Speaker 3 (28:45):
What does that mean? You know?

Speaker 8 (28:46):
It's like when they say Iran is the number one
sponsor of terror? Do they ever have to back that
up with data? Do they ever? Like have you ever
heard one warhawk who makes the claim that Iran is
the number one sponsor of terror?

Speaker 3 (28:57):
Ever?

Speaker 8 (28:57):
Like, show you look, this is how much terrorists have
gotten support from Saudi and this is how much more
they've gotten from Iran. No, they never even feel the
need to make this argument. Compare how much money the
US has given to terrorist organizations, or Israel has given
to terrorist organizations, or Israel has facilitated other countries given like,
there's no objective standard here. But if essentially the standard

(29:19):
is because Iran has given Hamas some weapons in the past,
therefore they're a proxy and therefore when they attack Israel
on October seventh, Iran has attacked Israel, Well, then what
is Israel attacking Iran other than the US proxy attacking Iran, right,
if that's not I mean, and come.

Speaker 4 (29:39):
On and look, this is proxy state.

Speaker 1 (29:40):
Yeah, same with Ukraine and Russia. It's the sameanization.

Speaker 8 (29:44):
So if you're but this one is so much more
devastating because it's not just that we give Israel the
weapons and the money and the intelligence.

Speaker 3 (29:51):
But at the very least.

Speaker 8 (29:52):
Here, I mean, we had people, We had evacuation orders
twenty four to forty eight hours before the attack came.
Donald Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
Netanyahu here is clearly saying that Donald Trump knew this
attack was coming. So imagine, imagine they had that on
around with October seventh. They don't have anything close to that.

(30:13):
So make no mistake about it. We are at war
with Around right now. The United States of America is
Donald Trump has betrayed MAGA, betrayed America.

Speaker 3 (30:22):
First.

Speaker 8 (30:22):
He has made the most disastrous decision to lead America
into another war. Now, if they want to say that,
look there is an argument here. I suppose that perhaps
Around is a better candidate for a regime change than
Iraq or Libya was. This is the argument they're going
to make. It seems a much more compelling argument that

(30:43):
we're staring at yet another disaster. And as you were
pointing out, Crystal, you know, I heard a little bit
of your segment as I was waiting here, as you
were pointing out, which I think is really the most
important point is that this is the celebrating. It's just
like unbelievable. It's twenty four hours into it. They're all
celebrating how easy this was.

Speaker 3 (31:00):
Look. I remember I was a little kid at the time,
but I.

Speaker 8 (31:02):
Do vividly remember the celebrations after the Gulf War in
nineteen ninety one, and they were like, look how easy
that was, and we didn't take any losses. We went
on to be bogged down in that country for thirty
years following that war. We all remember the mission accomplishment.
We all remember Hillary Clinton saying we came, we saw
he's dead. A few years later, when she was running

(31:23):
for president, she wouldn't dare bring up Libya because it
was so obviously a colossal failure. So the people celebrating
this right now are just they've lost their minds.

Speaker 3 (31:31):
And people get swept up in war.

Speaker 2 (31:33):
Fever, the flashbacks, the WMD talk, the like celebratory mission accomplished,
vibe the you know in that clip with Boebe. And
I've heard so many others say this, they they're yearning
for freedom. I mean, it's just like it makes me
feel well, like as everybody just erased their memories of
what happened here.

Speaker 4 (31:51):
It's utterly insane to me.

Speaker 2 (31:53):
And to your point about our involvement, let's put this
next piece up on the screen. We now know that
at least the re sent discussions about you know, diplomatic negotiations,
and hey, we're going forward with these talks. This weekend
was a ruse to provide cover and the element of
surprise for the Israelis. So now you have this report.

(32:14):
A US official confirmed to me over the weekend Israel
had an operational window to assassinate around Supreme Leader comedy,
but President Trump made it clear he is against such
a move. This was first reported by Steve Holland there
is no reason for anyone US, the Iranians, anyone to
believe these reports.

Speaker 4 (32:31):
I mean, it does give me also remind.

Speaker 2 (32:33):
Me of you know, during the Biden Oh, they're very
upset with na Yahoo leaking to always Barock Revie.

Speaker 4 (32:38):
They're very upset with him, etcetera. Etcetera.

