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BREAKING: Trump Always Chickens Out (Thank F*ck) · Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

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Good day humans. It's party time. It's party time around the world. We've been to the moon,
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uh, the far side of the moon. We've seen the, we've seen craters, the likes of which humankind
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has never be held. And now we've got the Straits of Hormuz reopening. See? Who said Donald Trump
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didn't know what he was doing? You got to remember the old adage, the nickname of this president,
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Taco. Taco Trump always chickens out. He doesn't like it. He doesn't like it. He doesn't care
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for that name. He doesn't want to have a bar of it. Well, there was a White House correspondent
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from one of the major news networks, fake news networks, probably some rinky dinkler operation
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like NBC News or something who asked him, what do you think of Taco? This name that they're
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giving you on Wall Street. This was like a year ago now back when the tariffs were happening.
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And he said, what? I haven't heard that one. She said it sounds like Trump always chickens out.
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And the look on his face, the look on his face made him feel so humiliated. It looked like a little
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boy, a little, a little babe who just had his blankie taken away. He was furious. Uh, and he banished
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that correspondent and her children and her children's children from the White House briefing room
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for a period of three months. Um, thanks Simpson's fans for getting a reference. So uh, he shouldn't
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be upset about Taco. Taco's a great thing. He always chickens out. And that's good. So he's made
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these threats. And now he's, uh, instead of having to make good on the threats, it's like the number
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of times this man can make a hollow threat and still come up smelling roses. Uh, forgive me for
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being impressed. But the real thanks today should go to Pakistan. I think that's a combination of
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words that I've never never said in, uh, that order before the real thanks of today should go to
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Pakistan because, uh, I read right here, um, a letter, a letter addressed to yours truly.
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It's not addressed to yours truly, but let's pretend. From the Minister of Foreign Affairs of
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the Islamic Republic of Iran, say at a bus, Arag, she, uh, Tehran 7th of April, 2026, sounds like
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yesterday, if you're Australian, but today, if you're in Iran, on behalf of the Islamic Republic
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of Iran, I express gratitude and appreciation for my dear brothers, H.E. Prime Minister of Pakistan,
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Sharif and H.E. Field Marshal Munir for their tireless efforts to end the war in the region.
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In response to the brotherly request, isn't that sweet? The way they phrase these things,
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you got to love Islam. If only, I mean, I love the mosques. I love the call to prayer. I love
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the architecture. There's a lot I love about Islam, but the thing I love the most is that, uh,
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they're always talking about brotherly requests and my dear brothers and praise beyond
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them and so on. Uh, quite floral. They're quite gay, really. In the best way. I mean,
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as a gay man myself, I can say that. It's, there's nothing queerer. There's nothing more flaming
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than, uh, Minister for the Islamic Republic of Iran congratulating, uh, his Pakistani brothers
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on their tireless, uh, virile work. He writes, in response to the brotherly requested PM Sharif
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in his tweet, in his tweet, and considering the request by the US for negotiations based on
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its 15 point proposal, as well as announcement by Potus about acceptance of, they really have to
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learn the word the in English, uh, based on as well as announcement by Potus about acceptance of
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the general framework of Iran's 10 point proposal as a basis for negotiations. I mean,
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if I was sub editing this, I'd probably get him to cut that sentence into. I hear by the clear
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on behalf of Iran's Supreme National Security Council. Call on. We're still not done with this
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sentence. Come on, come on. Say it a bus, a rag, she, you may be the Minister of Foreign Affairs,
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but, uh, you're certainly not the Minister of Writing Affairs. Am I right, people? Uh,
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I got him a good one. Uh, uh, uh, uh, National Security Council, Colin, if attacks against
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Iran are halted, I'm quoting now, uh, our powerful armed forces, that should be obvious that I'm
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quoting because I have no powerful armed forces personally, uh, we'll cease their defensive
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operations. Although I should probably pretend that I do have powerful armed forces, so that if
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anyone wants to, uh, you know, come after me for some, uh, thing that I've said, uh, they will
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think twice. For a period of two weeks, safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz will be
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possible via coordination with Iran's armed forces and with due consideration of technical
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limitations. Okay. So how do we get here? Taco. Uh, I've got a timeline. Uh, you want to,
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you want a timeline here with my timeline gone? I put it somewhere. Uh, so it starts on March,
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shh. Fifth. No, no, March 21st. Where is it?
