6/18/25: Trump Says 'We' Control Iran's Skies, Lindsey Graham Floats Troops In Iran, Tucker Exposes Ted Cruz

Ryan and Emily discuss Trump says 'we' control Iran's skies, Lindsey Graham floats troops in Iran, Tucker Carlson exposes Ted Cruz.

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 1 (00:25):
We need your help to build the future of independent
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dot com.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
Happy Wednesday, Welcome to Breaking Points, Emily. How you doing
doing well?

Speaker 4 (00:37):
Ryan. We've got a big show, lots of developments up
in the Middle East to cover, and we have.

Speaker 5 (00:41):
Such a packed show.

Speaker 3 (00:42):
We were going to actually, and I'm not even joking
this time, and I know it's hard for people to
tell when I'm joking or not, we were going to
have doctor Turtle Boyle on to cover the Karen Reid verdict.

Speaker 4 (00:52):
We're so close.

Speaker 5 (00:53):
The verdict did not come yesterday. It should have.

Speaker 3 (00:56):
The judge screwed it up. It's probably going to come
this mon it's going to be not guilty. I'm telling
you now. Maybe they'll get her on the OUI thing,
the drinking and driving. It's a really important case for
not just police abuse, corruption, but also the First Amendment
because doctor Turtle Boy was charged with a bunch of
different crimes for reporting on the case, literally for reporting

(01:18):
on the case, and so far he's been victorious in
all of those cases.

Speaker 5 (01:23):
Solidarity with Turtle Boy.

Speaker 4 (01:25):
Yeah, big time. And just know we are in touch with.

Speaker 5 (01:28):
Turtle though not necessarily with everything Turtle Boy believes in.

Speaker 4 (01:31):
Probably not, but we are in touch with Turtle Boy,
and we do hope to have him on the show soon.
But we're following that case very closely. Maybe we'll have
information to cover on hopefully we hope to get him.

Speaker 3 (01:41):
He's done incredible work on that case, so hopefully we'll
have him on this week.

Speaker 4 (01:44):
Yeah, amazing stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:45):
Ryan.

Speaker 4 (01:46):
We also have Brad Lander on today's show. That's a
big get. He's been making headlines across the country after
the dust up yesterday in New York City.

Speaker 3 (01:54):
Yeah, he spent several hours in federal custody yesterday because
he was demanding a warrant from masked men who are
trying to haul off haul off a New York resident,
and so there's video of him.

Speaker 5 (02:08):
Let me see your warrant. Let me see your warrant.

Speaker 3 (02:10):
I want to see your warrant because there have been
people impersonating ICE agents and using that kind.

Speaker 5 (02:18):
Of cover to commit crimes.

Speaker 3 (02:22):
He's demanding to see documentation that they are who they are.
They arrested him, and that might upend the mayoral race.

Speaker 4 (02:30):
Right, so right, he's currently polling around third, right, but.

Speaker 3 (02:33):
He and Zorhan have cross endorsed each other, so in
some ways it's a boost for Sorehan.

Speaker 4 (02:38):
We will see what he thinks over the last What
he thinks about the last twenty four hours will also
be joined after we cover developments out of Iran. Will
certainly cover new statements from Vice President j d. Vance.
Ted Cruz did an interview with Tucker Carlson that already
is promising to be absolutely explosive. We have a couple

(02:59):
of clips from that, you're gonna want to see those.
Ryan has some developments from Gaza. Obviously, many predicted that
in the shadow of what was happening in Iran, there
would be some truly awful news to come out of
Gaza that has proven sadly accurate. So Ryan is going
to break down the latest there and Ross Park and

(03:20):
we'll join us to talk more about Alexandria Kazuo Cortes
endorsing Zoron Madani in New York City, and Ross will
be here to kind of analyze what it means for
the left.

Speaker 5 (03:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (03:33):
Ross is a terrific independent journalist up in New York City.
He's really the guy to follow if that's what you're
interested in.

Speaker 4 (03:41):
Yeah, and then we'll be doing a live ama, So
if you are a premium subscriber, you can join us
for that Breaking Points dot Com. As a reminder, you
can head over there if you want to try out
a premium subscription. Ryan, let's get into the first block.

Speaker 5 (03:56):
Here, all right.

Speaker 3 (03:57):
So Trey Yanst for Fox News, who, interestingly a lot
of kind of pro Israel folks have been really angry
about because every time that Israel targets and kills a
journalist in Gaza, he stands up for them. He also
is willing to interview Palestinians. But he's been reporting out

(04:19):
of Israel for a very long time and it is
generally fairly sympathetic towards Israel, but it shows the lack
of kind of any daylight that you're allowed as a
reporter without getting criticized. But here he is just to
set off this block. Reporting from Jerusalem.

Speaker 6 (04:40):
Right now, there are ballistic missiles being fired at Israel's
second largest city of Tel Aviv. Currently missile defense systems
are working to shoot down the incoming fire. We are
going to take some cover here as this unfold. You
can see in the distance interceptor rounds coming off trying

(05:01):
to shoot down. Pull it off the dry pod and
let's move inside. The flash there in the sky, explosions overhead,
and again this is the third barade.

Speaker 5 (05:18):
I said.

Speaker 3 (05:18):
Jerusalem is in Tel Aviv, obviously, which is which is
sustaining most of the ongoing blows. That the tenth wave
Iran from Iran came yet yesterday, as there seems to
be no sign yet of a ceasefire or slowing down
of the of the back and forth here with Israel
saying that tomorrow Thursday, they're going they have some huge

(05:41):
surprise up their sleeve, yep, that they're that they're going
to that they're going to launch.

Speaker 4 (05:45):
Yeah, and so The latest reporting is that fifty jets
were striking Iran. Fifty Israeli jets were striking Iran yesterday,
reportedly the centrifuge and missile production sites. But that particular
shot for trey yinst is a dangerous one because the
Iron Dome has been breached. There have been successful strikes

(06:08):
over the course of the last week, so you can
understand why he ran for cover in that case. Ryan,
Now to your point, Trump posted yesterday. This is a
two This is a true social post from Donald Trump yesterday,
all caps unconditional surrenders.

Speaker 3 (06:27):
I saw that and I was so glad that this
is over. Yeah, we have surrendered. God, I shouldn't laugh
about it wasn't actually us surrendering to Iron. It actually
meant he had surrendered to Israel and it's just going
to allow them. He's like he thought for a while
he was going to run American foreign policy, which is
an understandable mistake because he ran for president of the

(06:49):
United States and got one. He got more votes, and
that Yahoo did not run. Biden ran for a while,
but he dropped out, if you may remember, then Kamala
Harris filled in, and then all the American people who
felt like voting went to the polls and elected somebody
to be the president of the United States, which in
the Constitution sets American foreign policy that was written many

(07:12):
hundreds of years ago.

Speaker 5 (07:13):
So that's not how we.

Speaker 4 (07:14):
Do it for a living breathing document.

Speaker 3 (07:15):
Right, it's a living dead document, So it's not how
we do it anymore. So President Trump here has said
that he's actually acknowledging that he's surrendering American foreign policy
to a prime minister, Benjamin Nyah.

