June 20, 2025 • 57 mins
Krystal, Saagar, Emily and Ryan discuss Ro Khanna flames Chuck Schumer, US floats tactical nuke in Iran, MAGA civil war over Iran, media warmongering & MORE!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here,
and we here at breaking Points, are already thinking of
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Speaker 2 (00:08):
We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade
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it just means the absolute world to have your support.
But enough with that, let's get to the show.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Good morning, everybody, Happy Friday. We've got the whole team here,
plus special guests. Congressman Rocana, fresh off a THEO Von appearance.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Great to see Zar, great to say you not quite
a breaking points appearance, but you know it was a
good lot.
Speaker 4 (00:36):
This is are you yeah, what are you talking about?
Speaker 2 (00:38):
You get the full team, very rarely the team he's.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Talking about THEO Von does. It isn't quite as big
as the Breaking Points appearent, but you know that's very kind,
you know. So we're gonna talk to the Congressman here
for a little while. Then he's gonna run and catch
a flight. There's a bunch of updates with regard to
Iron and Israel we want to get to. We'll see
how far we are able to get with that. We've
also got some Zora on news we might jump on.
We've got some Obama comments we might get to here
(01:03):
is she ask the congressman about the Obama comments, and
then Ryan is turtle Boy joining? Is that a thing
that's happening?
Speaker 5 (01:11):
Oh you're muted, Ryan, Yes, Producer Griffin says, the Turtle
Boy will be in the back end of the show.
So if there's ever been a reason to become a
paying subscriber, that's the guy.
Speaker 6 (01:27):
I was thinking that when I get off, I've Google
I heard her boy, I.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Just have never heard.
Speaker 5 (01:34):
I don't have to mean make sure it's doctor you
google doctor turtle Boy, not just turtle Boy. He's the
he's the local Massachusetts reporter who kind of broke the
Karen Reid's story out into in a national view and
he's so he's now on taking his victory laps.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
After her acquittal.
Speaker 4 (01:51):
Gotcha.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Okay, So lots to get to you in the show.
So first, Congressman, I wanted to start off by getting
you to react to a little bit of you and
just play a little piece of this. Theovan appearance can
tell us what your you know, what your experience was
and what he sort of wanted to focus on here.
Speaker 4 (02:04):
I thought, I thought this part was interesting.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
He started off the podcast world run Now you like
react to yourself on podcasts exactly?
Speaker 4 (02:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Well, and this is, you know, exclusive, your first reaction
to you being on So in any case, he wanted
to start off talking about Ron talking about Gaza. I'm
about like thirty minutes into the podcast thus far. But
let's go ahead and pick up with this part and
then we'll get your reaction.
Speaker 7 (02:25):
It is trumple is ilmly Trump afraid of it?
Speaker 6 (02:27):
Yah.
Speaker 7 (02:27):
I I don't understand that, you know, because Trump certainly
feels like he's seems he is a guy who does
not seem afraid to say what he wants to say.
Speaker 8 (02:37):
I don't think I don't know what it is because
I I want Trump to do the right thing, Like
I want him to start to end the war in Gaza,
to actually figure out how we get peace there.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
And I think he could.
Speaker 8 (02:50):
He could if he picks up the phone and he says,
then yell, you're done, then you know is going to
stop the bombing. And then you know, I was going
to say, okay, but we got Jmas. I can't stay
here with him, and Trump can say, Okay, I'm going
to help you get rid of Hamas, but you can't
keep bombing and killing women and children. That's not getting
rid of Hamas.
Speaker 7 (03:07):
Yeah, it's freaking crazy, dude.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
I mean it's just like.
Speaker 8 (03:11):
So, you get Egypt, you get Jordan, you get Saudi Arabia.
I call it the twenty three state solution. You get
all of those erabors.
Speaker 7 (03:17):
Mississippi, dude, I'll tell you that we can give Mississippi
to palaes On I've been saying that, for give.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Mississippi to palestinevonnssolves finds Middle East piece. But Congressman, what
was your experience and were there any particular moments that
we should really pay attention to or that you found
particularly noteworthy.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
I was amazed by his passion, his empathy, his outrage
with what's going on in Gaza.
Speaker 6 (03:46):
I mean you could just see it in his voice.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
It was just this utter frustration that the United States
was complicit in the killing.
Speaker 6 (03:55):
Of women and children.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
And theobon is always someone who takes the side of
the under and also kind of just reflects American values
of someone who hasn't thought read every bookings paper.
Speaker 6 (04:08):
He's just like, look, this is wrong.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
And I was also struck by how concerned scare outraging
was that we were thinking of getting into another more
in Iran.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
That's so Congress, and that's actually one of the main
things we wanted to focus on with you is the
role here of the Democratic Party and of the opposition.
One of the things that's really rhyming for me going
back and really thinking about what happened in Iraq is
I don't see a mobilization of the Democratic establishment on
the Iran question. You know, we've had Thomas Massey and
leaders like you who have introduced, you know, the need
(04:44):
for a declaration or an approval by Congress. I guess
we can give it to the Bush administration at least
they went to the links with that. But here the
Trump administration has taken completely unilateral approach and we have
not yet seen calls from major Democratic leaders you know
for this, Yeah, exactly, Like as you say here, what
does this mean from Senator Schumer, I'm just wondering if
(05:06):
you could expound on that and the lack of leadership
right now from the Democratic Party on the Iran war question.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
It's deeply disappointing. This is like the Iraq War moment.
The Democratic Party should be in unison, screaming from the rooftop,
we don't want another war in the Middle East. Donald
Trump won the presidency because he said that the Iraq
War was a disaster, and Jeb Bush wasn't willing to
say that. He won over a lot of people who
(05:35):
previously supported Democrats because he committed that we weren't going
to get into another war in the Middle East.
Speaker 6 (05:40):
We've had Iraq War cheerleaders.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
In our party who ran for president John Kerry, Hillary Clinton,
John Edwards. It didn't work out so well for them.
And then we had people who stood opposed to the war,
like Barack Obama, who did very very well at Bertie Sanders.
My view is that this is the moment the Democratic
Party can reclaim the anti war mantle. Obviously, we should
(06:05):
have unison of Democrats on my War Powers Resolution in
the House. This isn't even a close call, and we
should have Senator Schumer instead of saying, oh, I don't know,
maybe they should strike him.
Speaker 6 (06:16):
Maybe Trump isn't tough enough.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
He should be behind Tim Kaine and saying every Democrat
needs to oppose this war.
Speaker 5 (06:24):
Yeah, just from a cynical perspective, it seems like if
you're a politician looking for future advantage, the play here
would be, even if you're not against war, would be
to speak out against war and reap those benefits going forward.
At the same time, the No King's protests had, you know,
(06:44):
hundreds of thousands of people around the country. You have
Democrats saying that he's an authoritarian, that he's a threat
to democracy. They've been saying that for a very long time.
How do they lend this idea that Okay, yes, he's
a threat to democracy's authoritarian tyrant maybe, but I'm okay
with this war, that this tyrant is going to operate.
(07:06):
When you talk to people privately, what is holding them
back from just coming out with a full throated opposition
to Donald Trump just launching a war against Iran.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Well, your first point, Garry Ryan, was kay that it's
not just that we should be opposed to this war,
but we should be opposed to Donald Trump waking up
and deciding whether to commit us to a war based
on the last conversation he had. I mean, everyone should
be for this coming to Congress, especially if you think
that Crump has overreached his constitutional authority and consolidated power
(07:41):
a number of people or they have been itching, some
of them candidly in the Congress to take out Iran's
nuclear facilities. And this is something that there are a
number of Democrats and Republicans that they want to do this,
and they think magically, Okay, we're going to have a
military strike against Ferdoh and Iran will not have a
(08:03):
nuclear bomb and then everything will be peaceful in the
Middle East. Well, first of all, we know that this
story has been told before. We're going to have a
successful military operation. Everything will work out. We took out
saddamusin then what happened. We got stuck for almost a
decade in Iraq. We're going to get rid of l
Kaida in Afghaniskan. Everything will be fine. We got to
(08:23):
stuck for nearly twenty years in Afghanistan. The idea that
we can strike for Doh and that Iran isn't going
to retaliate against American troops in Iraq, that they aren't
going to retaliate, but counter terrorism against Americans is utter
naive thinking. It's going to draw us into a conflict
and for what we don't even know if the bunker
(08:44):
bombs can destroy the entire Ferdeau site, at best, it's
going to push Iran back two to three years in
developing nuclear weapons. And they're going to get then rip
up the NPT. They're a put involvement in the NPT.
They're going to push out all inspectors. And we know
in the past, the Obama deal had it so that
Iran couldn't enrich beyond.
Speaker 6 (09:05):
Five percent at any place other than the Tans.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
Now they're enriching at sixty percent at Florideaux. We know
we've had a deal before. Even if you think the
deal wasn't perfect, it was much much, much better than
the situation we have now or the situation we will
have if Iran gets out of the NPT and kicks
out all the inspectors. So those are just the facts.
I don't know why the Democratic Party isn't bolder. It's
(09:28):
a symptom not just of being acquiescent to another war.
Speaker 6 (09:32):
It's a symptom of a lack of leadership.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
You know, I almost see more conviction on Lindsay Graham
being like, let's Obama.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
Mean, yeah, I don't right position, that's.
Speaker 9 (09:43):
The worst of all world well, in Congrison, can I
ask to what extent you assess? I mean, we are
all looking around and thinking why Democrats, even from the
cynical perspective that Ryan raised, are you not, you know,
mustering the same level of opposition that Soccer pointed out
you used to see during.
Speaker 4 (10:00):
The Iraq War.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Why is that not happening?
Speaker 9 (10:02):
And to what extent would you attribute that to the
donor class of the Democratic Party? Do you think that's
who's in the ear of truck Schumer, stopping him and
other high profile Democrats from going all in with a
sense of conviction, first of all on the war powers
question and then on the question of the war itself.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
I think it's the foreign policy hawks in the belt
Way that people listen to.
Speaker 6 (10:26):
I'm sure there is.
Speaker 4 (10:28):
I mean, Schumer wasn't for the Obama nuclear deal.
Speaker 6 (10:31):
So Obama neclearion. He was one of the cheerleaders for
the war in Iraq.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Like, how are these people still around with credibility of
Ford policy?
Speaker 6 (10:38):
Why should we care at all?
Speaker 4 (10:39):
Should he resign.
Speaker 6 (10:41):
Another war in the Middle East?
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Like why did you think he resigned? Congressman? At this point, it.
Speaker 6 (10:47):
Almost doesn't matter.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
He should be seen as totally irrelevant, like the average
person on the street had more.
Speaker 6 (10:53):
Common sense at the Middle East than Chuck Schumer.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Chuck Schumer's record on the Middle East is opposing Obama Iran.
Deal is cheerleading George W. Bush to get into a
war in ira is now having nonsensical statements about Tim
Kaine's war power resolution.
Speaker 6 (11:10):
Why does he matter on this debate? What does matter?
Speaker 1 (11:13):
You know?
Speaker 3 (11:14):
People say, oh, go on podcasts, go on theovon, and
they're usually thinking about it from an electoral perspective, And
of course they're right that we should be going on
these podcasts. But you know why they should go on
theovon because Deal levonn talks to truck drivers and talks
to folks or working in construction and industry and young
kids or recent college graduates, and he's reflecting what most
(11:36):
Americans are thinking about issues. Agree with him or not,
And he is saying overwhelmingly, people don't want another war.
They're afraid that they may get called up and have
to serve in Iran. They're concerned about the costs. They're
wondering why we're not spending that money in time in
the United States. And I feel like instead of listening
to the people at Basing Chuck sure where maybe this
(11:57):
party should be listening to people who are talking to
theobon and we do much better in terms of building
a coalition, and we one need these ridiculous twenty million
consultant studies that are going.
Speaker 6 (12:08):
To go to the same people that are advising Chuck Schumer.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Unbelievable And I wanted to ask you about this though.
We've got Thomas Massey sponsored the War Power Resolution. You're
one of the you know, the lead co sponsors here.
There's no other Republicans on it though, So for all
the talk of America, first, you know the split in
MAGA et cetera. And there's zero Republicans on the Senate
version of it. So what is the reluctance here? What's
going on?
Speaker 6 (12:31):
You're right?
Speaker 3 (12:31):
I mean at the base of MAGA, I would say
at least a third of them don't want this war.
And you have very outspoken people like Tucker Carlton, like
Steve Bannon, like marsh Leay Taylor Green. What they're saying.
The reason they're giving for us for not getting on
this War Power Resolution as well, there's not a war. Well,
don't you think traders should weigh in before there's a war.
Speaker 4 (12:50):
I mean, also there is a war.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
I mean, that's just a nonsense way of thinking about it,
but go ahead, yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
I mean they're saying, well, we haven't struck Iran yet,
that the United States hasn't tried now. Ted Cruz admitted
on that Pepper Carlton tape that the clip that we
are helping Israel in the bombing of a run. But
the point is that they're trying to avoid the issue
because they don't want to get in the cross heres
(13:16):
of Donald Trump. I believe that the pressure is going
to build on the MAGA base for some of these
Republicans to break and look, people say it doesn't matter.
I do think the fact that Trump is saying now,
I'm going to wait two weeks is partly a recognition
that the bunker bombs may not even achieve the objective.
Speaker 6 (13:34):
But it's also.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
Partly a recognition that a lot of the MAGA base
is upset and he's hearing the anti war sentiment. And
if the Democratic Party was unified in our opposition, maybe
we could actually prevent this war. I mean, it would
influence Donald Trump, who's so susceptible to where public opinion
is it is not just a lack of leadership for
(13:55):
how do we win? It's an actual moral moment. Like
you're in Congress for these big decisions, and the vast
majority of members of Congress have just been solid.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Yeah, go ahead, Ryan.
