July 15, 2026 • 57 mins
Ryan and Emily discuss Iran hitting US bases, Robert Pape reacts to Trump ground invasion threat, Trump praises ICE after shootings.
Robert Pape: https://escalationtrap.substack.com/
Juan David Rojas: https://substack.com/@rojasrjuand
Donovan McKinney: https://www.donavanforcongress.com/
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 4 (00:33):
All right, good morning, and welcome to Breaking Points. Emily
is joining us from the road, which you would know
if you'd sign up for the newsletter. Actually we didn't,
tease if we can put the newsletter up there. Reminder,
if you go to Breakingpoints dot com, you can sign
up for this free newsletter that we sum up sums
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(00:56):
it's just going to tell them, you know what was
in the show and then they can find that, you know,
wherever they want. But Emily, thank you for joining us
from the road. I know you'll be able to be
here for a segment or two and you know looking
forward to us a safe trip back.
Speaker 5 (01:14):
Yes, no, I appreciate you guys like this.
Speaker 6 (01:16):
Is one of the things I love about the team
is I had to get home for a family thing
pretty quickly, and it's just amazing you guys pick up
so much of the slack. So I'm really grateful, happy
to be joining from the Milwaukee Airport today and we've
got a big show. Actually strikes launched, Military strikes, skins
run launched just in the hours before we began recording this.
(01:36):
So we're going to break down updates from Iran, and
we have much more to get to Brian as well.
You have a huge slate of guests lined up, So
Robert Pepe is going to be here, going to cover
that Ice shooting.
Speaker 5 (01:46):
There's so much to get to this point.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
Yeah, Wandavid Rojas will be here to talk about you
know who the who the man was who was shot
by Ice agents in Maine. Another Mexican man was shot
in not shot, was hit by a truck in Florida
after an encounter with ice. Emily will stick around with
us to talk about the New York ban on data centers,
(02:12):
or at least a moratorium on data centers. We're going
to also talk about an interview we did yesterday on
drop Site with Rocanna where he and Jeremy Skahill went
back on the legitimacy of armed resistance, as well as
whether or not there should be a full arms embargo
on Israel. Will also have news in that Julian andrew
(02:33):
And from drop Site News interviewed AOC about whether or
not she supports an arms in Bargo and she said,
in fact, yes she does. At the back end of
the show, will be joined by Donovan McKinney, who's a
DSA and Justice Democrats backed candidate running in Detroit who
is very likely to oust an incumbent in early August,
(02:55):
so you're gonna want to stick around for that. We'll
also ask him about the abdulh Side Hailly Even's race
Will Lawrence race, which is getting hot in Michigan as well.
Wanted to start with some I guess we're going.
Speaker 7 (03:07):
To call it good news. It what led up to.
Speaker 4 (03:10):
It is not good news, but the event this morning
is in fact great news. Muja Had al Sadi, very
well respected, well regarded veteran journalists in the West Bank,
who's written for drop site as well, was finally released
after nearly two years, and we put up a seven
of administrative detention in Israeli custody. In other words, no
(03:32):
charges whatsoever wherever filed against mujahead he last he last
wrote for a drop site in September of twenty twenty four.
Here here he is being reunited with his with his
father again. There are thousands of Palestinians, many many journalists,
(03:53):
and here here he is meeting his family on the
road after being dropped dropped off. Who has who are
able under the Israelis the Israeli, let's call it law,
to be able to be kept in prison for six
months on what they call administrative detention, meaning zero charges,
no right to challenge your detention, and then every six
(04:13):
months they can just reop it. We had been petitioning
for his release for nearly two years now and we're
deeply glad for him and his family that he's that
he's released and looking forward to seeing him get back
to the the business of journalism, Emily, He's being released
into the reignition of the war between between the United States, Israel,
(04:39):
and Iran. We could not get anywhere near through all
of the period of the memorandum understanding without it unraveling.
We can put up a zero here sentcom announcing a
new a new wave of strikes. At six six am
Eastern today, sen Commonalth forces began launching a wave of
(05:00):
strikes against Iran. The strikes are designed to further degrade
military capability capabilities Iranian forces have used to attack commercial
shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. Now the targets so
far for the United States have included a barracks that
would the Iranian Armies three hundred and eighty eighth Brigade
(05:21):
in Bombpor. So this is a This was a dormitory
that was housing conscripts that the United States struck overnight,
resulting in what appears to be a mass casually event. Now, clearly,
if you're conscripted into the military, you are a military
asset and a military target. But it's just it's just
(05:44):
not remotely obvious, like how there's a kind of military
benefit to striking a dormitory filled with conscripts in any event,
that's that's what they did.
Speaker 6 (05:58):
Let's and sitcoms explanation as people just saw on their
screen is that this was being used to degrade or
it was being used straight up for moves wise, was
being used to degrade capacities that were used in the right.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
They're claiming everything, Yeah, they're claiming everything they're hitting is
related somehow to Iron's ability to control the straight although,
of course, as long as you have a few land
mines and a few drones left, you can control the
straight up from moves.
Speaker 7 (06:24):
So I don't quite know how hitting this dorm, but
you can go ahead.
Speaker 6 (06:27):
Well, I was gonna say more news on that front.
We'll get to Trump's toll comments from yesterday in just
a second. I do want to just take a moment.
I mean, military spent dot org is a great website.
They have the total death count in this war right now,
so that's across all of the different countries. So this
includes combined confirmed and estimated deaths across the US, Iranian military,
(06:48):
Iranian and Israeli civilians that it needs civilians has built
of fighters in Gulf State casualties right now. This is
eight thousand, nine hundred and sixty six on the low
end and eighteen thousand, three hundred on the high end.
So in the United States we've had fourteen to sixteen
deaths across the region. This dethil is much higher than
(07:09):
I think we've even discussed here in the US.
Speaker 7 (07:12):
I think that's a good point.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
And also I think even though the US has not
achieved it's kind of military objectives, like the level of
destruction that has been rained down upon Iran is, you know,
should not be underestimated. Some new grain sites were hit
overnight by the United States inside Iran. We also hit
a kind of mineral water processing facility, so you know,
(07:36):
we're going after the you know, the very basics of
life there. And that's, of course, after the Israelis have
boasted about having destroyed, you know, every village that they
could reach in southern Lebanon. But let's listen to a
little bit of Trump explaining is rationale here.
Speaker 7 (07:52):
It's a two with the plants, with everything else.
Speaker 8 (07:55):
And we would like to invest tremendously in the United
States as opposed to charging a fee. And I like
that actually because I don't think anybody should be able
to charge a fee for the for the straight or
for any other straight relationship in terms of other sections
of the world. I don't think anybody should be really
in that position. But we were doing it as a reimbursement.
(08:18):
The Gulf States are going to invest a tremendous amount
of money into the United States, and that was very
satisfactory to me.
Speaker 9 (08:26):
I think it's actually much.
Speaker 7 (08:27):
Better so Emily.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
That is Trump saying that, Okay, maybe the twenty percent
fee that he was going to charge was a little
bit high, and so he's back to, I guess doing
it for free, except in exchange for the generosity of
the Gulf States. The Trump announcing that he was going
to charge a twenty percent fee was really quite a
diplomatic own goal, because the US had consistently been saying
(08:53):
that the principle is that they're in international waterways, there
cannot be a toll charged, and iron had been talking
about charging a one to two percent fee.
Speaker 7 (09:02):
Something like a million dollars per ship.
Speaker 4 (09:05):
The Iranians quickly embraced Trump's idea that he was going
to put forward this this twenty percent fee, and they
just said, we agree there should be a fee. We're
going to charge one percent, he's going to charge twenty
which which which would you prefer? So yeah, let's roll
a little bit more Trump and then and then yeah,
(09:27):
discuss or go ahead?
Speaker 7 (09:28):
Did you have a right?
Speaker 6 (09:29):
And I was gonna say just yeah, just to see
this up. So that was Trump talking in the White
House yesterday. We have more soundbites from that press availability
he did, but he also sat down for an interview
with Fox News where he talked a little bit about
the deal making process. And I know, Ryan, you have
some recording behind the scenes that you're than you get to.
But this is Donald Trump yesterday with Trey Yinks of
(09:50):
Fox News talking about where things stand. And again, let's
just just we don't need to do this breaking points.
Audience understands this perfectly clearly. But before the war, for
the war straight upfore news was open and there was
of course no war. So I mean, it's just ridiculous
even to hear him now say things like what you're
(10:10):
about to hear from this Fox News interview.
Speaker 5 (10:13):
This is a three.
Speaker 10 (10:15):
Three days ago, we had a deal.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
When was the last time you spoke with an Iranian official?
Speaker 10 (10:20):
Well, not me, but let's say my representatives. I have
spoken to him, but my representatives the course of.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Well, actually an hour ago and what message was delivered.
Speaker 10 (10:33):
They want to make a deal, but every time they
make a deal they break it. They don't want to die.
People don't want to die. Yeah, about an.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Hour ago, and what message was delivered.
Speaker 10 (10:46):
You better make a deal. You're not going to have
any You're not gonna have anybody left. We're being very
careful with the civilian population, as you know. But I said,
you better make a deal. You're not gonna have anything left.
And you think they will, I don't know if they
will or not.
Speaker 6 (11:02):
That's a not so build threat against civilians, which you've
seen at different points in the war.
Speaker 11 (11:06):
Right.
Speaker 6 (11:06):
Let's also now take a look at well, actually just
let's let's pause on that point for a moment. We've
seen that a couple of times over the course of
the war him make threats like that.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
Yeah, and what's so unusual about Trump is that he
makes so many wild threats against his enemies. He's going
to annihilate their civilization. There won't be anybody left. That
the Iranians even insisted on putting into the MoU that
he would stop making.
Speaker 7 (11:36):
Threats like that.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
That is not the kind of thing that would normally
go into a set of negotiating talking points, right because
you reach a ceasefire with the other side. It's it's
just kind of assumed that because you've reached a ceasefire,
neither side is going to threaten to annihilate the other
side while you're engaged in the talks produced by the ceasefire.
(12:04):
That's not Trump, though, and so the Iranians even insisted
that one of the deal points put in the MU
was you will stop threatening to annihilate our civilization. And
it's kind of stunning that Trump can't stop threatening to
genocide in an entire population, Like when you say there
will be nobody left. There's only one way to read that,
(12:27):
like that that is not like that, is that is
nothing other than a threat of complete and total civilizational annihilation.
And I think everyone is kind of immune to it,
including the Iranians at this point. But it doesn't make
it any I mean, I guess it makes it a little
less disturbing because they kind of chuckle it off. But
when they're out there attacking water facilities, attacking grain facilities,
(12:53):
attacking a dorm where soldiers are sleeping, where that you know,
there's no I still would love to see some rationale
of why they hit that. Meanwhile, let's let's put up
a six, which is what the what the Iranians are doing,
which is attacking, attacking military facilities. This is I believe
(13:15):
a cruise, a cruise missile attack b listic missile attack
in Bahrain. And you see there and as this is Jordan.
Speaker 7 (13:24):
A six is Jordan.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
So you have these PAC three Patriot missile interceptors that
are you can see kind of you can see them
kind of flying.
Speaker 7 (13:33):
By in the night.
Speaker 4 (13:33):
There those are about I think four million dollars apiece.
Speaker 7 (13:38):
There goes one and as you see it missed.
Speaker 9 (13:42):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (13:42):
The Blistic missiles are estimated to be somewhere between four
hundred and six hundred thousand dollars apiece, so you know,
basically an order of magnitude cheaper than the Patriot missiles.
And what some of the kind of osant folks were
observed serving as they were watching this, you know, this
(14:03):
base in Jordan getting pummeled, was that after a while
they stopped shooting the Patriots, which suggested that the radar
system suggested to the radar system that is used to
make sure that the patriots can you know, can be
launched with some accuracy had itself been destroyed, and so
I think they're just kind of left vulnerable.
Speaker 6 (14:24):
Well, I was gonna say, we can also toggle through
a one here. So what you're going to see Iranian
strikes against Bahrain, and you see Iranian strikes against Kuwait
and then more from Jordan.