Speaker 2 (32:40):
Why would anyone ever believe a word that comes from
Trump or Steve Wikoff or anyone else associated with this
administration after they've gloated about the fact that they were
using diplomatic negotiations as a tool to effectuate to help
kick off this war. I mean, I'm stems, I'm curious
your thoughts about this, Dave. I've seen this analysis that

(33:03):
Trump was persuayted this might be, that this might be true,
was persuaded by Beebe that he would have a better
hand going into negotiations with Iran if he let Israel
start this war and participated, as we've indicated, in starting
this war. That is the most that is the most idiotic,
insane possible analysis I can imagine. I guess it's possible
that he really is that absolutely idiotic. But you know,

(33:27):
what do you make of that? Is that really what
happened here? And what do you make of this report
that supposedly, oh, he was the cooler head and said
you can't you can't take out the supreme leader.

Speaker 3 (33:37):
Yeah, well, I'd say Trump might be that idiotic.

Speaker 8 (33:42):
And you know he he has again we're kind of
speculating here, but he has bragged in the past several
times about how he's so smart for keeping these hawks
around because then that puts all these pressure on people
to come to the negotiating.

Speaker 4 (33:56):
Table that he had John Bolton, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (33:57):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 8 (33:58):
His example was John Bolton, who killed the deal with
North Korea. Like that was his example of it being
like such a stunning success or something like that. It's
it reminds me of like when people brag about the
Abraham Accords and what a success they were, and you're like, oh, yeah,
they worked out so great. They led to this, Like
how I don't even understand how you could You know,
it would be one thing if peace swept the Middle

(34:20):
East after the Abraham Accords and you go, oh, okay,
maybe they played a role. But it's been a nightmare
all across, the worst fighting that we've had there in
twenty years and so since our last disastrous invasions. But so,
you know, look, I mean there, it seems to me
like there's a there's a couple possibilities here.

Speaker 3 (34:38):
None of them are good.

Speaker 8 (34:40):
One of the possibility is that which I think is
plausibly the case that Israel betrayed Donald Trump and and
then this is just his best way to deal with it, Like, essentially,
Donald Trump was trying to negotiate and then Israel just
went ahead and launched the attack anyway, and then as
a response to that, Donald Trump would rather look strong
and go no, no, no.

Speaker 3 (34:58):
I was in on it. It was our play all along.

Speaker 8 (35:01):
Or the other possibility, which I think is more likely,
is that he was never negotiating in good faith and
it was a distraction and Donald Trump was in on it.
Either way, were at the same place, you know. Either way,
even if Donald Trump was betrayed by the Israelis and
then just took their side in public, which has happened
with different presidencies over the years. It's certainly happened with
Bill Clinton after Camp David, So.

Speaker 3 (35:23):
Maybe that's the case.

Speaker 8 (35:24):
But then either way, then you're just so weak and
pathetic that even after the Israel Israelis betray you, you'll
still come out and catch their back and support them
in this war. Well that's just as bad from the
Iranian perspective and from any reasonable person's perspective.

Speaker 3 (35:40):
So, you know, we don't know.

Speaker 8 (35:41):
We'll probably find out more about this over time, but
either way, in effect, it's the same thing, you know,
like and then we're left in the position where you're
supposed to sit here and justify a sneak, a sneak
aggressive preemptive attack, like somehow you're supposed to feel like
you're the good guys in an absolute war of choice

(36:01):
against a country that does not have nuclear weapons.

Speaker 3 (36:04):
Let's get real here.

Speaker 8 (36:05):
The only country in the Middle East who secretly has
nuclear weapons is Israel. Iran is a member of the
Non Proliferation Treaty. Israel is not, and they have nuclear
weapons is an unbelievabation.

Speaker 2 (36:16):
Attacking six, like six of their neighbors as we speak,
and are not part of the non Proliferation jack Yet
we actually have cool with that.