Speaker 4 (07:30):
Meanwhile, this is a one you can see. These are
installations nuclear facilities across Tehran reportedly being obliterated, as this
post on xputs it, by the i AF, lots and
lots of hits. Now. The reporting line about Trump and
the way that he has reacted to this, and it's

(07:52):
important that you're watching what you're seeing on your screen
right now. As we get into this New York Times tidbit.
Greg Star posted it by saying, pretty funny to watch
quote anti war Trump suddenly decide that warmaking looks totally
awesome on TV and gravitate toward war with iron literally
on that basis. He was responding to this Times report
that when Donald Trump woke up last Friday morning quote

(08:12):
his favorite TV channel, Fox News, was broadcasting wall to
wall imagery of what it was portraying as Israel's military genius.
Mister Trump could not resist claiming some credit for himself.
In phone calls with reporters, mister Trump began hinting that
he had played a bigger behind the scenes role in
the war than people realized. Privately, he told some confidants
that he was now leaning toward a more serious escalation,

(08:34):
going along with Israel's early request the US deliver powerful
bunker busting bombs. So Ryan that then brings us to
a four, which was another post on truth Social yesterday. Immediately,
immediately everyone pointed out the implication of what Trump is
saying here when he goes, quote, we now have complete

(08:57):
and total control of the skies over Iran. Iran had
good skytrackers and other defensive equipment, and plenty of it,
but it doesn't compare to American made, conceived and manufactured stuff.
Nobody does it better than the good old USA. So
that first line, in particular, we now have complete and
total control of the skies over Iran. When you combine

(09:19):
that with the New York Times report that Craig Sargeant posted.
It's an interesting, i think, potential window into the way
Donald Trump, on a substantial basis, not even just stylistically,
but substantially, is now approaching this war, which is that
US involvement projects strength, and there's nothing he likes more

(09:42):
than the projection of strength. If he were here and
had a fair shot to defend himself, he would say, absolutely,
that's policy in and of itself, that strength. That is
the policy, that is the end goal is so that
the United States looks strong and hegemonic. And I think
that's increasingly what his quote unquote America first foreign policy

(10:05):
is conceived of in his own mind. The problem, and
we'll talk about this in the next block, is that's
not how a lot of his own allies see it.

Speaker 3 (10:13):
It reminds me a little bit of his approach to
the tariffs, in the sense that he just launches these
tariffs at everybody and says the goal of them ultimately
is He's going to, you know, force China and Japan
and all of these countries to the take to the
negotiating table.

Speaker 5 (10:30):
It's like they're all the phone is ringing off the hook.
The tariffs are working now net Yahoo.

Speaker 3 (10:36):
Apparently one of the ways he was able to sell
these strikes to Trump is as a way to win
leverage in the negotiations. And so there are all there's
talk that, oh, he's going to have Witkough or you know,
he's going to send advance to speak with you know,
various Iranian negotiators that he hasn't murdered yet, and that

(10:57):
if he can do that, that that's a win. Except
in both cases they were already at the table. You
want to talk to China or Japan about trade, call
them up, happy to talk. Iran was literally already at
the negotiating table. They were supposed to meet last Sunday
until they killed some of the negotiators and the meetings

(11:19):
were canceled. So then you go ahead and say, oh,
one of the things we're trying to do is get
them back to the table. It's like when it was
first suggested to me the night of the attacks that
this was the way that Nenyahu had persuaded Trump, I thought,
not even Trump, is that stupid? Like that makes no sense.
You're like, you're already negotiating. You don't need to bomb

(11:41):
them to get to negotiate. With them, but apparently that worked.
That combined with look how cool war looks on TV,
it's similar to the Costum Solomony assassination. In twenty twenty,
the Israelis came to Trump and said that they wanted

(12:04):
to assassinate Solemony and that they would but they needed
the US to do it because they don't they didn't
have the They wanted the US to do it, but
they would take the credit for it, the credit slash
blame for it. Trump said no, no, no, I want
the credit for it. I'm going to do it. And
so he used the Saudis to reach out to the
Iranians to say that, hey, let's let bygones be bygones.

(12:28):
Let's try to ease tensions a little bit. Yeah, I
left the Iran nuclear deal, but let's, you know, let's
live together peacefully in this world, the kind of stuff
Trump says now. And so they get they lure him
to Bagdad for these peace negotiations, and then when he

(12:48):
gets into a car outside the airport with a drone,
they kill him and everybody in the car, and then
he takes credit for it.

Speaker 5 (12:58):
So all of it's very similar.

Speaker 3 (13:00):
Pretending to use diplomacy pretending to care about peaceful co
existence and then salivating over like they with a real lust.
That's kind of disturbing. Well, that's the death and carnage.

Speaker 4 (13:13):
That's sort of the crux of it is that I
think these tiktoks are really the TikTok New York Times reporting,
Axios reporting, they're all strategically they're full of strategic leaks.
And that doesn't mean the reports are incorrect, but it's
actually really hard, right.

Speaker 5 (13:30):
It might be to know we're getting lied to constantly.

Speaker 4 (13:33):
Totally, and it's for for different reasons too. So part
of actually the implication of all that reporting is in
fact that Trump was strategically the administration at least was
strategically leaking that they were dead serious about diplomacy, and
they weren't.

Speaker 5 (13:51):
That's one of the theories.

Speaker 4 (13:52):
Yeah, the dead is the that's the operative part of it.
But uh, that was I mean, that's actually part of
one of the stories we're being sold is that they
were projecting, using the media and their own public posturing
to project seriousness about these negotiations, and we actually still
don't know whether or not that's true or whether to

(14:13):
the point you just raised that Donald Trump's hand was
forced by netsan Yahoo in a way that made Trump,
who wants to always look hegemonic, who wants to look
like he is the embodiment of strength, his United States
is the embodiment of strength. Is then his hand is
being forced by net Yaho because he feels like the

(14:34):
United States and net yeah, who knows. He feels like
the United States needs to look as though it's in
control and post things like quote unquote, we have total
control over the skies. I don't think we still have
a clear answer on what happened. I think we can
have we have good indications in these in one direction
or the other, but we still don't quite know. And

(14:54):
I think that that's where you see jd Vance coming in. Yesterday,
he got into a back and forth with Cassandra McDonald.
We can put a five, we can roll through a
five and a six actually, but he posted a really
lengthy note on ACT yesterday where he said, I'm seeing
this from the inside, and I'm admittedly biased towards our president,

(15:14):
parentheses and my friend, but there's a lot of crazy
stuff on social media, so I wanted to address some
things directly on the Iran issue. He first notes that
Trump has been quote amazingly consistent over ten years that
Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. He then says, I've
seen a lot of confusion over the issue of quote
unquote civilian nuclear power and uranium enrichment, that these are
distinct issues. He says that Iran has been found in

(15:37):
violation off they're not proliferational obligations by the International Atomic
Energy Agency, and then goes on to actually exchange a
polost with Cassandra McDonald Ryan, who was previously Cassandra Fairbanks.

Speaker 5 (15:50):
Am I right, yeah, that's right.

Speaker 4 (15:52):
Okay, And she was previously sort of Bernie adjacent.

Speaker 3 (15:55):
Yeah, I remember her in twenty sixteen being maybe my
memories gone correct me if I'm wrong down in the comments,
But I remember her being a like super pro Bernie
person in twenty sixteen.

Speaker 4 (16:05):
So he gets into a back and forth with her
over Tulsi Gabberd's testimony that US intelligence's assessment was around
basically was not close to having a nuclear weapon, And
she said, are you saying, Tulsi in the eighteen US
intelligence bodies back in the opposite findings less than eight
weeks ago are wronger lying, yes.

Speaker 5 (16:26):
It's true.

Speaker 3 (16:27):
Vance, she was an Ald Bernie person. So it's interesting
that this back and forth is between JD. Vance, who
has been on his own political pipeline, and then Cassandra
who was strong Bernie supporter but felt like the Democrats
that just had ruined what Bernie stood for, and so
she went on the pipeline over to Maga.