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Not that one. I'll turn to him. Starts on March 21st. In a truth social post,
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Trump declared that if Iran did not fully open in capitals, the Strait within 48 hours,
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within 48 hours, what's the date today? It's the 8th of April in Australia.
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7th of April over there. So we're talking about more than two weeks ago.
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If they don't fully open in 48 hours, the United States will obliterate their various power plants
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starting with the biggest one first. And then, um, 48 hours later, he was like, uh, we're
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gonna give him another five days. We give him another five days. They didn't do it in 48 hours.
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We give him five days. And then, um, two days before the post-poned deadline, he said times running
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out and all hell will rain down in Iran until then we are blasting Iran into oblivion. He said,
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or as they say, back to the stone ages exclamation mark, exclamation mark, exclamation mark.
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Who says, who was it? Why did you say, as they say, as they say, back to the stone ages, okay?
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I think as you say, Mr. President, then April 5th, it was actually the fourth in the states.
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Tuesday, he says, will be power plant day. This is four days ago now. Remember, this is already almost
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two weeks after his initial deadline that he just blew past 48 hours later and gave him another five
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days and then blew past that one. Now he's four days ago. Tuesday will be power plant day and
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bridge day all wrapped up in one in Iran. There will be nothing like it, exclamation mark, exclamation
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mark, exclamation mark. Open the fucking straight. This is the, this is the president of the United
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States. Ladies and gentle persons, uh, the president of the United States. Open the fucking straight
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with a capital F and a capital S. Fucking straight, you crazy bastards, comma, or you'll be living in
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hell and then in capitals just watch exclamation mark. Praise be to Allah. President Donald J. Trump.
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So wait a, wait a frame. This is a religious war. Dude. And then he says, with a little more time,
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we can easily open the hall moves straight, take the oil and make a fortune. It would be a gusha
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for the world. Question mark, question mark, question mark. President Donald J. Trump. I also
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like that he signs it off. It's like, you know, do you have like an old aunt in your life who signs
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off text messages with best Charlene? Uh, I do. She doesn't sign it. Charlene because her name's not
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Charlene. Um, be weird. Wouldn't know if she was impersonating a non-existent person named Charlene.
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But I like that he signs off his treats even his tweets is, I should say truth social posts,
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even though at the top it says Donald J. Trump and then at real Donald Trump, but he still says
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President Donald J. Trump at the bottom. So it would be a gusha for the world. But he put question
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mark on that one. So indicating a certain level of uncertainty about whether or not he would
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indeed make a fortune if he took it around soil and it would indeed be a gusha for the world or not.
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He might not know exactly what constitutes a gusha in these circumstances. So he says that four
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days ago, still nothing happens. And why does nothing happen? Because the Iranians hold all the
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cards. They don't have to do anything. They can just sit tight. The regime is still intact. They
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still have about half of their missiles. They still have a ton of drones with which they can blow
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up whatever they want. They still have the capacity to inflict serious, serious damage, not just on
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the global economy by closing the Straits of Hormuz. And have you seen your petrol prices lately?
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You know what's going on at the pump? Some significant minority of petrol stations in Australia
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don't even have diesel. The country runs on diesel. Out trucks run on diesel. And we have like one
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month of fuel stores. It was scrambling around the Australian government with its cap in its hand
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trying to persuade and cajole and bribe neighboring countries to guarantee that they can keep sending
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us oil because we're too stupid to have planned for having a proper stockpile of you know,
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six months or 12 months of oil reserves. Instead, we were wandering around with two months.