Speaker 5 (14:07):
So, just speaking of going on THEO Vaughn, have you
reached out all to Bannon or Tucker Carlson to appear
on their program, because that seems like the kind of
seal that hasn't been hasn't been broken yet. But if
you listen to you know, as you have been lately,
a lot of you know, Tucker Carlson, like you know,
eighty percent of the time he's making he's making a
(14:28):
lot of sense. Then he goes then yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
Tucker, and on some of the clips, I'm just concidered
b I go on, He's going to start asking me
the population of every country.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Do your job and study. I have no sympathy.
Speaker 4 (14:43):
You can handle that a little better, guy.
Speaker 5 (14:45):
But also if you say, look, I don't want to
invade that country, therefore I don't need to know their population,
but you know, I do.
Speaker 6 (14:54):
Think we need to.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
I mean, I'd be open to going on. But more importantly,
I think we need to be sharing their clubs, sharing
what they're saying. Again, I was on CNN and they
thought they had a gotcha question saying, oh, that means
you agree with Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlton, And yes
it does.
Speaker 6 (15:14):
On this issue, I agree with them, and.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
I'm hoping that they actually can convince some of the
Republicans to get.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
On one of the things. Congressmen, I know you're on
the Senate Armed Services Committee, so maybe you can speak
a little bit to this. There has been now open
questioning by Donald Trump and actually a lot in the
open source environment as to whether these massive ordinance penetrators
could even accomplish the goal of taking out the fourdoh
nuclear facility. So I'm wondering, you know, based on your
own knowledge, I'm sure you've said in briefings and others,
(15:44):
what your assessment of this easy strike which is being
pushed by the Sentcom Commander Carilla, and what the reality
of something like that could look like?
Speaker 6 (15:53):
Well, based on.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
Public information, I don't know, and I don't think most
people knows the real issue. I mean, first of all,
maybe it's fifty to fifty over, but it could be
too deep. Maybe we hit some of it, but don't
get all of it. And the reality is the best
case scenario that we hit all of it. We don't
(16:14):
know how widespread Iran's nuclear capability is. We know that
they have scientists who can rebuild it. We know they
have spare centrifuges. You're not going to destroy all of it,
and we know that within a year to three years
they can start to rebuild their nuclear sites. Then why
because they're going to then kick out the inspectors. We
(16:35):
won't even know where they're building it. And the lesson
they'll draw is the lesson that Pakistan and North Korean
drove that if you have nuclear bomb you're safe from
American invasion. If you don't, you could be Livia, Iraq,
or Afghanistan or Iran. The logic on this makes makes
no sense for us to get and especially when we
had a deal where Iran was committed to less than
(16:58):
five percent in rich Even if they were cheating, let's
say they were at ten percent fifty percent, they weren't
at sixty percent, and so the effort needs to be
to get a deal.
Speaker 6 (17:09):
I was one of the Democrats, so I got criticized
for this too. I don't make every call.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Right.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
I was cheering Donald Trump when he said let's get
a deal Trump. Schumer was saying, oh, you're making side
deals with a rod. I was like, great, let him
make a deal.
Speaker 6 (17:20):
With it, right.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
Taco Trump making me no, no, no, let him let
him do.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Taco might be one of the most destructive like things
that's ever happened to Wall Street.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Yeah, horrible, horrible, All right, Congress, I know we got
to let you go. Thank you so much for jumping
on this morning. It's almost craz photography and get your insights.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Thank you, We appreciate it.
Speaker 6 (17:40):
Take care.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
So he brought up the two weeks thing. The White
House is floating. Caroline Lovitt said, like, oh, Trump's going
to decide in the next two weeks. I mean, I
just like, I don't know what do you guys make
of it, because I just you can't trust anything these
people say. It could be another faint to just, you know,
let the Iranian sort of relax again before they bomb
them in five minutes.
Speaker 4 (18:03):
I don't know what's yours.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
What I think And this is based on a little
bit of some people I've had it to is and
at first time he's at the stage. What we're dealing with.
This is not a normal White House. We are basically
in the court of Versailles, all right. No one can
criticize the legitimacy of the monarch. So that's why, you know,
Steve Bannon and Tucker have to target the neo cons
(18:25):
who were talking with him. Everything is about gaining the
audience of the king and of the ear of the king.
And the king can vacillate from time to time, but
his own legitimacy of the throne cannot be called into question.
He's all powerful and he's all knowing. So what's really
happened I think over the last couple of days is
I can say equivocally the Bannon lunch was a pivotal moment.
(18:46):
So Steve Bannon was yesterday at the White House, had
lunch with Donald Trump. I don't think he said anything
different in his private comments than he did publicly. So
that's very encouraging, and that did lead to the so
called two week debt.
Speaker 6 (18:59):
Life.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Now, if it were up to Donald Trump, I'm actually
relatively confident that we would be heading towards some sort
of diplomatic solution. The problem is, of course, the Israeli
question on the side, because what Israel now has is
two weeks to mount the pressure campaign of the century.
First and foremost, there's a credible report out today from
(19:21):
the Iranian Foreign minister who's in Geneva to speak with
the European foreign ministers, that somebody tried to kill him,
possibly even the Israelis and or advisors around them. Remember,
they already took out one of the negotiators who spoke
with Steve Wikoff. There's also crystal maybe you can pull
this up. I tweeted it out from the Times of Israel,
the Israeli Foreign the Israeli Defense Minister today said he
(19:45):
has officially greenlit strikes on the regime. We're not even
talking specifically about nuclear facilities. They are in the next
two weeks basically have a free military hand to ramp
up military strikes on the Iranian regime and specifically to
try to kill all of the people around the Ayatola. So,
like I said, if it were just up to Donald Trump,
(20:06):
I genuinely do believe we would be heading to this.
It does seem that he's been spooked a bit by
some of these reports and questioning the scentcom intelligence as
to whether the fod Oho facility really could be taken
out by the US military. But Israel really could, you know,
really could force our hand. Yeah, you could see it
right there. Katz instructs the IDF to quote destabilize the
(20:27):
Iranian regime with intensified air strikes. And Israel they're not
doing well right now. I mean, I know that sounds
crazy to say, because of all their propaganda, they're running
out of interceptors. The war is costing Israel hundreds of
millions of dollars per day, per the Wall Street Journal.
Commercial air shutdown is devastating the economy. Nobody's going to work.
(20:48):
You know, how can you work when every single night
you're spending in a bomb shelter looking at your phone.
So their society is in chaos. Every single time one
of those interceptor gets fired, it's seven hundred thousand to
two million dollars. The flight cost of an F thirty
five is, like, I don't even know, thirty five thousand
dollars per hour. They're going bankrupt, you know, and will,
(21:08):
according to their own former like bank official I was
reading this morning, we're looking at at a bill well
over twelve billion a single month of the war in Iran,
which no, not a lot for US, but that's a
lot over for them. So I would say like we
have had a factional victory in getting to the two
week period. But obviously I really don't think Trump is
(21:30):
the principal actor here, especially because the Iranians won't meet
with us. They're meeting right now with the Europeans. It's
the Israelis who are going to try to destabilize, and
then it's really Trump and to the extent that he
wants to insert himself as the primary policy maker in
this process.
Speaker 5 (21:46):
Yeah, and I think, sorry curious and your guys to
take on this, but like if fifty years from now
when they look back at kind of how the conflict
overall between the United States and the up and coming
powers played out, the US decision based on pressure from
the military industrial complex to go into this like Rolls
Royce style approach to and literally Rolls Royce is one
(22:09):
of the main contractors for US weapons, to make it
so that you have these this massively high margin industry
that is making lots of people very rich, despite the
fact that strategically the numbers are just idiotic. In other words,
if you're spending seven hundred thousand to two million dollars
(22:31):
on an interceptor against a missile that costs your adversary
ten thousand or fifty thousand dollars to put together. In
the case of Yemen, the orders of magnitude or were
even further apart. Yes, we're a couple, were like a
week plus into this, imagine a year out like It's
as if nobody did the math on this. But the
(22:54):
Israelis they did do the math, and the math for
them is, we cannot afford this. We also cannot do
it ourselves militarily, but the United States can afford it
at least in the medium term. And the United States
can do it militarily. So they did the math, and
they didn't conclude, well, I guess we shouldn't do this.
They concluded, let's do this and just bank on the
(23:16):
fact that the United States is going to come in
behind us. That's a small conflict between these two countries,
Israel and Iran. If there is ever a bigger conflict,
you could just see how long the United States would
be able to carry on before it's it is itself
bankrupt isn't the right word, but just out of ammunition,
(23:37):
we can give the ammunition.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Costs that actually let me find that.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Yeah, I mean, this is a tried and true thing
about countries that always you know, one of the for example,
if you there's a great book behind me which is
about the ammunition shortage during World War One, and the
amount of ammunition they used in the first month of
the war is what they projected they were going to
have to use for the entire war. And so after
like three weeks they're like, oh shit, They're like now what,
(24:02):
and they're like, you know what you do? You have
to go into total war. You have to lock down
your economy, you have to seize control of all of
the industry and basically marshal and mobilize to produce as
much as humanly possible, and you will literally go bankrupt,
as all of the European great powers did, basically became subservient,
you know, bank bank loaners to the United States of America.
That's the entire story behind the fall of the British Empire.
(24:25):
So that is a very very good lesson. Now I'm
not saying it can't be done, but the point is
is that you have to marshal your entire society towards it.
But you're exactly right, Ryan. From what I've read, these
Raelies are like, yeah, we knew we couldn't afford it.
We're just going to get America to pay for it,
and that's the problem.
Speaker 4 (24:40):
Usually a pretty safe bet put it.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
On the visa. Yeah, they're right though. See that's the thing.
At the end of the day, they are right. And
this is why I'm still pessimist, even though I do
think we have won a victory people who want to,
you know, to avoid this going all out. Yet I
do think we have one sum of a victory and
we may still have a chance. Right the Europeans are
meeting all of them. But I would still put it
(25:01):
around twenty five thirty percent, simply because of unrestrained Israeli
military action. There's a story out this morning from the
New York Times. The US intelligence assesses that there's two
scenarios right now where Iron goes for a nuclear bob.
One is killed the Iatola. Two is the US military
strikes four doo. Well, you know what is the Israeli
(25:22):
option there? For they're going to try and kill the Ayatola.
Just yesterday they hit a bunker in which the Iatola
was thought to be in. Now the ostensible target was
one of the Iatola's quote advisors. He's survived, by the way,
at least according to the Iranians. But that's where things are,
like you see the IDF action. And also they can
do math too, Ryan, they can't afford this shit for
(25:43):
too much longer. You know, already there are you know,
prioritizing their interceptors. Remember the censorship blackout in Israel is real.
We have no idea what is being hit or not.
And there's a reason for that, and it's because these
they are now having to prioritize maybe military interceptors, but
they have to let civilians get hit, right, So you're
gonna start to see the death toll rack up trade off. Sorry,
(26:06):
I would, I forgot that. I'm not talking about these
the most moral army in the world would never make
that decision. But that's my point is the Israelis are
the these Reelis are the most aggressive, you know actor
in this and they just have such an incredible ability
(26:30):
to shape events without being restrained by US policy shape events.
That's very okay, I mean I know what I'm saying.
They can just they can just do whatever they want
to do and master Trump and does not pick up
the phone. I mean, it's like the one there's But this.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Is Pobe's claim to fame is that he knows how
to work is over and it's freaking true.
Speaker 4 (26:52):
I mean, he is one of us.
Speaker 6 (26:53):
He is an.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
American, He's born in Philadelphia.
Speaker 6 (26:55):
Okay, So I.
Speaker 4 (26:56):
Really want to go Emily, Emily, what are you? What
are your thoughts?
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Like are you what are you hearing? And what are
your thoughts on where we stand right now?
Speaker 9 (27:03):
Well, I think actually Sager just did a little like
very helpful reporting by saying, having talked to folks, he
thinks that ban in lunch was significant because there's a
real question as to whether the two weeks is cold water,
whether it is on you know, sort of the lust
for another interventionist conflict, or is it a negotiating tactic
(27:26):
where Trump is, as you said at the start of
the show, Crystal, giving the two week window and then
immediately going to move the next day or the day
after something like that. But everything that we've just laid
out about the costs and about the sort of timeline
tells me two weeks is most likely going to be
two days in some respect or another. I mean, I
(27:48):
just I think the cold weeks feels like I think
it feels like a sort of last ditch, helpful dose
of cold water. But the machine has been turned on
and it's lurching towards the conflict. I mean, at this point,
it feels like turning the Titanic around to do so.
The two weeks, I agree with Sager, is obviously better
(28:09):
than you know, not having.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Us being at work, you know, directly right now.
Speaker 4 (28:13):
But yeah, right, I mean, but for all those reasons, it's.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Like I'm very cognizant of the fact that, first of all,
at least according to the Trump administration, you know, the
last movements towards diplomatic negotiations were.
Speaker 4 (28:25):
Just a ruse. So there's that.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
There also previously were these reports out that effectively the
plan was to give Ran one final deal ultimatum that
contains in it the sort of poison pills that we
know will make it, you know, guaranteed that the Iranians
won't take it. Not to mention, if you're the Iranians
at this point, how can you negotiate with these people?
(28:47):
Like on every level, not only did you already negotiate
a deal with them that they just were like, yeah, well,
we're not going to do that anymore. But then they're
broadcasting to the world that like, yeah, we pretended we
were going to go forward with these negotiations. We were
just tricking you so that you could be attacked and destroyed.