Speaker 4 (16:44):
Right, And so JD replies and says, no, I'm not
saying that. First off, Tulci's testimony was in March, and
a lot has changed since then. Second, if you look
at what she said, then her point about your Raim
enrichment is consistent with what I wrote above. And Ryan,
we are going to get into this a little bit
in the next block. That is the new I think
attempt for the quote unquote America first, anti neo kon

(17:06):
Maga people who are supportive of Donald Trump's approach over
the last week, to Israel's attacks in Iran which are
boiling pretty steadily, to US full US involvement, to the
bunker buster being used. Is this argument. This is all
consistent because things changed since March twenty seventh. They are

(17:30):
genuinely very close to enrichment et cetera.

Speaker 3 (17:34):
Right, But I just does anybody believe that like that,
that's the thing.

Speaker 5 (17:39):
That's the thing.

Speaker 3 (17:40):
And I'm wondering about the Trump supporters, Like you guys
have seen the videos of netaw who's saying since like
the two thousand, early two thousands that if you just
do if Iran is right around the corner from getting
a bomb. There's also some fun videos going around him

(18:00):
starting in nineteen eighty two saying that if the US
would just do X and terrorism will go away. And
the first one is in nineteen eighty two. He says,
if we can just get rid of the Soviet Union,
then their puppets, the PLO, will be destroyed and there
will be no kind of Palestinian resistance movement, he says,
and there will be no terrorism anywhere in the world.

(18:21):
You get rid of the Soviet Union, there'll be no terrorism.
He's like, oh, okay, never mind, it didn't work. If
you get rid of Saddam Hussein, there will be no
terrorism anywhere and no instability. It's the middle least ironically,
of course, what did taking out Iraq do? It empowered
Iran like went It took Iran from a regional subpower

(18:43):
to a regional superpower, and so now he says, to
take out Iran, then now we're not going to have
any problems anymore.

Speaker 5 (18:51):
No instability.

Speaker 3 (18:52):
And he's been saying for twenty plus years that were
right around the corner from getting a bomb and vance.

Speaker 5 (18:59):
It was a very smart man.

Speaker 3 (19:01):
Word that worded that response to Cassandra very cleverly.

Speaker 5 (19:06):
What about Tulsi? Was she wrong?

Speaker 3 (19:09):
And he says, no, a lot has changed since March.
But what did he not say there?

Speaker 5 (19:17):
He did not.

Speaker 3 (19:17):
Say we have new intelligence that suggests that since March,
Iran is trying to make some breakout for a bomb,
because according to the intelligence assessments and all of the reporting,
we do not have that intelligence.

Speaker 5 (19:32):
And that is not the case.

Speaker 3 (19:33):
And the Iotola and the political leadership in Iran had
not made that decision. They have their own reasons not
to want that. They don't want proliferation in the region.
Not only did they think that it would be bad
for them, and they kind of built the program as
a chip to trade away for getting rid of sanctions.
They don't want Saudi Arabia, Ue and all these other
countries to have nuclear weapons either because sometimes they get

(19:56):
in conflicts with them. They went through a one of
the nastiest wars of the last fifty years with the RACK,
and those people were fought in that war. They don't
they so they have their own strategic reasons not to
want nuclear but they also know if they use the
nuclear weapon against Israel, Israel has second straight capabilities and
they're finished. So for all these reasons, our intelligence assessment

(20:18):
is that they're not going for a bomb where they were.

Speaker 5 (20:20):
Not as of a week ago.

Speaker 3 (20:26):
The way that Vance says it, a lot has happened
since March.

Speaker 5 (20:28):
That is true.

Speaker 3 (20:29):
NBA Finals going on, Karen Reid trial has happened since March.

Speaker 4 (20:35):
Show lies, Detective many other.

Speaker 3 (20:37):
Many things have happened since March, so he can make
a true statement which is fundamentally a lie because Tulsi
Gabber's an intel assessment as of March held until the
second that they were bombed.

Speaker 4 (20:51):
So Tulsi Gabbert, this is actually quite interesting. New reporting
suggests that Donald Trump was very irked by that video.
We tried to cover it last week, but the news
just got insane of Tulsi Gabbard coming out and she
got really mocked for this because the video was admittedly
a bit odd, and we're increasingly see why the video

(21:13):
of about nuclear conflict. Do you remember that she put
it out last week and it started with Hiroshima Nagasaki
and transitioned into a very eerie, vague warning about the
imminent threat of nuclear conflict or the looming threat of

(21:34):
nuclear conflict would be one way to put it. And
it seems increasingly that was interpreted by people around her
and was intentionally it was intentionally dropped because Tulsa Gabbard
was concerned about potential escalation in this situation. Now, it

(21:55):
could be the case that video was actually about Russia Ukraine,
It could be the case that video was about China.
It could be the case of the video was just
a video, but Trump was reportedly irked by it and
saw that. As you combine it with the fact that
Tulsa Gabbard was left out of the Camp David meeting.

(22:16):
Now the reporting is that she had a national Guard conflict.
Peter Deucy reported that there's that, But Peter Deucy reported
that she wasn't invited anyway, And so it does seem
like the you know, I think Tulca Gabbard is is
sort of a what's the right word, she'll transgress the

(22:39):
the conventional wisdom in a group. Should we've seen her
do that like that? She has the history of doing that,
whatever you think of her, And so you can understand
why people who are increasingly marching in one direction would
leave the descent out of a camp David meeting, for example.

Speaker 3 (22:57):
But I think, however, and not to catch up, but
go back to this point in a second. This is
from the same New York Times article. They write, while
everyone knew that miss Gabbard was as anti interventionist as
they come, she rarely pushed that view on the president.
So congratulations to Tulsa Gabbard who switched parties to fight

(23:20):
regime change wars, to get into a position where you
couldn't have an influence to fight against a regime change war,
and quote rarely pushed that view.

Speaker 5 (23:30):
On the president. Well done. What do you do, Tulsi?
If you're watching, what are you doing with your life? Like?
What are you doing?

Speaker 4 (23:36):
Disagree? Well, I mean I kind of disagree with that,
but I guess it's hard to know. That's the thing
with all of these leaks is it's hard to know
what's actually happening behind closed doors. I'd rather Tulsi Gabbard
be in the administration throwing cold water on all of it.

Speaker 5 (23:49):
But she's not throwing cold water.

Speaker 4 (23:51):
I mean, I guess it's so throw some cold water,
Tulsi the Politico. So, a senior administration official told Politico
this morning, quote, certainly the video made him Trump not
super hot on her, and he doesn't like it when
people are off message. So if you're Toldsy Gabbard, obviously,
to remain in any position of influence, you have to
walk an absolute tight rope. And I guess it's just

(24:11):
hard to know the extent to which she's done that.
I'm glad that it's not. I'll just say Bush forty
three at the White House right now, there's at least
some possibility of someone raising some cold water. But yeah,
you're right, I mean it could be literally just putting
out the cryptic video.

Speaker 5 (24:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (24:30):
Well, when she resigns in protest or gets fired standing imitation,
please come on the program and tell us exactly what
you did to fight against these regime change wars.

Speaker 4 (24:41):
And to your point, Jade Vance is going to have
to fill in that blank of what happened if he
wants to remain consistent and playcate. Actually a lot of
people in MAGA world. He's going to have to ultimately
fill in the blank of what changed since March, especially
if the United States involvement increases now now the Supreme

(25:01):
Leader Hamani has responded and said that Iran won't accept
quote imposed war or imposed peace, and has warned that
any United States strikes will have quote serious irreparable consequences.
The reporting is also that Iran is potentially preparing to
hit US basis. That's not surprising at all, but US

(25:23):
bases in the region, which means that we can be
dragged into this, as everyone knows, at any moment. But
that also that there could be deaths of US military
personnel at any moment. And so we are right now
simmering on the edge of it. Doesn't look like we're

(25:44):
heading for de escalation in any way whatsoever. It looks
like right now we're teetering on the brink of full
blown war.