Speaker 1 (36:23):
We have a non compliant nuclear member of the NPT
actually attacking a member of the NPT who is far
more incompliance which said international treaty. Hey, whatever, what do
I know? Right? You know what's even crazier to me, Dave,
is just like the lead up to the war in Iraq,
we already have our Auchmentoaloby. I actually can't believe it,
but or our nineteen fifty three Operation Ajax. Let's go

(36:44):
and put B four please up on the screen. We
actually have members of the Israeli government who are tweeting
out pictures of the sun of the Shah of Iran,
you know, basically insinuating that they are going to re
implement the monarchy on the people of Iran. It's like
nineteen fifty three all over again. And or just like this,

(37:08):
you know, fascination with these Western figures who've lived here
what for their entire lives. Almost at this point we're like, oh, actually,
these guys, because we're buddies and they agree with us,
the people of Iran will totally take to that, and
we're going to implement this new regime. They're not even
being subtle about it. Like I said, there's are literally
members of the Israeli government who are teasing basically the
restoration of the monarchy in Iran by force. It's it's

(37:33):
like two thousand and three all over again, where we
have this buddy buddy here, like you said, with the
neo cons in Washington, and then this theory that we
can just go in blow out the regime and then
we're going to implement this new style of government. I mean,
this is as naked as it gets in my opinion
on all of this, and I just I want you
to just go through, perhaps because you're so well read

(37:53):
on the history of these, you know, these attempts by
the United States and others to install these types of figures,
and it never ever works out. Whenn't we ever back
the right horse in the Middle Ages?

Speaker 8 (38:05):
Yeah, And of course, look, installing the Shaw to begin
with in nineteen fifty three is a huge part of
the reason why we have the current government in Aroan
that we have, which is a horrible, repressive government that
does not give their people liberty. And we should all
you know, oppose that. But the thing is that war
is so much worse. You know, it's like Saddam Hussein

(38:25):
was a brutal, oppressive dictator also, but the worst thing
that ever happened to the people of Iraq was George W.
Bush invading the country. And you know, the only examples
that people look to, which are you know, rather remarkable
examples of regime change are Germany and Japan and how
they were brought back into the you know, liberal international
order after World War Two. But what was required in

(38:47):
order to get to that point was was a clear
war on the civilian population with you know, millions of casualties,
and that like if your if your argument is we
should bring that to Iran, that don't tell me one
word about how you care about how the people of
Iran are being oppressed, because that's a far worse, you know,

(39:08):
level of oppression. And so you know, this is again,
as you guys have touched on, this is always how
they talk at the beginning of these wars. It's always
that democracy will sweep the region and that the people
will greet us as liberators. It'll be easy, paid for
an oil, all all this stuff. But you know you're
going to sit here and tell me about how Washington
d C. Or Tel Aviv can you know, reorchestrate another

(39:32):
society can reconstruct it from the ground and choose its leaderships.
I mean, just think about the hubris involved in that.
As the late great Harry Brown used to point out
when he was talking about the war on drugs in
the United States of America, the US federal government can't
even keep drugs out of federal prisons.

Speaker 3 (39:48):
Washington d C.

Speaker 8 (39:49):
Can't even solve the violent crime problem in Washington, d C.
But you're telling me we're going to install the new
leader for the Iranians and the people will comply because
what because the regime is so weak and the people
want liberty so much. This regime has ruled since nineteen
seventy nine, with the most powerful governments in the world
opposing them, working on their unousting them the entire time,

(40:12):
and they've still stayed in power. So you could tell
me a nice story. It's easy to write down a
nice story. Oh yeah, I say, we intervene and then
we put the Shaw's sun back in and then everything
works out. Fine, Okay, let's see that happen. And you
know the other thing that I'll add And I don't know,
I mean, maybe things have changed to some degree. I
certainly Israel was able to pull off that drone attack,

(40:33):
which I don't think they would have been able to
pull off in years past. But it was in two
thousand and seven that the Pentagon told George W. Bush
that we cannot go to war with a rand because
we do not have escalation dominance against them, essentially meaning
that they can hit all of our bases and embassies
in the region and we are very vulnerable to them.

Speaker 3 (40:52):
And we've already.