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I think we had the lowest fuel reserves of any rich country. Despite the fact that we're the
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richest in fossil fuels on a per capita basis of I think any country in the world, any big country
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at least, I'm sure that butter rain or something is more, but you know what I'm saying.
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So you've seen the fuel prices, you know what pain Iran can inflict by keeping the Straits closed.
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You know how hard it is to keep the Straits open militarily for the West because what are you
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going to do? You're going to send an aircraft carrier to Shaperone, an oil tanker, and dare the
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Iranians to do something to it? Well, what have they got to lose? You're already at war with them.
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You're already telling me you're going to blow up all their bridges and their power plants and
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all the hell is going to rain downing a bomb them back to the Stone Age as they call it. Also,
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just as an aside, he said as they call it back to the Stone Ages, I think that even if someone
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does call it bombing back to the Stone Age, it's bombing back to the Stone Age. I think there was
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one Stone Age. I don't think there were many Stone Ages. There was a Stone Age, there was a Bronze
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Age, there was an Iron Age, so it's not as they call it. As they call it is the Stone Age,
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and Donald Trump said as they call it the Stone Ages, and of all the things that are
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unbecoming of Mr. Trump as a president of the United States, I think the worst of his misdeeds
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is saying that people call it the Stone Ages because Mr. President, Mr. President,
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I have to draw a line somewhere, and Zeppes' line in the sand, Sir, Mr. President,
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is get your Stone Age right. It is not plural. They do not call it Stone Ages.
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You know, sometimes some people have to have a backbone and you have to stand up for what you
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believe is right. So anyway, we're talking about the difficulty of constraining Iran and why they
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can just sit back. They can kick back, they can smoke their hookers, and they can, you know,
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party with their 72 virgins, and they don't have to worry about a thing because they've got
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they can close the straight. The Americans aren't going to send a $100 billion aircraft carrier
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to Shaperone, a petrol tanker, when they can just fly drones over, totally expendable drones,
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and they can blow the shit out of the piece of hardware. Like this is the problem with being
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a guy who has all of the cool military hardware. You don't actually, you want to keep your military
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hardware, and you don't need very much military hardware in order to destroy very expensive
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military hardware. You can do it on the cheap now. There's the problem with your drones.
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So the Iranians can just sit back, and they can keep taking potshots, and it goes through the
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straight. You want to stop them from doing that when they're talking about boots on the ground,
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you're talking about, you know, cordoning off a whole area of Iran, and having Americans there
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making sure that nobody's launching any drones. I mean, how far can the Iranian missiles go if
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they're launched from the east of Iran? This has been another big problem for Israel in the
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United States. The Iranians seem to have more long-range missiles that they can, well, I'm
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probably misspeaking. I don't think they're technically called long-range, but they can get from
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the eastern side of the country over to the state of Hormuz, and even to Israel, and the eastern
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side of the country is much, much harder for the Americans and the Israelis to blow shit up in
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because they have to fly over so much of Iran to get over there in the first place.
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So there's that military problem, and then there's just the technical problem of,
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have you looked at a map at how close the Gulf states are to Iran? I mean, let me tell you,
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I was in the Emirates last year, year before last. I was at this lovely little resort. It wasn't
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fancy, it was cheap, but it was delightful, and it was on the coast of the UAE that faces Iran. I mean,
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it all sort of faces Iran, but the sort of south-east coast on the opposite side of from where
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Dubai is. You're sitting there on the beach and you're looking at Iran, and there's just a
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straight-of-water, and I guess it was probably the straight-of-Hormuz, and you're looking at Iran,
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and it's just there. You can see land, and you can make out buildings and stuff, and that's
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just Iran. You don't need a very sophisticated rocket or drone swarm to be able to inflict incredible
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damage there, and Iran has a lot of cards up its sleeve. They could be taking out the oil and gas
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and refineries in those places. They could be taking out their power. How many missiles would you
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need going through the windows of five-star resorts in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Doha, and Bahrain before
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you completely decimated their tourist industries and decimated their airlines, which are massive
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money spinners for them, because so many people from Asia and Australia fly through those places as
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hubs to get to Europe and elsewhere. The number of things that Iran could be doing, but is not,
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puts a lie to Trump's bluster, and his claim that he can do whatever he wants and demolish them.