Speaker 9 (29:03):
So Iranian nationalism is mounting because.
Speaker 4 (29:05):
Of all of that, Oh yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
Oh yeah. By the way, they took to the streets
on Friday, and actually across the Muslim world, Friday prayers
have reportedly been like overwhelming in their support for the Iranians,
even amongst the Sunni populations, which that's hard to do. Yeah,
for for everybody out there.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
I mean that's what you know. Sorab and Trita have
been telling us. They've you know, they're seeing unfold this
rally around the I mean.
Speaker 4 (29:30):
It's entirely predictable. It's entirely predictable.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
Think about us after nine to eleven, right, George Wish
had like a ninety percent approval rating, and I was like, yes,
let's go.
Speaker 4 (29:39):
So of course that's going to happen.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
And I just you know, obviously the space for negotiating
a deal has dramatically, dramatically closed. And then to your point,
Cyber like, you have this incredibly nefarious actor in Netanyahu
who you can't put anything past this guy in terms
of what he's willing to do to make sure that
working to be there to help him effactuate the plans
(30:02):
that he has had for decades at this point.
Speaker 4 (30:05):
So it's you know, precarious.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
Is like the probably like lowest nicest thing I could
say about where we sit right now.
Speaker 4 (30:14):
It's really quite dire.
Speaker 5 (30:15):
Yeah, it's not good until I well go ahead, Ryan,
just real quickly to respond to what Chrystal said, I
actually I put that question that you asked about how
can they trust us to get back into negotiations directly
to a couple of Iranian sources, and they said, well, look,
the thing you have to understand is like maybe you
had a better perception of the United States ten years ago.
(30:38):
We never did. Like, we have never trusted the United States,
no matter who the president was, and so we were
not shocked that they pulled out of the JCPOA, and
we were not shocked that they attacked us. You know,
they in Israel attacked us. They expected it, they saw
it coming. So their answer was, you know, you make
deals not based on trust, but you know, expediency, necessity,
(31:01):
and then you put everything into the deal that you
possibly can to make it enforceable. And that's why, you know,
the Russians and the Europeans were part of the JCPOA.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
There's some hope that.
Speaker 5 (31:10):
Like you know, global involvement, you know, would would pressure
the United States to want Yeah, thinking it obviously didn't,
but go ahead, Yeah, let.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
Me pick up on that, because this is actually one
thing that gives me a little bit of hope is
that the main parties meeting with the Iranians today are
the European powers and Macron actually has a quote comprehensive
offer to Tehran. I can read a little bit from this,
and I'm reading from the Financial Times Crystal. It says
Macrone said negotiations have to move towards the zero and
uranium enrichment as and foreign ministers will meet with them
(31:44):
and they will present to them this quote comprehensive negotiation offer,
which would put an end to the hostilities. Namely, it
would cause a ceasefire as well as lead to zero
enrichment from the Iranians. Again, I don't know if that's
what the Iranians would agree to. But really the real
problem here is that the so called comprehensive offer, even
according to the French and the Europeans, is that it
(32:05):
also has to be acceptable to Israel. I just don't
think that there is any deal at this point which
is acceptable to Israel, which again is one of those
things where it's the United States of America who would
probably take that deal, but the Israelis would be like, oh,
how can we trust it?
Speaker 1 (32:20):
Another yeah?
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Right, but even with zero and Richmond, they would say,
how can we trust you that you're not going to
They'd be like, you need to basically let me occupy
your nuclear facility. Right, They're gonna be no, that's not
going to happen. Another really nightmas ut, Yeah right, but
one like nightmare scenario I see right now is Israelis
are now talking about some sort of grand commando raid
(32:42):
on the four Todah facility, like occupying the way that
they did in Syria. But I mean, look, the risk
there is just so insanely fraught, and especially if it
were to become a disaster, and then you could easily
see how things snowball from there have failed Israeli commando
slash strike ray that fails to take out power, doesn't
(33:02):
finish the job, and then the Iranians are like, screw it,
let's go sprint to the bomb, right. I mean, there's
so much here which would obviously just almost immediately draw
America in. So I'm like cautiously, like twenty five percent
optimistic about this, but I just I don't see how
we can surmount, you know, the Israeli I don't see
(33:23):
how we can surmount like all of their clear strategic
objectives at this point, unless a different Donald Trump emerges
who is like, no, we're done. This is what we're doing.
But I mean, he couldn't even stop Israel from striking Iran,
if that's even to be believed.
Speaker 4 (33:39):
You know, they wanted to, he didn't want to. I mean,
let's not be foolish here, right.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
And I think Ken Cleppenstein, and now his reporting was
confirmed by Reuters, I think that, you know, Trump for
a while, and Biden too, by the way, was like, no,
you're not doing that, You're not doing that, You're not
doing that. And then Trump was doing the same for
a while and then he stopped saying no. And that
is the equivalent of a green light. Now maybe you
(34:04):
know that way you have plausible deniability that you didn't
affirmatively say yes, go ahead. But of course the Israelis
are going to know as soon as you are like, oh, well,
do what you want to do, they know exactly what
that means. And so you know, Trump knew exactly what
was unfolding here. He he green lit this. I mean,
we saw the build up. We all were watching closely
as to what was ultimately going to unfold.
Speaker 4 (34:24):
So he wanted this to happen. He green lit it.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
We shipped hundreds of hellfire missiles to Israel in advance
of these strikes. So you know, it's like, I don't
want to Yes, Nan Yahoo is doing everything he can
to create that outcome. But ultimately it's Donald Trump who decided, yes,
this is this is the direction that we're ultimately going
to go, and we're going to let Israel attack ran
days before we're supposed to have the next round of negotiations.
(34:51):
Even though I mean, from all indications, there was a
plausible chance of actually being able to seal some sort
of a deal and achieve a diplomatic solution, which is
much more unlikely at this point after you know, after
we blew up our own our own deal making ability.
Speaker 5 (35:07):
And we have some relevant comments I can put up
from a senior arining advisor that goes exactly to this point.
Let me put this up where basically he's saying do
and this is a close advisor to the IOTOL saying
that it is it would be a mistake to reach
a ceasefire at this point because Israel is going to
(35:29):
break the ceasefire in two months and they will use
the two months or whatever the period is to restock
their supplies, particularly of interceptor missiles. So any cease fire
that is implemented now will lead to renewed war. We
should not allow the enemy, which is currently in a
weak position, to revive itself with a ceasefire. And he
goes on through, you know, with that analysis. But I
(35:51):
think this is a consequence of you know, the US
and Israel not abiding by any of its agreements, whether
it's the January ceasefire that they reached with Hamas and
then said they were going to break and then broke broke,
whether it was the deal over Eaton Alexander where they said,
if you release eat On Alexander, will let in aid
and we'll push for a ceasefire and they and they
(36:13):
did none of that. Whether it's you know, assassinating Hondya
in Tehran as they're getting very close to a deal,
and on and on. If you believe that a ceasefire
can't be trusted, then then why reach a ceasefire unless
you are fit on the brink of like regiment elimination.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
Let me put this up on the screen and get
your reaction to it. This was the just to put
it out there. This is the reporting from sihirsh of
what his sources are telling him it's going to happen. Say,
mixed bag in terms of his reporting accuracy, but I
think it's good to put it all on the table.
Michael Tracy tweeted these portions. So he, according to is
reporting this report on what was most likely to happen
(36:57):
in Iran as early as this weekend. According to is
really and and American officials I've relied upon for decades,
will entail heavy American bombing. I have vetted this report
with a long time US official, and Washington told me
that it will all be under control if Iran Supreme
leader Ali Commany departs.
Speaker 4 (37:13):
Just how that might happen short of his assassinations not known.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
There's been a great deal of talk about American firepower
targets inside Iran, but little practical thinking, as far as
I can tell, about how to remove a revered religious
leader with an enormous following. Next piece, here he says,
I've been told the White House is signed off on
an all out bombing campaign in Iran, But the ultimate targets,
the centrifuge, is buried at least eighty meters below the
surface at four dough will as of this writing, not
(37:36):
be struck until the weekend. Delay has come at Trump's insistence,
because now this does kind of ring true. The president
wants the shock of the bombing to be diminished before
the opening of Wall Street trading on Monday. Trump took
issue on social media this morning with the Wall Street
Journal report that said he had decided on the attack
on Iran riding he had yet to decide on a
path forward.
Speaker 4 (37:53):
So what are saying, Chrystal?
Speaker 2 (37:54):
Could you Okay? So I was going to say keep
that up? Yeah, there was sorry, I'll reach heare no, no.
Speaker 9 (37:58):
Because I just wanted to zoom in on Thean. A
post about the disputed accuracy of sy Hirsch's record, because
Hanania sort of has this like snarky reply. I remember
Seymour Hirsch reporting that we were sent to bomb Iran
during the Bush administration, and I know what he's saying,
but I actually think that's an interesting point because it
(38:19):
tells you who has been leaking over the course of
decades to try to force a bombing of Iran. And
I think that's like whether or not this report specifically
is an accurate assessment of Trump's thinking. What it is
is Seymour Hirsh having a source who he is describing
accurately as a senior US official.
Speaker 4 (38:40):
I'm sure that part is.
Speaker 9 (38:41):
True talking to him and saying that this is what's
being discussed in a serious way. So I actually, I mean, yes,
take it with a grain of salt, but I think
it's actually not insane that this is likely a serious,
high level conversation that's happening. I don't know how this
is going to be affected by Trump's Bannon lunch yesterday
(39:03):
and the two week I don't know what we call it,
like deadline extension, but it did feel like we were
in a forty eight hour window and I don't know
that we actually are out of the forty eight hour
window at all, because it's hard to know when Trump'
has two weeks what he's trying to telegraph to Iran.
It's hard to know what Israel then does. There's no
(39:26):
way that Noahu is happy with Trump's two week announcement yesterday,
and so do they escalate in a way that forces
the hand? I don't know, but that reporting to me
doesn't seem insane.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
Sager, what do you make of this tactical nukes talk?
Speaker 2 (39:40):
Oh my god, don't even get me started. I'm getting me.
Speaker 4 (39:43):
Started, buddy, let me pull it up. I got it here.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
Let's go ahead and play it.
Speaker 7 (39:52):
It's a senior White House correspondent, Jackie heinright the cot.
Speaker 10 (39:55):
Away from the shots Son headlines this afternoon one from
The Guardian that claimed that US military has doubts about
whether the bunker buster bombs could get the job done
and further claiming that only a tactical nuke may be
finish it. And it further stated that the President is
(40:15):
not considering a tactical nuke, that it was not one
of the options.
Speaker 4 (40:18):
That was presented to him.
Speaker 10 (40:19):
I was just told by a top officials here that
none of that report is true, that none of the
options are off the table, and the US military is
very confident that bunker busters could get the job done
at Porto.
Speaker 4 (40:32):
The President is giving so she says that it's not
the tactical none of it's true. The tactical nukes are
actually not off the table.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
Tactical nukes are on the table.
Speaker 4 (40:40):
She kind of buries the lead there.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
You kind of have to like really listen in in,
which seems kind of significant.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
It's insane preposterous. It also though, I really want people
to see here how the slippery slope happens. First, it's
just we just one bomb, that's all it is. Oh,
actually it's a couple of bombs, and that's why you
leak this stuff.
Speaker 6 (41:03):
Right.
Speaker 2 (41:03):
Maybe the bombs though, can actually do the job. So
then it was only a tactical nuke. Oh so you
drop a tactical nuke on here. Now we're in a
whole different other world. And you know, this just demonstrates, Look,
these generals, they make all kinds of promises from what
I hear General Gorilla has been, you know, in all
these like meetings with the President being like mister President,
(41:24):
we can do this. He wants to cement his legacy
as the guy who took out the Iranian nuclear program.
His term is up in only two weeks, and he's
given all these pie in this guy bullshit military assessments
to Donald Trump. Of course Donald Trump is loving it, right.
Gorilla is like jacked. He looks good. He's got a
nice figure on camera, straight out of Central casting, as
Trump would say. So this is the Listen the gorilla,
(41:46):
the gorilla, Gorilla, the gorilla. So like, we can all
see how the wheels are turning. It's obviously it would
be devastating. I think one of the main reasons they're
keeping it open is just basically to scare the shit
out of the Iranians. But really what it's about is
they are being so reckless in their rhetoric that they're
actually again just increasing the odds of the Iranians being like,
(42:08):
you people are crazy, we are just going to sprint
to the bomb. And the only reason why this really
is all happening is again because of Israel's actions basically
ratcheting up where the US has to go from the
escalation ladder. Also, can we all keep in mind that
when Russia was even openly talking about a tactical nuclear
weapon in Ukraine. That everyone was like that would be
(42:29):
a red line and that we should basically go to
war with Russia. So should Russia go to war with us?
You know that Rana is technically their client state in
a similar manner. It's maybe not exactly the same, but
everyone just see how crazy this all is. And this
is again you know where I've been going back and
I've been reading even more about all these these military
guys are the kings of over promising and under delivering.
(42:53):
So we can all talk about Libya. We actually delivered
in Libya. We took out their air defense. It was
just the strategic problem of the fact that the country
collapse into civil war. But what about Serbia? Serbia is
actually a very apt example. So in nineteen ninety nine,
NATO and the United States wanted to take out Melosovich
and basically get to stop the civil war and all
of his actions. Right, well, the US military predicted and
(43:15):
NATO said it will just take three days of bombing
to get Melosovich to back down. It took eleven weeks,
and at the end of those eleven weeks, the US
military was presenting options to President Clinton to fully invade
and to take over Serbia because air power could not
get the job done. We have to just keep learning
these lessons over and over and over and over again.