Speaker 8 (40:54):
Seen demonstrated since the Israeli attack that the Iranian the
missiles that they send last year toward Israel. As many
of US guests, that wasn't really their best. They were
intentionally making an attack that wouldn't really hurt anybody, that
wouldn't really lead to a war, which Iran has done
over and over again. But now we've pushed them to
the point where they probably don't feel that they have

(41:15):
the option not to respond. And Donald Trump telling him
to come back to the negotiating table now as a joke.
I mean, what an impotent leader to be sitting there
talking about coming back to the negotiating table. It's like
sitting after Pearl Harbor and telling FDR, now's the time
to go negotiate with the Japanese. Negotiations are over now.
The time for negotiations was before this. And so yeah,

(41:37):
Donald Trump looks and man, I supported him this last year.
I apologized for doing so. It was a bad calculation.
At the time, it seemed like the right one. But
he should be impeached and removed for this one, and
not on some like not on some ridiculous Nancy Pelosi.
Of course, the Congress will never do it because they're
all a bunch of you know, corrupt tacks.

Speaker 1 (41:56):
This is the one thing they support.

Speaker 8 (41:59):
Yeah, Donald Trump should be impeached and removed for this.

Speaker 3 (42:02):
All of his supporters should turn on him.

Speaker 8 (42:04):
It's the absolute betrayal of everything that he ran and
campaigned on and everything that he stood for. And I
will say, despite the fact that you know, Donald Trump
supporters have been labeled like a cult following, and that
certainly is true for a percentage of his supporters, he
is going to lose.

Speaker 3 (42:20):
His coalition over this. I know.

Speaker 8 (42:23):
I don't just speak for myself when I say there
are a lot of us who simply will not go
along with this.

Speaker 3 (42:29):
So it's just a devastating mistake. By the way. On
top of that, he's.

Speaker 8 (42:32):
Also going to lose the deportation fight because of this,
because right now he needed all the political capital he
could have.

Speaker 3 (42:38):
To turn that.

Speaker 8 (42:38):
You know, you got a majority support for deportations, but
the minority is very mobilized and they're out and they're
protesting all around the country. He needed all of his
political capital for that move. So here's what we got.
The neo cons win more war abroad at you know,
bomb the world and invite the world. No matter who
you vote for, you always get John McCain.

Speaker 1 (42:58):
It is funny. You know, some of the small artists,
evangelicals I know, say that the war in Iraq is
actually what killed them. And they're like, we were winning,
we were on top and oh four, you know, we
were you know, defensive Marriage Act and all this. But
it was Bush actually who killed our agenda and any
ability you know, to do that, and then we lost
obviously the two thousand and eight election. I'm not sure
I necessarily agree with it, but people who if you

(43:20):
do care about some of the domestic stuff, let's say
that Donald Trump did run on Well, you know you've
got your answer as to the easiest way to destroy it.

Speaker 8 (43:27):
Go ahead, well say, look through all of American history, right,
This is why it's so crazy for conservatives to not
be anti war. When did they lose the culture the
big time? When did they have the hippie sexual revolution?
Is during the Vietnam War. And when did we see
the rise in wokeism and progressive control of all these institutions.
You think it was a coincidence that it was the

(43:48):
administration after George W.

Speaker 3 (43:50):
Bush. When you launch an immoral war of.

Speaker 8 (43:53):
Aggression, you lose the moral high ground, period, so you
can't lecture your society about but heard some of these
right wing warhawks are going to lecture us about the
about being pro life, about abortion being murder.

Speaker 3 (44:07):
Get out of here.

Speaker 8 (44:08):
And this is why the evangelicals lost their seat at
the table for a generation, because they went all in
on murdering a million people in Iraq for no reason.
And so you know this was it was John Quincy
Adams who said, if we go around the world looking
for monsters to destroy, we will become the dicatrius of
the world, but we will lose our own soul.

Speaker 1 (44:26):
Well said one of our mess rights. Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (44:28):
Well, you know, Dave, you may feel that way, but
Bill Ackman feels very different.

Speaker 4 (44:35):
I mean, it's this important point that put B.

Speaker 2 (44:36):
Seven up on the screen, which is that I think
you're right. There was a part of his coalition, including
yourself and others, who thought Trump would be more you know,
more of a peace candidate and more anti war than
Kamala Harris as the alternative. But there was another part
of the coalition that looks like this, that is all

(44:57):
you know, thinks that we have not gone nearly far
enough in terms of fighting a direct hot regime change
war against Iran. And so You've got Bill Lackman here
saying Prade was great, our military is incredible. Now Israel
needs are helped to destroy Iran's nuclear threat to the world.

Speaker 4 (45:12):
They say that.