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I mean, the reality is, the JD Vance came out yesterday, the Vice President, and said,
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there are all kinds of things that the President has in his back pocket that he's not using,
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so the Iranians shouldn't taunt us, and they shouldn't think that we're not going to use them.
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We've got a lot of tools in our toolkit that we're not pulling out, and some people
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thought that he might be talking about the new Americans, nuclear arsenal, so they quickly have
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to come out and say, we won't say that we're going to nuke Tehran. But the same is true in the
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opposite direction. In fact, it's more true for Iran. There are all kinds of things that they can
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do that they're not doing. They have highly sophisticated terrorist networks. They have poured
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billions of dollars over the years into creating relationships with groups that ferment
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violence in other countries. Their capacity to pull off an act of mega terrorism in the United
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States or the UK or Australia or wherever else is unknown, but it's certainly not zero,
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and their ability to flatten Dubai and Abu Dhabi and Doha is quite high, and it's absolutely
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100% certain that they can inflict enough damage to destroy all of the petrochemical industries
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and destroy the tourism industries for decades. So in that context, along comes Taco
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three days ago and says, remember when I gave Iran 10 days to make a deal or open up the
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Hormuz straight, time is running out, 48 hours before all hell will rain down on them. Glory be to
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God, exclamation mark, President Donald J Trump. Mr. President, yeah, we do remember when you gave
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Iran 10 days. We remember when you gave Iran two days, and then we remember when you gave them
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an extra five days. Then we remember when you gave them an extra two days, and then we remember
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when you just didn't do anything at the end of those two days either. We remember you chickening
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out the first time, the second time, the third time, and the fourth time. So you might not want to be
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the one who's reminding us of all the times that you've chickened out. And may I say, God bless
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him for chickening out. Great. That's what you do. You're a real estate negotiator, you're a wheeladilla,
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you're a hustler, you're like, okay, you got to do this thing by the end of the day. Otherwise,
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you're fired. And then the person doesn't do it, but you actually can't fire them. Otherwise,
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you know, they're just going to kidnap your family and blow up your house. So you go, all right,
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well, here's another deadline. Here's another deadline. Here's another deadline. But today, it seemed
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like he was getting serious. You know, he was getting to a point at which even our dear brother,
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Prime Minister Sharif of Pakistan, was getting nervous. The crazy man might just do some crazy.
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This is the madman theory of international politics, you know, just make it, make it most likely
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that you're going to chicken out, but make it a little bit plausible that you also won't,
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that you'll commit horrendous war crimes, like, you know, taking out the power and then all of the
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hospitals in Iran, everybody dies. So as you will, no doubt be aware by now, because it's been all
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over the news. This morning, Trump tweeted, a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be
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brought back again. If the praise be to Allah, tweet of four days ago was a way of fermenting a
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religious war and creating a lack of clarity in the minds of Iranians and other Muslim states
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in the Middle East about what his motivations really were. This certainly doesn't help in
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clarifying that his gripe is with the Iranian regime and not with its people to say that a
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whole civilization will die. I thought we were supposed to be on the side of the Persians in this.
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A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don't want that to happen,
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but it probably will. However, now that we have capital C complete and capital T total, capital R regime,
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capital C change, complete and total regime change, we're different smarter and less radicalised
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minds prevail. Maybe something revolutionary, wonderful can happen, comma, who knows in
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capitals. So you probably didn't hear the whole entirety of this tweet. You probably heard that he
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had said the whole civilization will die tonight, but it's actually a cannier post than I thought
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until I actually read the whole thing. So he's flattering the new Iranian leadership,
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because he knows that he loves nothing more than to be flattered and so he assumes that they're
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equally facile and to be honest, they probably are. So he said, however, now that we have complete
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and total regime change, which is also excellent, because I was under the impression that everything
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remained exactly the same with the exception of the individuals who were killed, but the new
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individuals who've replaced them are precisely the same ideologically control exactly the same
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livers of power in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and have exactly the same attitude towards
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the emisoration of their own people and their antagonism towards Jews and Americans. But Donald
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Trump says it's a complete and total regime change with different smarter and less radicalized minds.