Speaker 5 (25:51):
Yeah. And according to yov Glan, we can play this here.

Speaker 3 (25:54):
It is our obligation, the United States obligation to enter
into this war of their choosings.

Speaker 5 (26:00):
Play A seven.

Speaker 7 (26:02):
I believe that the United States of America and the
President of the United States have an obligation to make
sure that the region is going to a positive way
and that the world is free from Iran that possessed

(26:23):
nuclear weapons in the middle of the rich's place in
oil and gus in the world. This could be a
disaster for the world. And I believe that the determination
of the American president that have been shown recently will
pave the way to America to enter into this very

(26:47):
important operation. The president of the United States have the
option to change the Middle East and influence the war
and influence the world.

Speaker 3 (26:58):
So if you read the Times piece very closely, you
get to parts where it just doesn't make sense. Like
Trump is on the phone that Yahoo telling him he
doesn't want to want net Yahoo to attack Iran while
he's still doing the negotiations, and he gets off the phone,
He's like, well, nothing I could do. It looks like
he's going to do it, and we might have to
join him, might have to help him out.

Speaker 4 (27:18):
It's like, really, otherwise we look weak from his perspective.

Speaker 3 (27:24):
Or you say, you're not doing that, and if you do,
we're not replenishing in your weapon stocks.

Speaker 4 (27:29):
Yeah, that would be strunge.

Speaker 3 (27:31):
But they have their own domestic industry. And there are
people in Israel who've been calling for you know, less
US military support because they want to build up their
own weapons industry even more than it is, so that
they're completely independent and can continue war endlessly without any

(27:52):
pressure from anybody, including US.

Speaker 5 (27:54):
So let them do that.

Speaker 3 (27:55):
Then it's like tell them, nan, yah, okay, if that's
what you're gonna do, you're gonna do it alone. But
it sounds like that, you know, just told him what
he was going to do, and that told him that basically,
and basically, you're going to help us, whether you like
it or not.

Speaker 5 (28:10):
So what what did we have the whole election for?
We covered that.

Speaker 3 (28:14):
We spent like a year on this dumb show covering
the presidential election.

Speaker 5 (28:19):
Why should we just cover.

Speaker 4 (28:23):
Cover the Israeli elections?

Speaker 5 (28:24):
Yeah? Yeah, I guess so.

Speaker 4 (28:27):
Well. Donald Trump, when he first won the Republican primary,
was winning a lot of votes specifically as a critic
of American foreign policy, which led a lot of people
to categorize him sort of neatly as an anti interventionist,
which has never been true. We knew that from his
first term that that was never true. And the Times

(28:49):
report and we could go full circle here that we
mentioned at the beginning of this block about Trump seeing
on Fox News the images of Israel bombing Iran and
an inching closer and closer to war. Again, that is,
all of us are strategicallyaking it's fog of war media information.
So you have to, you know, learn, We all have

(29:11):
to learn from what's happened many times in the past
and try the best we can to piece together the
puzzle of what happened here. And that's already hard enough
to do with Donald Trump's foreign policy because I think
it's it's so often about optics. But that's why that
particular part of the report rings sure. I mean, he
just spent tens of millions of dollars on a military
parade for admittedly the reason of optics. That's that's the

(29:37):
I guess.

Speaker 5 (29:37):
Which just killed a woman.

Speaker 4 (29:39):
I saw that tanks on New York Avenue here in DC.
But that is the predicate of peace through strength. I mean,
it's obviously not just optics, but that the projection of
strength is the and this is taking in good faith,
obviously that argument. And I'm not saying that the argument
is being made by everyone in good faith, because certainly

(29:59):
it's but that you have to look strong in order
to have your foreign policy serve as a deterrent. Now,
the problem is that is very seductive, and it easily
ends up boiling into hot conflict. That's why it's always
been sort of funny to see in a tragic way,

(30:20):
the peace through strength conservative movement reported repeatedly support hot conflicts.
You know, from Gulf War. Then you can get into
Iraq obviously and Afghanistan, but also even just like post
Cold War skirmishes and different outposts, peace through strength is

(30:41):
really easy for that to just go strength and you
never actually get to the piece that.

Speaker 5 (30:46):
Would be the history of the American empire.

Speaker 4 (30:48):
Right, definitely, this is the last thirty years, at least
the last thirty years. But we don't quite know where
this is going. We do have this quote, and again
this is a Trump administration official to Dasha Burns at Politico. Quote.
The movement right now is away from diplomacy and toward
US involvement. We are moving toward taking out Irani and

(31:11):
nuclear facilities. So that's what's on the table. Could happen
at any moment.

Speaker 3 (31:17):
Yes, the logic seems to inexorably lead to a strike
on the four doh and a mountain nuclear facility like
that seems to be like I making predictions, but like.

Speaker 5 (31:33):
That that's where that's where this is headed.

Speaker 4 (31:35):
Yeah, it's hard to see and.

Speaker 5 (31:37):
Where that goes from here? What oil is? What up to?

Speaker 8 (31:40):
What?

Speaker 5 (31:41):
Seventy something in a barrel? Now? Like oil prices are surging.

Speaker 3 (31:45):
Iran is threatening the you know mine, the Strait of
Horror moves which is where the half the world's oil
moves through Irani and Yue, and Saudi oil moves through
their natural gas from Cutter moves through there. China has
built a railway from China to Tehran to ship oil
from Iran to China.

Speaker 5 (32:07):
It's not fully operational.

Speaker 3 (32:09):
I think it's first kind of maiden voyage was like
a couple of weeks ago. But once that gets going,
they'll be able to move enormous amounts of oil into China,
which is where most of the Orian oil goes. Because
of our stupid sanctions, they get it actually much cheaper
than the otherwise would incredible American policy, like our policy
is going to be that one of the world's biggest
oil producers must sell its oil at a discount to

(32:31):
our adversary China. That's our policy, right because reasons reasons.

Speaker 4 (32:37):
Well, just before we leave this block and get into
the politics of it, the death toll right now, according
to one human rights group, they're saying it's at least
five hundred and eighty five Iranians wounded. That's the death
toll or wounded is north of thirteen hundred. That's according
to the group human Rights Activists. There are there's other

(32:59):
smiths that put that a bit lower. The Associated Press
reports that Aron has a history of downplaying death tolls,
and so the higher number might be the safer assumption
in this case. But twenty four dead in Israel as well,
and it looks ryan like those numbers aren't going to
slow down.

Speaker 3 (33:19):
Yeah, and Trump said everybody in Tehran needs to evacuate.
Then he backed off of that. Israelis have set everybody
in I think District eighteen in Tehran I needs to evacuate,
which is in the center of the city. It's a
city of ten million people. We've spoken to people who
are there and are in contact with them. They said
there's no gas. Like you know, when you have a crisis,

(33:42):
you can't replenish the gas supplies. The gas stations, so
there's no gas like, so if you don't have a
tank of gas, like, you're not getting out of town. Also,
traffic is utterly gridlocked, and it's a city of ten
million people, so you cannot just flat evacuate it. Also,
banks are shut shut down because of Israeli hacks. This

(34:03):
hacker group called Predatory Sparrow, which is known to be
affiliated with with Israel, hacked to IERGC linked banks, which
are also very popular banks among regular people, so people
can't get their money. I'm also told that this same
hacker group took down the kind of this IERGC linked

(34:24):
crypto company I forget what it's called, and made off
with like forty seven million dollars and so Iranians, you know,
in order to because of sanctions. Crypto is a very
popular means of moving money around just between just from
people overseas into Iran. Like you live in Los Angeles,

(34:46):
just send money to your family back into Iran. Crypto
is an easy way to do it. And so that
has been routed. So if yeah, the destruction aside from
the kind of physical and the destruction, and so then
you tell somebody you need to evacuate under those circumstances
like it's.