Speaker 2 (45:13):
He says, Israel's military and air force have sufficiently degraded
Iran's defenses such that this is now the lowest risk,
highest probability moment to take out Iran's nuclear capability, grave
threat to us all. We should not let this great
opportunity Dave pass us by. But Israel does not have
the equipment and armaments to complete the job we do,
and it does not require boots on the ground. That
war Israel has been fighting has been on behalf of

(45:35):
all of us. Let's help them finish the job. This
is a powerful voice in the Republican Coalition, It's a
powerful voice within the administration, it's a powerful voice nationally
in terms of achieving the policy ends and goals that
they want.

Speaker 8 (45:50):
You know, it's like, we're never going to get the
mass deportations, but can we at least deport all of
these warhawks to announce Ealdadorian prisident?

Speaker 3 (45:57):
Could we just They really just did not. I mean,
I don't know, it's testing my.

Speaker 4 (46:02):
Life Israel horseshoe between you and me.

Speaker 8 (46:04):
Day Well, it's really it's testing my my belief in
libertarianism because I just when I hear this, it's like
these people do not have a right to speak. You
shouldn't have a right to open your mouth the nerve,
you know, It's like they could just say these things
that are so objectively untrue, Like look, if you want
to say, hey, look, I think this war in Iran
isn't going to be a disaster like all the other

(46:25):
ones were. And I think we're finally right, even though
we've been wrong nine times in a row, I think
we're right about this one. Like, fine, make your argument,
but to say this is the lowest risk, like that,
this is the lowes This is by far the highest
risk of any of the terror wars. Objectively, that's not
like an opinion, that's just it might end up working out,
but the downside is the riskiest by far. That is,

(46:45):
any military expert would back that up, who's not lying
through their teeth would back that up. Anybody sit down
and argue with me about potentially what Saddam Hussein could
have done to us after we invaded, or potentially what
Goadafi could have done to us verse what the Mullas
can do to us. I'm sorry the risk is at
the highest here. I hope that doesn't come true. I
recognize we're already at war with this country. I know

(47:07):
it won't look good for me, but I hope it
does go well. I hope, I hope it's not the
disaster that it looks like it's going to be. But
don't sit here and tell me that this is the
least risky one. This is by far the riskiest of
all the terror wars. You know, maybe maybe the you know,
proxy war with Russia was riskier than this, but compared
to Libya or Syria, or Somalia, or Afghanistan or Iraq,

(47:29):
no comparison.

Speaker 3 (47:30):
This one is by far the risk is.

Speaker 1 (47:34):
There's a good transition here to US involvement. Let's go
ahead and put this up there on the screen. We
have our friend Scott Horton. He is reporting here, you know,
does echo some of your own comments, and he says
sources the US will enter Israel's war with Iran, calling
the White House and tell them that you do not
want any part of this disastrous war. This is from
sources to Scott Horton. You know, obviously Scott a very

(47:57):
very smart guy. He does, of course some people in
the administration in a sense, though you know, it's really
only a question of offensive capability or not. We already know,
you know, the extent to which the United States has
been involved now with defending Israel. We can put the
next one, guys up C two please. You could see
Trump is obviously leaving that possibility open. He says, quote,

(48:17):
it's possible the US could get involved, he means offensive leads,
keeping the door there all signs do kind of point,
you know in that direction. I at this point, Dave,
I don't even yet know what a quote off ramp
could look like, save for Trump flying to Tehran himself.
If you're the Iranians, why would you meet with Steve
Witkoff again, why would you, you know, have any credit

(48:39):
credibility at this point for a US negotiator, And by
the way, you don't even have a negotiator's send because
Israel killed him. So can we just talk here about
the extent here of US involvement, of the defensive capability,
and also of how much worse things can go, because
as you said, of course we're already involved in this war.
We're effectively, you know, a primary actor. But you know,

(49:00):
there's a big difference still, as we just talked about
with Bill Ackman. There's B two bombers. That's like level one.
Then there's US boots on our raids, you know, boots
on the ground, and I think that's like level three.
And then we have a prolonged occupation after the inevitable
civil war and all that falls out, the strait CI
war moves the risk and all of here to US forces.
So the floor is yours.

