Latest / Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar / 2/16/26: Massie Rips Trump On Epstein, Rubio Colonialism Speech, Pentagon Preps For Iran War

Transcript

2/16/26: Massie Rips Trump On Epstein, Rubio Colonialism Speech, Pentagon Preps For Iran War · Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here.
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0:35
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0:36
Speaker 4: What do we have, Crystal, indeed we do so.
0:38
Speaker 2: Pam Bondi says we are not getting any more Epstein files.
0:41
Speaker 4: We'll see if she holds true to that.
0:43
Speaker 2: There's also a bunch of more developments there, including revelations
0:46
Speaker 2: about significant allegations against President Trump's will break that.
0:49
Speaker 4: Down for you.
0:50
Speaker 2: Marco Rivio Okay, have quite a speech in Munich calling
0:53
Speaker 2: for a full on return to colonialism. True to Parsi
0:55
Speaker 2: is going to join to talk about that. Also give
0:57
Speaker 2: us an update on Cuba in where we are with
0:59
Speaker 2: regards to with a run AOC and a bunch of
1:02
Speaker 2: Democrats also went to Munich. We're going to take a
1:04
Speaker 2: look at some of their comments and see what they
1:05
Speaker 2: say about the state of the Democratic Party as they
1:08
Speaker 2: head into twenty twenty eight. Anthropic is now fighting with
1:11
Speaker 2: the Pentagon over the way that the Department of War
1:15
Speaker 2: is deploying their technology, and Obama says that aliens do exist.
1:20
Speaker 4: He's now sort of like.
1:21
Speaker 2: Cleaning up the comments, but interesting noteworthy Sacer of course
1:24
Speaker 2: has thoughts on.
1:24
Speaker 1: That aliens exist. Aliens real. Tom DeLong tried to tell us.
1:27
Speaker 1: He tried to tell us all along.
1:29
Speaker 3: Thank you to everybody who has been watching and subscribing
1:31
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1:31
Speaker 1: We deeply appreciate it.
1:33
Speaker 3: As we've said, all of our Epstein coverage routinely gets
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2:02
Speaker 3: But let's go ahead and get to that Pambondi letter
2:05
Speaker 3: which was released on Saturday. Let's gohe and put this
2:07
Speaker 3: up here on the screen. So there had been some
2:09
Speaker 3: rumors there were some three million more emails and files
2:13
Speaker 3: that were to be released by the DOJ, but Attorney
2:15
Speaker 3: General Pambondi is saying, who WHOA, WHOA?
2:17
Speaker 1: Not so fast.
2:18
Speaker 3: So all of this was in a letter that was
2:21
Speaker 3: sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee in response to a
2:24
Speaker 3: request for more information. Pambondi writes that all Epstein files
2:29
Speaker 3: have been released consistent with Section three of the Epstein
2:32
Speaker 3: File Transparency Act quote. In accordance with the requirements of
2:35
Speaker 3: the Act and as described in various Departments submissions to
2:38
Speaker 3: the courts and SDNY and related orders, the Department has
2:41
Speaker 3: released all records, documents, communications, investigative materials in the possession
2:45
Speaker 3: of the Department that relate to any of the nine
2:48
Speaker 3: different categories. The letter then listed some three hundred high
2:52
Speaker 3: profile names, many of which were already known and in
2:55
Speaker 3: accordance with the Files Act. The list of names includes
2:57
Speaker 3: all persons that were government official or political exposed person
3:01
Speaker 3: their name appears in the files released under the Act.
3:03
Speaker 3: Some of them names mentioned had extensive direct email contact
3:07
Speaker 3: with Epstein or Maxwell. Others were mentioned in a portion
3:10
Speaker 3: of the documents. So basically, what this says is that
3:13
Speaker 3: the broad range of materials that were required released by
3:16
Speaker 3: the law have now been released according to the law,
3:18
Speaker 3: and that's it for now. Thomas Massey was reacting to
3:22
Speaker 3: some of this, as well as the general handling of
3:26
Speaker 3: this by the administration over the weekend.
3:28
Speaker 1: Let's take a listen.
3:29
Speaker 5: You've supported most of what Donald Trump has done during
3:31
Speaker 5: his presidency because of your actions with these files. He
3:35
Speaker 5: is supporting your primary opponent and has waged very personal
3:39
Speaker 5: attacks on you. I know we just have a few
3:41
Speaker 5: seconds here, but just your reaction to that.
3:46
Speaker 6: Look, this is about the Epstein class, the people who
3:49
Speaker 6: are funding the attacks against me. They may or may
3:52
Speaker 6: not be implicated in these files, but they were certainly
3:55
Speaker 6: rubbing shoulders with the people who are in these files.
3:59
Speaker 6: They're billionaires who are friends with these people, and that's
4:01
Speaker 6: what I'm up against. In Washington, d C. Donald Trump
4:04
Speaker 6: told us that even though you know, he had dinner
4:08
Speaker 6: with these kinds of people in New York City and
4:11
Speaker 6: West Palm Beach, that he would be transparent.
4:14
Speaker 7: But he's not.
4:15
Speaker 6: He's still in with the Epstein class. This is the
4:18
Speaker 6: Epstein administration, and they're attacking me for trying to get
4:22
Speaker 6: these files.
4:22
Speaker 3: Released, attacking him to try to get the files not released.
4:26
Speaker 3: In fact, one of the things Massy noted Crystal is
4:29
Speaker 3: that because the DOJ is allowed to not release files
4:33
Speaker 3: which are part of an ongoing investigation, that they are
4:36
Speaker 3: opening what he thinks are a lot of sham ongoing
4:39
Speaker 3: investigations which will preclude them from being able to release everything.
4:42
Speaker 3: That's part of the switch around that's currently happening. Because
4:45
Speaker 3: remember there were some three million more or so files
4:47
Speaker 3: allegedly that we're going to be released to the public.
4:50
Speaker 3: But if you open investigations, you can stall that off
4:53
Speaker 3: for six months, a year, three years, maybe you know,
4:56
Speaker 3: until the next presidency. So that is seems to be
4:59
Speaker 3: the ballgame as of now. And you can see, I
5:01
Speaker 3: mean right now, they're trying to weather the storm. Howard Lutnik,
5:04
Speaker 3: it remains completely in place. All of the accountability in
5:08
Speaker 3: our society is it held right now in the private sector.
5:11
Speaker 3: It's like Peter Attia maybe got in trouble or not.
5:14
Speaker 3: He seems to have kept his gig now for now.
5:17
Speaker 3: A Casey Wasserman, a Hollywood agent, is going to sell
5:20
Speaker 3: his agency. You know he lost Chapel Roans. Like fine,
5:25
Speaker 3: you know, okay, cool, that's nice to see. I guess
5:27
Speaker 3: Kathy Brumler, Kathy Rumler, the Golden Sacks lawyer. But that's
5:31
Speaker 3: all in the private sector. Like why is it only
5:32
Speaker 3: in the private sector. It's actually at the government. These
5:34
Speaker 3: are the people who are supposed to be most responsible.
5:36
Speaker 3: They're facing nothing and everybody's corralling the wagons around in
5:40
Speaker 3: Pam Bondi her disastrous press conference. By the way, as
5:43
Speaker 3: we predicted, Trump loves it, loved it, job stood up
5:48
Speaker 3: for he stood up against these radical left lunatics like
5:51
Speaker 3: Thomas Massey.
5:52
Speaker 1: So here we are, it's over.
5:54
Speaker 2: It's over as of now, Well, what's the dow at
5:56
Speaker 2: this morning? We're allowed to talk about files.
5:58
Speaker 3: I do believe that the dawn thou right, good greenlight
6:03
Speaker 3: to talk about a file billionaire to Baal. The futures
6:07
Speaker 3: as of today do not have it over fifty thousand,
6:11
Speaker 3: so as long as the Dow is a sub fifty,
6:13
Speaker 3: were allowed to greenlight.