Speaker 7 (14:35):
Resident thrown with a warhead on it.
Speaker 6 (14:39):
That you could look at all this the shape of it,
I was gonna say, and look at all this healthcare
and education and infrastructure is just getting blown up in
the air.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
Yeah, and so and right and here is that was
a ron firing kind of these like cluster bombs to
get around the the interceptors.
Speaker 7 (14:58):
Another direct hit. You know what this is.
Speaker 4 (15:04):
It's a reminder that we still had some kind of
military material left behind. And Trump, I guess decided that
he wanted to see that get that get destroyed as
as well. You know, they they're the Iranians are claiming.
Speaker 7 (15:20):
That they hit.
Speaker 4 (15:22):
Ship parts, weapons storage and aircraft parts warehouses in Bahrain
and m Q nine drone storage in Kuwait.
Speaker 7 (15:32):
A warehouse UH.
Speaker 4 (15:34):
In Kuwait that was the that was a major kind
of support center satellite communication UH center connected to the
the m M one O four, a patriot defense system.
They also in Kuwait. They also claim in Kuwait they
targeted these Himar's missile launchers, which they're the guesses camp
(15:56):
can't bearing which if if so, is a you know,
is AUP to have hit that and also would expose
this sort of attempted lie that nobody really takes seriously
that there aren't no launches coming from Kuwait, which I
think everybody understands that there are. And then they went
after hangars where drones and an American military jets were
(16:19):
stationed as well in Jordan. We don't know if they
were still there, we don't know if they were hit,
and as well as the management center and ammunition and
fuel storages that were in Bahrain where the US Navy
fifth Support Base is. And we're seeing a lot of
footage emerged from these strikes in real time. And this
(16:40):
goes back to the point I was making curious for
your take on this that when Trump first launched this war,
he had basically a full battery of defense. He had
a lot of troops in the in the Gulf and
in Iraq. He had two aircraft carrier groups. He had,
you know, the full naval missile defense system at the ready.
(17:00):
He's now restarting this war in a much hobbled position.
At the beginning of the war, you did not see
this level of penetration of air defenses, and so he
failed strategically the first time around with a full magazine
of offensive and defensive weapons. I don't understand how he
thinks he's going to do better this time around in
(17:23):
a much weakened and depleted position.
Speaker 6 (17:26):
Well, and I was gonna say, you're about to bring
on Robert Pate, but the only way that he can
is to escalate, right The only way is either stay
in this folding pattern for a matter of months, as
I think is being telegraphed right now, which means that
all Republicans who are going to run or who are
running right now on the cycler, are going to have
to defend this constantly up until November, gas prices probably
(17:46):
remaining way too high for consumers. If we don't see
another spike, we'll still probably see prices be too high,
and all of it for either remaining in a holding
pattern or escalating, I think that's pretty clearly the only
option in from the trunk right now, or take a
massive lt right That's again we've been talking about this
(18:07):
since the war began, but that's those are the three options.
They continue to be the three options. And the question
for him is whether the holding pattern is durable, you know,
politically and substantively for his position. And it's impossible to
know what he's thinking other than that he doesn't want
to either escalate or take an ol so eager to
(18:29):
hear Professor Paps take on all of this and I
know you're about to have a conversation with him, ran Yeah.
Speaker 4 (18:34):
And meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, apparently with US Blessing, decided that
it was this was the right time to strike Yemen,
to strike ans A law movement knows that the Hoothis
have now shot back and hit a bunch of different
facilities in Saudi Arabia, so they're going to close the
babel Men depth straight. You combine that with the strait
of horm Moves getting closed again, it's a total disaster
(18:55):
for the global economy. And when it comes to the
American position, there was a very interesting moment in in
President Trump's meeting yesterday with the Iraqi Prime minister, in
which he basically said, if you can read between the
lines here that we've been kicked out of Iraq, let's
roll a five to round us out.
Speaker 8 (19:12):
The military there anymore. It's a very big operation. And
what we do have is the oil companies are all
going in now and they're doing partnerships with Iraq and
they're getting along very well. The relationship is a whole
big relationship where we don't need the military. We're there
to help them, we're there to protect them if need be,
(19:34):
but we don't think that's going to be necessary. And
their primary I considered an opponent. They might have considered
a friend, but I considered that an opponent. Iran was
a big burden on Iraq because they were the believe
the Middle East, as you know, and we were just
talking about that. But they're not going to have that
(19:54):
problem anymore because Iran has been very much destabilized and
really their military powers just a tiny fraction of what
it was just four months ago.
Speaker 4 (20:07):
So Emily, we have beaten Iran so badly that we
don't even need to be in Iraq anymore. That's the
that's the argument that Trump was paking there.
Speaker 6 (20:17):
And you're reading that person as US being kicked out
of Iraq as opposed to Trump's framing of it.
Speaker 4 (20:21):
Right, right, Yeah, American troops in Iraq were always the
greatest vulnerability to Iran because they're the for us to
Iran because they are the closest and the easiest targets.
Before we launched the war, we basically just moved as
much of the personnel out of the Green Zone as
we could, which is fortunate as it got completely lit up,
not just by Iran but also the Iranian allied militias.
Speaker 7 (20:43):
That are there.
Speaker 4 (20:44):
So yeah, there's Trump talking about that we're basically finally
done with Iraq. But it was don't worry. It was
his choice and it was on his terms. It was victorious,
and we've just so weakened Iran that we don't even
need to be there anymore. So I guess congratulations to
us and to the American people for one more victory
(21:07):
under the second Trump term.
Speaker 6 (21:08):
Well, certainly a victory for the Pape theory. And if
we see this start to escalate, I mean you just
mentioned strikes on Yemen.
Speaker 5 (21:17):
The region is hanging by a.
Speaker 6 (21:18):
Threat obviously, so it's it could signif again we don't
need to tell breaking boys viruses. But it could significantly.
It could get significantly worse.
Speaker 5 (21:28):
Than it is.
Speaker 7 (21:29):
Just at any moment it could.
Speaker 5 (21:32):
Let's bring in Professor.
Speaker 4 (21:33):
Grape, the good professor. President Trump asked about ground troops
in Iran is.
Speaker 7 (21:41):
Well, you go ahead and listen. This is be one you.
Speaker 12 (21:44):
Posted today on true social comments that you made back
in nineteen eighty eight about carg Island. And at the
time you said, one bullet shot at one of our
men or ships, and I'd do a number on carg Island.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
I'd go in and take it. Do you still intend
to take cardo?
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Oh.
Speaker 10 (22:01):
I can't say that to you because if I did,
it would be foolish. But every nice make a little headlines,
but it would be foolish. But I'll tell you about
carg Island.
Speaker 12 (22:09):
So we've already are not really not a ground campaign
in a limited capacity.
Speaker 10 (22:13):
I don't want to say that either, but I would
say no if I thought it was appropriate. Sometimes you
need a ground campaign. But we have other people that
will do the ground campaign for us.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
But we already hit.
Speaker 10 (22:26):
Carg Island, as you know twice, even three times. I
said hit everything, but the oil just leave that little
area if I'm twenty five yards out, leave that a
little area. Don't touch you ill, because I don't want that.
In terms of the world economy, it's you know, it's
a chunk of the world economy.
Speaker 8 (22:42):
So we haven't hit that.
Speaker 10 (22:43):
At some point we could, but I think it's unlikely
as far as taking it is concerned, if we degrade
them far enough and deep enough back all.
Speaker 4 (22:51):
Right, So we had hoped that we had somehow escaped
the escalation trap into the warm embrace of the memorandum
of understanding reached between the United States and Iran. Unfortunately,
it seems like that trap is tinged just as tightly
around our ankles. We can put up B two here
Professor Robert Pape's piece yesterday over his sub stack, the
(23:15):
escalation trap. The escalation trap has entered a new phase,
joining us to discuss kind of what that new phase
is is. University of Chicago, Professor Robert Pape, Professor, thanks
for being here.
Speaker 9 (23:31):
Thank you very much for having me.
Speaker 7 (23:33):
Yeah, you got it so.
Speaker 4 (23:35):
Hoping that we had moved on, not quite what was
it in your assessment that kind of pulled us back in?
Speaker 11 (23:46):
Yes, Well, thank you for talking about this. This is
really quite a tragic moment. We're entering some of the
most dangerous weeks of this war, quite likely, and people
are thinking, well, this is just a turn to say
March or early April. It could be much worse than that,
and we haven't gotten there yet. But where we are
(24:07):
at is very predictable. So as your recall, there have
been three core stages of the escalation trap. Stage one
is where you have regime change bombing that kills leaders
but leaves America weaker because you get a stage two,
which is although we kill the leaders and hit targets,
(24:28):
Iran lashes back in a horizontal escalation campaign and takes
horror moves and now controls twenty percent of the world's energy, and.
Speaker 9 (24:38):
We will take every effort.
Speaker 11 (24:40):
We tried punishment campaign for six weeks airpower that failed,
we tried two month blockade that failed, and we are
still where we are with stage three, which is the
ground power dilemma. So if you go to February twenty
fifth on the escalation trap, three days before the bombing
ULLs see all these stages laid out before the war,
(25:02):
and we would get to the ground power dilemma, and
that's where we are today.
Speaker 9 (25:06):
Now, what is that dilemma.
Speaker 11 (25:07):
Either we physically take Horrorm moves back and you're seeing
President Trump repositioning forces to do that, and we can
talk about the details, including the ground operations, or we don't,
and you get what I call stage four, which is
Iran becomes the fourth center of world power. Over the
next year or so, it continues to control Horrmus and
(25:29):
reball the economic benefits from that, it spreads its sphere
of influence here to basically go from Lebanon to the
Red Sea to the Gulf. And you see they're basically
beginning to do that. And then in about eighteen months
they developed nuclear weapons. So this is the actual trajectory
of what it means to simply not take Hormus back
(25:51):
to walk away. And people keep thinking there's some third option.
There's not a third option, and we've tried every possible
third option. Now, something very specific, I think, just to
drill into what happened in the last few weeks that
I think can help make some sense here for your listeners,
because I understand the whipsaw here because I face it
(26:13):
every day with my substack. You know, it's now almost
seventy thousand. We got a lot of people emailing me
and telling me all kinds of things, so I definitely
feel this.
Speaker 9 (26:23):
But what I just want to sort of explain here is.
Speaker 11 (26:26):
Well, what happened with the MoU And you know you've
had me on I'm not surprised this thing fell apart,
But what exactly happened here with President Trump? Why didn't
he just keep going forward? Well, there's really two reasons
here that's very important to understand. Reason number one is
that the reason Trump said he wanted to do the
(26:49):
MoU was to avoid the oil inventories running down. You
were call he said, we're going to run out of
oil in four weeks, which means he would become Herbert Hoover.
And then everybody said, well, okay, so that means he
can't avoid that. Well, no, The problem is, if you
look at the oil inventory curves, which I'm sure President
Trump is getting, we're still running down. We're basically still
(27:13):
on the Titanic heading to the iceberg. There's no we
haven't diverted from the iceberg. We're going to hit that
iceberg somewhere around the middle of August. We don't know
the exact days here. That's what all these oil experts
are debating. Is it August seventh, August fifteenth, September one.
But this is not not a problem. It's we're going
(27:35):
to hit this iceberg. And so President Trump the MoU failed.
From his perspective.
Speaker 9 (27:42):
JD.
Speaker 11 (27:43):
Man said, the reason Trump told us to do this
was to fill the oil copperce this one did not work.
He's still at risk of becoming Herbert ub So this
is an issue Number one. He's desperate. He's not using
these options because they're going to win in a certainty.
He's desperate because he sees certain becoming Herbert Hoover and
he's being very desperate trying anything to avoid it. There's
(28:06):
a second reason, which is the MAGA opinion polls. The
mega opinion polls are very strongly in favor of regime
change in Iran. And President Trump needs MAGA to turn out.
He doesn't need Democrats to turn out. They're not going
to vote for him. He doesn't need even the Independence.