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In fact, I used to true that the leader is in some way loosely related to the slain leader, might
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be his son, son, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. Son, literally the son, literally the son
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of the guy, but complete and total regime change. Same name, same name, same bloodline,
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same family, literally same nuclear family, but complete and total regime change, different
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smarter, less radicalized minds will prevail. Maybe something revolutionary, wonderful can happen.
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I love revolutionarily. That's great. Nice.
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Adjectival use of revolutionary revolution, revolutionary, wonderful can happen. Who knows?
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Then Trump goes on in this same social post that you may not have read all of. We will find out
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tonight. One of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the world with a
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capital W. He's a shaman. You got to grant him that. We will find out tonight. A brief aside.
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In fact, I'm going to enjoy a sip of coffee because it's one of those mornings while we
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and by the way, if you at home are watching live and you'd like to enjoy a delicious
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invigorating beverage, I strongly encourage you to do so. A little aside, we've been watching
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Survivor. Now, Australian Survivor, if you're a survivor of aficionado, this will come as no surprise.
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If you don't know Survivor, you may be interested to learn that Survivor is not a game about surviving
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in the wilderness. It is a psychological strategy game about coalition building and backstabbing,
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and it's absolutely fascinating if you have never gotten into it because you just thought that it's
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a whole bunch of people who are going through competitions in the wilderness or something or that it's
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like a loan or something like that. Also, a good show. Very different. So, Survivor is coming up to
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its final week in Australia and many survivor aficionados the world over regard, the Australian
22:19
version of Survivor as the world's best. It has really improved upon the American one which has
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become somewhat more full of bombast and more, I don't want to say, pontificating characters,
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but characters who are playing to archetypes in the show and who are very self-conscious about
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the role that they're playing and they're like, I didn't come here to make friends that kind of
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attitude. Whereas in Australia, there's a much more understated and sinister layer of strategic
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play and it's going up to next week is the final week finale. Everyone's going gangbusters about
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it. I'm going gangbusters. My partner's going gangbusters. My daughter's going big gangbusters.
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My son's going gangbusters. He doesn't understand what's going on but he follows along because we get
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excited. And this is pure Mark Burnett, you know, gold, the executive producer of the apprentice.
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This is what Donald Trump learned from the showmanship of a reality television when he was a reality
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TV host. He literally writes in his tweet, this is his form, this is his diplomacy, this is geopolitics
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being done survivor style. We will find out tonight one of the most important moments in the long
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and complex history of the world. It almost needs like he should start doing social posts which
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have a previously on the history of the world and it gives you a recap as to what you might have
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missed. That's basically what I'm doing here right going back to oh let's look at all the
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times that Taco blew through his previous deadlines. Will this one hold tune in tonight tune in tonight
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right after the late news to find out whether or not Donald Trump goes crazy and a civilization will
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die will a civilization die or will Taco blink again. He signs off the social media post saying 47
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years of extortion corruption and death will finally end. And then after saying that a whole
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civilization will die tonight never to be brought back again and saying that 47 years meaning that's
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47 years since the Iranian Revolution of extortion corruption and death will finally end meaning that
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he's going to put an end to the Iranian regime tonight. Then he says God bless the great people