Speaker 5 (35:05):
Not going to happen. People are just going to honker
down and hope that they don't get killed.

Speaker 4 (35:11):
And finally, let's put this last element on screen. A eight.
This is the debate over war powers that is escalating
in Congress now. Obviously, with Republican control of the House.
In the Senate, it's unlikely this is brought to the
floor or becomes a serious possibility of getting passed. But
as The New York Times reports here there's in the

(35:34):
House a Democratic Republican quoteamed up on Tuesday to introduce
a resolution that would require congressional approval before US troops
could engage in offensive attacks against Iran. The measure, by
Rocanna and Thomas Massey underscore of view held by many
in Congress that mister Trump should not be able to
decide on his own whether the US weighs deeper into
the conflict. Now. Senator Tim Kaine on Monday introduced a

(35:55):
similar resolution. The Time says, referring to the Upper Chamber,
there and Brian, this is I can't believe where even
it is so quaint and so obvious that this is
should not be covered by the aomths but here we are,
and it's it's hardly making a run.

Speaker 3 (36:15):
Do they even claim that it's covered by the AMF
the An they haven't so fast. In two thousand two
is aimed at al Qaeda and its allies, al Qaeda
and Iran, you know, basically a war and that work, yeah, right, exactly.
So to the extent that al Qaeda exists as it

(36:36):
used to, like Iran is, there is Lauran as their adversary,
So trying to use it in that context would be absurd.
I think they're just they are not even caring. No,
they're just they're just going to do it. And so
Tim Kaine has put forward in the Senate and Massy
in the House of War Powers resolution, and Bernie Sanders

(36:58):
has put forward in the Senate bill that would basically
say you can't that would block the use of funds
for an attack on Iran. The We asked him Kine,
why he went this route rather than blocking funds, and
kin Kane told.

Speaker 5 (37:16):
Us that drops out. It will have a story later today.

Speaker 3 (37:19):
Teaming up with the prospect actually that he wanted something privileged.
Privileged means the leadership in the House and Senate cannot
block it. That's why Massey would have done the resolution
that way too. So it comes so it has to
at least come to the floor for a vote. It's
what the bite that it has is less than if

(37:39):
you pull funds because saying, hey, we say you can't
do this, it's unconstitutional. Presidents have been like whatever, like hike,
we're doing it anyway. But you know they're they're going
to at least put people on record, or that's that's
the hope at least could get up to I think

(38:01):
they're at what twenty seven or thirty co sponsors at
this point. That'd be incredible, right, but it's yeah, but
it's still the raises the question of where why isn't
the Democratic Party seizing this opportunity like a you think
Trump is a tyrant. He manhandled a senator last week,

(38:26):
indicted a Democratic member of Congress last week for some
ice stuff, or two weeks ago yesterday he arrested a
and he is an ice Democratic mayoral candidate in New York.
You think this guy's a tyrant. You don't think he
has legal authority to launch his war, And you're just

(38:46):
gonna kind of sit back and let Tim Kane and
Bernie Sanders then Massy do something. Rocanna called out, I
think he's gonna be on the program Friday. Rokanna called
out Schumer for Schumer's Schumer's response was, you know, if
we decide we're going to do it, we will definitely.

Speaker 5 (39:02):
Assert our authority. Like what I mean.

Speaker 3 (39:06):
If if you decide you're kind of thing is that
to say like we do it or don't do it?

Speaker 5 (39:11):
Yeah, so in otherwise you're not, which which this is.

Speaker 4 (39:16):
Why Congress should vote on these decisions. Is exactly why
Congress should be forced to vote on these decisions.

Speaker 5 (39:23):
Yeah, of course people should in a republic should have
a say on this stuff.

Speaker 4 (39:29):
Completely insane, but here we are.

Speaker 3 (39:32):
So so Yeah, you can call your mammer Congress tell
them to co sponsor this resolution, this war Powers resolution.
So at least there's some counter counter pressure.

Speaker 4 (39:47):
Ryan, speaking of counter pressure and the degree to which
it may or may not exist in the West Wing
and in the Republican Party. Let's transition to this next
block where we're going to start here with Lindsay Graham
on Fox News yesterday making a statement that then reverberated
across X and particularly with people who are typically allies

(40:09):
of Donald Trump who are influential voices on the right.
So let's first rule Lindsey Graham on Fox News and
then get into the reaction that it's set off. Can
you guarantee that can President Trump in anything, can you
make the commitment that this would not lead to a
longer war.

Speaker 9 (40:27):
I can guarantee you that if the ito all gets
a nuclear weapon, he will use it.

Speaker 10 (40:31):
I believe that with all my heart and soul.

Speaker 9 (40:33):
So the men and women who serve they're the ones going,
not people answering a poll, And if you ask them,
would you be willing to risk your life to stop
the I tool them from having a nuclear weapon, all
of them would say yes, because it makes their country,
our country is safer. So we live in a world
where you've got to confront problems you want to avoid
World War three, learn the lessons from World War two.

(40:55):
People in World War Two appeased Hitler to the point
that it got so much out of hand. We had
a world war and sixty million people got killed. So
we live in a world where you pay now or
you pay later.

Speaker 5 (41:07):
I hope it's eliminated. I would like to.

Speaker 9 (41:10):
See this regime fall, but I'm going to leave it
up to the President as to what to.

Speaker 4 (41:14):
Do and when to do it.

Speaker 9 (41:15):
But I do know this, if we don't take out
their nuclear program now, we'll all regret it. We're very close,
be all in, mister President and helping Israel finish the job.
And let's see where we're at after we neutralize our
nuclear program.

Speaker 4 (41:29):
So it goes without saying that Charlie Kirk is obviously
very close to Donald Trump, very close to the White House,
and particularly close to Donald Trump Junior. This b too,
is how Charlie Kirk responded to Lindsay Graham's statement that
he would like to see the regime fall. He says,
this is insane. Regime change will results in a bloody
civil war, killing hundreds of thousands, and creating another massive

(41:49):
Muslim refugee crisis. Toapling a leader is never as easy
as you think. It almost always results in further involvement
in civil war and chaos. Resist this. Mount Wall of
the Daily Wire responded, Lindsay Graham is calling for a
full scale invasion of Iran for the sake of quote
fighting for our freedom. This is insane, reckless madness from
a war mongering asshole who's been in office for thirty

(42:11):
years and never done a single thing to make life
better for Americans. Every single every true America First Conservatives
should reject this maniac and everyone like him. Referring to
Lindsay Graham or Giam change war in the Middle East
has never made Americans freer. Ryan, Obviously, the goal right
now of Lindsay Graham and his allies is to convince

(42:32):
Maga world that this time is different. You mentioned this earlier.
This time jd vance to the point that he was
responding to Cassandra McDonald about this time, there is different
information since March, and trust us when we say it
this time, you're just you know, we're the good guys here.

(42:52):
We're not doing with this.

Speaker 5 (42:53):
You'll be greeted as liberators this time.

Speaker 4 (42:55):
This time we are not Colon Powell in front of
the UN. Things really did change since March, for example,
And that's where they find themselves right now, which is
quite interesting because they've dined out for the last decade
on criticizing Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfeld and all of
those genuine neo conservatives. They've dined out for about a

(43:19):
decade on slamming them and doing it to borrow a
word you used earlier in the show lustily right, with
great glee. And here they find themselves apparently listen, maybe
this time is different, seems unlikely. Maybe in here they
find themselves in the same exact situation.