What he needs is MAGA in these midterms to turn out.
(28:29):
That's what midterms are always about. It's the base. Well,
he's also feeding a big part of his base. There's
only a small part of his base. It's at Tucker
Carlson part of his base. So people, I think have
just been misreading the mid term incentives here for Trump.
And what you see is he is of the ship
(28:49):
on the captain of the Titanic. He's heading us here,
and it's because he does it. He's desperate to find
a way to avoid hitting the iceberg, even if that
means this super highly risky set of options, which by
the way, I am not in favor of. I want
to be very very clear, I am not supporting this idea.
(29:13):
I believe all the bad things that everybody is saying.
My job is to be though, put my policy, my
preference aside, and say, setting that aside, where are we
actually heading. That's why the escalation trap has been on
the money month after month after month after month after month.
We're in five months now of this being on the money,
(29:36):
and your listeners will will know you guys push back
at me all the time, right, and I don't want
this to be the case. I'm just following twenty years
of modeling where this heads and understanding the real dilemmas
that are at work. Even as we're heading to a
(29:57):
really potentially costly future.
Speaker 4 (30:00):
Here, the part I'm trying to figure out is why
Trump forgot about the physical limitations that he was so
clear about at the beginning of the MoU when he
was explaining to people publicly why he agreed to the
terms of the truce. As you said, he said multiple times,
(30:21):
if I didn't, it was going to be bedlam, I
think was the word he used. And multiple times in
this long interview that not long press convers he held,
he talked about Herbert Hoover.
Speaker 7 (30:31):
You know, he has he has basically.
Speaker 4 (30:33):
Two South Stars I guess you could call them, and
that's Jimmy Carter and that's Herbert Hoover and those and
to him, Carter involves around two that. You know, he
believes that the Iranian hostage rescue attempt that went south
is you know what really created his that that combined
interestingly with the oil embargo that led to gas lines
and high gas prices, that that created his presidency. And
(30:56):
then Herbert Hoover. Of course, nobody needs to be reminded
what happened to Herbert Hoover. So that that's his big concern,
and he was saying that because inventories are low it's
patrol and reserve is low like he needed to get
he needs He needed to reach a deal or.
Speaker 7 (31:11):
Else it was going to be. But that nothing has
changed like we've had.
Speaker 9 (31:16):
That's that's the problem here. Nothing has changed.
Speaker 11 (31:19):
The oil inventories with the mo OU are still going down,
which means the mo OU is Trump's road map to
becoming Herbert Hoover.
Speaker 9 (31:29):
Right, that's what he sees.
Speaker 11 (31:31):
Now, you can disagree with him, but see, this is
what the media is not quite getting. Your question is
a very understandable one, and I understand why you're asking,
but it's hard to listen to what I'm saying because
it's so we don't want this to happen. But here's
the problem. The problem from Trump's perspective is the mo
(31:51):
OU was supposed to be his offering to avoid becoming
Herbert Hoover. But the mo OU has turned out to
still run the oil inventory to ground. If you look
at the ships passing the Straight of Hormones, they're still
virtually you know, they're almost zero, they're not quite zero.
We got a little bit of oil out, but it's
because Iran is shutting down the Strait of Horrmons. It's
(32:15):
not just Trump shutting down the Strait of Hormones. Iran
decided to be very aggressive in enforcing the MoU and
shut down the Strait of Hormones. It was Iran who
initiated the shutting down of the Strait of Horror moves,
not President Trump. And so why is that. It's because
Iran wants revenge. Iran has moved from survival to ambition
(32:39):
to revenge. And that's what you see with those tens
of millions pouring out. And these are all connected. This
is these are not separate issues. Iran is shutting down
the Strait of Horror moves here because Trump won't honor
the mo U, and Trump can't honor they can't honor
them without the big loss on his record. So the
(33:02):
bottom line is that what's happening is the MoU is
become simply a roadmap to Trump hitting the iceberg anyway,
And what he's trying to do now is use military
force to see if he can minimize how long the
oil the damages to the world's economy. I don't think
(33:26):
he's going to succeed. I think it's the risks are
too great. But this is why he's doing this. And
I think if we don't take this seriously, we can't
really try to convince him to do something else. So
if you really, just if we really just keep dismissing
why he's doing it, even though he's telling us so directly,
(33:49):
then you're never going to persuade the decision makers. And
I know because I've advised every West Wing, including the
first Trump White House from twenty one to twenty four
chiefs of half of the Air Force. You're not going
to convince them by telling them they're stupid, their ideas
are bad. You've got to understand where they're coming from.
(34:10):
And if you don't, then the only thing you can
do is wait to vote them out of office in
twenty twenty eight. But by twenty twenty eight, look at
all the damage that's going to happen. So this is
really the problem that we face. We're having a hard
time seeing it from Trump's perspective because the oil inventories,
if you just show the chart, they're still going down.
(34:32):
That's what he said the problem was, and the MoU
didn't fix the problem.
Speaker 4 (34:38):
Well, so I'll put the pushback I would give on
that would be and we could put this chart up
up in posts the MoU assigned June seventeenth, and I
think the Titanic in the Iceberg analogy is actually useful.
If Trump thought that he was driving like an F
one car and that Hormuz traffic was going to do
(34:59):
so hairpin turn and go from zero to pre m ou,
then whether or not those you know, people that you're
advising want to be called idiots or not, that's an
idiotic thing to think, like, it's going to take some
time to get it back up and as and you
do actually see the traffic coming through the Strait of Hormuz,
you know, significantly expanding, elevating, like you're seeing more and
(35:22):
more ships go through now about a week ago when
when the when the shooting really kicked back off, then
you see it collapsing again, and so the what So
for Trump, it's like, okay, yeah, you didn't immediately refill
all your inventories and strategic petroleum reserve stockpile, but the
ships were coming through, So how is stopping it going
(35:45):
to helping him?
Speaker 9 (35:46):
That's right.
Speaker 11 (35:47):
So there was another choice that Trump could have made,
and apparently he signed some of the orders to do this,
which is when he signed the m OU he could
have withdrawn all fifty thousand US troops from region. He
could have withdrawn all twenty two carriers and twenty destroyers
and cruisers from the region, and Iran would have been
(36:10):
probably quite happy with that and not shot at chips.
Speaker 9 (36:14):
So that was the real choice that he.
Speaker 7 (36:17):
Had, and p coordinated.
Speaker 4 (36:18):
Like the real part the problem was they went they
tried to go through the Omani side with their Well,
that's what.
Speaker 11 (36:23):
What I'm trying to say, sir, is that is that
the real fork in the road happened when he signed
the MoU. When he signed the MoU, he had a choice.
Is he going to let Iran become the fourth center
of world power fully control the straight of horror moves
for Reel or not? And what it would mean to
allow the Iran to fully do the MoU, because remember
(36:46):
the MoU is all concessions to Iran. What it would
mean is withdraw fifty thousand combat forces from the region,
all our bases in Baharain, et cetera. That's what Iran wants,
and also all of the twenty chips. And notice that
was his real choice, and apparently he even signed in
order to start to do some of that but then
(37:08):
he decided he couldn't accept that was too big of
a loss because then his magabase would not turn out
in the midterms. And that's the problem. There's no third way,
there's no compromise where we share the straight.
Speaker 9 (37:23):
Of horror moves.
Speaker 11 (37:24):
People keep thinking this is a business deal and we're
just going to meet in the middle, triangulate in the middle.
This is great power politics. And President Trump had a choice.
You either let Iran get on the trajectory control or
moves one hundred percent become the fourth center of world power,
(37:44):
or you physically take it back. There's no other way
around it. And in order to avoid where we are, sir,
what you would need to do is physically withdraw all
of the forces here. And some people were arguing for that.
Joe Kemp was arguing that effectively. Ron Paul was arguing
for that effectively. So there were voices arguing too, if
(38:07):
we marched in, we could march out. And President Trump
just wouldn't go that far because he'd lose MEGA and
he needs MEGA. So this is the problem that the
reason I think the reason people are having a hard
time seeing it is most of the media is not
really very much into MAGA. They haven't gone to Trump.
I've been to Trump rallies because that's part of my book,
(38:28):
Our Own Worst Enemies. This is my field research. I've
been to Butler's all weekend with these folks. These folks
are they're loyal to Trump only if he is a winner.
This isn't This is another way to think about it.
Is they they have faith in Trump not because he's
a good man. Okay, it's because he's a winner. And
(38:50):
once he lets Iran become the fourth center of world
power and on the road to getting nuclear weapons for real,
And where's the actual option anybody's them up with to
stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons? All of the people
on from the JCPO explain Trump's getting nowhere with stopping
Iran getting nuclear weapons. So everybody agrees fundamentally that the
(39:13):
only way to stop this is to let Ron keep
Hormuz and keep its nuclear threshold or if not over
the threshold status. And that's the problem for Trump. He
can't own that l and keep MAGA for the midterms.
Speaker 4 (39:29):
On this trajectory, my sense is that he's going to
be Hoover and lose Hormuz.
Speaker 11 (39:34):
Yeah, that's what happens. That's how, that's how Lyndon Johnson.
So what he's doing is he's trying to avoid becoming
Herbert Hoover. And what he'll likely become is Lyndon Johnson.
And there's no way for him to become Ronald Reagan.
He's looking for a way for him to become Ronald Reagan.
Pull a rabbit out of the hat. This is going
(39:56):
to somehow, you know, like with the air traffic control strike.
You know, with Ronald Reagan, suddenly everybody will get oh
my god, it was the most brilliant thing. But the
reason this happens. And I study preventive wars for a
living for thirty years, so I'm not just generally studying
international relations. Preventive wars happen because the attackers see certain
(40:20):
loss and then they take highly risky actions to avoid
a certain loss. So think of it as they see
one hundred percent loss and now they take a risk
it's only eighty percent. And that's what we're seeing here.
In all the commentary, everybody's saying this is almost surely
going to fail. Well for President Trump, that's right, But
to not do it is an even worse outcome for
(40:43):
him and his presidency. If the world suffers, that's secondary
for Trump.
Speaker 4 (40:49):
Yeah, well we're all screwed. Professor Paipe, thanks as always.
Speaker 7 (40:54):
For the rent.
Speaker 9 (40:55):
I wish I had better news.
Speaker 4 (40:57):
Maybe next week we're learning a bit more about Joan
Sebastian Guerrero, who is the Colombian man killed by ice
in in Maine and one of the one of the
witnesses who was there for this execution on this on
the Streets of Maine described how Guerrero said before he
(41:19):
died that he had tried to stop. I want to
play a little bit of his of his eyewitness testimony
before we get to Wanda vid Rojas to talk a
little bit about what what more we have learned about
this victim, as well as another man who died after
in interaction with ice down in Florida, followed by President
(41:41):
Trump who is now saying that he wants to reverse
the ICE decision to stop traffic stops and get back
to doing it.
Speaker 7 (41:47):
But let's roll see two here.
Speaker 5 (41:49):
I didn't witness the shooting.
Speaker 13 (41:51):
I witnessed the aftermaths and the car coming down and
then being hit again by the Ice suv.
Speaker 9 (42:00):
And the.
Speaker 5 (42:03):
Victim being moved out.
Speaker 13 (42:06):
Taken out of the vehicle and I I heard him
say I tried to stop Ice agent and got out,
tried to open the door and had a difficult time it.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
Eventually opened it and pulled the guy out. His face
was bloody, his head was bloody.
Speaker 9 (42:22):
I know that.
Speaker 13 (42:25):
He was still cognizant because they told him to calm
him down. I feel somebody needs to know what's what
a bystander saw, not what Ice tells you. It's too
often I says things that are just are not true,
and at least from this is what I saw.
Speaker 5 (42:44):
Now, whether.
Speaker 13 (42:48):
Their version is different, that's up to them.
Speaker 4 (42:51):
Joan Sebastian was killed in front of his daughter, and
we're trying to learn.
Speaker 7 (42:54):
As much as we can about him.