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of Iran, exclamation mark. I mean it's fine as a sign off it's better than saying fuck you people
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of Iran but slightly dissonant in tone with the rest of the post. So the post in this entirety a
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whole civilization will die tonight never to be brought back again. I don't want that to happen
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but it probably will. However now that we have complete and total regime change we're different
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smarter and less radicalized minds prevail maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen
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who knows we will find out tonight one of the most important moments in the long and complex
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history of the world 47 years of extortion corruption and death will finally end God bless the great
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people of Iran. I mean no wonder the guy sold steak knives you know he's a he's good he is good
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so I was holding my breath going okay what's going to happen now and I assumed he was going to
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just back down again because I'm sure that when he goes to say all right let's blow up let's
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let's make the civilization die the chairman of the joint chiefs and Marco Rubio and even maybe
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Pete Higgseth and if not Pete Higgseth then someone smarter than Pete Higgseth underneath Pete Higgseth
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Higgseth go right so when when you do that then the straights definitely aren't going to open
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and skyscrapers in Dubai come tumbling down and you know you pretty golf courses in Abu Dhabi
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a set of blaze and all the oil and gas refineries in the golf states explode and there's nothing
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that you or BB can do about that so then gas prices are six or seven or eight dollars and there's
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no way to get them back down because the region just doesn't have the capacity to ramp back up
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so he was going to blink one way or another luckily praise be to the brothers of my brothers my
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Muslim brothers bros my brunner bro is a bit diminutive isn't that my brothers in Pakistan
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because they brokered a deal and the latest post from Donald Trump remember when the
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White House used to issue press releases that was that was good wasn't it now it's just social
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media posted directly from the president's phone based on conversations this is the president by
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the way he signs that president Donald J Trump oil capitals in case you don't know even though
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has his face covered in an American flag at the top uh it's from Donald J Trump based on
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conversations with prime minister sheba Sharif and field marshal us in manure of Pakistan
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and wherein they requested wherein did he write this did he write did the guy who wrote the
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fucking we're gonna bomb the fuck out of you open the fucking straight right wherein
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I think I think well marker had something to do with wherein and wherein they requested that I
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hold off the destructive force being sent tonight to Iran and subject to the Islamic Republic
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of Iran agreeing to the complete immediate and safe opening of the state of hormones I agreed
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to suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two weeks this will be a double-sided
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ceasefire exclamation mark the reason for doing so is that we've already met and exceeded
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all military objectives they've met and exceeded all military objectives
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I'm just trying to remember what the military objectives were they were a bit fuzzy but I think
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they were support the Iranian people in rate rising up against the regime and get rid of the
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Islamic Republic replace it with some more moderate or pliable uh government hasn't happened
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um obliterate uh Iran's missile capabilities uh hasn't happened uh for reasons we can go into
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in fact we can go into those reasons now because I thought they were quite fascinating so in the
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economist I believe it may have been the New York Times I was surfing around this morning and I
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just copied this my apologies to both publications or both of them are fine um interesting uh anecdote
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about Iran's missile program so in the mid-1980s Iraq's Iraq so we're we know Iran Iraq they went
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to war in the 80s horrendous war um Saddam Hussein is to blame but obviously Iran uh suffered
29:14
hugely as did Iraq Iraq was getting these guard missiles from the Soviets this was the dying days
29:21