(43:37):
These guys don't actually know what they're talking about. They
said Iraq was going to be a cakewalk. One hundred
and fifty thousand troops, mister President, no question, no problem. Afghanistan,
don't worry about it. We should get a couple of
special forces overthrow the government. We could take out the
Taliban with limited air strikes. It never works. It's always
going to lead to the ground troop and or way
(43:58):
more than we ever thought from the very beginning.
Speaker 6 (44:00):
Go at.
Speaker 9 (44:01):
The incredible irony of all of this is that Iran
itself should have been the first lesson of this decade ago.
This is the text book example playing out in front
of us. So it's a tragic irony that, you know, again,
they thought they had that completely under control, no unintended
(44:22):
consequences that happened down the line from meddling, and here
we are in twenty twenty five, still groping to figure
out what happens.
Speaker 1 (44:30):
Talking about bringing back the Shaw's son too yet learning
any lessons.
Speaker 2 (44:36):
Okay, I talk about that too. Fox News is referring
to this guy as his Royal Highness.
Speaker 4 (44:41):
Oh my god, No they aren't.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
No, no, they are.
Speaker 3 (44:45):
Check it out.
Speaker 2 (44:46):
You can tweeted it out. They go his Royal Highness
the show, I go, Where am I on bizarro planet?
What's happening? You know, just being the son of a
deposed king does not make you hrh is a title.
It has meaning. Okay, I mean, I don't know what
are we doing here, not to be a royal expert
or whatever. But you know it's like if we had
(45:09):
on Edward Habsburg and we're like, his Royal Highness of
lost your hungary, Like what but I think he's like
a banker in Switzerland.
Speaker 3 (45:19):
Poem.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
He'd be like, I'm Edward, you don't have to call
me that. And he's like the dynasty is gone. You
know when you when you get thrown out, you don't
get the title anymore. I thought we all acknowledge that,
but they're seriously having this guy on and he's like, Oh,
Iranians cry out for monarchy and for its insanity, the sanity.
Speaker 1 (45:40):
We I have the media clips on here, the coverage,
the level of undul I don't even know what to say.
I mean, we truly do, like cable news really does
never learn anything. Ever, it's so wild to see the
propaganda march and it matters. I mean, we were covering
that polling where it really depends people feel about this
(46:02):
all kinds of ways, depending on how it's framed. So
I guarantee if you ask people do you want to
get America entrenched in some like potentially catastrophic regime change
or regime collapse war, they could be like are you hot?
Speaker 4 (46:15):
Like what, why would we do that?
Speaker 6 (46:18):
Why?
Speaker 4 (46:18):
I think it would be ninety ten. But if you ask,
you know, oh.
Speaker 1 (46:22):
Well, should Orn have a nuke? Well? Should we let
Israel strike Roan to get rid of their nuclear proga?
Speaker 4 (46:26):
Who could object to that?
Speaker 1 (46:27):
Well? Should we supply the weapons that Israel useless? Well,
you know, should we maybe be the ones just to
go ahead and take out these nuclear weapons? Because you've
already said Oran can't have a nuke. When it's framed
in that way, suddenly you get a disturbing amount of
public consensus. And we also have to be real about
the quote unquote anti war mega base. The Republican base
is vastly more pro war than the Democratic base. They
(46:50):
will go and support whatever Donald Trump wants to do,
including Steve Bannon, who already has told the Financial Times
at the end of the day, Me Tucker, Marjorie Taylor Green,
all these people will support the president's decision and just
assume he has more intelligence and more wisdom and more
understanding that we do.
Speaker 4 (47:05):
At the end of the day, they will all bend
the ney to whatever it is that Trump decides.
Speaker 2 (47:09):
Most of them will, and most of the base will.
But you know, you made an important point yesterday, Chrystal
on our show. Independence won't And.
Speaker 4 (47:15):
That's yeah, that difficult, absolutely, and that's why.
Speaker 2 (47:17):
That show does matter. And you know, I want to
get this guy on the show, this guy Rich Barris.
He's like a maga like aligned Ulster, and he's been
making some great points where he's like, hey, guys, Trump's
entire margin of victory in Michigan is the anti war
independent base. He's like the dearborn people who voted for
Trump and or people who were union and anti Iraq war.
(47:42):
That is the margin of victory. So Donald Trump, it's
striking the parallels with George W. Bush, Like if you
look at the ninety six electoral map and the two
thousand electoral map. It's actually insane how much things can
change in just four years. George W. Bush, everybody forgets this.
He ran as a restraintist. He thought that the US
can pain in Serbia was a disaster. He was like,
(48:02):
that's not something that I'm interested in doing. He ran
on reducing America's footprint abroad. And then of course we
got you know, mister Neocon himself. Things changed a lot
after nine to eleven because he literally had a messianic
complex where he believed he was put on earth by
God to be there at nine to eleven and to
destroy the access of evil, which is telling Trump right now,
(48:24):
this is look, I'm trying to drop parallels here.
Speaker 4 (48:27):
Yeah, he believes it.
Speaker 1 (48:28):
I mean, it's raw by Huckabye. There's a reason why
he shared that text. And he talked about himself this way.
I mean his inaugural speech, he talked about how you know,
he's basically put there by God for this great moment.
And so when I mean, Emily, you're gonna have to
you're gonna have to be my deacoder in some of
this stuff. But the religious fervor of you know, the
(48:52):
Israeli fanatics, and then you've got the Huckabee End Times
people and Ted Cruz, and then you've got you know,
Trump believing he's, you know, the second coming of Jesus Christ.
To me, this is a terrifying mix, a totally terrifying mix,
because then you're like, you can't presume anyone's even acting
rationally when you have this divine justification behind you, when
(49:16):
you believe that it's your mission from God, as Ted
Cruz explained, to always serve the government of met Yahoo.
Speaker 9 (49:22):
Yeah, the so I do have good news on that front,
which is that's so boomer brain. Even in evangelical circles,
it's people like there was this time before Y two
K where the Left Behind series and this millenarian Christianity
pointed straight towards Israel and created this real, very like,
(49:44):
very very serious political support for Israel that we all
kind of think of when we think of American evangelicals.
Speaker 2 (49:51):
That has not really trickled down.
Speaker 9 (49:54):
And in fact, what I saw of the last like
forty eight hours after the Huckaby thing and after the
cruising in particular, was a ton of pushback. For example,
the Federalists published a long pushback to what Ted Cruz
was saying, and I don't think that would have happened
fifteen years ago. It doesn't make it any less frightening
that Mike Kakabee, who has played very fast in loose
with whether he's a dispensationalist or not, is there. I mean,
(50:15):
I think in all likelihood, yes, Mike Kaukabee believes that
political Israel is. You can sort of swap that in
and out with when the Bible refers to the nation
of Israel that today twenty twenty five political nation state
Israel is. You can read that into scripture.
Speaker 2 (50:31):
You could read that it's a revelation.
Speaker 9 (50:32):
It's completely ridiculous, but it's it is popular where with
evangelical boomers like Mike Huckabee, so to the extent that
Huckabee is the ambassador to Israel, that matters. But I
don't think that's it's certainly now not how like a
Catholic like Jdevance or Mark or Rubio is seeing this.
Speaker 2 (50:49):
I know that's cold comfort to everyone.
Speaker 9 (50:51):
But the good news is the boom and brain dispensationalism
hasn't trickled down to millennials, right now.
Speaker 4 (50:59):
I guess I wanted to get your Okay, good to know.
Speaker 1 (51:04):
Hopefully we all survive until those millennials have a little
more power.
Speaker 4 (51:08):
Right, you'll know when we're not raptured. Okay, all right,
good to know.
Speaker 1 (51:11):
I wanted to get you to explain Ryan this report
from drop site about how the Israelis are reposting some
of the same strike footage from Moz obviously, you know,
has been tracking this and broke down this reporting. So
what should people like, what's the significance here?
Speaker 4 (51:28):
What is he finding?
Speaker 5 (51:30):
Yeah, I mean, so this is allegedly two different strikes
on two different days posted by the Israeli military, and
as as Moz points out, like if you look closely,
there's just a little bit of tweaking done to the
color and to the angle.
Speaker 1 (51:50):
Yeah, let's blurred a little bit.
Speaker 5 (51:52):
Yeah, but if you look at it, if you look
at that kind of the markings around the rest of
the image, you're like, oh, you know, it doesn't take
you know, pH D and osent to be like this
is actually the same picture.
Speaker 1 (52:04):
And so.
Speaker 5 (52:06):
It raises the question of, you know, have they exhausted
kind of a target bank in the sense that they're
not you know, they're not able to produce new pictures,
which is strange because they have you know, free reign
over the Iranian sky and.
Speaker 3 (52:24):
All.
Speaker 2 (52:25):
This is not exclusive to Israel.
Speaker 5 (52:27):
All of these belligerent powers are capable of bombing even
something that has nothing, no military value whatsoever and putting
a clip out and saying that it's a command and
control center. So it's not like they have a shortage
of videos. It's just it shows I think it shows
a sloppiness and potentially shows you know that they're that
(52:48):
they're really scraping the bottom of the barrel at this point.
Speaker 1 (52:52):
Well, and this was also a significant in that vein
NBC News is reporting that according to the seniors really
intelligence official, only sixty five percent of Iranian missiles were
intercepted in the past twenty four hours. That's down from
nearly ninety percent the day before. And we have other
reports as well that they're having to ration interceptors. I mean,
this is something something that Soccer was talking about before.
(53:14):
It's just part of why you know, they're obviously we
have to be involved. We've been and not have to be,
but we choose to be involved and have been from
the beginning and I think this is one of the
hopes of the Iranians probably is that they can learn
more about the missile defense systems and that as time
goes on, they will you know, have to further ration interceptors,
(53:38):
and also that they will have more understanding of how
to evade those interceptors and those missile defense systems.
Speaker 5 (53:43):
And on top of that they use their older and
crappier missiles as as you would expect logically, the first
ones out of the gate were the cheap, cheap, old
guys that aren't as good because so do.
Speaker 1 (53:54):
We know, we know that for a fact, because I
saw that speculation.
Speaker 2 (53:56):
Too, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5 (53:58):
And so because you know that when when your first
volley comes in, they're gonna they have their entire bank
of interceptors ready to go. So you throw the cheapest
stuff that's the worst, and so the interceptors then take
all of that out and then gradually you start you know,
using their that and you know, hypersonic missiles and you know,
yesterday they fired fired one. It sounds like one missile
(54:22):
at Bearsheva and it got through, but it seems to
maybe have missed his target. It landed right near the
Microsoft building there, and then the IRGC said they were
actually aiming for the Microsoft building, which may have been
because you know, citing Microsoft's role and in Israeli industrial complex,
(54:42):
which may have been kind of reverse engineered. Cope like that,
they're probably aiming for Elbot Systems, which is nearby there,
but hit closer to Microsoft, so that they're like, you know,
there's a lot of reverse engineering. We're like, oh, yeah,
that's definitely what we were aiming for. After you try
to figure out where it landed. And then we're getting
reports right now that there was another missile landed right
(55:03):
around Bearsheva. So you know, if they're two for two
in Beersheva getting through you know, missile defenses, that allows
them to shoot many fewer missiles and still have the
same amount of impact. You know, if they were firing
off you know, three hundred in the beginning just to
land ten or twenty, that's not a sustainable pace if
you have, you know, a missiles missile stockpile in the
(55:24):
low thousands. But if you're hitting at a fifty to
one hundred percent clip, that causes a lot more damage
and helps you win in a war of attrition.
Speaker 4 (55:36):
I think sager.
Speaker 1 (55:37):
Do you have to jump?
Speaker 2 (55:38):
Yeah, I do, unfortunately, but yeah, just last thoughts is
I think we have a twenty five percent chance of
avoiding miss probably seventy five percent chance. By the way,
literally as we're talking, Israel's getting rocked by ballistic missiles.
In terms of at least some of the images that
have made it out. They are going to come under
(55:58):
intense pressure in the government. They are going to ramp
up regime change and destabilization efforts to the best of
their possible ability. And yeah, I think it's going to
be a very, very dangerous two weeks. But you know,
I'm hoping for some success coming out of Europe and
at least see what they're able to get out of
(56:19):
the Uranians and publicly as well, you know, some of
the statements to get them on the record, and presumably
a press conference with some statements from the Iranian foreign minister,
they could at least keep us out of the woods.
But I also want to echo Emily's warning, we could
be in a forty eight hour time window. This could
all be fake, and this could buy Monday on our show,
we can be covering a four dough strike.
Speaker 1 (56:38):
Yeah, all right, Well, as we let Sager go. I
think we're also going to conclude the free portion. Premiums,
We're going to cover a bunch of more stuff. I've
got a bunch of clips I got Dave Smith on
Piers Morgan. You guys, now you don't want to miss
on on that. I've had it lady. Even Emily has
to admit she was kind of cooking on CNN. She's
like more based than we expected her to be, so
that's kind of cool. We've got more coming out of Israel,
(57:01):
in particular BBNAT and Yahoo is paying a personal price, guys,
and I want to share with you what that personal
price is. And we all should thoughts in prayers with
Bib and his family during this very difficult time. And
so in any case, a bunch of stuff to get to.
We'll try to get to zor On maybe talk about Obama.
See how much we get to. But for those of
you who want to join us for the full show
(57:22):
Breakingpoints dot Com, that monthly subscription is back.
Speaker 4 (57:26):
So you know, partake in that to your full delight,
see how you like it.
Speaker 1 (57:31):
And for premiums, we'll see in just about all right, guys,
thank you so much for watching the free portion of
the Friday Show, we're going to move into some premium
bonus content, so if you want to watch that as well,
make sure to go and subscribe at breakingpoints dot com.