6:15
Speaker 2: Okay, I mean I want to underscore part of what
6:17
Speaker 2: Massey said. Calling this to Epstein administration is quite stunning,
6:21
Speaker 2: you know, for a Republican who has a lot of
6:23
Speaker 2: credibility with you know, significant part of the American public,
6:27
Speaker 2: not just I would say the Republican base, saying that
6:29
Speaker 2: this is that Trump is in the Epstein class. He's
6:32
Speaker 2: with the Epstein class, this is the Epstein administration is
6:35
Speaker 2: pretty stunning. I also want to underscore in the way
6:38
Speaker 2: that they sent out this letter and included this list
6:41
Speaker 2: of politicians and politically, what do they say involved persons
6:45
Speaker 2: exposed persons, that's the term of art, you know. I
6:47
Speaker 2: think this was also an attempt to manage the information
6:51
Speaker 2: flow because you have Trump on that list. Who is
6:54
Speaker 2: in the files we know, the unredacted files named some
6:57
Speaker 2: million times close friends with Jeffrey Epstein, hanging out with
7:00
Speaker 2: him in New York, hanging out with him in mar
7:02
Speaker 2: A Lago, all kinds of you know, allegations contained, et cetera,
7:05
Speaker 2: et cetera, and then you put that on the list
7:07
Speaker 2: with someone who's mentioned in there but in an innocuous way.
7:10
Speaker 2: And so by putting his name in this list of
7:13
Speaker 2: three hundred various people, you're kind of trying to equate,
7:16
Speaker 2: you know, the vast mentions, the many mentions of Trump
7:20
Speaker 2: and the allegations of wrong Drew doing with someone who
7:23
Speaker 2: just is innocently you know, mentioned in some context within
7:26
Speaker 2: the Epstein files. So there's such an attempt to manage
7:29
Speaker 2: the flow of information, which I always want to warn
7:31
Speaker 2: people is really important when you're evaluating what we can
7:33
Speaker 2: see so far. And even Sager with the initial release
7:37
Speaker 2: that they put out, they've now clawed back some significant
7:41
Speaker 2: number of those. You know, Thank goodness for the people
7:44
Speaker 2: over at jmailch you know drop site and Ryan have
7:46
Speaker 2: been working with them on this, that they've been able
7:48
Speaker 2: to pull down all of this information before they started
7:50
Speaker 2: to clawed back.
7:51
Speaker 4: Because now if you.
7:52
Speaker 2: Go in and search the Epstein library on the DOJ's website,
7:55
Speaker 2: which is something that we do routinely, you are not
7:58
Speaker 2: going to have access to the samember of files and
8:00
Speaker 2: documents as were originally put out, so it's definitely limited hangout.
8:05
Speaker 2: They're trying to staunch the bleeding. They're trying to say,
8:07
Speaker 2: this is it, this is all you get. We're moving
8:08
Speaker 2: on now, and if history is a guide at this point,
8:11
Speaker 2: it's not going to work because there has been so
8:14
Speaker 2: much pressure around this. The revelations that we've gotten here
8:17
Speaker 2: have just made people even more disgusted and even more
8:21
Speaker 2: committed to getting the full picture as much as we
8:23
Speaker 2: possibly can.
8:24
Speaker 1: I hope so.
8:25
Speaker 3: But I just don't know where the next needle can
8:27
Speaker 3: drop whenever it comes to this story, because we had
8:30
Speaker 3: to force government action if they use these sham investigations.
8:33
Speaker 1: Also, what are we about to talk about Iran? Right?
8:35
Speaker 3: So you've got major geopolitical situation might be kicking off.
8:38
Speaker 3: We might be in a war potentially in the next
8:41
Speaker 3: three to six months.
8:42
Speaker 1: Will people move on? I hope not?
8:43
Speaker 3: Like I hope people can see the linkage between these
8:46
Speaker 3: two and we're not going to stop talking about it here.
8:48
Speaker 3: But unfortunately their strategy is just evade, evade, evate, and
8:51
Speaker 3: waited out.
8:52
Speaker 1: Now here's the one thing.
8:53
Speaker 3: If the Democrats take power in the House of Representatives
8:56
Speaker 3: next year, then it's definitely not going to go away,
8:58
Speaker 3: because you're going to have subpoena after subpoena, I have
9:00
Speaker 3: investigation and this and cash Betel. I mean, he's gonna
9:03
Speaker 3: be living up on Capitol Hill, So it might die
9:06
Speaker 3: down for a little bit. But I do encourage everybody
9:08
Speaker 3: to take advantage and like really pressure your lawmakers and
9:13
Speaker 3: make sure that they know it's the only reason that
9:16
Speaker 3: this ever became law is because remember Trump tried everything
9:22
Speaker 3: to kill this bill.
9:23
Speaker 1: Everything. He threatened members of Congress. They all voted for it.
9:26
Speaker 3: He threatened members of the Senate they had to vote
9:29
Speaker 3: for it. He signed it what in the dead of night,
9:31
Speaker 3: didn't invite the bill makers or the lawmakers who authored
9:36
Speaker 3: the bill to Congress put out a signing statement. It
9:39
Speaker 3: was like, fine, you know, I acquiat. But it's the
9:41
Speaker 3: biggest l he's ever taken legislatively. Yeah, as president in
9:44
Speaker 3: both terms. That's only because of all of you and
9:47
Speaker 3: everybody whose interests is here in the story. So you
9:49
Speaker 3: just got to keep at it. And yes, like I
9:51
Speaker 3: think they might temporarily get away with it, kind of
9:54
Speaker 3: going away, but don't don't let it get so And look,
9:56
Speaker 3: there's still a lot more to discover inside.
9:59
Speaker 1: We had MTG with a little bit of her reaction
10:01
Speaker 1: as well. Let's take a.
10:02
Speaker 8: Listen attacking Thomas Massey, non stop attacking Thomas Massey. And
10:07
Speaker 8: then one day I get a phone call from the
10:10
Speaker 8: President's in September, and he is so mad at me,
10:13
Speaker 8: and he's yelling at me, and he's angry at me,
10:16
Speaker 8: and the fact that he's like, you're supporting rand Paul Junior.
10:20
Speaker 8: And he's chewing me out for signing my name on
10:23
Speaker 8: Thomas Massey's discharge petition to release the epscene files. And
10:26
Speaker 8: I'm trying to tell him, mister President, that they say
10:30
Speaker 8: you did nothing wrong. This needs to come out. And
10:33
Speaker 8: so we're having this argument and he tells me on
10:37
Speaker 8: this phone call, he's like, Marjorie, my friends will get hurt.
10:41
Speaker 1: That's it. That's it. I mean, that is it.
10:44
Speaker 7: Obviously that's it because they're all in here.
10:47
Speaker 1: Imagine the phone calls.
10:49
Speaker 7: It's everyone, It's every single person is on this freaking list.
10:54
Speaker 7: They're all they're every billionaire, heads of state, Larry Summer's,
10:59
Speaker 7: Peter Till, They're all in there.
11:03
Speaker 1: So you know, MTG.
11:04
Speaker 3: Look, I don't really know what her goal is here exactly,
11:07
Speaker 3: but we welcome her voice out into the Also, we'd
11:09
Speaker 3: love to have her here on the show.
11:11
Speaker 2: And that's I mean, that's an interesting revelation if true
11:14
Speaker 2: that he said to her, we can't release these things,
11:16
Speaker 2: my friends will get hurt.
11:17
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, that had been released previously in that New
11:19
Speaker 3: York Times piece. I think we covered it over Christmas.
11:21
Speaker 3: But yeah, to hear her say it, you know, on
11:23
Speaker 3: the record, serious allegation. I believe her generally whenever it
11:27
Speaker 3: comes to this story because it's something that she actually
11:29
Speaker 3: cares about. I just got to, you know, a couple
11:33
Speaker 3: more box checks of things that are coming out. Let's
11:35
Speaker 3: put a four up here on the screen. I really
11:38
Speaker 3: love this one. So Fox News Digital called some people
11:40
Speaker 3: in the Masad, and the Mosad said, we reject claims
11:44
Speaker 3: that Jeffrey Epstein was Masad. Following it, I just wanted
11:47
Speaker 3: to make everybody aware that the Masad is now leaking
11:49
Speaker 3: to Fox News Digital that they are not, in fact,
11:53
Speaker 3: we're linked in any way to Jeffrey Epstein.