Speaker 4 (42:56):
We understand that, according to the Administration, he came to
the United States in twenty twenty three. It's unclear yet
if he was pursuing an asylum claim. The reports are
that he had a work permit as well as a
Social Security card. That that that doesn't tell you a
whole lot about his immigration status. Wanda vid Rojas is
(43:21):
joining us now to talk a little bit more about this. Wandavid,
thanks for being here, Thanks for having me on Ryan,
So let's put up see one again. This was one
of his one of his social media posts where he says,
frem porta Patria.
Speaker 7 (43:36):
So this kind gives us a little bit of.
Speaker 4 (43:38):
An indication of where he fits kind of in the
Colombian political spectrum.
Speaker 7 (43:43):
Walk us through what we can what we can glean
from that.
Speaker 14 (43:47):
Yeah, it's especially tragic. I mean, I don't want to
you know, it's it's ironic, but you know, I don't
really want to make too much.
Speaker 7 (43:58):
Light about this. This guy.
Speaker 14 (44:00):
Yeah, he was apparently executed in front of his three
year old daughter. His wife is still grieving, and it's
one of the most horrific shooting. Thank god, there's really
not a whole lot of video about it, because otherwise
I think there would be a lot more outrage. But
this guy apparently was a supporter of Colombia's current president Electprietor,
(44:22):
who's like a Farr literal Miami Neocon is a dual
citizen of the US and lived for ten years here
in Miami before becoming president. So and yeah, the the
Colombia's current president elect. Like, yeah, he says he's a
registered he said during the campaign he just got elected
that he's a registered Republican, that he voted for President Trump,
(44:47):
and that he wants to let Trump bomb Columbia. So
that's to give people an idea. So and here's an
interesting set. Actually, eighty percent of cologn Mbians in the
US that voted in the past election voted for de
la Spiega. So a lot of Columbia's immigrant population here
(45:09):
in the US is just very right wing.
Speaker 7 (45:11):
So it's it's especially tragic.
Speaker 14 (45:13):
A friend of mine pointed out, it's like, hey, this
guy very conceivably could have ended up supporting Trump right right.
Speaker 4 (45:20):
Meanwhile, down in Miami, I want to put up C
three here, there was an inter interaction at a gas
station between Ice and.
Speaker 7 (45:29):
What appeared to be some Mexican migrant labors.
Speaker 4 (45:32):
Man ran from there when it was immediately then hit
by a truck in Saint Augustine and and died on
the scene. This is obviously a different scenario than being
shot as we saw in Houston and then in Maine.
Speaker 7 (45:48):
But in reaction to.
Speaker 4 (45:51):
The two and then you know, three deaths Ice related
deaths within within a week. Ice interestingly said that they
were going to stop the practice of these traffic stops Ice.
You know, most police forces in general are trained not
to put themselves in front of moving vehicles. And that
(46:13):
was something that all police, that all police understood kind
of before Minnesota. But that's something also the public overall
understood after Minnesota, because it's just it's just common sense.
You're you are in fact, the law as it as
it's written, is that if you put yourself in front
of the car recklessly, that does not then produce the
(46:40):
justification to shoot the person. Like if if you're the
one that creates the danger for yourself, you can't then
resolve the danger that you created by killing somebody like
that is that is that is how police are trained,
and that is that is the law, and it's also
just plain common sense. And so ICE said, they're they're
going to pause these these traffic stops. We're going to
(47:00):
put up C six. Which is Trump's response to this,
and get your reaction to it. Trump says, the men
and women of ICE are doing a great job.
Speaker 7 (47:10):
One that has to be done.
Speaker 4 (47:12):
Crime is way down in America in many cases with
numbers that haven't been seen in decades. The open border
policy of Sleepy Joe Biden allowed twenty five million to
people to pour into our country unchecked and unvetted. Many
were criminals, and we have to get them out. In
order to do this, we must be strong, tough, and smart,
and we cannot give up one of ICE's most important
and effective crime fighting tools, the traffic stop. Once we
(47:34):
are playing right into the criminals hands. The radical left
Democrats would like to see this done, but it won't
happen on my watch.
Speaker 7 (47:41):
Ice.
Speaker 4 (47:42):
Be judicious, fair and smart, and go back and do
your very important job. Keep those crime state records coming,
crime stat records coming. Remember, you are loved and respected
in America. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
President Donald J.
Speaker 7 (47:55):
Trump, so want de vive.
Speaker 4 (47:57):
That feels like it was that came after a Steven
Miller phone call, and the reference to the stats, I
feel like is the giveaway there. Miller has a quota
that he is kind of insisting that the federal government
hit and in order to hit that, you hit, you know,
you hit courthouses, you hit immigration facilities where people are
(48:18):
you going to get fingerprinted otherwise following law? Or you
just start pulling everybody over who looks like they might
be an immigrant and check their papers. What's what's your
What was your reaction to ICE announcing that they were
going to pause it and now Trump telling them no,
get back on it.
Speaker 14 (48:34):
Yeah, like you said, there's clearly some inter administration wrangling
over this stuff, most likely due to Steven Miller. I mean, look,
I'm going to be completely honest. I have a very
similar perspective to Sager about this stuff. You know, I
think that the previous administration had way too lacks of
a policy basically just like letting anyone come here and
(48:55):
you know, stay here for years on end while they're
asilum claim was adjudicated. Most of these asylum claims. Frankly,
I think we're fraudulent. At the same time, that doesn't
mean you should just go around killing people who came
here regularly, whether they have an asylum claim. They're legally
either here legally or illegally. They're human beings Jesus, And
all this does is just discredit your own cause of
(49:19):
mass deportations. I mean, you know, we can debate about
exactly what level of deportations would be just, but I mean, yeah,
it's just all these kinds of hardline tactics. You know,
there's been fifty people killed in iced attention. There's been
four people shot I think at these traffic stops since
(49:39):
the start of the year. Obviously Renee Goods was the
most famous case. So I mean, yeah, there's really nothing
good that I can say. There's so many better ways
that this could be done. I mean, starting by the
fact that really there's just been no interests at all
in punishing employers of illegal labor. And if you look
(50:02):
at corporate prosecutions of employers of illegal immigrants, they're at
all time lows, and they have been for multiple administrations.
Now all of the enforcement is on the workers, the
people who were here irregularly, and that obviously it has
costs not to mention the fact, like you know that
case in Florida, my hometown of Coral Springs of Florida
(50:25):
and Broward County ice agents like surrounded the home of
this Peruvian man who, yeah, I was here illegally or
had had like an asylum claim. They surrounded his entire
home with like rifles, and it's like, guys, not only
is this not necessary, it's disruptive to American citizens. So obviously, yeah,
(50:45):
like we saw in Minnesota, this has costs for citizens
as well, and.
Speaker 4 (50:50):
AOC was asked about this at the capital before Trump
announced that he was going to push them to rescind
their rescinding of the policy.
Speaker 7 (50:58):
Let's listen to C.
Speaker 15 (50:59):
Five.
Speaker 6 (51:00):
She's bragging about the fact that they had additional body
cameras in the Homeland security funding and they had more
safeguards than the suspector generals.
Speaker 5 (51:08):
Do you think that that was I mean, was.
Speaker 15 (51:10):
That Senator Collins wrote the blank check to allow these
officers to conduct themselves in the way that they have
in Maine in the first place. And she's the one
who's poured resources into it. And just because now that
there's live footage of the atrocities that she has enabled
(51:30):
doesn't make it better than preventing them from happening in
the first place.
Speaker 4 (51:35):
Right, So that's a going after Susan Collins for expressing
concern about the killing after having given all the weapons
for it to happen. And then here's four with her
h talking about Trump's policy.
Speaker 14 (51:47):
What do you think of DHS suspending vehicular stops in
the aftermath of Houston and Maine.
Speaker 15 (51:54):
I mean, I think they shouldn't be a lot of
the stuff that they're doing shouldn't even be allowed in
the first place, and I think they're trying to get
ahead of the fact that people should realize that what
they are doing shouldn't be allowed. And so I think
that you know, they they should be they should be
(52:17):
facing consequences for killing innocent people in the stream, and
they're just trying to escape from those consequences. While I'm
glad that they are temporarily, I assume.
Speaker 7 (52:27):
Yeah, And so one devid to your point.
Speaker 4 (52:29):
I know that you know, you and Soccer kind of
line up on a lot of elements of this immigration policy.
But as I've been arguing, if they can't do it
in a way that is civil without killing people, they're
going to lose the kind of public support for the
thing that you and Sager want done. If you were
(52:50):
advising them on how to pursue the policy, what would
you tell them.
Speaker 14 (52:56):
Yeah, it's like I said before, I mean, there's just
no enforcement at all on the employer's side. And if
you if you had like a national regime of be verify,
a lot of this problem would solve itself. And look, personally,
I would be for some kind of amnesty for me.
It would be something like for people who have been
here like at least ten years or more, and then
(53:19):
you know, other people would say, oh, no, it should
be less or whatever. But yeah, if you like spent
a lifetime here and have abided by the law for
me personally, and that a lot of Republicans will disagree
with this, Yeah, I think, you know, this would go
a long way towards solving the problem if a lot
of people were given a path to citizenship. And there's
(53:39):
also debates about like you know, like when we talk
about amnesty, people think that's like immediate citizenship for x
amount of people. Not necessarily it tends to be like
a gradual process that people have to pay back and
the taxes that the taxes that they would theoretically owe,
and then they would get like a work permit and
then eventually the residency and citizenship something like that. I
(54:00):
could go along with that if it's paired with an
aggressive national regime of everify, because if you implement those
two things in tandem, then yeah, you wouldn't need to
have this kind of draconian enforcement all the time. Yeah,
But to your point, what they're doing right now, it's
just discrediting their own cause and it's enabling radical opponents
(54:21):
on the other side. And this is what I'll say
to Democrats. I mean, please, for the love of God,
we cannot go back to the previous policy.
Speaker 7 (54:29):
I don't mean I don't say.
Speaker 14 (54:31):
That because you know I love Republicans or hate immigrants
or anything like that. On the contrary, if we go
back to what we had before, we're just going to
get another nativist administration in the future. So a lot
of this discourse around like abolishing ICE voters, in my opinion,
like you see that kind of stuff. When you know
I say this myself included, interpret that as we're going
(54:53):
to abolish ICE and then there's just going to be
no more immigration enforcement. If you really want to do that,
you need to make clear that, Look, we'll get rid
of ICE, but there will still be enforcement. And I
agree criminals should be prioritized, but enforcement shouldn't just be
against criminals. I mean, like I said that, the truth is,
most of these asylum claims are fraudulent, and if you
(55:15):
come here defraud the asylum system intending just to work,
eventually you should be removed. I'll site this is the
last thing I'll say. Yeah, I'll cite a former congressman
Barbara Jordan. She said, for the system would be credible,
people have to be deported at the end of the process.
Speaker 7 (55:31):
This is just common sense.
Speaker 5 (55:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (55:33):
I do think that Democrats, a large swath of them,
have abandoned or moved away from defending the Biden administration's
border policy and are have kind of given up and say,
you know what, Okay, we can't defend not having a border. Fine,
We're fine, We'll do a border, but we need to
abolish ICE, which is this rogue agency that's doing you know,
(55:58):
you know, mascale internal moves at home depots and seven
elevens and traffic stops that lead to them, you know,
shooting and killing people in the streets, including Joan Joan's imatchin,
who was not a target at all, like this was
this appears to be just a guy who was in
the wrong place at the wrong time, or I mean,
not necessarily that it was the Ice. ICE I'd say
(56:20):
was the wrong place at the wrong time. But in
any event, he's the one that didn't survive the encounter.
But I take your point that the the the public
might be might be conflating some of that. So we'll
we'll see how they kind of navigate that as they're
as they're kind of shaping what their their their immigration
(56:40):
policy is. That doesn't produce another nativist backlash in the future.
But wandavide, thanks as always for for being here. Where
can people find your stuff?
Speaker 11 (56:50):
Uh?
Speaker 14 (56:50):
Follow me on X and I have a sub stack.