And for all of you guys who are already premium subscribers,
that portion is going to start right now,
Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here,
and we here at breaking Points, are already thinking of
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Speaker 2 (00:08):
We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade
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it just means the absolute world to have your support.
But enough with that, let's get to the show.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Good morning, everybody, Happy Friday. We've got the whole team here,
plus special guests. Congressman Rocana, fresh off a THEO Von appearance.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Great to see Zar, great to say you not quite
a breaking points appearance, but you know it was a
good lot.
Speaker 4 (00:36):
This is are you yeah, what are you talking about?
Speaker 2 (00:38):
You get the full team, very rarely the team he's.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Talking about THEO Von does. It isn't quite as big
as the Breaking Points appearent, but you know that's very kind,
you know. So we're gonna talk to the Congressman here
for a little while. Then he's gonna run and catch
a flight. There's a bunch of updates with regard to
Iron and Israel we want to get to. We'll see
how far we are able to get with that. We've
also got some Zora on news we might jump on.
We've got some Obama comments we might get to here
(01:03):
is she ask the congressman about the Obama comments, and
then Ryan is turtle Boy joining? Is that a thing
that's happening?
Speaker 5 (01:11):
Oh you're muted, Ryan, Yes, Producer Griffin says, the Turtle
Boy will be in the back end of the show.
So if there's ever been a reason to become a
paying subscriber, that's the guy.
Speaker 6 (01:27):
I was thinking that when I get off, I've Google
I heard her boy, I.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Just have never heard.
Speaker 5 (01:34):
I don't have to mean make sure it's doctor you
google doctor turtle Boy, not just turtle Boy. He's the
he's the local Massachusetts reporter who kind of broke the
Karen Reid's story out into in a national view and
he's so he's now on taking his victory laps.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
After her acquittal.
Speaker 4 (01:51):
Gotcha.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Okay, So lots to get to you in the show.
So first, Congressman, I wanted to start off by getting
you to react to a little bit of you and
just play a little piece of this. Theovan appearance can
tell us what your you know, what your experience was
and what he sort of wanted to focus on here.
Speaker 4 (02:04):
I thought, I thought this part was interesting.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
He started off the podcast world run Now you like
react to yourself on podcasts exactly?
Speaker 4 (02:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Well, and this is, you know, exclusive, your first reaction
to you being on So in any case, he wanted
to start off talking about Ron talking about Gaza. I'm
about like thirty minutes into the podcast thus far. But
let's go ahead and pick up with this part and
then we'll get your reaction.
Speaker 7 (02:25):
It is trumple is ilmly Trump afraid of it?
Speaker 6 (02:27):
Yah.
Speaker 7 (02:27):
I I don't understand that, you know, because Trump certainly
feels like he's seems he is a guy who does
not seem afraid to say what he wants to say.
Speaker 8 (02:37):
I don't think I don't know what it is because
I I want Trump to do the right thing, Like
I want him to start to end the war in Gaza,
to actually figure out how we get peace there.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
And I think he could.
Speaker 8 (02:50):
He could if he picks up the phone and he says,
then yell, you're done, then you know is going to
stop the bombing. And then you know, I was going
to say, okay, but we got Jmas. I can't stay
here with him, and Trump can say, Okay, I'm going
to help you get rid of Hamas, but you can't
keep bombing and killing women and children. That's not getting
rid of Hamas.
Speaker 7 (03:07):
Yeah, it's freaking crazy, dude.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
I mean it's just like.
Speaker 8 (03:11):
So, you get Egypt, you get Jordan, you get Saudi Arabia.
I call it the twenty three state solution. You get
all of those erabors.
Speaker 7 (03:17):
Mississippi, dude, I'll tell you that we can give Mississippi
to palaes On I've been saying that, for give.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Mississippi to palestinevonnssolves finds Middle East piece. But Congressman, what
was your experience and were there any particular moments that
we should really pay attention to or that you found
particularly noteworthy.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
I was amazed by his passion, his empathy, his outrage
with what's going on in Gaza.
Speaker 6 (03:46):
I mean you could just see it in his voice.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
It was just this utter frustration that the United States
was complicit in the killing.
Speaker 6 (03:55):
Of women and children.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
And theobon is always someone who takes the side of
the under and also kind of just reflects American values
of someone who hasn't thought read every bookings paper.
Speaker 6 (04:08):
He's just like, look, this is wrong.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
And I was also struck by how concerned scare outraging
was that we were thinking of getting into another more
in Iran.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
That's so Congress, and that's actually one of the main
things we wanted to focus on with you is the
role here of the Democratic Party and of the opposition.
One of the things that's really rhyming for me going
back and really thinking about what happened in Iraq is
I don't see a mobilization of the Democratic establishment on
the Iran question. You know, we've had Thomas Massey and
leaders like you who have introduced, you know, the need
(04:44):
for a declaration or an approval by Congress. I guess
we can give it to the Bush administration at least
they went to the links with that. But here the
Trump administration has taken completely unilateral approach and we have
not yet seen calls from major Democratic leaders you know
for this, Yeah, exactly, Like as you say here, what
does this mean from Senator Schumer, I'm just wondering if
(05:06):
you could expound on that and the lack of leadership
right now from the Democratic Party on the Iran war question.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
It's deeply disappointing. This is like the Iraq War moment.
The Democratic Party should be in unison, screaming from the rooftop,
we don't want another war in the Middle East. Donald
Trump won the presidency because he said that the Iraq
War was a disaster, and Jeb Bush wasn't willing to
say that. He won over a lot of people who
(05:35):
previously supported Democrats because he committed that we weren't going
to get into another war in the Middle East.
Speaker 6 (05:40):
We've had Iraq War cheerleaders.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
In our party who ran for president John Kerry, Hillary Clinton,
John Edwards. It didn't work out so well for them.
And then we had people who stood opposed to the war,
like Barack Obama, who did very very well at Bertie Sanders.
My view is that this is the moment the Democratic
Party can reclaim the anti war mantle. Obviously, we should
(06:05):
have unison of Democrats on my War Powers Resolution in
the House. This isn't even a close call, and we
should have Senator Schumer instead of saying, oh, I don't know,
maybe they should strike him.
Speaker 6 (06:16):
Maybe Trump isn't tough enough.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
He should be behind Tim Kaine and saying every Democrat
needs to oppose this war.
Speaker 5 (06:24):
Yeah, just from a cynical perspective, it seems like if
you're a politician looking for future advantage, the play here
would be, even if you're not against war, would be
to speak out against war and reap those benefits going forward.
At the same time, the No King's protests had, you know,
(06:44):
hundreds of thousands of people around the country. You have
Democrats saying that he's an authoritarian, that he's a threat
to democracy. They've been saying that for a very long time.
How do they lend this idea that Okay, yes, he's
a threat to democracy's authoritarian tyrant maybe, but I'm okay
with this war, that this tyrant is going to operate.
(07:06):
When you talk to people privately, what is holding them
back from just coming out with a full throated opposition
to Donald Trump just launching a war against Iran.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Well, your first point, Garry Ryan, was kay that it's
not just that we should be opposed to this war,
but we should be opposed to Donald Trump waking up
and deciding whether to commit us to a war based
on the last conversation he had. I mean, everyone should
be for this coming to Congress, especially if you think
that Crump has overreached his constitutional authority and consolidated power
(07:41):
a number of people or they have been itching, some
of them candidly in the Congress to take out Iran's
nuclear facilities. And this is something that there are a
number of Democrats and Republicans that they want to do this,
and they think magically, Okay, we're going to have a
military strike against Ferdoh and Iran will not have a
(08:03):
nuclear bomb and then everything will be peaceful in the
Middle East. Well, first of all, we know that this
story has been told before. We're going to have a
successful military operation. Everything will work out. We took out
saddamusin then what happened. We got stuck for almost a
decade in Iraq. We're going to get rid of l
Kaida in Afghaniskan. Everything will be fine. We got to
(08:23):
stuck for nearly twenty years in Afghanistan. The idea that
we can strike for Doh and that Iran isn't going
to retaliate against American troops in Iraq, that they aren't
going to retaliate, but counter terrorism against Americans is utter
naive thinking. It's going to draw us into a conflict
and for what we don't even know if the bunker
(08:44):
bombs can destroy the entire Ferdeau site, at best, it's
going to push Iran back two to three years in
developing nuclear weapons. And they're going to get then rip
up the NPT. They're a put involvement in the NPT.
They're going to push out all inspectors. And we know
in the past, the Obama deal had it so that
Iran couldn't enrich beyond.
Speaker 6 (09:05):
Five percent at any place other than the Tans.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
Now they're enriching at sixty percent at Florideaux. We know
we've had a deal before. Even if you think the
deal wasn't perfect, it was much much, much better than
the situation we have now or the situation we will
have if Iran gets out of the NPT and kicks
out all the inspectors. So those are just the facts.
I don't know why the Democratic Party isn't bolder. It's
(09:28):
a symptom not just of being acquiescent to another war.
Speaker 6 (09:32):
It's a symptom of a lack of leadership.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
You know, I almost see more conviction on Lindsay Graham
being like, let's Obama.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
Mean, yeah, I don't right position, that's.
Speaker 9 (09:43):
The worst of all world well, in Congrison, can I
ask to what extent you assess? I mean, we are
all looking around and thinking why Democrats, even from the
cynical perspective that Ryan raised, are you not, you know,
mustering the same level of opposition that Soccer pointed out
you used to see during.
Speaker 4 (10:00):
The Iraq War.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Why is that not happening?
Speaker 9 (10:02):
And to what extent would you attribute that to the
donor class of the Democratic Party? Do you think that's
who's in the ear of truck Schumer, stopping him and
other high profile Democrats from going all in with a
sense of conviction, first of all on the war powers
question and then on the question of the war itself.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
I think it's the foreign policy hawks in the belt
Way that people listen to.
Speaker 6 (10:26):
I'm sure there is.
Speaker 4 (10:28):
I mean, Schumer wasn't for the Obama nuclear deal.
Speaker 6 (10:31):
So Obama neclearion. He was one of the cheerleaders for
the war in Iraq.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Like, how are these people still around with credibility of
Ford policy?
Speaker 6 (10:38):
Why should we care at all?
Speaker 4 (10:39):
Should he resign.
Speaker 6 (10:41):
Another war in the Middle East?
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Like why did you think he resigned? Congressman? At this point, it.
Speaker 6 (10:47):
Almost doesn't matter.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
He should be seen as totally irrelevant, like the average
person on the street had more.
Speaker 6 (10:53):
Common sense at the Middle East than Chuck Schumer.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Chuck Schumer's record on the Middle East is opposing Obama Iran.
Deal is cheerleading George W. Bush to get into a
war in ira is now having nonsensical statements about Tim
Kaine's war power resolution.
Speaker 6 (11:10):
Why does he matter on this debate? What does matter?
Speaker 1 (11:13):
You know?
Speaker 3 (11:14):
People say, oh, go on podcasts, go on theovon, and
they're usually thinking about it from an electoral perspective, And
of course they're right that we should be going on
these podcasts. But you know why they should go on
theovon because Deal levonn talks to truck drivers and talks
to folks or working in construction and industry and young
kids or recent college graduates, and he's reflecting what most
(11:36):
Americans are thinking about issues. Agree with him or not,
And he is saying overwhelmingly, people don't want another war.
They're afraid that they may get called up and have
to serve in Iran. They're concerned about the costs. They're
wondering why we're not spending that money in time in
the United States. And I feel like instead of listening
to the people at Basing Chuck sure where maybe this
(11:57):
party should be listening to people who are talking to
theobon and we do much better in terms of building
a coalition, and we one need these ridiculous twenty million
consultant studies that are going.
Speaker 6 (12:08):
To go to the same people that are advising Chuck Schumer.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Unbelievable And I wanted to ask you about this though.
We've got Thomas Massey sponsored the War Power Resolution. You're
one of the you know, the lead co sponsors here.
There's no other Republicans on it though, So for all
the talk of America, first, you know the split in
MAGA et cetera. And there's zero Republicans on the Senate
version of it. So what is the reluctance here? What's
going on?
Speaker 6 (12:31):
You're right?
Speaker 3 (12:31):
I mean at the base of MAGA, I would say
at least a third of them don't want this war.
And you have very outspoken people like Tucker Carlton, like
Steve Bannon, like marsh Leay Taylor Green. What they're saying.
The reason they're giving for us for not getting on
this War Power Resolution as well, there's not a war. Well,
don't you think traders should weigh in before there's a war.
Speaker 4 (12:50):
I mean, also there is a war.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
I mean, that's just a nonsense way of thinking about it,
but go ahead, yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
I mean they're saying, well, we haven't struck Iran yet,
that the United States hasn't tried now. Ted Cruz admitted
on that Pepper Carlton tape that the clip that we
are helping Israel in the bombing of a run. But
the point is that they're trying to avoid the issue
because they don't want to get in the cross heres
(13:16):
of Donald Trump. I believe that the pressure is going
to build on the MAGA base for some of these
Republicans to break and look, people say it doesn't matter.
I do think the fact that Trump is saying now,
I'm going to wait two weeks is partly a recognition
that the bunker bombs may not even achieve the objective.
Speaker 6 (13:34):
But it's also.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
Partly a recognition that a lot of the MAGA base
is upset and he's hearing the anti war sentiment. And
if the Democratic Party was unified in our opposition, maybe
we could actually prevent this war. I mean, it would
influence Donald Trump, who's so susceptible to where public opinion
is it is not just a lack of leadership for
(13:55):
how do we win? It's an actual moral moment. Like
you're in Congress for these big decisions, and the vast
majority of members of Congress have just been solid.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Yeah, go ahead, Ryan.