11:55
Speaker 4: All Right, everybody, pack it up. Nothing to see here.
11:57
Speaker 1: By the way, they didn't even get real Mosad.
11:58
Speaker 3: They said, X is I guess, is there any such
12:01
Speaker 3: thing x Israeli intelligence officials told Foxing's Digital FS never
12:05
Speaker 3: worked with the Masad, describing the allegation as baseless and
12:08
Speaker 3: inconsistent with how the agency operates.
12:10
Speaker 2: Didn't we aren't even from that Barry Weiss interview, right.
12:12
Speaker 3: Well, of course Barry Weiss interviewed, was it the current
12:16
Speaker 3: head of Massade or maybe the head of Massad? And
12:19
Speaker 3: then they they they pointed to denials by Netanyahu and
12:25
Speaker 3: by Nef Holly Bennett, the former Prime Minister, as evidence
12:28
Speaker 3: that it has now been officially denied.
12:30
Speaker 1: So we can just put that to rest. Everybody can
12:32
Speaker 1: move on.
12:33
Speaker 3: We don't, we don't really have to continue and looking
12:35
Speaker 3: at the story, not to mention, you know, all of
12:37
Speaker 3: the links between a Barack and all the emails where
12:40
Speaker 3: they joke about Massad and joke about Massad, and they're
12:43
Speaker 3: you know, they're working specifically on behalf of the state
12:47
Speaker 3: of Israel for the coach of war in Mongolia and
12:49
Speaker 3: all these other countries, in addition to making CIA and
12:53
Speaker 3: you know, link Russian contacts with multiple foreign governments. Everyone
12:57
Speaker 3: can just everyone just put it to bed. Thank you
12:59
Speaker 3: to Foxing's Digital for breaking that story. Let's continue next
13:02
Speaker 3: to a five This was one that came out yesterday
13:05
Speaker 3: Roger Sallenberger releasing this story. The FBI quote did interview
13:11
Speaker 3: a victim who credibly accused Trump of sexual assault, according
13:14
Speaker 3: to the Epstein filed documents, quote undermining claims that Trump
13:17
Speaker 3: has not yet been accused of wrongdoing. It's under clear,
13:20
Speaker 3: unclear what became of the investigation, but it is certainly,
13:22
Speaker 3: you know, shows that they did interview somebody. This was
13:26
Speaker 3: according to that release that came out from the DOJ,
13:30
Speaker 3: where there's stay quote stated Epstein introduced her to Trump,
13:33
Speaker 3: who subsequently forced her into Yeah, we've we've talked about
13:36
Speaker 3: this now previously Trump punched her in the head and
13:38
Speaker 3: kicked her out. We talked about this specific accusation where
13:41
Speaker 3: there was an interview done. I do know that we
13:44
Speaker 3: had looked a little bit in the past and they
13:45
Speaker 3: said that there was no credibility or anything. But it
13:48
Speaker 3: does go to the point around, you know, where Trump
13:50
Speaker 3: himself has issues in the files as long as everybody else.
13:54
Speaker 2: This is what let me just let me just to
13:56
Speaker 2: break this one down a little bit, because this was
13:58
Speaker 2: one of these things that came out and there was
13:59
Speaker 2: an anonymous the initial line and so the reporting here
14:03
Speaker 2: from Roger Sallenberger. What he adds to that is it
14:05
Speaker 2: wasn't just that call into the FBI tip line. He says,
14:10
Speaker 2: the FBI spoke to that alleged victim of Jeffrey Epstein,
14:14
Speaker 2: who also accused Trump of sexually violid assaulting her, according
14:18
Speaker 2: to records that were released. They don't show what became
14:20
Speaker 2: of that investigation the allegations, but the documents indicate the
14:23
Speaker 2: government found her to be a credible accuser. Records elsewhere
14:27
Speaker 2: in the files reveal a woman with matching biographical details
14:30
Speaker 2: sued Epstein's estate and won a settlement in twenty twenty one.
14:35
Speaker 2: One of the women who made allegations as well was
14:37
Speaker 2: actually used by the government as a witness in the
14:40
Speaker 2: trial against Gallaine Maxwell.
14:41
Speaker 4: To tell you to show you that, you know, they.
14:43
Speaker 2: Found her to be a credible person and a credible
14:46
Speaker 2: witness enough to use in that prosecution of Gallaine Maxwell.
14:50
Speaker 2: So this also speaks to not only the seriousness of
14:53
Speaker 2: the allegations being leveled against Donald Trump, but against others
14:56
Speaker 2: as well that comes out in these files. It also
14:59
Speaker 2: speaks to the incomplete nature of what we received, because
15:03
Speaker 2: if they interviewed this woman and found her to be credible.
15:08
Speaker 4: What happened next?
15:10
Speaker 2: Where was the decision and who made the decision that, okay,
15:13
Speaker 2: we've ruled this out, we're not going to proceed.
15:16
Speaker 4: Or what happened there?
15:18
Speaker 9: Right?
15:18
Speaker 2: Why did this go nowhere? And not just with this
15:20
Speaker 2: investigation but so many others. I mean, when you have
15:23
Speaker 2: a list of individuals who are being considered as potential
15:27
Speaker 2: co conspirators and then that all goes nowhere, like Les
15:30
Speaker 2: Wexner being one of them. Okay, well, how was that
15:33
Speaker 2: decision making made? That's nowhere to be found here? And
15:36
Speaker 2: that seems to be an incredibly critical piece.
15:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. Let's move on to the next one.
15:40
Speaker 3: By the way, for everybody who continues to say that
15:43
Speaker 3: Epstein had no involvement here with underage children, this is
15:47
Speaker 3: a very graphic conversation from Epstein to a redacted individual
15:53
Speaker 3: where he instructs a woman, now that I understand, try
15:55
Speaker 3: to take some nude photos, be open, brave, wild, dance, jump,
15:59
Speaker 3: have fun, live and then he follows up and says,
16:02
Speaker 3: I think you should take some of your self first, etc.
16:04
Speaker 3: Again some very tawdry discussion. Quote, you are going to
16:08
Speaker 3: be twenty two, not fourteen years old. All right, So
16:11
Speaker 3: that's an explicit instruction in terms of the age where
16:15
Speaker 3: he tells her that she needs to be again. Just
16:18
Speaker 3: for everybody else who's wondering about Oh, actually, these were
16:22
Speaker 3: all women who lied about their age and he had
16:25
Speaker 3: no knowledge of any of that. He's explicitly saying, you're
16:28
Speaker 3: going to be twenty two and not fourteen years old.
16:31
Speaker 3: Let's continue on to the next one. This is a
16:33
Speaker 3: very difficult one, and I'm going to give you a
16:34
Speaker 3: warning before we.
16:35
Speaker 1: Put any of this up.
16:36
Speaker 3: This is from a footnote which was released which is
16:40
Speaker 3: purported to describe an image. Now, I want to be
16:43
Speaker 3: clear that the image here was submitted by a lawyer
16:47
Speaker 3: specifically accusing of episode. This is not necessarily of his
16:50
Speaker 3: own in his own possession. What they're basically admitting to
16:56
Speaker 3: is child pornography in the possession of this lawyer who
16:59
Speaker 3: is using this as an accusation against Epstein. And it
17:03
Speaker 3: is an allegation, you know, in terms of trying to
17:06
Speaker 3: to try and accuse him of similar type of behavior.
17:09
Speaker 1: But yes, I'm not going to read it. It's really horrific.
17:12
Speaker 3: It involves underage abuse and you could see very clearly
17:16
Speaker 3: that this is Look, I mean, you know that this
17:18
Speaker 3: exists on like an intellectual level, but to see a
17:21
Speaker 3: description like that, it's just I mean, it's horrifying, right,
17:25
Speaker 3: it's horrifying.
17:26
Speaker 1: Doesn't really do it justice.
17:27
Speaker 2: Right.
17:28
Speaker 3: The point just remains, like this is a very very
17:30
Speaker 3: dark world, and this is where people have described as a.
17:34
Speaker 1: Satanic panic or any of that. But like, I don't
17:36
Speaker 1: really know how.