It's called a social democracy with a populist characteristics. Also
a column to said unheard, So check me out I unheard.
Speaker 7 (56:59):
Excellent. Well, thanks for being here.
Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here.
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Speaker 4 (00:33):
All right, good morning, and welcome to Breaking Points. Emily
is joining us from the road, which you would know
if you'd sign up for the newsletter. Actually we didn't,
tease if we can put the newsletter up there. Reminder,
if you go to Breakingpoints dot com, you can sign
up for this free newsletter that we sum up sums
up the show. For premium subscribers, it's going to have
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full show. For those who are just getting the newsletter,
(00:56):
it's just going to tell them, you know what was
in the show and then they can find that, you know,
wherever they want. But Emily, thank you for joining us
from the road. I know you'll be able to be
here for a segment or two and you know looking
forward to us a safe trip back.
Speaker 5 (01:14):
Yes, no, I appreciate you guys like this.
Speaker 6 (01:16):
Is one of the things I love about the team
is I had to get home for a family thing
pretty quickly, and it's just amazing you guys pick up
so much of the slack. So I'm really grateful, happy
to be joining from the Milwaukee Airport today and we've
got a big show. Actually strikes launched, Military strikes, skins
run launched just in the hours before we began recording this.
(01:36):
So we're going to break down updates from Iran, and
we have much more to get to Brian as well.
You have a huge slate of guests lined up, So
Robert Pepe is going to be here, going to cover
that Ice shooting.
Speaker 5 (01:46):
There's so much to get to this point.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
Yeah, Wandavid Rojas will be here to talk about you
know who the who the man was who was shot
by Ice agents in Maine. Another Mexican man was shot
in not shot, was hit by a truck in Florida
after an encounter with ice. Emily will stick around with
us to talk about the New York ban on data centers,
(02:12):
or at least a moratorium on data centers. We're going
to also talk about an interview we did yesterday on
drop Site with Rocanna where he and Jeremy Skahill went
back on the legitimacy of armed resistance, as well as
whether or not there should be a full arms embargo
on Israel. Will also have news in that Julian andrew
(02:33):
And from drop Site News interviewed AOC about whether or
not she supports an arms in Bargo and she said,
in fact, yes she does. At the back end of
the show, will be joined by Donovan McKinney, who's a
DSA and Justice Democrats backed candidate running in Detroit who
is very likely to oust an incumbent in early August,
(02:55):
so you're gonna want to stick around for that. We'll
also ask him about the abdulh Side Hailly Even's race
Will Lawrence race, which is getting hot in Michigan as well.
Wanted to start with some I guess we're going.
Speaker 7 (03:07):
To call it good news. It what led up to.
Speaker 4 (03:10):
It is not good news, but the event this morning
is in fact great news. Muja Had al Sadi, very
well respected, well regarded veteran journalists in the West Bank,
who's written for drop site as well, was finally released
after nearly two years, and we put up a seven
of administrative detention in Israeli custody. In other words, no
(03:32):
charges whatsoever wherever filed against mujahead he last he last
wrote for a drop site in September of twenty twenty four.
Here here he is being reunited with his with his
father again. There are thousands of Palestinians, many many journalists,
(03:53):
and here here he is meeting his family on the
road after being dropped dropped off. Who has who are
able under the Israelis the Israeli, let's call it law,
to be able to be kept in prison for six
months on what they call administrative detention, meaning zero charges,
no right to challenge your detention, and then every six
(04:13):
months they can just reop it. We had been petitioning
for his release for nearly two years now and we're
deeply glad for him and his family that he's that
he's released and looking forward to seeing him get back
to the the business of journalism, Emily, He's being released
into the reignition of the war between between the United States, Israel,
(04:39):
and Iran. We could not get anywhere near through all
of the period of the memorandum understanding without it unraveling.
We can put up a zero here sentcom announcing a
new a new wave of strikes. At six six am
Eastern today, sen Commonalth forces began launching a wave of
(05:00):
strikes against Iran. The strikes are designed to further degrade
military capability capabilities Iranian forces have used to attack commercial
shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. Now the targets so
far for the United States have included a barracks that
would the Iranian Armies three hundred and eighty eighth Brigade
(05:21):
in Bombpor. So this is a This was a dormitory
that was housing conscripts that the United States struck overnight,
resulting in what appears to be a mass casually event. Now, clearly,
if you're conscripted into the military, you are a military
asset and a military target. But it's just it's just
(05:44):
not remotely obvious, like how there's a kind of military
benefit to striking a dormitory filled with conscripts in any event,
that's that's what they did.
Speaker 6 (05:58):
Let's and sitcoms explanation as people just saw on their
screen is that this was being used to degrade or
it was being used straight up for moves wise, was
being used to degrade capacities that were used in the right.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
They're claiming everything, Yeah, they're claiming everything they're hitting is
related somehow to Iron's ability to control the straight although,
of course, as long as you have a few land
mines and a few drones left, you can control the
straight up from moves.
Speaker 7 (06:24):
So I don't quite know how hitting this dorm, but
you can go ahead.
Speaker 6 (06:27):
Well, I was gonna say more news on that front.
We'll get to Trump's toll comments from yesterday in just
a second. I do want to just take a moment.
I mean, military spent dot org is a great website.
They have the total death count in this war right now,
so that's across all of the different countries. So this
includes combined confirmed and estimated deaths across the US, Iranian military,
(06:48):
Iranian and Israeli civilians that it needs civilians has built
of fighters in Gulf State casualties right now. This is
eight thousand, nine hundred and sixty six on the low
end and eighteen thousand, three hundred on the high end.
So in the United States we've had fourteen to sixteen
deaths across the region. This dethil is much higher than
(07:09):
I think we've even discussed here in the US.
Speaker 7 (07:12):
I think that's a good point.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
And also I think even though the US has not
achieved it's kind of military objectives, like the level of
destruction that has been rained down upon Iran is, you know,
should not be underestimated. Some new grain sites were hit
overnight by the United States inside Iran. We also hit
a kind of mineral water processing facility, so you know,
(07:36):
we're going after the you know, the very basics of
life there. And that's, of course, after the Israelis have
boasted about having destroyed, you know, every village that they
could reach in southern Lebanon. But let's listen to a
little bit of Trump explaining is rationale here.
Speaker 7 (07:52):
It's a two with the plants, with everything else.
Speaker 8 (07:55):
And we would like to invest tremendously in the United
States as opposed to charging a fee. And I like
that actually because I don't think anybody should be able
to charge a fee for the for the straight or
for any other straight relationship in terms of other sections
of the world. I don't think anybody should be really
in that position. But we were doing it as a reimbursement.
(08:18):
The Gulf States are going to invest a tremendous amount
of money into the United States, and that was very
satisfactory to me.
Speaker 9 (08:26):
I think it's actually much.
Speaker 7 (08:27):
Better so Emily.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
That is Trump saying that, Okay, maybe the twenty percent
fee that he was going to charge was a little
bit high, and so he's back to, I guess doing
it for free, except in exchange for the generosity of
the Gulf States. The Trump announcing that he was going
to charge a twenty percent fee was really quite a
diplomatic own goal, because the US had consistently been saying
(08:53):
that the principle is that they're in international waterways, there
cannot be a toll charged, and iron had been talking
about charging a one to two percent fee.
Speaker 7 (09:02):
Something like a million dollars per ship.
Speaker 4 (09:05):
The Iranians quickly embraced Trump's idea that he was going
to put forward this this twenty percent fee, and they
just said, we agree there should be a fee. We're
going to charge one percent, he's going to charge twenty
which which which would you prefer? So yeah, let's roll
a little bit more Trump and then and then yeah,
(09:27):
discuss or go ahead?
Speaker 7 (09:28):
Did you have a right?
Speaker 6 (09:29):
And I was gonna say just yeah, just to see
this up. So that was Trump talking in the White
House yesterday. We have more soundbites from that press availability
he did, but he also sat down for an interview
with Fox News where he talked a little bit about
the deal making process. And I know, Ryan, you have
some recording behind the scenes that you're than you get to.
But this is Donald Trump yesterday with Trey Yinks of
(09:50):
Fox News talking about where things stand. And again, let's
just just we don't need to do this breaking points.
Audience understands this perfectly clearly. But before the war, for
the war straight upfore news was open and there was
of course no war. So I mean, it's just ridiculous
even to hear him now say things like what you're
(10:10):
about to hear from this Fox News interview.
Speaker 5 (10:13):
This is a three.
Speaker 10 (10:15):
Three days ago, we had a deal.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
When was the last time you spoke with an Iranian official?
Speaker 10 (10:20):
Well, not me, but let's say my representatives. I have
spoken to him, but my representatives the course of.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Well, actually an hour ago and what message was delivered.
Speaker 10 (10:33):
They want to make a deal, but every time they
make a deal they break it. They don't want to die.
People don't want to die. Yeah, about an.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Hour ago, and what message was delivered.
Speaker 10 (10:46):
You better make a deal. You're not going to have
any You're not gonna have anybody left. We're being very
careful with the civilian population, as you know. But I said,
you better make a deal. You're not gonna have anything left.
And you think they will, I don't know if they
will or not.
Speaker 6 (11:02):
That's a not so build threat against civilians, which you've
seen at different points in the war.
Speaker 11 (11:06):
Right.
Speaker 6 (11:06):
Let's also now take a look at well, actually just
let's let's pause on that point for a moment. We've
seen that a couple of times over the course of
the war him make threats like that.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
Yeah, and what's so unusual about Trump is that he
makes so many wild threats against his enemies. He's going
to annihilate their civilization. There won't be anybody left. That
the Iranians even insisted on putting into the MoU that
he would stop making.
Speaker 7 (11:36):
Threats like that.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
That is not the kind of thing that would normally
go into a set of negotiating talking points, right because
you reach a ceasefire with the other side. It's it's
just kind of assumed that because you've reached a ceasefire,
neither side is going to threaten to annihilate the other
side while you're engaged in the talks produced by the ceasefire.
(12:04):
That's not Trump, though, and so the Iranians even insisted
that one of the deal points put in the MU
was you will stop threatening to annihilate our civilization. And
it's kind of stunning that Trump can't stop threatening to
genocide in an entire population, Like when you say there
will be nobody left. There's only one way to read that,
(12:27):
like that that is not like that, is that is
nothing other than a threat of complete and total civilizational annihilation.
And I think everyone is kind of immune to it,
including the Iranians at this point. But it doesn't make
it any I mean, I guess it makes it a little
less disturbing because they kind of chuckle it off. But
when they're out there attacking water facilities, attacking grain facilities,
(12:53):
attacking a dorm where soldiers are sleeping, where that you know,
there's no I still would love to see some rationale
of why they hit that. Meanwhile, let's let's put up
a six, which is what the what the Iranians are doing,
which is attacking, attacking military facilities. This is I believe
(13:15):
a cruise, a cruise missile attack b listic missile attack
in Bahrain. And you see there and as this is Jordan.
Speaker 7 (13:24):
A six is Jordan.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
So you have these PAC three Patriot missile interceptors that
are you can see kind of you can see them
kind of flying.
Speaker 7 (13:33):
By in the night.
Speaker 4 (13:33):
There those are about I think four million dollars apiece.
Speaker 7 (13:38):
There goes one and as you see it missed.
Speaker 9 (13:42):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (13:42):
The Blistic missiles are estimated to be somewhere between four
hundred and six hundred thousand dollars apiece, so you know,
basically an order of magnitude cheaper than the Patriot missiles.
And what some of the kind of osant folks were
observed serving as they were watching this, you know, this
(14:03):
base in Jordan getting pummeled, was that after a while
they stopped shooting the Patriots, which suggested that the radar
system suggested to the radar system that is used to
make sure that the patriots can you know, can be
launched with some accuracy had itself been destroyed, and so
I think they're just kind of left vulnerable.
Speaker 6 (14:24):
Well, I was gonna say, we can also toggle through
a one here. So what you're going to see Iranian
strikes against Bahrain, and you see Iranian strikes against Kuwait
and then more from Jordan.
Speaker 7 (14:35):
Resident thrown with a warhead on it.