Speaker 3 (43:41):
And to give credit to the kind of the mega movement,
it is willing to have debates over policy to give
discredit to the MAGA movement. Because everyone is so loyal
to Trump, and because Trump takes loyalty so seriously and
holds such long grudges, those debates can never.

Speaker 5 (44:01):
Include criticism of Trump.

Speaker 3 (44:03):
So in this case, Lindsey Graham presents a nice target
for people who want to criticize Trump's policy here but
don't want to criticize Trump. So when Lindsey Graham goes
so far out on a limb and says such extreme stuff,
it's like, Okay, now we feel free, because no, Lindsey Graham.

Speaker 5 (44:23):
Has had his ups and downs with Trump.

Speaker 3 (44:26):
He's tight with him, but he's also like said that
he's done with him. He'll remember, Trump gave his phone
number out at a rally.

Speaker 4 (44:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (44:35):
That so Lindsey Graham is fair game.

Speaker 3 (44:43):
Within magot, you can hit you can hit him, and
so they're kind of taking that opportunity.

Speaker 4 (44:48):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (44:49):
Marjorie Taylor Green and Matt Gates meanwhile making an awful
lot of sense.

Speaker 5 (44:53):
Let's roll, let's roll them on. Ah A N Matt, I.

Speaker 8 (44:57):
See it just as you do, and you like that
out so well, that's the America First message, But it's
also the truth that the American people have woken up to.

Speaker 11 (45:06):
We've watched for decades propaganda news. I'll call out Fox
News and the New York Post. They're known to be
the neo con network news. We have propaganda news on
our side, just like the left does, and the American
people have been brainwashed into believing that America has to
engage in these foreign wars in order for us to survive.

(45:29):
And it's absolutely not true.

Speaker 8 (45:32):
Prime mister net and Yahoo said I saw on video
he said today that America First is America dead.

Speaker 11 (45:39):
And that sounds like a threat to me. And I
completely completely disagree with him on that.

Speaker 3 (45:45):
Can oh and get a better mic from Marjorie Taylor Green.
You're on cable, like you lobbied Congress and like force
cable companies to pay you so you could be on cable.
Use some of that money center of mic. Come on,
what are you doing? What are you guys doing here?

Speaker 4 (46:00):
You should sendator just as a courtesy.

Speaker 3 (46:02):
Well, I'll send her mike if she'll use it. Let's
let's jump to B six before we get to Bill Mitchell.
B six is Donald Trump Junior, because and I need
you to unpack this for us, so Usobiec says, you
know it's close to he's close to Bandon and close
to Trump. You know, when people warned that regime change
war would break up the MAGA coalition, consider that that

(46:26):
is exactly what the neo cons want, the anti never Trumpers,
And then Trump Junior says, this is one hundred percent right.
I'd add neo cons and Democrats. And that's why I
think my criticism, by the way, should be taken even
more seriously, because I recognize that if you go to war,
this probably does blow up the MAGA coalition, which, hey, fine,

(46:50):
I'd rather that the mega coalitions stay together and we
don't get war. But it's true that for a lot
of the like rich Lowry types and others who want war,
and actually this is a good opportunity. Put up Bill
Mitchell before you responded to it, so put up B five. Yeah,
B five is is Bill Mitchell who became this kind

(47:11):
of democrat basically right, But he says, has anyone considered
the possiblity of that America has miraculously survived so many
close calls over the centuries, is that our purpose is
to defend Israel. If we quit Israel, I believe God
may quit us. And I'm not prepared to take that chance.
Am I has. Didn't Bill Mitchell become kind of anti Trump?

Speaker 4 (47:31):
I think he did, but he's sort of like he's
known as like hardcore Maga to the point of being
almost like the caricature of a Maga boomer on x never.
But I think he may have then like moved away
from it a bit. But that is a And you know,
there were some people on the right mocking that post
or expressing like just real opposition to what's in that post.

(47:55):
That's reflective of what we've talked about before. Dispensation was
fairly fairly common evangelical approach to Israel Ryan And it's basically, yeah,
what he's saying is that, and he's taking it even
and he's making even more political than the basic theory is.

(48:18):
But dispensationalism is that Israel plays a role obviously, that
political Israel, not the sort of historic nation of Israel,
but that political Israel, as the nation state that exists
right now in twenty twenty five, plays a role in
the end times, and then politically that has nudged a
lot of evangelical Christians. I think Mike Kakabye is sort

(48:41):
of played very carefully with us in the past. But
I think probably including Mike kakabee that yeah, that uh,
and everyone remembers his text message to Trump from yesterday,
which was sort of I think the implication of it
is that he's thinking of this like Bill Mitchell told
Donald Trump that God saved him for a reason and
then said he wasn't leaving Israel. Huckaby said he was

(49:02):
a leaving at.

Speaker 5 (49:03):
Lease bring upon the apocalypse.

Speaker 4 (49:05):
It felt like that you could you could read into
it that way. Yeah, So this is what's being pushed
back on by everyone else.

Speaker 3 (49:15):
So Trump, So Trump Junior, not that he has a
whole lot of influence on Trump's senior, but what should
we read into Trump Junior cautioning against the very regime
change war that his father now seems to be getting
excited about.

Speaker 4 (49:29):
So Tucker Carlston, Charlie Kirk, Trump Junior, these people are
very close to each other, and I.

Speaker 3 (49:35):
Think Advance is kind of Advance is very in that.

Speaker 4 (49:38):
Yes, absolutely, and reporting is that JD. Vance has politely
opposed We were talking about Tulsa earlier, but that Jade
Vance has internally politely opposed us. Again, we don't know
how much of that is true. Could just be strategic
leaks from the Vance camp to sort of cover himself,
but that's what's been suggested. So my best guest, Ran

(49:59):
is that what this is is genuine opposition. We keep
hearing the Charlie Kirks say trust Trump. We keep hearing JD.
Vance saying he trusts the commander in chief. We've heard
a couple of others say that politicians, elected officials, Republican
mag elected officials say that in the last forty eight
hours that they just trust Donald Trump's instincts on all

(50:21):
of this. So I think my best guess is that
they are inclined to be very skeptical, suspicious and opposed
to what's happening, and have expressed that privately, but are
publicly trying to play both sides. And look like they're
skeptical and suspicious of it. So they're taking every opportunity

(50:42):
to lash out at Lindsay Graham. He can kind of
be the whipping boy here so that it makes it
look like they're not fully neo conservative, even as Donald
Trump considers doing exactly what Lindsay Graham is calling for.
All right, well, that's as my buzz, guys.

Speaker 3 (51:02):
I mean, hey, let's move from there to Tucker, because
I think that's a good a good segue into this
much now much anticipated interview. Ted Cruz sat down with
Tucker Carlson for his His His Cabin podcast, and Tucker

(51:23):
has so far released two clips. Ted Cruz already stalty
about the clips that have been released. The entire podcast
episode is not out yet, but it appears like it's
going to be Tucker Carlton and Ted Cruz arguing about
war with Iran for a very long time.

Speaker 5 (51:39):
Let's roll the first bit. How many people living around?

Speaker 10 (51:42):
By the way, I don't know the population at all. No,
I don't know the population. You don't know the population
of the country. You seek to topple.

Speaker 4 (51:51):
How many people living around? Nine eight two million?

Speaker 10 (51:53):
Okay, how could you not know that I don't sit
around memorizing popular tables. Well, it's kind of relevant because
you're calling for the overthrow of the government. Why is
it relevant whether it's will because ninety million or eighty
million or one hundred million. What because if you don't
know anything about the country. I didn't say I don't
know anything about Okay, what's the ethnic mix of iron

(52:14):
They are Persians and presuminantly Shia. Okay, you don't know
anything about Iran. So okay, I'm not the Tucker Carlson
bird on Iran. You're a center who's calling there the
one government, the one who about the country. No, you
don't know anything about the country. You're the one who
claims they're not trying to murder Donald Trump.