17:37
Speaker 3: You can't read them all of these files and we
17:41
Speaker 3: can parse individual claims of underage abuse or any of that.
17:43
Speaker 3: But I come back to this point about like this
17:45
Speaker 3: was a systematized ring of abuse and of using power, money, influence,
17:51
Speaker 3: et cetera to take advantage of very young women, some
17:56
Speaker 3: of age, many many of age, some who were under
17:59
Speaker 3: age for variety of reasons. But it's a one of
18:02
Speaker 3: the most it's one of the worst cases of abuse
18:05
Speaker 3: I've ever seen. Involves all of these international women who
18:09
Speaker 3: are all being abused. Yes, okay they may be of age,
18:11
Speaker 3: still illegal to fly women in from Russia for the
18:14
Speaker 3: purposes of sex. The power dynamic there is totally off,
18:18
Speaker 3: and these people got away with it for years. And
18:21
Speaker 3: then the bigger intelligence question, which we started off earlier,
18:24
Speaker 3: is kind of what enables this entire thing, and you know,
18:27
Speaker 3: it gets you to confirm Oswhitde Shutt was a documentary,
18:31
Speaker 3: like it's a real thing. It really was real that
18:32
Speaker 3: there is a global capal of elites who genuinely operate
18:37
Speaker 3: at a different moral and ethical code than the rest
18:39
Speaker 3: of us. All of that also involves like low level
18:43
Speaker 3: financial crime like insider trading and tax evasion, and it
18:47
Speaker 3: all kind of works together and it is one which
18:50
Speaker 3: is we are ruled by And I think that's the
18:53
Speaker 3: grappling nature of this entire story.
18:55
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's exactly right.
18:57
Speaker 2: I mean, the ideology is one which they it's a
19:01
Speaker 2: supremacist ideology where they see themselves as a different almost species,
19:06
Speaker 2: a different class of human which is why that term
19:08
Speaker 2: Epstein class is so fitting, because that's how they viewed it.
19:12
Speaker 2: You know, they viewed themselves as insolidarity. And what enforced
19:15
Speaker 2: the sort of the sort of silence and made sure
19:18
Speaker 2: that they could trust each other.
19:19
Speaker 4: The sex and the abuse and all of that was.
19:23
Speaker 2: The currency that created a mutually assured destruction where you
19:26
Speaker 2: knew Bill Gates is not going to walk away because
19:28
Speaker 2: I know these things about him, and he's gonna think twice.
19:31
Speaker 4: Before he does that.
19:32
Speaker 2: So that's what is sort of the glue that holds
19:35
Speaker 2: it together so that they can operate and have trust
19:38
Speaker 2: with one another that no one is going to betray
19:40
Speaker 2: that system.
19:41
Speaker 4: That is the role that this served.
19:43
Speaker 2: You know, again, with this specific allegation, you have a
19:47
Speaker 2: lawyer who provided this information from you know, their client,
19:50
Speaker 2: and you know an alleged victim here. And not only
19:54
Speaker 2: do you have this victim who was underage by the
19:56
Speaker 2: way at the time of the alleged abuse, you have
20:00
Speaker 2: you know them providing this information, but then you have
20:02
Speaker 2: photographic evidence to back it up, which is what the
20:06
Speaker 2: description of that photo incredibly graphic and horrifying description.
20:11
Speaker 4: What that is?
20:12
Speaker 2: So again, what happened with this allegation? What happened with
20:16
Speaker 2: this investigation? If it was deemed not credible?
20:19
Speaker 4: In what way? How do we know that you.
20:21
Speaker 2: Actually pursued this and decided nothing to see here? Those
20:25
Speaker 2: are the pieces that are completely missing? Or was this
20:28
Speaker 2: just swept under the rug because you know, in the
20:31
Speaker 2: same way that Epstein got a sweetheart deal back in
20:33
Speaker 2: the early two thousands, you still wanted to look the
20:35
Speaker 2: other way and make sure that him and Galaine and
20:38
Speaker 2: all of the powerful people that they were in league
20:40
Speaker 2: with that they got off scott free. So it's you know,
20:44
Speaker 2: it is horrifying, and it's such an extraordinarily disturbing glimpse
20:50
Speaker 2: into the way the global power actually operates, How money, power, sex, horror,
20:57
Speaker 2: how this all intermingles to gather there and creates an
21:01
Speaker 2: entire system that you know, is extraordinarily powerful, and I'm
21:06
Speaker 2: quite sure continues to be the fact that Epstein is
21:09
Speaker 2: gone doesn't mean that the Epstein class is gone, doesn't
21:12
Speaker 2: mean that things are not operating in exactly the same way,
21:15
Speaker 2: which is part of why there's been such an effort,
21:17
Speaker 2: such an unbelievable effort to cover all of this up.
21:20
Speaker 2: That spans not just this administration, although this one is
21:23
Speaker 2: certainly the most brazen, but that spans, you know, whatever
21:26
Speaker 2: party is in power, because they all benefit from the
21:30
Speaker 2: way things operate presently.
21:32
Speaker 1: That's right, all right, let's get to treat to Parsy.
21:36
Speaker 4: All right, guys.
21:37
Speaker 2: So we have a whole range of issues with regard
21:39
Speaker 2: to foreign affairs, everything from Iran to Cuba, but most
21:43
Speaker 2: notably the Munich Security Conference and doctor Treta Parsi is
21:46
Speaker 2: going to join us now to break down some pretty
21:49
Speaker 2: remarkable speeches that we're given there, just back himself from
21:53
Speaker 2: Munich and still recovering from the flight and the time
21:56
Speaker 2: change and all of that.
21:57
Speaker 1: Welcome, great to see you, you just easer, good to
21:59
Speaker 1: see you.
21:59
Speaker 9: Thank you.
22:00
Speaker 4: Yeah, of course.
22:01
Speaker 2: So most noteworthy speech that occurred there was Sectuary of
22:04
Speaker 2: State Marco Rubio, who explicitly called for a return to
22:08
Speaker 2: colonialism and sharing the spoils of that colonialism with European allies.
22:13
Speaker 2: Let's go ahead and take a listen to a little
22:14
Speaker 2: bit of that.
22:15
Speaker 10: We cannot continue to allow those who blatantly and openly
22:18
Speaker 10: threaten our citizens and endanger our global stability to shield
22:23
Speaker 10: themselves behind abstractions of international law which they themselves routinely violate.
22:29
Speaker 10: This is the path that President Trump and the United
22:32
Speaker 10: States has embarked upon. It is the path.
22:35
Speaker 1: We ask you here in Europe to join us on.
22:38
Speaker 10: It is a path we have walked together before and
22:41
Speaker 10: hope to walk together again. For five centuries before the
22:46
Speaker 10: end of the Second World War, the West had been expanding.
22:50
Speaker 10: It's missionaries, it's pilgrims, it's soldiers, it's explorers, pouring out
22:54
Speaker 10: from its shores to cross oceans, settle new continents, build
22:58
Speaker 10: vast empires, extend out across the globe. But in nineteen
23:03
Speaker 10: forty five, for the first time since the age of Columbus,
23:08
Speaker 10: it was contracting. Europe was in ruins, half of it
23:13
Speaker 10: lived behind an iron curtain, and the rest looked like
23:16
Speaker 10: it would soon follow. The great Western Empires had entered
23:20
Speaker 10: into terminal decline, accelerated by godless communist revolutions and by
23:25
Speaker 10: anti colonial uprisings that would transform the world and drape
23:30
Speaker 10: the red hammer and sickle across vast swaths of.
23:33
Speaker 1: The map in the years to come.
23:36
Speaker 10: Against that backdrop, then, as now, many came to believe
23:40
Speaker 10: that the West's age of dominance had come to an end,
23:43
Speaker 10: and that our future was destined to be a faint
23:47
Speaker 10: and feeble echo of our past. But together our predecessors
23:54
Speaker 10: recognized that decline was a choice, and it was a
23:59
Speaker 10: choice they refused to make.