Speaker 5 (14:07):
So, just speaking of going on THEO Vaughn, have you
reached out all to Bannon or Tucker Carlson to appear
on their program, because that seems like the kind of
seal that hasn't been hasn't been broken yet. But if
you listen to you know, as you have been lately,
a lot of you know, Tucker Carlson, like you know,
eighty percent of the time he's making he's making a
(14:28):
lot of sense. Then he goes then yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
Tucker, and on some of the clips, I'm just concidered
b I go on, He's going to start asking me
the population of every country.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Do your job and study. I have no sympathy.
Speaker 4 (14:43):
You can handle that a little better, guy.
Speaker 5 (14:45):
But also if you say, look, I don't want to
invade that country, therefore I don't need to know their population,
but you know, I do.
Speaker 6 (14:54):
Think we need to.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
I mean, I'd be open to going on. But more importantly,
I think we need to be sharing their clubs, sharing
what they're saying. Again, I was on CNN and they
thought they had a gotcha question saying, oh, that means
you agree with Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlton, And yes
it does.
Speaker 6 (15:14):
On this issue, I agree with them, and.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
I'm hoping that they actually can convince some of the
Republicans to get.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
On one of the things. Congressmen, I know you're on
the Senate Armed Services Committee, so maybe you can speak
a little bit to this. There has been now open
questioning by Donald Trump and actually a lot in the
open source environment as to whether these massive ordinance penetrators
could even accomplish the goal of taking out the fourdoh
nuclear facility. So I'm wondering, you know, based on your
own knowledge, I'm sure you've said in briefings and others,
(15:44):
what your assessment of this easy strike which is being
pushed by the Sentcom Commander Carilla, and what the reality
of something like that could look like?
Speaker 6 (15:53):
Well, based on.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
Public information, I don't know, and I don't think most
people knows the real issue. I mean, first of all,
maybe it's fifty to fifty over, but it could be
too deep. Maybe we hit some of it, but don't
get all of it. And the reality is the best
case scenario that we hit all of it. We don't
(16:14):
know how widespread Iran's nuclear capability is. We know that
they have scientists who can rebuild it. We know they
have spare centrifuges. You're not going to destroy all of it,
and we know that within a year to three years
they can start to rebuild their nuclear sites. Then why
because they're going to then kick out the inspectors. We
(16:35):
won't even know where they're building it. And the lesson
they'll draw is the lesson that Pakistan and North Korean
drove that if you have nuclear bomb you're safe from
American invasion. If you don't, you could be Livia, Iraq,
or Afghanistan or Iran. The logic on this makes makes
no sense for us to get and especially when we
had a deal where Iran was committed to less than
(16:58):
five percent in rich Even if they were cheating, let's
say they were at ten percent fifty percent, they weren't
at sixty percent, and so the effort needs to be
to get a deal.
Speaker 6 (17:09):
I was one of the Democrats, so I got criticized
for this too. I don't make every call.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Right.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
I was cheering Donald Trump when he said let's get
a deal Trump. Schumer was saying, oh, you're making side
deals with a rod. I was like, great, let him
make a deal.
Speaker 6 (17:20):
With it, right.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
Taco Trump making me no, no, no, let him let
him do.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Taco might be one of the most destructive like things
that's ever happened to Wall Street.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Yeah, horrible, horrible, All right, Congress, I know we got
to let you go. Thank you so much for jumping
on this morning. It's almost craz photography and get your insights.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Thank you, We appreciate it.
Speaker 6 (17:40):
Take care.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
So he brought up the two weeks thing. The White
House is floating. Caroline Lovitt said, like, oh, Trump's going
to decide in the next two weeks. I mean, I
just like, I don't know what do you guys make
of it, because I just you can't trust anything these
people say. It could be another faint to just, you know,
let the Iranian sort of relax again before they bomb
them in five minutes.
Speaker 4 (18:03):
I don't know what's yours.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
What I think And this is based on a little
bit of some people I've had it to is and
at first time he's at the stage. What we're dealing with.
This is not a normal White House. We are basically
in the court of Versailles, all right. No one can
criticize the legitimacy of the monarch. So that's why, you know,
Steve Bannon and Tucker have to target the neo cons
(18:25):
who were talking with him. Everything is about gaining the
audience of the king and of the ear of the king.
And the king can vacillate from time to time, but
his own legitimacy of the throne cannot be called into question.
He's all powerful and he's all knowing. So what's really
happened I think over the last couple of days is
I can say equivocally the Bannon lunch was a pivotal moment.
(18:46):
So Steve Bannon was yesterday at the White House, had
lunch with Donald Trump. I don't think he said anything
different in his private comments than he did publicly. So
that's very encouraging, and that did lead to the so
called two week debt.
Speaker 6 (18:59):
Life.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Now, if it were up to Donald Trump, I'm actually
relatively confident that we would be heading towards some sort
of diplomatic solution. The problem is, of course, the Israeli
question on the side, because what Israel now has is
two weeks to mount the pressure campaign of the century.
First and foremost, there's a credible report out today from
(19:21):
the Iranian Foreign minister who's in Geneva to speak with
the European foreign ministers, that somebody tried to kill him,
possibly even the Israelis and or advisors around them. Remember,
they already took out one of the negotiators who spoke
with Steve Wikoff. There's also crystal maybe you can pull
this up. I tweeted it out from the Times of Israel,
the Israeli Foreign the Israeli Defense Minister today said he
(19:45):
has officially greenlit strikes on the regime. We're not even
talking specifically about nuclear facilities. They are in the next
two weeks basically have a free military hand to ramp
up military strikes on the Iranian regime and specifically to
try to kill all of the people around the Ayatola. So,
like I said, if it were just up to Donald Trump,
(20:06):
I genuinely do believe we would be heading to this.
It does seem that he's been spooked a bit by
some of these reports and questioning the scentcom intelligence as
to whether the fod Oho facility really could be taken
out by the US military. But Israel really could, you know,
really could force our hand. Yeah, you could see it
right there. Katz instructs the IDF to quote destabilize the
(20:27):
Iranian regime with intensified air strikes. And Israel they're not
doing well right now. I mean, I know that sounds
crazy to say, because of all their propaganda, they're running
out of interceptors. The war is costing Israel hundreds of
millions of dollars per day, per the Wall Street Journal.
Commercial air shutdown is devastating the economy. Nobody's going to work.
(20:48):
You know, how can you work when every single night
you're spending in a bomb shelter looking at your phone.
So their society is in chaos. Every single time one
of those interceptor gets fired, it's seven hundred thousand to
two million dollars. The flight cost of an F thirty
five is, like, I don't even know, thirty five thousand
dollars per hour. They're going bankrupt, you know, and will,
(21:08):
according to their own former like bank official I was
reading this morning, we're looking at at a bill well
over twelve billion a single month of the war in Iran,
which no, not a lot for US, but that's a
lot over for them. So I would say like we
have had a factional victory in getting to the two
week period. But obviously I really don't think Trump is
(21:30):
the principal actor here, especially because the Iranians won't meet
with us. They're meeting right now with the Europeans. It's
the Israelis who are going to try to destabilize, and
then it's really Trump and to the extent that he
wants to insert himself as the primary policy maker in
this process.
Speaker 5 (21:46):
Yeah, and I think, sorry curious and your guys to
take on this, but like if fifty years from now
when they look back at kind of how the conflict
overall between the United States and the up and coming
powers played out, the US decision based on pressure from
the military industrial complex to go into this like Rolls
Royce style approach to and literally Rolls Royce is one
(22:09):
of the main contractors for US weapons, to make it
so that you have these this massively high margin industry
that is making lots of people very rich, despite the
fact that strategically the numbers are just idiotic. In other words,
if you're spending seven hundred thousand to two million dollars
(22:31):
on an interceptor against a missile that costs your adversary
ten thousand or fifty thousand dollars to put together. In
the case of Yemen, the orders of magnitude or were
even further apart. Yes, we're a couple, were like a
week plus into this, imagine a year out like It's
as if nobody did the math on this. But the
(22:54):
Israelis they did do the math, and the math for
them is, we cannot afford this. We also cannot do
it ourselves militarily, but the United States can afford it
at least in the medium term. And the United States
can do it militarily. So they did the math, and
they didn't conclude, well, I guess we shouldn't do this.
They concluded, let's do this and just bank on the
(23:16):
fact that the United States is going to come in
behind us. That's a small conflict between these two countries,
Israel and Iran. If there is ever a bigger conflict,
you could just see how long the United States would
be able to carry on before it's it is itself
bankrupt isn't the right word, but just out of ammunition,
(23:37):
we can give the ammunition.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Costs that actually let me find that.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Yeah, I mean, this is a tried and true thing
about countries that always you know, one of the for example,
if you there's a great book behind me which is
about the ammunition shortage during World War One, and the
amount of ammunition they used in the first month of
the war is what they projected they were going to
have to use for the entire war. And so after
like three weeks they're like, oh shit, They're like now what,
(24:02):
and they're like, you know what you do? You have
to go into total war. You have to lock down
your economy, you have to seize control of all of
the industry and basically marshal and mobilize to produce as
much as humanly possible, and you will literally go bankrupt,
as all of the European great powers did, basically became subservient,
you know, bank bank loaners to the United States of America.
That's the entire story behind the fall of the British Empire.
(24:25):
So that is a very very good lesson. Now I'm
not saying it can't be done, but the point is
is that you have to marshal your entire society towards it.
But you're exactly right, Ryan. From what I've read, these
Raelies are like, yeah, we knew we couldn't afford it.
We're just going to get America to pay for it,
and that's the problem.
Speaker 4 (24:40):
Usually a pretty safe bet put it.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
On the visa. Yeah, they're right though. See that's the thing.
At the end of the day, they are right. And
this is why I'm still pessimist, even though I do
think we have won a victory people who want to,
you know, to avoid this going all out. Yet I
do think we have one sum of a victory and
we may still have a chance. Right the Europeans are
meeting all of them. But I would still put it
(25:01):
around twenty five thirty percent, simply because of unrestrained Israeli
military action. There's a story out this morning from the
New York Times. The US intelligence assesses that there's two
scenarios right now where Iron goes for a nuclear bob.
One is killed the Iatola. Two is the US military
strikes four doo. Well, you know what is the Israeli
(25:22):
option there? For they're going to try and kill the Ayatola.
Just yesterday they hit a bunker in which the Iatola
was thought to be in. Now the ostensible target was
one of the Iatola's quote advisors. He's survived, by the way,
at least according to the Iranians. But that's where things are,
like you see the IDF action. And also they can
do math too, Ryan, they can't afford this shit for
(25:43):
too much longer. You know, already there are you know,
prioritizing their interceptors. Remember the censorship blackout in Israel is real.
We have no idea what is being hit or not.
And there's a reason for that, and it's because these
they are now having to prioritize maybe military interceptors, but
they have to let civilians get hit, right, So you're
gonna start to see the death toll rack up trade off. Sorry,
(26:06):
I would, I forgot that. I'm not talking about these
the most moral army in the world would never make
that decision. But that's my point is the Israelis are
the these Reelis are the most aggressive, you know actor
in this and they just have such an incredible ability
(26:30):
to shape events without being restrained by US policy shape events.
That's very okay, I mean I know what I'm saying.
They can just they can just do whatever they want
to do and master Trump and does not pick up
the phone. I mean, it's like the one there's But this.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Is Pobe's claim to fame is that he knows how
to work is over and it's freaking true.
Speaker 4 (26:52):
I mean, he is one of us.
Speaker 6 (26:53):
He is an.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
American, He's born in Philadelphia.
Speaker 6 (26:55):
Okay, So I.
Speaker 4 (26:56):
Really want to go Emily, Emily, what are you? What
are your thoughts?
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Like are you what are you hearing? And what are
your thoughts on where we stand right now?
Speaker 9 (27:03):
Well, I think actually Sager just did a little like
very helpful reporting by saying, having talked to folks, he
thinks that ban in lunch was significant because there's a
real question as to whether the two weeks is cold water,
whether it is on you know, sort of the lust
for another interventionist conflict, or is it a negotiating tactic
(27:26):
where Trump is, as you said at the start of
the show, Crystal, giving the two week window and then
immediately going to move the next day or the day
after something like that. But everything that we've just laid
out about the costs and about the sort of timeline
tells me two weeks is most likely going to be
two days in some respect or another. I mean, I
(27:48):
just I think the cold weeks feels like I think
it feels like a sort of last ditch, helpful dose
of cold water. But the machine has been turned on
and it's lurching towards the conflict. I mean, at this point,
it feels like turning the Titanic around to do so.
The two weeks, I agree with Sager, is obviously better
(28:09):
than you know, not having.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Us being at work, you know, directly right now.
Speaker 4 (28:13):
But yeah, right, I mean, but for all those reasons, it's.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Like I'm very cognizant of the fact that, first of all,
at least according to the Trump administration, you know, the
last movements towards diplomatic negotiations were.
Speaker 4 (28:25):
Just a ruse. So there's that.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
There also previously were these reports out that effectively the
plan was to give Ran one final deal ultimatum that
contains in it the sort of poison pills that we
know will make it, you know, guaranteed that the Iranians
won't take it. Not to mention, if you're the Iranians
at this point, how can you negotiate with these people?
(28:47):
Like on every level, not only did you already negotiate
a deal with them that they just were like, yeah, well,
we're not going to do that anymore. But then they're
broadcasting to the world that like, yeah, we pretended we
were going to go forward with these negotiations. We were
just tricking you so that you could be attacked and destroyed.
Speaker 9 (29:03):
So Iranian nationalism is mounting because.