Speaker 8 (49:20):
Yeah, well, I mean the what the military was telling
George W. Bush back in two thousand and seven that
we wouldn't have escalation dominance, Like the idea of that
is that we can't control their next move. And so
you could sit here and say, like, let's say, right,
like Axios was already reporting the other day that Israel
is asking us to join in, because you know, they

(49:40):
always talk a big game about how they can do
it themselves, so they actually can't do anything themselves. They
can't even exist by themselves. That's why they always have
to say, doesn't Israel have a right to exist? Meaning
you got to help us exist? So they need they
need these bunker busters that they don't have that they
need from them. But look, even if the idea is
that they're trying to sell us on, we can do

(50:02):
this even as an air war, like even if America
does get involved. But the problem is, and this is
where the escalation dominance thing comes in. He goes, okay,
But then what happens when Iran hits one of our
bases or one of our embassies and kills a couple
hundred Americans? What's Donald Trump gonna do as a result
to that? And if you just game the thing out, yeah,

(50:22):
it's very likely ends in invasion. And then as you
just like alluded to, and then once you do that,
once you invade and.

Speaker 3 (50:28):
Overthrow the regime, well, what are we gonna do? Now?

Speaker 8 (50:30):
Are we just gonna let We're just gonna risk that
the streets of Harmouse fall into whoever's hands. They do,
of course not, then we're back to nation building. And
this is how it happens every single time. And you know,
it's it's unbelievable, like even you know, it's even the
war Hawks when they look back at the other wars,
they'll they'll be like, yeah, well, we got dragged in
and then we got but there is also a reason

(50:52):
why we got dragged in. Like that's how it happens.
Once you break it, you're in a different position now,
aren't you. And you know, you could see like an
example like in Libya where we didn't go in there
in nation build you know which I I'm not saying
it would have gone any better, but it was a
complete disaster too. And so you know this, it's just
we're playing with we're playing with fire here, we're playing

(51:14):
with the destruction of the region. We're playing with the
destruction of the United States of America. I mean, who
really thinks we're at a point let's just say, hypothetically
that this would turn into another Iraq or Afghanistan. How
many people think we can survive another one of those,
like you think it's just a give it. Look at
our country right now. Our country was in a much
stronger position in two thousand and three when we first

(51:35):
invaded Iraq, or in two thousand and one when we
first invaded Afghanistan than we are today. We didn't have
the crushing debt that we have today. We didn't have
the cultural and racial and political divides that.

Speaker 3 (51:44):
We have today.

Speaker 8 (51:45):
You know, we're in a much different situation, and we're
risking that for nothing, just to get Benjamin Netanyahuo's seventh
regime change that he wants so that Israel can get
away with mistreating the Palestinians forever. That's the reason. Come
telling you, there's no other reason. They don't have nuclear weapons.
They weren't a threat to the United States of America.

(52:05):
They were coming to the negotiating table over and over
and over again. They went out of their way to
not want war again. I'm not saying the Iranians are
a great regime.

Speaker 3 (52:14):
They're not.

Speaker 8 (52:15):
They mistreat their own people, they mistreat their women particularly,
But like, Okay, we didn't need to go to war
with them. And if we're gonna just start going to
war with every regime around the world who mistreats its
own people, well, I mean, we could start with the
US and Israel if we wanted to do that, but
or we could go to war with every regime in
the country and in the world.

Speaker 3 (52:34):
Yeah, so it's just madness.

Speaker 2 (52:36):
No, that's exactly what puts the six up on the screen, guys,
Because I thought this was a pretty good analysis from
Haretz and gets to some of what you're saying here.
It's the headline here from Amir Tibone, who we've had
on the show, who's very thoughtful guy says, now, who's
counting on Trump to finish what Israel started in Iran?
Israel doesn't necessarily have the firepower to take out each
and every element of Tehran's nuclear program unless Iran attacks

(52:58):
American targets. The next phase of the war is largely
in Donald Trump's hands. And here's how this logic goes. Okay, Israel,
with our full backing, picks this fight. Now they say, well,
we can't actually do everything we needed to do without you,
so we need you involved here. And oh, by the way,
the Iranians aren't going to come back to the negotiating table,

(53:20):
so you know, you've got to get involved because the
negotiations are dead and there's no other alternative. Okay, Now
we're you know, helping the Israeli strike the Iranian nuclear sites.
And by the way, let's be clear, it's not like
all their targets.