24:03
Speaker 2: You can see there at the end and getting a
24:05
Speaker 2: standing ovation, apparently from any of the Europeans in the room,
24:08
Speaker 2: Doctor Parcy, What did you make of his remarks?
24:10
Speaker 9: Well, there's a couple of things. One is just to
24:12
Speaker 9: look at the remarks themselves, and then also the European reaction.
24:17
Speaker 9: Here you have a Secretary of State that is decrying
24:21
Speaker 9: the end of the Cold War, he is decrying the
24:25
Speaker 9: fact that the West is no longer expansion, is decrying
24:28
Speaker 9: the collapse of Western non American empires, decrying decolonization and
24:35
Speaker 9: the end of Western empires, and gets a standing ovation
24:42
Speaker 9: for that. I mean, there's so much to unpack it,
24:44
Speaker 9: because at the end of the day, you could see
24:46
Speaker 9: that the Europeans, by standing up and giving a standing
24:49
Speaker 9: ovation for this, are willing to accept any basis or
24:54
Speaker 9: a partnership with the United States as long as they're
24:56
Speaker 9: allowed to continue to live in the illusion that they
25:00
Speaker 9: matter to the United States. It didn't matter that the
25:02
Speaker 9: values that he was putting forward here are values that
25:06
Speaker 9: vast majority of Europe already has abandoned decades ago. But
25:11
Speaker 9: Rubia was going back to this era of empire, imperialism,
25:15
Speaker 9: colonization as something positive and he got a standing ovation
25:19
Speaker 9: for that.
25:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, putting those together, doctor Parsi, it seems
25:22
Speaker 3: to me that they abandon it internally.
25:25
Speaker 1: But we've talked here before.
25:26
Speaker 3: If you look at the European stance on let's say Iran,
25:29
Speaker 3: they're very quick to say not the legitimate government. It
25:32
Speaker 3: has no legitimacy on Venezuela. They de facto supported the
25:36
Speaker 3: United Their only complaint is there wasn't a full on
25:38
Speaker 3: regime chain. They fully believe in no colonialism or expansion
25:42
Speaker 3: on their continent, but outside of their continent they seem
25:45
Speaker 3: fine with it.
25:46
Speaker 1: So is this just a reconciling of their own hypocrisy.
25:48
Speaker 1: What do you think?
25:50
Speaker 3: So?
25:50
Speaker 9: I think some of these things that you mentioned obviously
25:52
Speaker 9: are true, but the more recent developments, this vast abandonment
25:56
Speaker 9: of international law, for instance. Not to say that Europe
25:58
Speaker 9: always has been perfect or anything like that, but this
26:01
Speaker 9: is a more recent development. The whole tone at the
26:05
Speaker 9: UNO conference this time was more regime change than I've
26:08
Speaker 9: ever seen before. And I think, again, these are some
26:11
Speaker 9: new developments, not to say that there hasn't been in
26:14
Speaker 9: a root for it, or that it's been always perfectly
26:17
Speaker 9: different before. But remember two thousand and three, the Europeans
26:20
Speaker 9: went out of their way to stop the regime change
26:22
Speaker 9: war in Iraq, and they paid a very high price
26:24
Speaker 9: for it. Back then, Germany, France took the lead, and
26:28
Speaker 9: they had all of Europe, with the exception of some
26:30
Speaker 9: Eastern states, and the UK on their side fighting against
26:34
Speaker 9: that war because of its illegality, because of its neo
26:37
Speaker 9: colonial character, and because it was regime chain. That is
26:41
Speaker 9: not what we're seeing right now. So in many ways
26:43
Speaker 9: Europe has already changed, but this is still taking them
26:47
Speaker 9: a much more explicit step in the direction that it
26:52
Speaker 9: should embrace its colonial pass, it should embrace its pursuit
26:57
Speaker 9: of empire. And I have to tell you as much,
27:00
Speaker 9: which is the Europeans are increasingly saying, look, we can't
27:02
Speaker 9: stand up for international law. We just have to do
27:04
Speaker 9: whatever it wants to say. The idea that there would
27:07
Speaker 9: be an embraced empire is still a step that I
27:10
Speaker 9: don't think most Europeans have been willing to take so far.
27:13
Speaker 2: It was very I mean, it was very disturbing to me,
27:16
Speaker 2: but it was also I thought extraordinary the way it
27:20
Speaker 2: almost seemed to he was rebuking the lessons that were
27:23
Speaker 2: learned from World War two, I mean World War two.
27:25
Speaker 2: One of the things that's taken from this is you know,
27:27
Speaker 2: when you have an expansion is power, like Germany for example,
27:31
Speaker 2: this is a disaster for humanity. It's a problem for
27:34
Speaker 2: a variety of nations. We need to put these institutions
27:36
Speaker 2: in place, and by the way, I feel like this
27:38
Speaker 2: gets lost from the Trump administration. We set up those
27:41
Speaker 2: institutions to benefit us. It has been a tremendous benefit
27:45
Speaker 2: to the United States of America, and then we run
27:47
Speaker 2: around acting like we're the victims of these institutions that
27:51
Speaker 2: we ourselves set up.
27:52
Speaker 4: But I thought the.
27:53
Speaker 2: Almost rebuke of the learnings of World War Two was
27:58
Speaker 2: something that was pretty doing to me.
28:01
Speaker 9: Well, if you want to drive matters in the direction
28:03
Speaker 9: of a great power competition, this is what you have
28:06
Speaker 9: to do, right, You have to rebuke these lessons because
28:09
Speaker 9: these lessons were there to make sure that we didn't
28:11
Speaker 9: have another great power competition in the world. And only
28:15
Speaker 9: point about these institutions, I totally agree with you. I
28:17
Speaker 9: think I've said it on the show before. Not only
28:20
Speaker 9: did the United States play a critical role in establishing
28:23
Speaker 9: these these institutions lawed in many cases obviously in need
28:27
Speaker 9: of significant reform, particularly the UN. Pushing it back towards
28:31
Speaker 9: more focused on piece of security I think would be
28:34
Speaker 9: a good thing. It has strong support internationally to go
28:37
Speaker 9: in that direction. But it was a very useful institution
28:40
Speaker 9: to the United States in the past. But here's the
28:42
Speaker 9: more important point. If we are going towards a multipolar world,
28:46
Speaker 9: and Rubio is the one who said it exactly a
28:49
Speaker 9: year ago, then not only is the world multipolar, unipolarity
28:53
Speaker 9: is an aberration, he said, which kind of contradicts what
28:56
Speaker 9: he said in the Munich speech. But if that is
28:58
Speaker 9: the case, that means that the United States no longer
29:01
Speaker 9: has the power to constrain its rivals such as Russia, China,
29:05
Speaker 9: our future countries in the same manner that it did before.
29:08
Speaker 9: It still have the interests of constraining them, but it
29:11
Speaker 9: doesn't have the same power any longer. So there's a
29:13
Speaker 9: delta now between its interest and its power. What alternative
29:17
Speaker 9: instruments do you have to be able to fill that delta? Well,
29:20
Speaker 9: the obvious answer is international law. International law. These institutions
29:25
Speaker 9: who have served exactly that purpose for all other countries
29:29
Speaker 9: throughout this period and will increasingly play that role for
29:32
Speaker 9: the United States that no longer have the unipolar leverage
29:37
Speaker 9: and benefit that it did in the past.
29:38
Speaker 1: Yeah.
29:39
Speaker 3: I mean, one of the things that's interesting, doctor Parsi,
29:41
Speaker 3: is we can parse a lot of what's happening here,
29:43
Speaker 3: and let's say that we are moving in a shift
29:45
Speaker 3: to multipolarity, which I would argue makes international law or
29:49
Speaker 3: the fiction of it, kind of less useful and of itself. However,
29:53
Speaker 3: within that same framework, as you and I are thinking generally,
29:56
Speaker 3: I think both aligned as restrainers. How does this how
30:00
Speaker 3: does this idea conflict generally with let's say, any coherent
30:04
Speaker 3: vision of restraint that was originally supposed to be a
30:07
Speaker 3: part of the second Trump administration.