Speaker 4 (29:05):
Of all of that, Oh yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
Oh yeah. By the way, they took to the streets
on Friday, and actually across the Muslim world, Friday prayers
have reportedly been like overwhelming in their support for the Iranians,
even amongst the Sunni populations, which that's hard to do. Yeah,
for for everybody out there.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
I mean that's what you know. Sorab and Trita have
been telling us. They've you know, they're seeing unfold this
rally around the I mean.
Speaker 4 (29:30):
It's entirely predictable. It's entirely predictable.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
Think about us after nine to eleven, right, George Wish
had like a ninety percent approval rating, and I was like, yes,
let's go.
Speaker 4 (29:39):
So of course that's going to happen.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
And I just you know, obviously the space for negotiating
a deal has dramatically, dramatically closed. And then to your point,
Cyber like, you have this incredibly nefarious actor in Netanyahu
who you can't put anything past this guy in terms
of what he's willing to do to make sure that
working to be there to help him effactuate the plans
(30:02):
that he has had for decades at this point.
Speaker 4 (30:05):
So it's you know, precarious.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
Is like the probably like lowest nicest thing I could
say about where we sit right now.
Speaker 4 (30:14):
It's really quite dire.
Speaker 5 (30:15):
Yeah, it's not good until I well go ahead, Ryan,
just real quickly to respond to what Chrystal said, I
actually I put that question that you asked about how
can they trust us to get back into negotiations directly
to a couple of Iranian sources, and they said, well, look,
the thing you have to understand is like maybe you
had a better perception of the United States ten years ago.
(30:38):
We never did. Like, we have never trusted the United States,
no matter who the president was, and so we were
not shocked that they pulled out of the JCPOA, and
we were not shocked that they attacked us. You know,
they in Israel attacked us. They expected it, they saw
it coming. So their answer was, you know, you make
deals not based on trust, but you know, expediency, necessity,
(31:01):
and then you put everything into the deal that you
possibly can to make it enforceable. And that's why, you know,
the Russians and the Europeans were part of the JCPOA.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
There's some hope that.
Speaker 5 (31:10):
Like you know, global involvement, you know, would would pressure
the United States to want Yeah, thinking it obviously didn't,
but go ahead, Yeah, let.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
Me pick up on that, because this is actually one
thing that gives me a little bit of hope is
that the main parties meeting with the Iranians today are
the European powers and Macron actually has a quote comprehensive
offer to Tehran. I can read a little bit from this,
and I'm reading from the Financial Times Crystal. It says
Macrone said negotiations have to move towards the zero and
uranium enrichment as and foreign ministers will meet with them
(31:44):
and they will present to them this quote comprehensive negotiation offer,
which would put an end to the hostilities. Namely, it
would cause a ceasefire as well as lead to zero
enrichment from the Iranians. Again, I don't know if that's
what the Iranians would agree to. But really the real
problem here is that the so called comprehensive offer, even
according to the French and the Europeans, is that it
(32:05):
also has to be acceptable to Israel. I just don't
think that there is any deal at this point which
is acceptable to Israel, which again is one of those
things where it's the United States of America who would
probably take that deal, but the Israelis would be like, oh,
how can we trust it?
Speaker 1 (32:20):
Another yeah?
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Right, but even with zero and Richmond, they would say,
how can we trust you that you're not going to
They'd be like, you need to basically let me occupy
your nuclear facility. Right, They're gonna be no, that's not
going to happen. Another really nightmas ut, Yeah right, but
one like nightmare scenario I see right now is Israelis
are now talking about some sort of grand commando raid
(32:42):
on the four Todah facility, like occupying the way that
they did in Syria. But I mean, look, the risk
there is just so insanely fraught, and especially if it
were to become a disaster, and then you could easily
see how things snowball from there have failed Israeli commando
slash strike ray that fails to take out power, doesn't
(33:02):
finish the job, and then the Iranians are like, screw it,
let's go sprint to the bomb, right. I mean, there's
so much here which would obviously just almost immediately draw
America in. So I'm like cautiously, like twenty five percent
optimistic about this, but I just I don't see how
we can surmount, you know, the Israeli I don't see
(33:23):
how we can surmount like all of their clear strategic
objectives at this point, unless a different Donald Trump emerges
who is like, no, we're done. This is what we're doing.
But I mean, he couldn't even stop Israel from striking Iran,
if that's even to be believed.
Speaker 4 (33:39):
You know, they wanted to, he didn't want to. I mean,
let's not be foolish here, right.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
And I think Ken Cleppenstein, and now his reporting was
confirmed by Reuters, I think that, you know, Trump for
a while, and Biden too, by the way, was like, no,
you're not doing that, You're not doing that, You're not
doing that. And then Trump was doing the same for
a while and then he stopped saying no. And that
is the equivalent of a green light. Now maybe you
(34:04):
know that way you have plausible deniability that you didn't
affirmatively say yes, go ahead. But of course the Israelis
are going to know as soon as you are like, oh, well,
do what you want to do, they know exactly what
that means. And so you know, Trump knew exactly what
was unfolding here. He he green lit this. I mean,
we saw the build up. We all were watching closely
as to what was ultimately going to unfold.
Speaker 4 (34:24):
So he wanted this to happen. He green lit it.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
We shipped hundreds of hellfire missiles to Israel in advance
of these strikes. So you know, it's like, I don't
want to Yes, Nan Yahoo is doing everything he can
to create that outcome. But ultimately it's Donald Trump who decided, yes,
this is this is the direction that we're ultimately going
to go, and we're going to let Israel attack ran
days before we're supposed to have the next round of negotiations.
(34:51):
Even though I mean, from all indications, there was a
plausible chance of actually being able to seal some sort
of a deal and achieve a diplomatic solution, which is
much more unlikely at this point after you know, after
we blew up our own our own deal making ability.
Speaker 5 (35:07):
And we have some relevant comments I can put up
from a senior arining advisor that goes exactly to this point.
Let me put this up where basically he's saying do
and this is a close advisor to the IOTOL saying
that it is it would be a mistake to reach
a ceasefire at this point because Israel is going to
(35:29):
break the ceasefire in two months and they will use
the two months or whatever the period is to restock
their supplies, particularly of interceptor missiles. So any cease fire
that is implemented now will lead to renewed war. We
should not allow the enemy, which is currently in a
weak position, to revive itself with a ceasefire. And he
goes on through, you know, with that analysis. But I
(35:51):
think this is a consequence of you know, the US
and Israel not abiding by any of its agreements, whether
it's the January ceasefire that they reached with Hamas and
then said they were going to break and then broke broke,
whether it was the deal over Eaton Alexander where they said,
if you release eat On Alexander, will let in aid
and we'll push for a ceasefire and they and they
(36:13):
did none of that. Whether it's you know, assassinating Hondya
in Tehran as they're getting very close to a deal,
and on and on. If you believe that a ceasefire
can't be trusted, then then why reach a ceasefire unless
you are fit on the brink of like regiment elimination.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
Let me put this up on the screen and get
your reaction to it. This was the just to put
it out there. This is the reporting from sihirsh of
what his sources are telling him it's going to happen. Say,
mixed bag in terms of his reporting accuracy, but I
think it's good to put it all on the table.
Michael Tracy tweeted these portions. So he, according to is
reporting this report on what was most likely to happen
(36:57):
in Iran as early as this weekend. According to is
really and and American officials I've relied upon for decades,
will entail heavy American bombing. I have vetted this report
with a long time US official, and Washington told me
that it will all be under control if Iran Supreme
leader Ali Commany departs.
Speaker 4 (37:13):
Just how that might happen short of his assassinations not known.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
There's been a great deal of talk about American firepower
targets inside Iran, but little practical thinking, as far as
I can tell, about how to remove a revered religious
leader with an enormous following. Next piece, here he says,
I've been told the White House is signed off on
an all out bombing campaign in Iran, But the ultimate targets,
the centrifuge, is buried at least eighty meters below the
surface at four dough will as of this writing, not
(37:36):
be struck until the weekend. Delay has come at Trump's insistence,
because now this does kind of ring true. The president
wants the shock of the bombing to be diminished before
the opening of Wall Street trading on Monday. Trump took
issue on social media this morning with the Wall Street
Journal report that said he had decided on the attack
on Iran riding he had yet to decide on a
path forward.
Speaker 4 (37:53):
So what are saying, Chrystal?
Speaker 2 (37:54):
Could you Okay? So I was going to say keep
that up? Yeah, there was sorry, I'll reach heare no, no.
Speaker 9 (37:58):
Because I just wanted to zoom in on Thean. A
post about the disputed accuracy of sy Hirsch's record, because
Hanania sort of has this like snarky reply. I remember
Seymour Hirsch reporting that we were sent to bomb Iran
during the Bush administration, and I know what he's saying,
but I actually think that's an interesting point because it
(38:19):
tells you who has been leaking over the course of
decades to try to force a bombing of Iran. And
I think that's like whether or not this report specifically
is an accurate assessment of Trump's thinking. What it is
is Seymour Hirsh having a source who he is describing
accurately as a senior US official.
Speaker 4 (38:40):
I'm sure that part is.
Speaker 9 (38:41):
True talking to him and saying that this is what's
being discussed in a serious way. So I actually, I mean, yes,
take it with a grain of salt, but I think
it's actually not insane that this is likely a serious,
high level conversation that's happening. I don't know how this
is going to be affected by Trump's Bannon lunch yesterday
(39:03):
and the two week I don't know what we call it,
like deadline extension, but it did feel like we were
in a forty eight hour window and I don't know
that we actually are out of the forty eight hour
window at all, because it's hard to know when Trump'
has two weeks what he's trying to telegraph to Iran.
It's hard to know what Israel then does. There's no
(39:26):
way that Noahu is happy with Trump's two week announcement yesterday,
and so do they escalate in a way that forces
the hand? I don't know, but that reporting to me
doesn't seem insane.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
Sager, what do you make of this tactical nukes talk?
Speaker 2 (39:40):
Oh my god, don't even get me started. I'm getting me.
Speaker 4 (39:43):
Started, buddy, let me pull it up. I got it here.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
Let's go ahead and play it.
Speaker 7 (39:52):
It's a senior White House correspondent, Jackie heinright the cot.
Speaker 10 (39:55):
Away from the shots Son headlines this afternoon one from
The Guardian that claimed that US military has doubts about
whether the bunker buster bombs could get the job done
and further claiming that only a tactical nuke may be
finish it. And it further stated that the President is
(40:15):
not considering a tactical nuke, that it was not one
of the options.
Speaker 4 (40:18):
That was presented to him.
Speaker 10 (40:19):
I was just told by a top officials here that
none of that report is true, that none of the
options are off the table, and the US military is
very confident that bunker busters could get the job done
at Porto.
Speaker 4 (40:32):
The President is giving so she says that it's not
the tactical none of it's true. The tactical nukes are
actually not off the table.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
Tactical nukes are on the table.
Speaker 4 (40:40):
She kind of buries the lead there.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
You kind of have to like really listen in in,
which seems kind of significant.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
It's insane preposterous. It also though, I really want people
to see here how the slippery slope happens. First, it's
just we just one bomb, that's all it is. Oh,
actually it's a couple of bombs, and that's why you
leak this stuff.
Speaker 6 (41:03):
Right.
Speaker 2 (41:03):
Maybe the bombs though, can actually do the job. So
then it was only a tactical nuke. Oh so you
drop a tactical nuke on here. Now we're in a
whole different other world. And you know, this just demonstrates, Look,
these generals, they make all kinds of promises from what
I hear General Gorilla has been, you know, in all
these like meetings with the President being like mister President,
(41:24):
we can do this. He wants to cement his legacy
as the guy who took out the Iranian nuclear program.
His term is up in only two weeks, and he's
given all these pie in this guy bullshit military assessments
to Donald Trump. Of course Donald Trump is loving it, right.
Gorilla is like jacked. He looks good. He's got a
nice figure on camera, straight out of Central casting, as
Trump would say. So this is the Listen the gorilla,
(41:46):
the gorilla, Gorilla, the gorilla. So like, we can all
see how the wheels are turning. It's obviously it would
be devastating. I think one of the main reasons they're
keeping it open is just basically to scare the shit
out of the Iranians. But really what it's about is
they are being so reckless in their rhetoric that they're
actually again just increasing the odds of the Iranians being like,
(42:08):
you people are crazy, we are just going to sprint
to the bomb. And the only reason why this really
is all happening is again because of Israel's actions basically
ratcheting up where the US has to go from the
escalation ladder. Also, can we all keep in mind that
when Russia was even openly talking about a tactical nuclear
weapon in Ukraine. That everyone was like that would be
(42:29):
a red line and that we should basically go to
war with Russia. So should Russia go to war with us?
You know that Rana is technically their client state in
a similar manner. It's maybe not exactly the same, but
everyone just see how crazy this all is. And this
is again you know where I've been going back and
I've been reading even more about all these these military
guys are the kings of over promising and under delivering.
(42:53):
So we can all talk about Libya. We actually delivered
in Libya. We took out their air defense. It was
just the strategic problem of the fact that the country
collapse into civil war. But what about Serbia? Serbia is
actually a very apt example. So in nineteen ninety nine,
NATO and the United States wanted to take out Melosovich
and basically get to stop the civil war and all
of his actions. Right, well, the US military predicted and
(43:15):
NATO said it will just take three days of bombing
to get Melosovich to back down. It took eleven weeks,
and at the end of those eleven weeks, the US
military was presenting options to President Clinton to fully invade
and to take over Serbia because air power could not
get the job done. We have to just keep learning
these lessons over and over and over and over again.