Speaker 5 (52:34):
I'm not saying that.

Speaker 10 (52:34):
Who can't figure out to say General Solamoni and you said,
believe they're trying to murder Trump? Yes, because you're not
calling for military strikes against them in retaliation, and if
they really believe that carrying out military strikes today? Who
said Israel was right with our help? I've said we
Israel is leading them, but we're supporting them. Well, this
you're breaking news here because the US government last Night denied.

(52:56):
The National Security Council Spokesmanlex Fiffer denied on behalf of
Trump that we were acting on Israel's behalf in any
offensive capacity. We're not bombing, then Israel's bombing.

Speaker 5 (53:04):
Then you just said we were.

Speaker 10 (53:07):
We are supporting as stakes. You're a senator if you're
saying the United States government is now we're with the
run right now.

Speaker 5 (53:13):
People are listening now.

Speaker 3 (53:14):
One reason some of this might be important, Saga flagged
this this morning. Let's put up B nine. So this
is the Iraq war. Coverage is extremely important to go
back over because so much of what we're seeing today
directly mirrors what we saw in two thousand and one
and two in the lead up to the two thousand

(53:35):
and three invasion.

Speaker 5 (53:37):
And I'll just read from this quote.

Speaker 3 (53:39):
During those looks, the New York Times Fund during their
conversation with the President, Peter Gallbraith claims, it became apparent
to them that Bush was unfamiliar with the distinction between
Sunny's and she heites. Gall Breth reports that the three
of them spent some time explaining to Bush that there
are two different sects in Islam, to which the President
allegedly responded, I thought the Iraqis were Muslims, and so Emily.

(54:04):
I've seen a lot of people defending Ted Kruz here saying, look,
you don't have to read the CIA World Factbook about
every country. You know whether or not you want to
invade them. And you know Cruise's point there is, like,
doesn't matter if there's eighty million or one hundred and
ten million. You could say, okay that maybe maybe that
particular data point doesn't matter. Seventy to one hundred and

(54:26):
ten million. It's forty fifty million people we're talking about here.
But okay, fine, let's let's grant that the ethnicity, the
ethnic breakdown is so important because what happened in Iraq,
like what like let's just think about it, like what
what actually happened after we invaded exactly what Peter Galbraith,
by the way, warned would say, warned would happen. He said, Hey,

(54:51):
right now, you have a Sunni minority who is in
control of the country in the form of Sodom Hussein.
There's a Sham majority, and then there's and there's a
Kurdish population up in the north that do not like
Saddam Hussein Uh and in fact, there was a no
flies on at the at the time, kind of basically
creating a de facto independent Kurdish region in the north.

(55:14):
Uh that if you get rid of Saddam Hussein, Iran
is going to arm and in power Shia militias who
are going to spark a sectarian civil war in Iraq.

Speaker 5 (55:25):
That's what was predicted. And if you didn't know.

Speaker 3 (55:30):
These basic facts about the country, you would not be
able to do that analysis. So to say that, oh,
Iran is Persian and you know, predominantly Shia, is to
then say, well, we'll knock off one Shia Ayahtola and
we'll get it, and we'll get a we'll put a

(55:50):
Shia you know res you know, we'll throw in the
Shah's kid and everything will be fine. You're your colleague,
saver it unheard. Amani wrote a piece recently that actually,
and maybe that's where Tucker got it. Maybe he read
that and was like, oh, this this sounds very familiar.
He wrote a piece saying, look, yes, there are a

(56:13):
lot of Shia Persians in Iran, but it's like barely
a majority. In fact, it doesn't even include the Ayatola.

Speaker 5 (56:20):
Who's Zari r uh.

Speaker 3 (56:21):
You have a you have a Kurdish region in the northwest,
which we love to foment.

Speaker 5 (56:28):
You know, we anywhere we.

Speaker 3 (56:29):
Can find like a population anywhere that is interested and
that is that has some skepticism of the metropol. We
love to go in and send them some weapons and
some encouragement, some weapons and.

Speaker 5 (56:44):
Go ahead, this express your national interests.

Speaker 4 (56:47):
Go ahead.

Speaker 3 (56:50):
You know, we do that everywhere, and we're not the
only ones that know how to do that. So if
you create this power vacuum and you have half the
country fighting the other half of the country fighting other
sacks of the country, that seems like something we should
consider before we go into wars. So that's why I
think it's not fair to say that Tucker was asking

(57:13):
him trivia questions.

Speaker 4 (57:15):
Yeah, no, I mean listen, like, I think Tucker's using
those questions as a way, a clever way to make
a point. And you know, so.

Speaker 3 (57:26):
Ted Cruz is like the smartest, one of the top
five smartest senators IQ.

Speaker 4 (57:31):
Wise, he's up there for sure. Yeah, he's like, hey
and Mike Lee and Bernie smart.

Speaker 5 (57:37):
I can't tell.

Speaker 4 (57:38):
I think he's pretty smart. Yes, So Cruz responded, quote,
did a long interview with Tucker, he released a snippet
playing a quote gotcha on the population of Iran. I
declined to play that silly game. Watch the full two
hour interview where Tucker attacked Trump, attacks the APAC lobby,
and falseley claims Iran is not trying to assassinate Trump.
So Cruise, interestingly enough, is advertising this video as heavily

(58:00):
as Tucker, if not even more heavily than Tucker. He
also reposted an attempt to criticize Tucker that said, Tucker,
what's the Iatola's favorite color? Ted Cruise? I don't know, Tucker,
How then can you support an attack on Iran? Cruise
because they're building nuclear weapons, want to destroy American Israel? Tucker,
that's ridiculous. He told me his favorite colors blue, So yeah,

(58:22):
I mean, like again, Ted Cruise makes a point that I.

Speaker 5 (58:25):
Think actually read obviously his favorite color is red.

Speaker 4 (58:27):
Come so easy, It's so easy. He loves our lighting.
Sources say, but here at break your boys, But.

Speaker 5 (58:35):
It's a homage to the Ayatola.

Speaker 4 (58:37):
Yeah yeah, people are gonna believe it what you say.
He's trying to Tucker's trying to make a very legitimate point.
Ted Cruz, I think has a fairly legitimate response where
he says, what does it matter whether the population is
eighty million or one hundred million or ninety two million. Fine,
that is a perfectly legitimate response. But what Tucker is

(58:59):
trying to get at with that line of questioning as
he built to what is the ethnic break down of
Iran is exactly what Soccer pointed out is that we
sit here and play risk from air conditioned conference rooms
in Washington, DC basically, and then a bunch of poor
American kids end up getting dragged into it, and you

(59:20):
kill a bunch of civilians. I mean, already seventy women
and children are reportedly have reportedly been killed over the
last week in Iran. So that's already happening. And so
it's easy, I think, to get caught up, especially when
we look back and comparing what happened in the early
days of the build up in Iraq and Afghanistan. Is

(59:40):
just so so easy to get caught up in war
as a culture war, war as like actual war. And
I think Tucker's making a perfectly legitimate point. I'm excited
to watch the full two hours here. I think we
know what Tedgrus is going to say, but you made
a point early in the show. I find it interesting
that at least is willing to debate these sort of things.

(01:00:03):
I guess that's true. I mean, this is this is
two pretty high profile mainstream MAGA voices sitting down and
yelling at each other and encouraging people to watch their argument.
I guess that is that's a glass half full. Take.