Speaker 4 (53:33):
Have been nuclear related.

Speaker 2 (53:35):
This the targets have been had some nuclear related elements,
nuclear scientists, et cetera. But this has been aimed at
regime change. So let's say you get your wish and
you destabilize the country. Let's say they take out the
Supreme leader as they are projecting that they want to do.
Now you're facing a potential failed state, and you're going

(53:56):
to just let that, you know, let that unfold. And
like you said, the consequences with oil prices and the
straits of our moves, consequences with how many millions of
refugees would flood out of Iran, you know, to countries
all around the world.

Speaker 4 (54:09):
You're just gonna let that unfold.

Speaker 2 (54:10):
But Israel isn't capable of handling that situation themselves, so
again you would need your big brother, the US. And
so that's how you get pulled in, step by step
by step, where it's you know, at every step of
the way, you create a mess that's impossible for Israel
to manage themselves, that does directly then impact US interests
and drags us in further and further and further. Now

(54:31):
that that diplomatic solution has been destroying us completely off
the table, especially with the fact that the Trump administration
is bragging about lying not only by the way to
the Iranians, but to the American people about their intent
to solve this through peaceful and diplomatic means.

Speaker 3 (54:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 8 (54:47):
I mean, you know, the thing to me that's really
wild as I try to like zoom out and look
at this in the big picture, is that you know,
like for anybody really paying attention, you'd know how much
the war in Iraq was about Israel. Yeah, this is
just a fact. Like it's just it is the case.
And you could look at like all of the neo
conservatives and all of the Lakudniks in their own words,

(55:09):
would admit that for years before the war in Iraq
that like, this is why we want to overthrow Sadam
Hussein because we think it's in Israel's interest. But back
in two thousand and two, in two thousand and three,
when they were building up the when they were beating
the war drums and building the propaganda for it, they
still had a very controlled, you know media environment in
the old legacy corporate media. And so what the American

(55:30):
people were told was that Saddam Hussein was in on
nine to eleven and he has weapons of mass destruction.
And look, in a post nine to eleven world, we
just can't let that be you can't have an Arab
leader with nukes who's friends with Osama ben Laden because
he could give it to them and they could New
Kansas And Okay, we all know looking back at that
that that was all, you know, a mountain of lies.

(55:51):
But at least you could see where that was like
propaganda that could maybe get some soccer mom in Kansas.

Speaker 3 (55:56):
To go, all right, I guess I support the war.

Speaker 8 (55:59):
Now this is really the only one where it's just
there is no propaganda around it. It's just I mean
there is, but like it's nakedly, this is we're fighting
a war for Israel here. And it's amazing that, you know,
for all of the people who hyperventilate about the rise
of anti Semitism and how awful it is that Jewish

(56:19):
students feel unsafe at some college in America. I mean,
like you, what do you think this is going to
do to this country? Like, what do you think is
going to happen with anti Semitism?

Speaker 3 (56:30):
Now?

Speaker 8 (56:30):
You see that going up or down when we nakedly
enter an aggressive war of choice on behalf of this
country that's already gotten us into six that's already had
Like how many are we expected to enter to We've
given them tens of billions of dollars, all of our intelligence,
all of our weapons. We allow them to do whatever

(56:50):
they want to their poor neighbors.

Speaker 3 (56:52):
We want.

Speaker 8 (56:52):
We literally watch on our phones as their neighbors babies scream,
as they're crushed under buildings, dying the most gruesome deaths,
and yet now we're required to enter another war for them.
It's just I mean, it's such an outrage and man,
it just seems so incredibly shortsighted and this it's just
gonna lead to nothing good.

Speaker 1 (57:13):
Nope, it is certainly not. But as usual, we always
appreciate you, Dave a voice for many who feel voiceless
at an a crazy moment.

Speaker 2 (57:22):
Like yeah, Dave, appreciate you, know you being principled and
your character is not easy to be like, hey, I
was just wrong about this, so you know, really huge
respect for that and always always great to talk to
you and get your insights.

Speaker 1 (57:34):
Good to see you man now.

Speaker 3 (57:34):
Thanks guys. Always great to talk to you, guys. Appreciate
you having me