Speaker 6 (14:39):
That you could look at all this the shape of it,
I was gonna say, and look at all this healthcare
and education and infrastructure is just getting blown up in
the air.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
Yeah, and so and right and here is that was
a ron firing kind of these like cluster bombs to
get around the the interceptors.
Speaker 7 (14:58):
Another direct hit. You know what this is.
Speaker 4 (15:04):
It's a reminder that we still had some kind of
military material left behind. And Trump, I guess decided that
he wanted to see that get that get destroyed as
as well. You know, they they're the Iranians are claiming.
Speaker 7 (15:20):
That they hit.
Speaker 4 (15:22):
Ship parts, weapons storage and aircraft parts warehouses in Bahrain
and m Q nine drone storage in Kuwait.
Speaker 7 (15:32):
A warehouse UH.
Speaker 4 (15:34):
In Kuwait that was the that was a major kind
of support center satellite communication UH center connected to the
the m M one O four, a patriot defense system.
They also in Kuwait. They also claim in Kuwait they
targeted these Himar's missile launchers, which they're the guesses camp
(15:56):
can't bearing which if if so, is a you know,
is AUP to have hit that and also would expose
this sort of attempted lie that nobody really takes seriously
that there aren't no launches coming from Kuwait, which I
think everybody understands that there are. And then they went
after hangars where drones and an American military jets were
(16:19):
stationed as well in Jordan. We don't know if they
were still there, we don't know if they were hit,
and as well as the management center and ammunition and
fuel storages that were in Bahrain where the US Navy
fifth Support Base is. And we're seeing a lot of
footage emerged from these strikes in real time. And this
(16:40):
goes back to the point I was making curious for
your take on this that when Trump first launched this war,
he had basically a full battery of defense. He had
a lot of troops in the in the Gulf and
in Iraq. He had two aircraft carrier groups. He had,
you know, the full naval missile defense system at the ready.
(17:00):
He's now restarting this war in a much hobbled position.
At the beginning of the war, you did not see
this level of penetration of air defenses, and so he
failed strategically the first time around with a full magazine
of offensive and defensive weapons. I don't understand how he
thinks he's going to do better this time around in
(17:23):
a much weakened and depleted position.
Speaker 6 (17:26):
Well, and I was gonna say, you're about to bring
on Robert Pate, but the only way that he can
is to escalate, right The only way is either stay
in this folding pattern for a matter of months, as
I think is being telegraphed right now, which means that
all Republicans who are going to run or who are
running right now on the cycler, are going to have
to defend this constantly up until November, gas prices probably
(17:46):
remaining way too high for consumers. If we don't see
another spike, we'll still probably see prices be too high,
and all of it for either remaining in a holding
pattern or escalating, I think that's pretty clearly the only
option in from the trunk right now, or take a
massive lt right That's again we've been talking about this
(18:07):
since the war began, but that's those are the three options.
They continue to be the three options. And the question
for him is whether the holding pattern is durable, you know,
politically and substantively for his position. And it's impossible to
know what he's thinking other than that he doesn't want
to either escalate or take an ol so eager to
(18:29):
hear Professor Paps take on all of this and I
know you're about to have a conversation with him, ran Yeah.
Speaker 4 (18:34):
And meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, apparently with US Blessing, decided that
it was this was the right time to strike Yemen,
to strike ans A law movement knows that the Hoothis
have now shot back and hit a bunch of different
facilities in Saudi Arabia, so they're going to close the
babel Men depth straight. You combine that with the strait
of horm Moves getting closed again, it's a total disaster
(18:55):
for the global economy. And when it comes to the
American position, there was a very interesting moment in in
President Trump's meeting yesterday with the Iraqi Prime minister, in
which he basically said, if you can read between the
lines here that we've been kicked out of Iraq, let's
roll a five to round us out.
Speaker 8 (19:12):
The military there anymore. It's a very big operation. And
what we do have is the oil companies are all
going in now and they're doing partnerships with Iraq and
they're getting along very well. The relationship is a whole
big relationship where we don't need the military. We're there
to help them, we're there to protect them if need be,
(19:34):
but we don't think that's going to be necessary. And
their primary I considered an opponent. They might have considered
a friend, but I considered that an opponent. Iran was
a big burden on Iraq because they were the believe
the Middle East, as you know, and we were just
talking about that. But they're not going to have that
(19:54):
problem anymore because Iran has been very much destabilized and
really their military powers just a tiny fraction of what
it was just four months ago.
Speaker 4 (20:07):
So Emily, we have beaten Iran so badly that we
don't even need to be in Iraq anymore. That's the
that's the argument that Trump was paking there.
Speaker 6 (20:17):
And you're reading that person as US being kicked out
of Iraq as opposed to Trump's framing of it.
Speaker 4 (20:21):
Right, right, Yeah, American troops in Iraq were always the
greatest vulnerability to Iran because they're the for us to
Iran because they are the closest and the easiest targets.
Before we launched the war, we basically just moved as
much of the personnel out of the Green Zone as
we could, which is fortunate as it got completely lit up,
not just by Iran but also the Iranian allied militias.
Speaker 7 (20:43):
That are there.
Speaker 4 (20:44):
So yeah, there's Trump talking about that we're basically finally
done with Iraq. But it was don't worry. It was
his choice and it was on his terms. It was victorious,
and we've just so weakened Iran that we don't even
need to be there anymore. So I guess congratulations to
us and to the American people for one more victory
(21:07):
under the second Trump term.
Speaker 6 (21:08):
Well, certainly a victory for the Pape theory. And if
we see this start to escalate, I mean you just
mentioned strikes on Yemen.
Speaker 5 (21:17):
The region is hanging by a.
Speaker 6 (21:18):
Threat obviously, so it's it could signif again we don't
need to tell breaking boys viruses. But it could significantly.
It could get significantly worse.
Speaker 5 (21:28):
Than it is.
Speaker 7 (21:29):
Just at any moment it could.
Speaker 5 (21:32):
Let's bring in Professor.
Speaker 4 (21:33):
Grape, the good professor. President Trump asked about ground troops
in Iran is.
Speaker 7 (21:41):
Well, you go ahead and listen. This is be one you.
Speaker 12 (21:44):
Posted today on true social comments that you made back
in nineteen eighty eight about carg Island. And at the
time you said, one bullet shot at one of our
men or ships, and I'd do a number on carg Island.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
I'd go in and take it. Do you still intend
to take cardo?
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Oh.
Speaker 10 (22:01):
I can't say that to you because if I did,
it would be foolish. But every nice make a little headlines,
but it would be foolish. But I'll tell you about
carg Island.
Speaker 12 (22:09):
So we've already are not really not a ground campaign
in a limited capacity.
Speaker 10 (22:13):
I don't want to say that either, but I would
say no if I thought it was appropriate. Sometimes you
need a ground campaign. But we have other people that
will do the ground campaign for us.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
But we already hit.
Speaker 10 (22:26):
Carg Island, as you know twice, even three times. I
said hit everything, but the oil just leave that little
area if I'm twenty five yards out, leave that a
little area. Don't touch you ill, because I don't want that.
In terms of the world economy, it's you know, it's
a chunk of the world economy.
Speaker 8 (22:42):
So we haven't hit that.
Speaker 10 (22:43):
At some point we could, but I think it's unlikely
as far as taking it is concerned, if we degrade
them far enough and deep enough back all.
Speaker 4 (22:51):
Right, So we had hoped that we had somehow escaped
the escalation trap into the warm embrace of the memorandum
of understanding reached between the United States and Iran. Unfortunately,
it seems like that trap is tinged just as tightly
around our ankles. We can put up B two here
Professor Robert Pape's piece yesterday over his sub stack, the
(23:15):
escalation trap. The escalation trap has entered a new phase,
joining us to discuss kind of what that new phase
is is. University of Chicago, Professor Robert Pape, Professor, thanks
for being here.
Speaker 9 (23:31):
Thank you very much for having me.
Speaker 7 (23:33):
Yeah, you got it so.
Speaker 4 (23:35):
Hoping that we had moved on, not quite what was
it in your assessment that kind of pulled us back in?
Speaker 11 (23:46):
Yes, Well, thank you for talking about this. This is
really quite a tragic moment. We're entering some of the
most dangerous weeks of this war, quite likely, and people
are thinking, well, this is just a turn to say
March or early April. It could be much worse than that,
and we haven't gotten there yet. But where we are
(24:07):
at is very predictable. So as your recall, there have
been three core stages of the escalation trap. Stage one
is where you have regime change bombing that kills leaders
but leaves America weaker because you get a stage two,
which is although we kill the leaders and hit targets,
(24:28):
Iran lashes back in a horizontal escalation campaign and takes
horror moves and now controls twenty percent of the world's energy, and.
Speaker 9 (24:38):
We will take every effort.
Speaker 11 (24:40):
We tried punishment campaign for six weeks airpower that failed,
we tried two month blockade that failed, and we are
still where we are with stage three, which is the
ground power dilemma. So if you go to February twenty
fifth on the escalation trap, three days before the bombing
ULLs see all these stages laid out before the war,
(25:02):
and we would get to the ground power dilemma, and
that's where we are today.
Speaker 9 (25:06):
Now, what is that dilemma.
Speaker 11 (25:07):
Either we physically take Horrorm moves back and you're seeing
President Trump repositioning forces to do that, and we can
talk about the details, including the ground operations, or we don't,
and you get what I call stage four, which is
Iran becomes the fourth center of world power. Over the
next year or so, it continues to control Horrmus and
(25:29):
reball the economic benefits from that, it spreads its sphere
of influence here to basically go from Lebanon to the
Red Sea to the Gulf. And you see they're basically
beginning to do that. And then in about eighteen months
they developed nuclear weapons. So this is the actual trajectory
of what it means to simply not take Hormus back
(25:51):
to walk away. And people keep thinking there's some third option.
There's not a third option, and we've tried every possible
third option. Now, something very specific, I think, just to
drill into what happened in the last few weeks that
I think can help make some sense here for your listeners,
because I understand the whipsaw here because I face it
(26:13):
every day with my substack. You know, it's now almost
seventy thousand. We got a lot of people emailing me
and telling me all kinds of things, so I definitely
feel this.
Speaker 9 (26:23):
But what I just want to sort of explain here is.
Speaker 11 (26:26):
Well, what happened with the MoU And you know you've
had me on I'm not surprised this thing fell apart,
But what exactly happened here with President Trump? Why didn't
he just keep going forward? Well, there's really two reasons
here that's very important to understand. Reason number one is
that the reason Trump said he wanted to do the
(26:49):
MoU was to avoid the oil inventories running down. You
were call he said, we're going to run out of
oil in four weeks, which means he would become Herbert Hoover.
And then everybody said, well, okay, so that means he
can't avoid that. Well, no, The problem is, if you
look at the oil inventory curves, which I'm sure President
Trump is getting, we're still running down. We're basically still
(27:13):
on the Titanic heading to the iceberg. There's no we
haven't diverted from the iceberg. We're going to hit that
iceberg somewhere around the middle of August. We don't know
the exact days here. That's what all these oil experts
are debating. Is it August seventh, August fifteenth, September one.
But this is not not a problem. It's we're going
(27:35):
to hit this iceberg. And so President Trump the MoU failed.
From his perspective.
Speaker 9 (27:42):
JD.
Speaker 11 (27:43):
Man said, the reason Trump told us to do this
was to fill the oil copperce this one did not work.
He's still at risk of becoming Herbert ub So this
is an issue Number one. He's desperate. He's not using
these options because they're going to win in a certainty.
He's desperate because he sees certain becoming Herbert Hoover and
he's being very desperate trying anything to avoid it. There's
(28:06):
a second reason, which is the MAGA opinion polls. The
mega opinion polls are very strongly in favor of regime
change in Iran. And President Trump needs MAGA to turn out.
He doesn't need Democrats to turn out. They're not going
to vote for him. He doesn't need even the Independence.
What he needs is MAGA in these midterms to turn out.