Speaker 3 (01:00:18):
And notice what Ted Cruz used as two of his
retorts to Tucker Carlson. In his tweet, Tucker Carlson criticized Trump.
Mm yep, yep, Like that's his argument. His argument is
not I was right about x y Z. It's Tucker
Carlson said something mean about Trump, so therefore Tucker Carlson
should be rejected. And then he also says, and Tucker

(01:00:40):
Carlson doesn't believe that the Iranians are trying to kill Trump,
which there's this whole thing that that there was this
intel report, which apparently Trump does not believe either. That
he thinks that this was the deep State lying to

(01:01:01):
him to try to manipulate him. That this this claim
that Iran was actually trying to kill Trump. There's much
more evidence that Ukraine, did you follow that one assassin
and much more evident.

Speaker 5 (01:01:14):
In Ukraine was actually or somebody in Ukraine.

Speaker 3 (01:01:17):
We should we should we should cover that, uh that
that assassination attempt more in depth.

Speaker 5 (01:01:25):
There's an there's a go you can go google it.

Speaker 3 (01:01:27):
There's this indictment where the guy, one of the guys
who tried to kill Trumps like in communication with Ukrainians like, what, so,
let's go bomb them, I guess. But Tucker's response was,
you don't really think that Iran is trying to kill
Trump because if you did, you would support.

Speaker 5 (01:01:49):
Bombing them right now for that.

Speaker 3 (01:01:51):
And you don't you support bombing them over there the
claims of nuclear and Richmond or whatever. So he's saying,
he's saying, nobody believes it and it's all just a lie.

Speaker 4 (01:02:02):
And so the question going forward then is how Donald
Trump reacts. I mean, obviously he's been very critical of
Tucker Carlson just in the last several days. But does
does Trump continue siding with Tucker or continue siding with
Ted Cruz over Tucker, or does Trump, who is always
putting his ear to the ground on his base as

(01:02:24):
far as his base is concerned. Remember, even he was
concerned that net Yahu had a quote unquote public relations
problem in Gaza about a year ago. So does does
Trump falter on any of this or does he see
this ultimately in his best interest or does he see
this as something that's necessary for him to do in
order to maintain the support of his own coalition, including

(01:02:48):
like he knows, for example, Tucker. He thinks that Tucker
will always be with him. I don't think that's the case.
But he thinks that he can keep Tucker and Ton
Junior and Charlie Kirk on board, which I think that
is probably true, and Tulci Gabbard, I don't know about that.
But can he do that and still keep Mary Madelson happy?
Can he do that and still keep Ted Cruz happy?

(01:03:09):
And the people who believe the same things that Ted
Cruz does? Can you keep those people happy? And does
he think it's more important to keep those people happy?
Does he agree with him? We just honestly have no
idea at this point, and that's the huge open question.

Speaker 3 (01:03:26):
So the other clip Tucker released is them going back
and forth on Massade spying on the United States.

Speaker 5 (01:03:32):
Let's roll this one.

Speaker 10 (01:03:33):
Does Masade share all of this intelligence with us?

Speaker 9 (01:03:36):
Oh?

Speaker 10 (01:03:36):
Probably not, but they share a lot. We don't share
all of our intelligence with them, but we share a lot.
It's a close a lot. Do they spy domestically in
the United States? Oh, they probably do, and we do
as well. And friends and allies spy on each other.
And I assume why I assume all of our allies
spy on us.

Speaker 5 (01:03:50):
That's okay with you.

Speaker 10 (01:03:52):
You know what. One of the things about being a
conservative is that you're not naive and utopian. You don't
think humans are all. Part of the reason socialism doesn't
work is is the mantra for each according to his abilities,
to each according to his needs doesn't work. As a conservative,
I assume people act in their rational self interest.

Speaker 5 (01:04:11):
To pay people to spy on you.

Speaker 10 (01:04:13):
It's conservative to recognize that human beings act to their
own self interest. And every one of our friends spies
on us, And I'm not.

Speaker 4 (01:04:20):
Do you like it?

Speaker 10 (01:04:21):
That's my question. I'm not asking whether they have motive
to do it. Of course they do. I understand that,
and I and by the way, I'm not mad at that.
And you're an American lawmaker, So I just want to
want to I want to know your attitude. You said
that you're guiding principle, in fact, the only principle, the
only criterion. I said, guiding the overwhelming. I wouldn't say
only is it in America's interest? Is it an America's

(01:04:42):
interest for Israel to spy on us, including on the president?
It is an America's interest to be closely allied with
Israel because we get huge benefits for it. And you
want to want to see the clearities.

Speaker 5 (01:04:55):
But I just want to stop on the spine for
a second.

Speaker 10 (01:04:56):
That it takes place, as you know, and including on
the President of the United States and several precedents, and
I just want to know if that's okay, and why
is it okay? Wouldn't an American lawmaker say to a
client state, you're not allowed to spy on us.

Speaker 5 (01:05:11):
I'm sorry, I know why you want to.

Speaker 10 (01:05:12):
I'm not mad at you, but you're not allowed to, sure,
and I don't care for it. I don't want to
be spot on by you. Is that it's kind of
weird not to say that, but you don't seem able
to say that.

Speaker 3 (01:05:21):
Yeah, what Tucker's poking at There is this longtime argument
from critics of Israel that Israel is not a very
good ally, and he and Tucker saying like, look, I
don't blame them. They're looking out for their own interests, right,
and fine, that's what. But we are Americans. We can
look out for our own interests. And if they're going

(01:05:42):
to constantly spy on us, you know, Boris Johnson famously
said he thought Netna, who himself, bugged his bathroom when
he stayed at his place, the Menna was always coming
in with these massive diplomatic bags. And people are like, ah,
it's funny that he is, you know, having his lonlaundry
wash here. What else do you think he's breaking in there?

(01:06:03):
Not just his laundry?

Speaker 4 (01:06:04):
Wait, no, the laundry actually is.

Speaker 3 (01:06:06):
It's this thing that he brings dirty laundry becaus a
free laundry service for like foreign leaders.

Speaker 4 (01:06:11):
To get the water Gate or something.

Speaker 3 (01:06:12):
Yeah, and everybody laughs about it. It's like a couple morons.
He's bringing in more than his laundry.

Speaker 4 (01:06:19):
It's never just lunch, never just laundry. Yeah. I mean
the idea is that our ally or that our interests
are always aligned. Right. That's the line that they.

Speaker 3 (01:06:34):
Were caught somewhat recently putting a whole bunch of like
scanners around the White House.

Speaker 4 (01:06:39):
Right, And what Carlson is saying there is that the
interests of the United States in Israel are not always
aligned in some pretty significant ways. But also I think
he referred to them in that clip as a client
in a client state, and so I think the point
that he's making is that Israel's interests should as a
client state, as he said. But I mean either way,
they were twenty percent of their military budget annually and

(01:07:01):
they've said that they wouldn't be able to prosecute the
Worry Gaza if it weren't for us. So if you
are that dependent on another nation, it's you may think
it's in your interests to spy on that nation, but you,
Ted Cruz, as a representative of that nation, should tell
them not to because you have the power. And this
is what we're talking about earlier in the show when

(01:07:21):
you mentioned that actually, if Trump was interested in projecting strength,
strength would be coming out and telling Yahoo to cut
it out and seeing you know how that would go.
And you know, it's a fair point from Tucker obviously
that if you again want the United States to be
so supportive of Israel to the point where Israel is

(01:07:42):
dependent on the United States for its actual existence, which
is obviously the case from their perspective and from Ted
Cruz's perspective, then shouldn't you tell them, maybe not to
spy on the United States and not just give them
that tacit a. Everybody does it, So go on ahead
and tap our our phones and our White House and

(01:08:02):
all that. It seems reasonable, SAME's reasonable, seems reasonable.

Speaker 5 (01:08:06):
Nothing is reasonable about this though.

Speaker 4 (01:08:08):
No