30:10
Speaker 9: To me, it seems to have been a complete leap
30:13
Speaker 9: away from restraint. Restraint at the core was that we
30:17
Speaker 9: have to have a more narrow definition of US interests
30:21
Speaker 9: instead of thinking that we have to defend everything outside
30:24
Speaker 9: in the world, instead of thinking that we have to
30:26
Speaker 9: think about alliances or the free world as the thing
30:31
Speaker 9: we have to protect. We go back to our national
30:33
Speaker 9: interest and narrow definition of it. Not because we're against alliances,
30:37
Speaker 9: not because we're against the free world, but because those
30:40
Speaker 9: type of conceptions led the United States to constantly enter
30:44
Speaker 9: into war. And if we have that type of a
30:47
Speaker 9: definition in which we believe that every corner of the
30:49
Speaker 9: world is part of a US vital interest, and we
30:52
Speaker 9: will be at war somewhere all the time. And that
30:54
Speaker 9: is the history of the last twenty or plus years.
30:58
Speaker 9: Here you have an expansion of the US interest because
31:03
Speaker 9: he's not only talking about an alliance system, He's not
31:06
Speaker 9: only talking about the free world. Now he's talking about
31:08
Speaker 9: Western civilization as the core of what the United States
31:11
Speaker 9: needs to defend, and without even being able to define
31:14
Speaker 9: exactly what is it. I mean, is Latin America part
31:18
Speaker 9: of Western civilization or is it part of the Global South,
31:21
Speaker 9: as many people in Latin America will define themselves. Is Russia?
31:26
Speaker 9: I mean, it's such an ambiguous term, and to have
31:30
Speaker 9: that as the basis of what you have to defend
31:33
Speaker 9: in the opposite direction of restraint, in my estimation.
31:36
Speaker 2: There was a part in the speech that I found
31:39
Speaker 2: to be interesting coming from Marco Rubio, who has centered
31:42
Speaker 2: a lot of his politics around, you know, being some
31:45
Speaker 2: of Cuban immigrants and you know, wanting to overturn that regime.
31:49
Speaker 2: And we'll ask you more specifically about that in a moment,
31:52
Speaker 2: but where he explicitly frames himself as the direct descendants
31:56
Speaker 2: of Spaniards, so as the you know, the colonizers versus
32:01
Speaker 2: the colonized, and I thought that was I thought that
32:05
Speaker 2: was an interesting moment as well, and an interesting choice
32:09
Speaker 2: to put in this speech where, like you said, they're
32:11
Speaker 2: trying to claim all of Western civilization, talking about this
32:15
Speaker 2: shared Christian heritage and the Scots, Irish and all of
32:18
Speaker 2: these sorts of things.
32:19
Speaker 9: Well, I mean he was, I mean it was noteworthy
32:22
Speaker 9: because there's no mention of anyone else contributing to the
32:24
Speaker 9: United States. Now, of course, in his defense, he's saying
32:27
Speaker 9: this to an European audience, trying to console them and
32:32
Speaker 9: reassure them that the United States still is there, which
32:34
Speaker 9: again I think is contradictory in many different ways because
32:37
Speaker 9: the message was supposed to be you have to understand,
32:41
Speaker 9: you have to stand on your own legs. What Urubio
32:44
Speaker 9: gave with this type of reassurance is another bite at
32:48
Speaker 9: the illusionary apple for the Europeans to think that there
32:51
Speaker 9: still is an ability for them to rely on the
32:54
Speaker 9: United States without actually taking full responsibility, despite the fact
32:57
Speaker 9: that he keeps on saying Europe has to step up, etc.
33:00
Speaker 9: The way this whole thing landed in Munich was that
33:03
Speaker 9: this was the opposite of vamps and as a result,
33:06
Speaker 9: they can go back to the old illusion that they
33:09
Speaker 9: lived in, in which they can just rely on the
33:11
Speaker 9: United States.
33:11
Speaker 3: Right and I think that is the part that grates
33:13
Speaker 3: me more than anything, is that, if anything, what's ironic
33:16
Speaker 3: about this administration is if you were to ask the Europeans,
33:19
Speaker 3: they would say this is the most anti European US
33:22
Speaker 3: administration in decades. That was one of the most pure
33:24
Speaker 3: pro europe speeches I've ever seen. It was a direct
33:27
Speaker 3: contravention of a lot of the restrain and philosophy that
33:30
Speaker 3: goes back to the original pivot to Asia, where it's
33:32
Speaker 3: this acknowledgement that Europe is increasingly an irrelevant power power base,
33:37
Speaker 3: that there's a rising GDP in Asia, that the US
33:40
Speaker 3: is an Asian power with you know, significant interests. China
33:44
Speaker 3: is our main geopolitical rival, most of our interests, of
33:48
Speaker 3: our economic like trading partners and all that lie outside
33:52
Speaker 3: of the continent. It's really only blood and shared history
33:56
Speaker 3: that seems to combine us together. Rubio's declaration was based
33:59
Speaker 3: on we will fight for that shared interest so called
34:02
Speaker 3: Western civilization, which again we don't even really agree between
34:07
Speaker 3: US and Europe on what that even seems to mean.
34:09
Speaker 3: So the confusion of this centered more than anything, whereas
34:13
Speaker 3: it made it so that for me, the Trump doctrine
34:16
Speaker 3: if there is such a thing basically doesn't exist. This
34:19
Speaker 3: speech is the mirror image of the Jdvan speech from
34:21
Speaker 3: one year ago in Munich. It is actually the mereor
34:23
Speaker 3: image of a similar speech given in the exact same conference.
34:26
Speaker 3: Maybe you were present at the Elbert Colby speech which
34:29
Speaker 3: specifically talked about share Yes, shared interest in history and
34:33
Speaker 3: all that is great, but we need to actually operate
34:35
Speaker 3: on real hard power and on what our mutual interests,
34:38
Speaker 3: like economic interests, may be. So it just seems to
34:41
Speaker 3: be either a freelancing but regardless, it's very important for
34:45
Speaker 3: what the vision of foreign policy and this administration is
34:47
Speaker 3: going to look like.
34:49
Speaker 9: I agree with most of what you said there, Sagar,
34:51
Speaker 9: and I don't think it is freelancing. I think this
34:54
Speaker 9: is an effort by a former neocon so essentially tried
35:00
Speaker 9: to co opt much of the restrainers within the administration
35:05
Speaker 9: by appealing to some of their conservative values which tend
35:10
Speaker 9: to lend themselves to this idea of this civilization or discourse,
35:15
Speaker 9: and as a result make sure that he gets a
35:17
Speaker 9: new conservative at its root policy in the clothes of
35:22
Speaker 9: something that is supposed to sound to certain conservatives as restraint.
35:27
Speaker 9: I mean, keep in mind, he talked about the Western Century.
35:30
Speaker 9: A colleague AMAI pointed out that this is the exact
35:33
Speaker 9: same language of the neocons in the nineteen nineties when
35:37
Speaker 9: they talked about the New American Century. So to me
35:41
Speaker 9: it sounded that this was a very clever and I
35:43
Speaker 9: have to say, you know, although I strongly disagree with
35:45
Speaker 9: a lot of elements in that speech, it was a
35:48
Speaker 9: brilliant speech for his purposes.
35:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's using the language of Christian nationalism to you know,
35:56
Speaker 2: advance the agenda that Marco Rubio has, and that's a
36:00
Speaker 2: place to shift a part of what that agenda is.
36:02
Speaker 4: Let's go ahead and put B two up on the screen.
36:05
Speaker 2: We've been tracking here the you know, ongoing US triggered
36:09
Speaker 2: crisis in Cuba, which is becoming quite dire. This is
36:13
Speaker 2: a dispatch from the Guardian. They say no fuel, no tours,
36:15
Speaker 2: no cash. This was the week the Cuban crisis got real,
36:20
Speaker 2: and you know, talk about just how incredibly difficult things
36:24
Speaker 2: have been made there by US policy. Can you just
36:28
Speaker 2: describe to us, you know, what the latest is there
36:30
Speaker 2: and what our goals are.