(28:29):
That's what midterms are always about. It's the base. Well,
he's also feeding a big part of his base. There's
only a small part of his base. It's at Tucker
Carlson part of his base. So people, I think have
just been misreading the mid term incentives here for Trump.
And what you see is he is of the ship
(28:49):
on the captain of the Titanic. He's heading us here,
and it's because he does it. He's desperate to find
a way to avoid hitting the iceberg, even if that
means this super highly risky set of options, which by
the way, I am not in favor of. I want
to be very very clear, I am not supporting this idea.
(29:13):
I believe all the bad things that everybody is saying.
My job is to be though, put my policy, my
preference aside, and say, setting that aside, where are we
actually heading. That's why the escalation trap has been on
the money month after month after month after month after month.
We're in five months now of this being on the money,
(29:36):
and your listeners will will know you guys push back
at me all the time, right, and I don't want
this to be the case. I'm just following twenty years
of modeling where this heads and understanding the real dilemmas
that are at work. Even as we're heading to a
(29:57):
really potentially costly future.
Speaker 4 (30:00):
Here, the part I'm trying to figure out is why
Trump forgot about the physical limitations that he was so
clear about at the beginning of the MoU when he
was explaining to people publicly why he agreed to the
terms of the truce. As you said, he said multiple times,
(30:21):
if I didn't, it was going to be bedlam, I
think was the word he used. And multiple times in
this long interview that not long press convers he held,
he talked about Herbert Hoover.
Speaker 7 (30:31):
You know, he has he has basically.
Speaker 4 (30:33):
Two South Stars I guess you could call them, and
that's Jimmy Carter and that's Herbert Hoover and those and
to him, Carter involves around two that. You know, he
believes that the Iranian hostage rescue attempt that went south
is you know what really created his that that combined
interestingly with the oil embargo that led to gas lines
and high gas prices, that that created his presidency. And
(30:56):
then Herbert Hoover. Of course, nobody needs to be reminded
what happened to Herbert Hoover. So that that's his big concern,
and he was saying that because inventories are low it's
patrol and reserve is low like he needed to get
he needs He needed to reach a deal or.
Speaker 7 (31:11):
Else it was going to be. But that nothing has
changed like we've had.
Speaker 9 (31:16):
That's that's the problem here. Nothing has changed.
Speaker 11 (31:19):
The oil inventories with the mo OU are still going down,
which means the mo OU is Trump's road map to
becoming Herbert Hoover.
Speaker 9 (31:29):
Right, that's what he sees.
Speaker 11 (31:31):
Now, you can disagree with him, but see, this is
what the media is not quite getting. Your question is
a very understandable one, and I understand why you're asking,
but it's hard to listen to what I'm saying because
it's so we don't want this to happen. But here's
the problem. The problem from Trump's perspective is the mo
(31:51):
OU was supposed to be his offering to avoid becoming
Herbert Hoover. But the mo OU has turned out to
still run the oil inventory to ground. If you look
at the ships passing the Straight of Hormones, they're still
virtually you know, they're almost zero, they're not quite zero.
We got a little bit of oil out, but it's
because Iran is shutting down the Strait of Horrmons. It's
(32:15):
not just Trump shutting down the Strait of Hormones. Iran
decided to be very aggressive in enforcing the MoU and
shut down the Strait of Hormones. It was Iran who
initiated the shutting down of the Strait of Horror moves,
not President Trump. And so why is that. It's because
Iran wants revenge. Iran has moved from survival to ambition
(32:39):
to revenge. And that's what you see with those tens
of millions pouring out. And these are all connected. This
is these are not separate issues. Iran is shutting down
the Strait of Horror moves here because Trump won't honor
the mo U, and Trump can't honor they can't honor
them without the big loss on his record. So the
(33:02):
bottom line is that what's happening is the MoU is
become simply a roadmap to Trump hitting the iceberg anyway,
And what he's trying to do now is use military
force to see if he can minimize how long the
oil the damages to the world's economy. I don't think
(33:26):
he's going to succeed. I think it's the risks are
too great. But this is why he's doing this. And
I think if we don't take this seriously, we can't
really try to convince him to do something else. So
if you really, just if we really just keep dismissing
why he's doing it, even though he's telling us so directly,
(33:49):
then you're never going to persuade the decision makers. And
I know because I've advised every West Wing, including the
first Trump White House from twenty one to twenty four
chiefs of half of the Air Force. You're not going
to convince them by telling them they're stupid, their ideas
are bad. You've got to understand where they're coming from.
(34:10):
And if you don't, then the only thing you can
do is wait to vote them out of office in
twenty twenty eight. But by twenty twenty eight, look at
all the damage that's going to happen. So this is
really the problem that we face. We're having a hard
time seeing it from Trump's perspective because the oil inventories,
if you just show the chart, they're still going down.
(34:32):
That's what he said the problem was, and the MoU
didn't fix the problem.
Speaker 4 (34:38):
Well, so I'll put the pushback I would give on
that would be and we could put this chart up
up in posts the MoU assigned June seventeenth, and I
think the Titanic in the Iceberg analogy is actually useful.
If Trump thought that he was driving like an F
one car and that Hormuz traffic was going to do
(34:59):
so hairpin turn and go from zero to pre m ou,
then whether or not those you know, people that you're
advising want to be called idiots or not, that's an
idiotic thing to think, like, it's going to take some
time to get it back up and as and you
do actually see the traffic coming through the Strait of Hormuz,
you know, significantly expanding, elevating, like you're seeing more and
(35:22):
more ships go through now about a week ago when
when the when the shooting really kicked back off, then
you see it collapsing again, and so the what So
for Trump, it's like, okay, yeah, you didn't immediately refill
all your inventories and strategic petroleum reserve stockpile, but the
ships were coming through, So how is stopping it going
(35:45):
to helping him?
Speaker 9 (35:46):
That's right.
Speaker 11 (35:47):
So there was another choice that Trump could have made,
and apparently he signed some of the orders to do this,
which is when he signed the m OU he could
have withdrawn all fifty thousand US troops from region. He
could have withdrawn all twenty two carriers and twenty destroyers
and cruisers from the region, and Iran would have been
(36:10):
probably quite happy with that and not shot at chips.
Speaker 9 (36:14):
So that was the real choice that he.
Speaker 7 (36:17):
Had, and p coordinated.
Speaker 4 (36:18):
Like the real part the problem was they went they
tried to go through the Omani side with their Well,
that's what.
Speaker 11 (36:23):
What I'm trying to say, sir, is that is that
the real fork in the road happened when he signed
the MoU. When he signed the MoU, he had a choice.
Is he going to let Iran become the fourth center
of world power fully control the straight of horror moves
for Reel or not? And what it would mean to
allow the Iran to fully do the MoU, because remember
(36:46):
the MoU is all concessions to Iran. What it would
mean is withdraw fifty thousand combat forces from the region,
all our bases in Baharain, et cetera. That's what Iran wants,
and also all of the twenty chips. And notice that
was his real choice, and apparently he even signed in
order to start to do some of that but then
(37:08):
he decided he couldn't accept that was too big of
a loss because then his magabase would not turn out
in the midterms. And that's the problem. There's no third way,
there's no compromise where we share the straight.
Speaker 9 (37:23):
Of horror moves.
Speaker 11 (37:24):
People keep thinking this is a business deal and we're
just going to meet in the middle, triangulate in the middle.
This is great power politics. And President Trump had a choice.
You either let Iran get on the trajectory control or
moves one hundred percent become the fourth center of world power,
(37:44):
or you physically take it back. There's no other way
around it. And in order to avoid where we are, sir,
what you would need to do is physically withdraw all
of the forces here. And some people were arguing for that.
Joe Kemp was arguing that effectively. Ron Paul was arguing
for that effectively. So there were voices arguing too, if
(38:07):
we marched in, we could march out. And President Trump
just wouldn't go that far because he'd lose MEGA and
he needs MEGA. So this is the problem that the
reason I think the reason people are having a hard
time seeing it is most of the media is not
really very much into MAGA. They haven't gone to Trump.
I've been to Trump rallies because that's part of my book,
(38:28):
Our Own Worst Enemies. This is my field research. I've
been to Butler's all weekend with these folks. These folks
are they're loyal to Trump only if he is a winner.
This isn't This is another way to think about it.
Is they they have faith in Trump not because he's
a good man. Okay, it's because he's a winner. And
(38:50):
once he lets Iran become the fourth center of world
power and on the road to getting nuclear weapons for real,
And where's the actual option anybody's them up with to
stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons? All of the people
on from the JCPO explain Trump's getting nowhere with stopping
Iran getting nuclear weapons. So everybody agrees fundamentally that the
(39:13):
only way to stop this is to let Ron keep
Hormuz and keep its nuclear threshold or if not over
the threshold status. And that's the problem for Trump. He
can't own that l and keep MAGA for the midterms.
Speaker 4 (39:29):
On this trajectory, my sense is that he's going to
be Hoover and lose Hormuz.
Speaker 11 (39:34):
Yeah, that's what happens. That's how, that's how Lyndon Johnson.
So what he's doing is he's trying to avoid becoming
Herbert Hoover. And what he'll likely become is Lyndon Johnson.
And there's no way for him to become Ronald Reagan.
He's looking for a way for him to become Ronald Reagan.
Pull a rabbit out of the hat. This is going
(39:56):
to somehow, you know, like with the air traffic control strike.
You know, with Ronald Reagan, suddenly everybody will get oh
my god, it was the most brilliant thing. But the
reason this happens. And I study preventive wars for a
living for thirty years, so I'm not just generally studying
international relations. Preventive wars happen because the attackers see certain
(40:20):
loss and then they take highly risky actions to avoid
a certain loss. So think of it as they see
one hundred percent loss and now they take a risk
it's only eighty percent. And that's what we're seeing here.
In all the commentary, everybody's saying this is almost surely
going to fail. Well for President Trump, that's right, But
to not do it is an even worse outcome for
(40:43):
him and his presidency. If the world suffers, that's secondary
for Trump.
Speaker 4 (40:49):
Yeah, well we're all screwed. Professor Paipe, thanks as always.
Speaker 7 (40:54):
For the rent.
Speaker 9 (40:55):
I wish I had better news.
Speaker 4 (40:57):
Maybe next week we're learning a bit more about Joan
Sebastian Guerrero, who is the Colombian man killed by ice
in in Maine and one of the one of the
witnesses who was there for this execution on this on
the Streets of Maine described how Guerrero said before he
(41:19):
died that he had tried to stop. I want to
play a little bit of his of his eyewitness testimony
before we get to Wanda vid Rojas to talk a
little bit about what what more we have learned about
this victim, as well as another man who died after
in interaction with ice down in Florida, followed by President
(41:41):
Trump who is now saying that he wants to reverse
the ICE decision to stop traffic stops and get back
to doing it.
Speaker 7 (41:47):
But let's roll see two here.
Speaker 5 (41:49):
I didn't witness the shooting.
Speaker 13 (41:51):
I witnessed the aftermaths and the car coming down and
then being hit again by the Ice suv.
Speaker 9 (42:00):
And the.
Speaker 5 (42:03):
Victim being moved out.
Speaker 13 (42:06):
Taken out of the vehicle and I I heard him
say I tried to stop Ice agent and got out,
tried to open the door and had a difficult time it.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
Eventually opened it and pulled the guy out. His face
was bloody, his head was bloody.
Speaker 9 (42:22):
I know that.
Speaker 13 (42:25):
He was still cognizant because they told him to calm
him down. I feel somebody needs to know what's what
a bystander saw, not what Ice tells you. It's too
often I says things that are just are not true,
and at least from this is what I saw.
Speaker 5 (42:44):
Now, whether.
Speaker 13 (42:48):
Their version is different, that's up to them.
Speaker 4 (42:51):
Joan Sebastian was killed in front of his daughter, and
we're trying to learn.
Speaker 7 (42:54):
As much as we can about him.