(43:37):
These guys don't actually know what they're talking about. They
said Iraq was going to be a cakewalk. One hundred
and fifty thousand troops, mister President, no question, no problem. Afghanistan,
don't worry about it. We should get a couple of
special forces overthrow the government. We could take out the
Taliban with limited air strikes. It never works. It's always
going to lead to the ground troop and or way
(43:58):
more than we ever thought from the very beginning.
Speaker 6 (44:00):
Go at.
Speaker 9 (44:01):
The incredible irony of all of this is that Iran
itself should have been the first lesson of this decade ago.
This is the text book example playing out in front
of us. So it's a tragic irony that, you know, again,
they thought they had that completely under control, no unintended
(44:22):
consequences that happened down the line from meddling, and here
we are in twenty twenty five, still groping to figure
out what happens.
Speaker 1 (44:30):
Talking about bringing back the Shaw's son too yet learning
any lessons.
Speaker 2 (44:36):
Okay, I talk about that too. Fox News is referring
to this guy as his Royal Highness.
Speaker 4 (44:41):
Oh my god, No they aren't.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
No, no, they are.
Speaker 3 (44:45):
Check it out.
Speaker 2 (44:46):
You can tweeted it out. They go his Royal Highness
the show, I go, Where am I on bizarro planet?
What's happening? You know, just being the son of a
deposed king does not make you hrh is a title.
It has meaning. Okay, I mean, I don't know what
are we doing here, not to be a royal expert
or whatever. But you know it's like if we had
(45:09):
on Edward Habsburg and we're like, his Royal Highness of
lost your hungary, Like what but I think he's like
a banker in Switzerland.
Speaker 3 (45:19):
Poem.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
He'd be like, I'm Edward, you don't have to call
me that. And he's like the dynasty is gone. You
know when you when you get thrown out, you don't
get the title anymore. I thought we all acknowledge that,
but they're seriously having this guy on and he's like, Oh,
Iranians cry out for monarchy and for its insanity, the sanity.
Speaker 1 (45:40):
We I have the media clips on here, the coverage,
the level of undul I don't even know what to say.
I mean, we truly do, like cable news really does
never learn anything. Ever, it's so wild to see the
propaganda march and it matters. I mean, we were covering
that polling where it really depends people feel about this
(46:02):
all kinds of ways, depending on how it's framed. So
I guarantee if you ask people do you want to
get America entrenched in some like potentially catastrophic regime change
or regime collapse war, they could be like are you hot?
Speaker 4 (46:15):
Like what, why would we do that?
Speaker 6 (46:18):
Why?
Speaker 4 (46:18):
I think it would be ninety ten. But if you ask,
you know, oh.
Speaker 1 (46:22):
Well, should Orn have a nuke? Well? Should we let
Israel strike Roan to get rid of their nuclear proga?
Speaker 4 (46:26):
Who could object to that?
Speaker 1 (46:27):
Well? Should we supply the weapons that Israel useless? Well,
you know, should we maybe be the ones just to
go ahead and take out these nuclear weapons? Because you've
already said Oran can't have a nuke. When it's framed
in that way, suddenly you get a disturbing amount of
public consensus. And we also have to be real about
the quote unquote anti war mega base. The Republican base
is vastly more pro war than the Democratic base. They
(46:50):
will go and support whatever Donald Trump wants to do,
including Steve Bannon, who already has told the Financial Times
at the end of the day, Me Tucker, Marjorie Taylor Green,
all these people will support the president's decision and just
assume he has more intelligence and more wisdom and more
understanding that we do.
Speaker 4 (47:05):
At the end of the day, they will all bend
the ney to whatever it is that Trump decides.
Speaker 2 (47:09):
Most of them will, and most of the base will.
But you know, you made an important point yesterday, Chrystal
on our show. Independence won't And.
Speaker 4 (47:15):
That's yeah, that difficult, absolutely, and that's why.
Speaker 2 (47:17):
That show does matter. And you know, I want to
get this guy on the show, this guy Rich Barris.
He's like a maga like aligned Ulster, and he's been
making some great points where he's like, hey, guys, Trump's
entire margin of victory in Michigan is the anti war
independent base. He's like the dearborn people who voted for
Trump and or people who were union and anti Iraq war.
(47:42):
That is the margin of victory. So Donald Trump, it's
striking the parallels with George W. Bush, Like if you
look at the ninety six electoral map and the two
thousand electoral map. It's actually insane how much things can
change in just four years. George W. Bush, everybody forgets this.
He ran as a restraintist. He thought that the US
can pain in Serbia was a disaster. He was like,
(48:02):
that's not something that I'm interested in doing. He ran
on reducing America's footprint abroad. And then of course we
got you know, mister Neocon himself. Things changed a lot
after nine to eleven because he literally had a messianic
complex where he believed he was put on earth by
God to be there at nine to eleven and to
destroy the access of evil, which is telling Trump right now,
(48:24):
this is look, I'm trying to drop parallels here.
Speaker 4 (48:27):
Yeah, he believes it.
Speaker 1 (48:28):
I mean, it's raw by Huckabye. There's a reason why
he shared that text. And he talked about himself this way.
I mean his inaugural speech, he talked about how you know,
he's basically put there by God for this great moment.
And so when I mean, Emily, you're gonna have to
you're gonna have to be my deacoder in some of
this stuff. But the religious fervor of you know, the
(48:52):
Israeli fanatics, and then you've got the Huckabee End Times
people and Ted Cruz, and then you've got you know,
Trump believing he's, you know, the second coming of Jesus Christ.
To me, this is a terrifying mix, a totally terrifying mix,
because then you're like, you can't presume anyone's even acting
rationally when you have this divine justification behind you, when
(49:16):
you believe that it's your mission from God, as Ted
Cruz explained, to always serve the government of met Yahoo.
Speaker 9 (49:22):
Yeah, the so I do have good news on that front,
which is that's so boomer brain. Even in evangelical circles,
it's people like there was this time before Y two
K where the Left Behind series and this millenarian Christianity
pointed straight towards Israel and created this real, very like,
(49:44):
very very serious political support for Israel that we all
kind of think of when we think of American evangelicals.
Speaker 2 (49:51):
That has not really trickled down.
Speaker 9 (49:54):
And in fact, what I saw of the last like
forty eight hours after the Huckaby thing and after the
cruising in particular, was a ton of pushback. For example,
the Federalists published a long pushback to what Ted Cruz
was saying, and I don't think that would have happened
fifteen years ago. It doesn't make it any less frightening
that Mike Kakabee, who has played very fast in loose
with whether he's a dispensationalist or not, is there. I mean,
(50:15):
I think in all likelihood, yes, Mike Kaukabee believes that
political Israel is. You can sort of swap that in
and out with when the Bible refers to the nation
of Israel that today twenty twenty five political nation state
Israel is. You can read that into scripture.
Speaker 2 (50:31):
You could read that it's a revelation.
Speaker 9 (50:32):
It's completely ridiculous, but it's it is popular where with
evangelical boomers like Mike Huckabee, so to the extent that
Huckabee is the ambassador to Israel, that matters. But I
don't think that's it's certainly now not how like a
Catholic like Jdevance or Mark or Rubio is seeing this.
Speaker 2 (50:49):
I know that's cold comfort to everyone.
Speaker 9 (50:51):
But the good news is the boom and brain dispensationalism
hasn't trickled down to millennials, right now.
Speaker 4 (50:59):
I guess I wanted to get your Okay, good to know.
Speaker 1 (51:04):
Hopefully we all survive until those millennials have a little
more power.
Speaker 4 (51:08):
Right, you'll know when we're not raptured. Okay, all right,
good to know.
Speaker 1 (51:11):
I wanted to get you to explain Ryan this report
from drop site about how the Israelis are reposting some
of the same strike footage from Moz obviously, you know,
has been tracking this and broke down this reporting. So
what should people like, what's the significance here?
Speaker 4 (51:28):
What is he finding?
Speaker 5 (51:30):
Yeah, I mean, so this is allegedly two different strikes
on two different days posted by the Israeli military, and
as as Moz points out, like if you look closely,
there's just a little bit of tweaking done to the
color and to the angle.
Speaker 1 (51:50):
Yeah, let's blurred a little bit.
Speaker 5 (51:52):
Yeah, but if you look at it, if you look
at that kind of the markings around the rest of
the image, you're like, oh, you know, it doesn't take
you know, pH D and osent to be like this
is actually the same picture.
Speaker 1 (52:04):
And so.
Speaker 5 (52:06):
It raises the question of, you know, have they exhausted
kind of a target bank in the sense that they're
not you know, they're not able to produce new pictures,
which is strange because they have you know, free reign
over the Iranian sky and.
Speaker 3 (52:24):
All.
Speaker 2 (52:25):
This is not exclusive to Israel.
Speaker 5 (52:27):
All of these belligerent powers are capable of bombing even
something that has nothing, no military value whatsoever and putting
a clip out and saying that it's a command and
control center. So it's not like they have a shortage
of videos. It's just it shows I think it shows
a sloppiness and potentially shows you know that they're that
(52:48):
they're really scraping the bottom of the barrel at this point.
Speaker 1 (52:52):
Well, and this was also a significant in that vein
NBC News is reporting that according to the seniors really
intelligence official, only sixty five percent of Iranian missiles were
intercepted in the past twenty four hours. That's down from
nearly ninety percent the day before. And we have other
reports as well that they're having to ration interceptors. I mean,
this is something something that Soccer was talking about before.
(53:14):
It's just part of why you know, they're obviously we
have to be involved. We've been and not have to be,
but we choose to be involved and have been from
the beginning and I think this is one of the
hopes of the Iranians probably is that they can learn
more about the missile defense systems and that as time
goes on, they will you know, have to further ration interceptors,
(53:38):
and also that they will have more understanding of how
to evade those interceptors and those missile defense systems.
Speaker 5 (53:43):
And on top of that they use their older and
crappier missiles as as you would expect logically, the first
ones out of the gate were the cheap, cheap, old
guys that aren't as good because so do.
Speaker 1 (53:54):
We know, we know that for a fact, because I
saw that speculation.
Speaker 2 (53:56):
Too, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5 (53:58):
And so because you know that when when your first
volley comes in, they're gonna they have their entire bank
of interceptors ready to go. So you throw the cheapest
stuff that's the worst, and so the interceptors then take
all of that out and then gradually you start you know,
using their that and you know, hypersonic missiles and you know,
yesterday they fired fired one. It sounds like one missile
(54:22):
at Bearsheva and it got through, but it seems to
maybe have missed his target. It landed right near the
Microsoft building there, and then the IRGC said they were
actually aiming for the Microsoft building, which may have been
because you know, citing Microsoft's role and in Israeli industrial complex,
(54:42):
which may have been kind of reverse engineered. Cope like that,
they're probably aiming for Elbot Systems, which is nearby there,
but hit closer to Microsoft, so that they're like, you know,
there's a lot of reverse engineering. We're like, oh, yeah,
that's definitely what we were aiming for. After you try
to figure out where it landed. And then we're getting
reports right now that there was another missile landed right
(55:03):
around Bearsheva. So you know, if they're two for two
in Beersheva getting through you know, missile defenses, that allows
them to shoot many fewer missiles and still have the
same amount of impact. You know, if they were firing
off you know, three hundred in the beginning just to
land ten or twenty, that's not a sustainable pace if
you have, you know, a missiles missile stockpile in the
(55:24):
low thousands. But if you're hitting at a fifty to
one hundred percent clip, that causes a lot more damage
and helps you win in a war of attrition.
Speaker 4 (55:36):
I think sager.
Speaker 1 (55:37):
Do you have to jump?
Speaker 2 (55:38):
Yeah, I do, unfortunately, but yeah, just last thoughts is
I think we have a twenty five percent chance of
avoiding miss probably seventy five percent chance. By the way,
literally as we're talking, Israel's getting rocked by ballistic missiles.
In terms of at least some of the images that
have made it out. They are going to come under
(55:58):
intense pressure in the government. They are going to ramp
up regime change and destabilization efforts to the best of
their possible ability. And yeah, I think it's going to
be a very, very dangerous two weeks. But you know,
I'm hoping for some success coming out of Europe and
at least see what they're able to get out of
(56:19):
the Uranians and publicly as well, you know, some of
the statements to get them on the record, and presumably
a press conference with some statements from the Iranian foreign minister,
they could at least keep us out of the woods.
But I also want to echo Emily's warning, we could
be in a forty eight hour time window. This could
all be fake, and this could buy Monday on our show,
we can be covering a four dough strike.
Speaker 1 (56:38):
Yeah, all right, Well, as we let Sager go. I
think we're also going to conclude the free portion. Premiums,
We're going to cover a bunch of more stuff. I've
got a bunch of clips I got Dave Smith on
Piers Morgan. You guys, now you don't want to miss
on on that. I've had it lady. Even Emily has
to admit she was kind of cooking on CNN. She's
like more based than we expected her to be, so
that's kind of cool. We've got more coming out of Israel,
(57:01):
in particular BBNAT and Yahoo is paying a personal price, guys,
and I want to share with you what that personal
price is. And we all should thoughts in prayers with
Bib and his family during this very difficult time. And
so in any case, a bunch of stuff to get to.
We'll try to get to zor On maybe talk about Obama.
See how much we get to. But for those of
you who want to join us for the full show
(57:22):
Breakingpoints dot Com, that monthly subscription is back.
Speaker 4 (57:26):
So you know, partake in that to your full delight,
see how you like it.
Speaker 1 (57:31):
And for premiums, we'll see in just about all right, guys,
thank you so much for watching the free portion of
the Friday Show, we're going to move into some premium
bonus content, so if you want to watch that as well,
make sure to go and subscribe at breakingpoints dot com.
And for all of you guys who are already premium subscribers,
that portion is going to start right now,
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