36:32
Speaker 9: I think it's very important here to make the connection
36:35
Speaker 9: to Gaza, the United States has had an embargo on
36:39
Speaker 9: Cuba for decades. Even when the Obama administration had the
36:44
Speaker 9: opening with Cuba, they did not touch the embargo because
36:48
Speaker 9: the embargo goes through Congress, and Obama essentially chose not
36:51
Speaker 9: to do that. He only lifted executive orders. Never in
36:55
Speaker 9: that embargo did we pursue disdegree of closure of the
37:02
Speaker 9: island so that they can't even get food, medicine, and fuel.
37:07
Speaker 9: But guess who else just did this two years ago
37:10
Speaker 9: and is still doing it. This is what the Israelis
37:12
Speaker 9: did to Gaza. This is the excessive form of capital
37:18
Speaker 9: collective punishment that the Israelis pursued and continue to pursue
37:23
Speaker 9: in Gaza, which they normalized through their action, and now
37:26
Speaker 9: it is being adopted by the Trump administration against the
37:30
Speaker 9: Cuban people. And this is very important to understand. But
37:33
Speaker 9: so much about what was happening in Gaza was about
37:36
Speaker 9: exactly the destruction of these norms of the use of
37:40
Speaker 9: force and international lalities, things that we have built up
37:43
Speaker 9: since Second World War to make sure that civilians are
37:46
Speaker 9: protected in conflict. We may not be able to end
37:48
Speaker 9: conflict altogether, but we're giving rights to civilians so that
37:52
Speaker 9: they are protected. Those are now being destroyed, first in Gaza,
37:56
Speaker 9: and now we see its replication in Cuba.
38:01
Speaker 3: Let's move on to Iran, doctor Parsi, while we have you,
38:04
Speaker 3: there's some major major developments here. Let's put ce one
38:08
Speaker 3: up here on the screen. President Trump apparently told Prime
38:12
Speaker 3: Minister NETANYAHUO, this is, according to CBS News, he would
38:15
Speaker 3: support in Israeli strike on Iran's ballistic missile program. This
38:19
Speaker 3: was back in December, not necessarily indicative of the latest
38:23
Speaker 3: meeting that just happened between Prime Minister nata Yahoo and
38:27
Speaker 3: between President Trump. What do you make let's say, both
38:29
Speaker 3: of the news itself and of the timing of the
38:32
Speaker 3: league for when it's coming out right now.
38:35
Speaker 9: Clearly something happened on December twenty ninth of last year
38:39
Speaker 9: when Natanyahu, almost six months to the day, came back
38:43
Speaker 9: to the US and said, hey, let's have another war
38:45
Speaker 9: with Iran. But what we saw immediately after that was
38:49
Speaker 9: not that the Israelis would take the lead, but rather
38:51
Speaker 9: that the US would take the lead. In fact, take
38:54
Speaker 9: a look at Natanyahu's profile on this issue since then,
38:58
Speaker 9: up until just a couple of days ago, he was
39:00
Speaker 9: staying completely quiet. He was letting Trump take the lead.
39:04
Speaker 9: He was avoiding an impression that Israel is the country
39:08
Speaker 9: pushing the US into war because Trump essentially took full
39:12
Speaker 9: ownership of the war and was in the lead taking
39:18
Speaker 9: of doing an attack. So I don't think that is
39:20
Speaker 9: actually what was being said. I mean, it may have
39:23
Speaker 9: been that it was said, but it was not part
39:25
Speaker 9: of the final decision. The final decision was that the
39:27
Speaker 9: United States would take the lead. The reason why I
39:30
Speaker 9: think this is now being leaked incidentally by CBS, and
39:33
Speaker 9: you can draw your own conclusions about that, is because
39:36
Speaker 9: of an effort to sabotage the talks that are taking
39:39
Speaker 9: place and the next round that will take place tomorrow
39:42
Speaker 9: in Geneva. The Iranians have made it absolutely clear there's
39:45
Speaker 9: not going to be any restrictions or at least limitations
39:48
Speaker 9: on the size of their missile program. This is the
39:52
Speaker 9: only de terrence they have left against Israel. For them
39:55
Speaker 9: to dismantle their missile program means that they would be
39:58
Speaker 9: completely defenseless against Israel, and it has shown its ability
40:01
Speaker 9: or its willingness to attack any country that is defensiveness
40:04
Speaker 9: against it. So for them to leak this at this
40:07
Speaker 9: point seems to be more of an effort to try
40:09
Speaker 9: to sabotage those talks because of the fear that Trump
40:13
Speaker 9: ultimately will agree to this. I mean, first of all,
40:16
Speaker 9: let's keep in mind Trump didn't even talk about missiles
40:19
Speaker 9: until December twenty ninth, So this is not an old
40:22
Speaker 9: American red line. This is a very new red line
40:25
Speaker 9: that is no more than five weeks old, and he
40:28
Speaker 9: may be putting it to rest. And this is something
40:31
Speaker 9: than that I think certain elements are trying to solbotage.
40:34
Speaker 2: There were some also significant reporting from Reuters that we
40:36
Speaker 2: can put up on the screen. They say exclusive US
40:39
Speaker 2: military preparing for potentially weeks long RAN operations. US military
40:43
Speaker 2: is preparing for the possibility of sustain weeks long operations
40:47
Speaker 2: against Iron if Trump orders an attack to US officials
40:51
Speaker 2: told Reuters. The disclosures by the officials, who spoke on
40:55
Speaker 2: condition of anonymity, raises the stakes for the diplomacy underway.
40:59
Speaker 4: They say.
40:59
Speaker 2: They go on to discuss the build up and the
41:02
Speaker 2: region and the preparations for what they expect would be
41:05
Speaker 2: a longer protracted, more protracted conflict than what we saw
41:10
Speaker 2: in the previous bombings of Iran.
41:13
Speaker 4: What do you make of this?
41:14
Speaker 2: Development, because one of the things that we have been
41:16
Speaker 2: hearing is that perhaps the reason for the delay is
41:19
Speaker 2: just further preparation so that it can be a more
41:22
Speaker 2: widespread or more large scale military action.
41:26
Speaker 9: Well, this league may have had the intent of putting
41:29
Speaker 9: pressure on the Iranians by saying that the US is
41:32
Speaker 9: ready for a longer war, but he may also have
41:36
Speaker 9: had the opposite intent. He may have had the intent
41:38
Speaker 9: of putting pressure on the administration itself, recognizing which I
41:43
Speaker 9: think many people then dependagon recognize that Trump ultimately does
41:47
Speaker 9: not want to have a long war. He likes quick,
41:49
Speaker 9: glorious successes, and if he gets dragged into something that
41:53
Speaker 9: is longer, what he tends to do is that he
41:56
Speaker 9: cuts them short and he would draws, which I think
41:58
Speaker 9: is the right thing to do when you're in something
42:00
Speaker 9: that is not working. But that's not something the Pentagon likes.
42:03
Speaker 9: The Pentagon doesn't like to be sent off into a
42:06
Speaker 9: military confrontation and then be pulled back without having succeeding,
42:11
Speaker 9: particularly if it's only after a couple of weeks. So
42:13
Speaker 9: I think this is also a bit of a warning
42:15
Speaker 9: of essentially saying, don't put us into something that you're
42:19
Speaker 9: not intending to finish, and this will not be finished quickly,
42:21
Speaker 9: and it will not be finished easily, and it will
42:24
Speaker 9: probably drag on much more than weeks, probably months. So
42:28
Speaker 9: I think again, part of the reason why this hasn't
42:31
Speaker 9: happened yet is not that he just didn't have the
42:33
Speaker 9: resources there to pursue it. Even with those resources, we
42:37
Speaker 9: have like a third of the navy in the Persian
42:39
Speaker 9: Gulf now we're in the Arabiancy. Even with those resources,
42:42
Speaker 9: this is going to take a very long time. And
42:44
Speaker 9: by the way, keep in mind that a couple of
42:47
Speaker 9: weeks is also exactly what they said about Iraq and
42:50
Speaker 9: he ended up being a decade.