Speaker 4 (42:56):
We understand that, according to the Administration, he came to
the United States in twenty twenty three. It's unclear yet
if he was pursuing an asylum claim. The reports are
that he had a work permit as well as a
Social Security card. That that that doesn't tell you a
whole lot about his immigration status. Wanda vid Rojas is
(43:21):
joining us now to talk a little bit more about this. Wandavid,
thanks for being here, Thanks for having me on Ryan,
So let's put up see one again. This was one
of his one of his social media posts where he says,
frem porta Patria.
Speaker 7 (43:36):
So this kind gives us a little bit of.
Speaker 4 (43:38):
An indication of where he fits kind of in the
Colombian political spectrum.
Speaker 7 (43:43):
Walk us through what we can what we can glean
from that.
Speaker 14 (43:47):
Yeah, it's especially tragic. I mean, I don't want to
you know, it's it's ironic, but you know, I don't
really want to make too much.
Speaker 7 (43:58):
Light about this. This guy.
Speaker 14 (44:00):
Yeah, he was apparently executed in front of his three
year old daughter. His wife is still grieving, and it's
one of the most horrific shooting. Thank god, there's really
not a whole lot of video about it, because otherwise
I think there would be a lot more outrage. But
this guy apparently was a supporter of Colombia's current president Electprietor,
(44:22):
who's like a Farr literal Miami Neocon is a dual
citizen of the US and lived for ten years here
in Miami before becoming president. So and yeah, the the
Colombia's current president elect. Like, yeah, he says he's a
registered he said during the campaign he just got elected
that he's a registered Republican, that he voted for President Trump,
(44:47):
and that he wants to let Trump bomb Columbia. So
that's to give people an idea. So and here's an
interesting set. Actually, eighty percent of cologn Mbians in the
US that voted in the past election voted for de
la Spiega. So a lot of Columbia's immigrant population here
(45:09):
in the US is just very right wing.
Speaker 7 (45:11):
So it's it's especially tragic.
Speaker 14 (45:13):
A friend of mine pointed out, it's like, hey, this
guy very conceivably could have ended up supporting Trump right right.
Speaker 4 (45:20):
Meanwhile, down in Miami, I want to put up C
three here, there was an inter interaction at a gas
station between Ice and.
Speaker 7 (45:29):
What appeared to be some Mexican migrant labors.
Speaker 4 (45:32):
Man ran from there when it was immediately then hit
by a truck in Saint Augustine and and died on
the scene. This is obviously a different scenario than being
shot as we saw in Houston and then in Maine.
Speaker 7 (45:48):
But in reaction to.
Speaker 4 (45:51):
The two and then you know, three deaths Ice related
deaths within within a week. Ice interestingly said that they
were going to stop the practice of these traffic stops Ice.
You know, most police forces in general are trained not
to put themselves in front of moving vehicles. And that
(46:13):
was something that all police, that all police understood kind
of before Minnesota. But that's something also the public overall
understood after Minnesota, because it's just it's just common sense.
You're you are in fact, the law as it as
it's written, is that if you put yourself in front
of the car recklessly, that does not then produce the
(46:40):
justification to shoot the person. Like if if you're the
one that creates the danger for yourself, you can't then
resolve the danger that you created by killing somebody like
that is that is that is how police are trained,
and that is that is the law, and it's also
just plain common sense. And so ICE said, they're they're
going to pause these these traffic stops. We're going to
(47:00):
put up C six. Which is Trump's response to this,
and get your reaction to it. Trump says, the men
and women of ICE are doing a great job.
Speaker 7 (47:10):
One that has to be done.
Speaker 4 (47:12):
Crime is way down in America in many cases with
numbers that haven't been seen in decades. The open border
policy of Sleepy Joe Biden allowed twenty five million to
people to pour into our country unchecked and unvetted. Many
were criminals, and we have to get them out. In
order to do this, we must be strong, tough, and smart,
and we cannot give up one of ICE's most important
and effective crime fighting tools, the traffic stop. Once we
(47:34):
are playing right into the criminals hands. The radical left
Democrats would like to see this done, but it won't
happen on my watch.
Speaker 7 (47:41):
Ice.
Speaker 4 (47:42):
Be judicious, fair and smart, and go back and do
your very important job. Keep those crime state records coming,
crime stat records coming. Remember, you are loved and respected
in America. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
President Donald J.
Speaker 7 (47:55):
Trump, so want de vive.
Speaker 4 (47:57):
That feels like it was that came after a Steven
Miller phone call, and the reference to the stats, I
feel like is the giveaway there. Miller has a quota
that he is kind of insisting that the federal government
hit and in order to hit that, you hit, you know,
you hit courthouses, you hit immigration facilities where people are
(48:18):
you going to get fingerprinted otherwise following law? Or you
just start pulling everybody over who looks like they might
be an immigrant and check their papers. What's what's your
What was your reaction to ICE announcing that they were
going to pause it and now Trump telling them no,
get back on it.
Speaker 14 (48:34):
Yeah, like you said, there's clearly some inter administration wrangling
over this stuff, most likely due to Steven Miller. I mean, look,
I'm going to be completely honest. I have a very
similar perspective to Sager about this stuff. You know, I
think that the previous administration had way too lacks of
a policy basically just like letting anyone come here and
(48:55):
you know, stay here for years on end while they're
asilum claim was adjudicated. Most of these asylum claims. Frankly,
I think we're fraudulent. At the same time, that doesn't
mean you should just go around killing people who came
here regularly, whether they have an asylum claim. They're legally
either here legally or illegally. They're human beings Jesus, And
all this does is just discredit your own cause of
(49:19):
mass deportations. I mean, you know, we can debate about
exactly what level of deportations would be just, but I mean, yeah,
it's just all these kinds of hardline tactics. You know,
there's been fifty people killed in iced attention. There's been
four people shot I think at these traffic stops since
(49:39):
the start of the year. Obviously Renee Goods was the
most famous case. So I mean, yeah, there's really nothing
good that I can say. There's so many better ways
that this could be done. I mean, starting by the
fact that really there's just been no interests at all
in punishing employers of illegal labor. And if you look
(50:02):
at corporate prosecutions of employers of illegal immigrants, they're at
all time lows, and they have been for multiple administrations.
Now all of the enforcement is on the workers, the
people who were here irregularly, and that obviously it has
costs not to mention the fact, like you know that
case in Florida, my hometown of Coral Springs of Florida
(50:25):
and Broward County ice agents like surrounded the home of
this Peruvian man who, yeah, I was here illegally or
had had like an asylum claim. They surrounded his entire
home with like rifles, and it's like, guys, not only
is this not necessary, it's disruptive to American citizens. So obviously, yeah,
(50:45):
like we saw in Minnesota, this has costs for citizens
as well, and.
Speaker 4 (50:50):
AOC was asked about this at the capital before Trump
announced that he was going to push them to rescind
their rescinding of the policy.
Speaker 7 (50:58):
Let's listen to C.
Speaker 15 (50:59):
Five.
Speaker 6 (51:00):
She's bragging about the fact that they had additional body
cameras in the Homeland security funding and they had more
safeguards than the suspector generals.
Speaker 5 (51:08):
Do you think that that was I mean, was.
Speaker 15 (51:10):
That Senator Collins wrote the blank check to allow these
officers to conduct themselves in the way that they have
in Maine in the first place. And she's the one
who's poured resources into it. And just because now that
there's live footage of the atrocities that she has enabled
(51:30):
doesn't make it better than preventing them from happening in
the first place.
Speaker 4 (51:35):
Right, So that's a going after Susan Collins for expressing
concern about the killing after having given all the weapons
for it to happen. And then here's four with her
h talking about Trump's policy.
Speaker 14 (51:47):
What do you think of DHS suspending vehicular stops in
the aftermath of Houston and Maine.
Speaker 15 (51:54):
I mean, I think they shouldn't be a lot of
the stuff that they're doing shouldn't even be allowed in
the first place, and I think they're trying to get
ahead of the fact that people should realize that what
they are doing shouldn't be allowed. And so I think
that you know, they they should be they should be
(52:17):
facing consequences for killing innocent people in the stream, and
they're just trying to escape from those consequences. While I'm
glad that they are temporarily, I assume.
Speaker 7 (52:27):
Yeah, And so one devid to your point.
Speaker 4 (52:29):
I know that you know, you and Soccer kind of
line up on a lot of elements of this immigration policy.
But as I've been arguing, if they can't do it
in a way that is civil without killing people, they're
going to lose the kind of public support for the
thing that you and Sager want done. If you were
(52:50):
advising them on how to pursue the policy, what would
you tell them.
Speaker 14 (52:56):
Yeah, it's like I said before, I mean, there's just
no enforcement at all on the employer's side. And if
you if you had like a national regime of be verify,
a lot of this problem would solve itself. And look, personally,
I would be for some kind of amnesty for me.
It would be something like for people who have been
here like at least ten years or more, and then
(53:19):
you know, other people would say, oh, no, it should
be less or whatever. But yeah, if you like spent
a lifetime here and have abided by the law for
me personally, and that a lot of Republicans will disagree
with this, Yeah, I think, you know, this would go
a long way towards solving the problem if a lot
of people were given a path to citizenship. And there's
(53:39):
also debates about like you know, like when we talk
about amnesty, people think that's like immediate citizenship for x
amount of people. Not necessarily it tends to be like
a gradual process that people have to pay back and
the taxes that the taxes that they would theoretically owe,
and then they would get like a work permit and
then eventually the residency and citizenship something like that. I
(54:00):
could go along with that if it's paired with an
aggressive national regime of everify, because if you implement those
two things in tandem, then yeah, you wouldn't need to
have this kind of draconian enforcement all the time. Yeah,
But to your point, what they're doing right now, it's
just discrediting their own cause and it's enabling radical opponents
(54:21):
on the other side. And this is what I'll say
to Democrats. I mean, please, for the love of God,
we cannot go back to the previous policy.
Speaker 7 (54:29):
I don't mean I don't say.
Speaker 14 (54:31):
That because you know I love Republicans or hate immigrants
or anything like that. On the contrary, if we go
back to what we had before, we're just going to
get another nativist administration in the future. So a lot
of this discourse around like abolishing ICE voters, in my opinion,
like you see that kind of stuff. When you know
I say this myself included, interpret that as we're going
(54:53):
to abolish ICE and then there's just going to be
no more immigration enforcement. If you really want to do that,
you need to make clear that, Look, we'll get rid
of ICE, but there will still be enforcement. And I
agree criminals should be prioritized, but enforcement shouldn't just be
against criminals. I mean, like I said that, the truth is,
most of these asylum claims are fraudulent, and if you
(55:15):
come here defraud the asylum system intending just to work,
eventually you should be removed. I'll site this is the
last thing I'll say. Yeah, I'll cite a former congressman
Barbara Jordan. She said, for the system would be credible,
people have to be deported at the end of the process.
Speaker 7 (55:31):
This is just common sense.
Speaker 5 (55:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (55:33):
I do think that Democrats, a large swath of them,
have abandoned or moved away from defending the Biden administration's
border policy and are have kind of given up and say,
you know what, Okay, we can't defend not having a border. Fine,
We're fine, We'll do a border, but we need to
abolish ICE, which is this rogue agency that's doing you know,
(55:58):
you know, mascale internal moves at home depots and seven
elevens and traffic stops that lead to them, you know,
shooting and killing people in the streets, including Joan Joan's imatchin,
who was not a target at all, like this was
this appears to be just a guy who was in
the wrong place at the wrong time, or I mean,
not necessarily that it was the Ice. ICE I'd say
(56:20):
was the wrong place at the wrong time. But in
any event, he's the one that didn't survive the encounter.
But I take your point that the the the public
might be might be conflating some of that. So we'll
we'll see how they kind of navigate that as they're
as they're kind of shaping what their their their immigration
(56:40):
policy is. That doesn't produce another nativist backlash in the future.
But wandavide, thanks as always for for being here. Where
can people find your stuff?
Speaker 11 (56:50):
Uh?
Speaker 14 (56:50):
Follow me on X and I have a sub stack.
It's called a social democracy with a populist characteristics. Also
a column to said unheard, So check me out I unheard.
Speaker 7 (56:59):
Excellent. Well, thanks for being here.
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