42:51
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, very very important point. We have Prime Minister
42:54
Speaker 3: Natanya who now laying out conditions, you know, before we
42:58
Speaker 3: even play that doctor Parci. Everything thing about this is
43:01
Speaker 3: giving me the exact same you know, deja vu of
43:04
Speaker 3: the Iran nuclear deal in twenty fifteen, and then a
43:06
Speaker 3: lot of people forget the two thousand and nine crisis
43:09
Speaker 3: with Iran as well, where Neatsaanya who is working the
43:12
Speaker 3: press openly trying to push the US into war, intimating
43:16
Speaker 3: that well, if you don't do it, I'm going to
43:18
Speaker 3: do it trying to box in using the Republican Party.
43:20
Speaker 3: So I do want to set the stage. This is
43:22
Speaker 3: a well established playbook here from Prime Minister Netanyahu. Before
43:25
Speaker 3: we now, let's actually take a listen to what he
43:27
Speaker 3: says are acceptable conditions.
43:29
Speaker 1: According to him, Let's take a listen.
43:31
Speaker 11: I said that if a deal is to be rich,
43:34
Speaker 11: it should have several components, several components that we believe
43:42
Speaker 11: are important not only for the security of Israel, but
43:45
Speaker 11: for the security of the world, the United States, the region,
43:48
Speaker 11: the world. The first is that all enriched material has
43:52
Speaker 11: to leave Iran. The second is that there shall be
43:57
Speaker 11: no enrichment capability, not stopping the enrichment process, but dismantle
44:06
Speaker 11: the equipment and the infrastructure that allows you to enrich
44:11
Speaker 11: in the first place. And the third is to deal
44:14
Speaker 11: also with the questions of ballistic missiles. There's an empty
44:18
Speaker 11: cr limitation of three hundred kilometers, and Iran is supposed
44:24
Speaker 11: to adhere to it. Of course it doesn't, as the
44:28
Speaker 11: Rising Line operation by itself manifested. Everybody knows that. And
44:32
Speaker 11: the fourth is stop the dismantled the axis silver terror
44:38
Speaker 11: that Iran has built. It's been smashed, but it's still there.
44:42
Speaker 11: It's trying to recover as iiron itself is trying to do.
44:46
Speaker 11: And the last thing is remember Ronald Reagan's dictum Visa
44:49
Speaker 11: VI the Soviet Union. Trust but verify, distrust, distrust, and
44:56
Speaker 11: always verify. So there has to be real inspections, substantive inspections,
45:04
Speaker 11: no lead time inspections, but effective inspections for all of
45:08
Speaker 11: the above.
45:09
Speaker 1: What do you make of that?
45:10
Speaker 9: Well, as you pointed out, this is exactly what we've
45:13
Speaker 9: seen in the past. Whenever there is any chance of
45:16
Speaker 9: a deal, he goes out and he puts out impossible
45:20
Speaker 9: conditions in order to signal clearly that he will attack
45:24
Speaker 9: the deal if it is made that meets short of
45:27
Speaker 9: these conditions, which it obviously will. These are impossible conditions
45:30
Speaker 9: to reach. These are poison pills that he puts in
45:33
Speaker 9: there in order to sell potage diplomacy. Now here's where,
45:36
Speaker 9: from my standpoint, is a positive. For about a month
45:39
Speaker 9: he kept a very low profile. Things were going his way.
45:43
Speaker 9: There was no need for him to be out there
45:45
Speaker 9: saying these things. Then things changed. He came back to Washington, DC,
45:49
Speaker 9: he apparently did not have a good meeting with Trump,
45:53
Speaker 9: and now he's out there giving this commentary again, which
45:56
Speaker 9: I think is should be interpreted as a sign that
45:58
Speaker 9: he's nervous, that he's not in the room, and that
46:01
Speaker 9: he's trying to influence it from the outside, whereas before
46:04
Speaker 9: just a couple of weeks ago, he felt confident enough
46:07
Speaker 9: that he did not kill the need to influence it
46:09
Speaker 9: from the outside. That does not mean that chances for
46:12
Speaker 9: a deal necessarily are great or that things will work out,
46:16
Speaker 9: but it does mean I think that the type of
46:20
Speaker 9: control that Natanieo felt that he had up until a
46:23
Speaker 9: week ago is no longer there, and he's back into
46:26
Speaker 9: his old playbook of trying to sabag charging this from
46:29
Speaker 9: the outside.
46:30
Speaker 2: Yes, and finally, we wanted to underscore a bit of
46:33
Speaker 2: the bipartisan nature of some of this approach here vis
46:36
Speaker 2: a vis Iran. We had some comments from Nancy Pelosi
46:39
Speaker 2: backing up Besant's desire to cause economic suffering among the
46:44
Speaker 2: Iranian people.
46:45
Speaker 4: Let's go ahead and take a listen to that.
46:47
Speaker 2: Is there a way to sort of bring about the
46:48
Speaker 2: regime fallen without using American force?
46:51
Speaker 1: I guess is the question there?
46:52
Speaker 12: Well, use economic forces, use economic lose use. There are
46:57
Speaker 12: ways that cripple their econway and some of that has
47:01
Speaker 12: been in the works.
47:02
Speaker 11: It does feel very tenuous though the regime there, you know,
47:05
Speaker 11: more than has on a long time.
47:06
Speaker 12: I agree with you. I agree with you, but again,
47:09
Speaker 12: it's not about a threat from war. It's hopefully it's
47:13
Speaker 12: more about just make their economy, weaken their economy, and
47:17
Speaker 12: that weekends the support they do have, because they do
47:20
Speaker 12: have support in the rural areas and the more conservative
47:23
Speaker 12: moms and all the rest of that. But we have
47:25
Speaker 12: to make them feel the pain as well.
47:28
Speaker 2: I have to make them feel the pain as well.
47:30
Speaker 2: I mean, it reminds of the comments that you just
47:31
Speaker 2: made tying Gaza to QBA. I think there's a you
47:35
Speaker 2: know it tie in here as well. Not that sanctions
47:37
Speaker 2: on Iran or anything new.
47:39
Speaker 9: No, and we have to remember during the Obama years
47:42
Speaker 9: it was called crippling sanctions. Hillary Clinton constantly used the
47:46
Speaker 9: language of crippling their economy. I wrote on Twitter. This
47:49
Speaker 9: was not a slip of the tongue. This is not
47:51
Speaker 9: her accidentally saying that the quiet part out loud. This
47:55
Speaker 9: was always the intent to get to a stadium which
47:58
Speaker 9: you destroy the economy and as a result, to get
48:01
Speaker 9: people to rise up to overthrow the government. But to
48:04
Speaker 9: do so, you have to make their lives as miserable
48:07
Speaker 9: as possible, so that they have no choice but to
48:10
Speaker 9: go out on the streets and risk their lives. But
48:12
Speaker 9: the playbook has been to never admit it, constantly say
48:16
Speaker 9: that the medicine shortage is not because of sanctions, it's
48:19
Speaker 9: because of the regimes incompetence and corruption. And without a doubt,
48:23
Speaker 9: there is a tremendous amount of incompetence and corruption in
48:26
Speaker 9: the running government, for sure. But these type of shortages
48:31
Speaker 9: do not occur by themselves. They do occur as a
48:33
Speaker 9: result of the sanctions. The latest research has made it very,
48:36
Speaker 9: very clear that the sanctions is the triggering thing that
48:38
Speaker 9: really causes the degree to which the economy is collapsing.
48:42
Speaker 9: But you don't admit it until the very end when
48:45
Speaker 9: you think a regime change is about to happen, because
48:48
Speaker 9: at that point you want to take credit for it.
48:50
Speaker 9: But up until that point and you go and you
48:54
Speaker 9: gas it and you say, well, sanctions have nothing to
48:56
Speaker 9: do with the sanctions, have nothing to do with the
48:58
Speaker 9: fact that medicine cannot get it and sanctioned, that nothing
49:01
Speaker 9: to do with the fact that the currency is collapsing,
49:04
Speaker 9: that the economy is collapsing. But once it does, then
49:07
Speaker 9: you take credit for it because you say that you achieve.
49:09
Speaker 3: This, well said sir, Well, thank you so much for
49:12
Speaker 3: joining us for so much of your time.
49:13
Speaker 1: We appreciate your dispatch from Munich. Thank you, sir,