of the Soviet Union they were uh in a quagmire in Afghanistan they were backing Iraq um
29:27
and Saddam Hussein they had these scud missiles the Iraq had scud missiles from the Soviets and they
29:33
were pounding Iranian cities and so the Iranians in the mid-1980s were like we're gonna get ourselves
29:38
some of that stuff and we're gonna get some of Saddam's stuff and so for the past 40 years they
29:44
have invested billions and billions and billions of dollars in developing and manufacturing and a
29:51
ray of missiles of increasing ranges a fleet of launches and a subterranean network of missile
29:59
warehouses and also in supplying missiles and expertise about producing them to the militias
30:05
that Iran sponsors throughout the region can you hear my voice going a little bit quirky I'm gonna
30:10
enjoy another delicious beverage because we've already recorded an episode of the show this morning
30:17
for later release um obviously old zepsis a little parched so I thought that was interesting
30:28
in terms of the fact that for 40 years they've been investing all of this money in developing and
30:33
manufacturing their missiles of different ranges the Israelis and the Americans have not been as
30:39
successful as they thought they were in taking out the missile capability because they've got the
30:43
the Iranians apparently have these launches and they have this whole subterranean network
30:48
gee they love digging don't they don't these don't jihadists just love a good dig
30:54
whether it's Hamas in Gaza or the Iranians they're like just put that shit underground baby
31:02
where the Israelis can't see it and they're not gonna want to you know they're not gonna want
31:08
flooded or you know put a bunker buster on it because they care about our civilians more than we do
31:15
at least in the case of Gaza so they put all this stuff underground they've got these huge
31:19
missile warehouses and the Americans and the Israelis they bombed all of this stuff in the very
31:27
first days of the war and they they thought well we're not gonna be able to actually demolish the
31:31
underground networks of tunnels and warehouses but at least we can blow up the entry points and they're
31:36
not gonna be able to get the stuff out because they're gonna be it's gonna be it would take
31:40
them six months to dig all this stuff out well well huh it turns out that if you're very very very
31:48
very good at digging gigantic tunnels and warehouses you're also very good at clearing out debris
31:55
for those blocking the front the the the door to your subterranean network and Iran has been really
32:03
good at quickly getting back into those underground warehouses and getting the stuff out now as for
32:09
the the launches that got tons of these launches far more than the Israelis and the Americans thought
32:16
that can and they can just drive around and they look like trucks they look like vans so they're
32:21
disguised apparently as civilian vehicles it could just be a lot a white van you know the white
32:26
van man who's just driving around the road recklessly and you wave your fist out and when he cuts
32:30
you off in traffic basically that could be an Iranian missile guy white van man carrying around
32:37
a launcher and then you just have to bring the missile up and then launcher goes now when the
32:42
launcher launches it releases a flash of light and then surveillance aircraft and satellites are
32:47
able to spot that and incomes you're incoming missile from Israel or from the United States
32:53
from a ship or from a jet and it takes it out but it's been cloudy in Iran and you know what you
33:00
can't see through the cloud and so apparently they've been launching they've been bringing out all
33:05
these fleets of missile launches when it's cloudy and then they fire them off they just sent
33:12
a volley at Israel yesterday or day before was it was on the Sabbath it was on like you know
33:19
everyone's sitting down and having a break in their holy bread and they sent in a whole volley
33:24
of missiles and I think Israel blew up all but two of them in the air nonetheless not fun to have
33:32
them raining down on your on your cities and then they can just they can secret away the little
33:39
launches disguised as normal vans and they can put them back in the mountain and then bring them
33:44
out again and they can do this in as I said the east of the country so it's hard to get to you have
33:49
to fly over the whole rest of Iran to be able to get to them and by the time you're there they've
33:52
moved on and they've gone so Iran has greater capabilities than they thought so going through the
33:58
military objectives that Donald Trump claims to have achieved hasn't gotten rid of the regime
34:03
although it is a completely different regime as he said complete and total regime change with
34:07
different smarter and less radicalized minds so something revolutionary wonderful obviously is
34:13
happening has halved the missile capability but you would really want to have gotten it down to
34:19
you know a shadow of its former self 5% 10% not 50% with no real wave getting it down less the
34:28
nuclear problem still exists because they've still got this enriched uranium which is either
34:34
under the ground where the Israelis and the Americans bombed it last northern summer
34:41
and which will be retrieved because as we've just learned the Iranians are good at
34:44
clearing the rubble and debris in order to get back into underground places or what is equally
34:50
likely according to fissile experts atomic energy experts is that the Iranians have a bunch of it
34:57
and they've hidden it all around the country and we don't know where it is even Mossad the Israeli
35:02
intelligence probably doesn't know where it is otherwise they would have taken it out and we don't
35:07
know that they have so they've still got fissile material and they still got the ability to ramp up
35:13
their nuclear program once all of this ends they don't have the centrifuges and they don't have a
35:21
lot of the top nuclear scientists but they have a lot of the people who were working for the top
35:25
nuclear scientists and they have the internet and they once you've got the fissile stuff then the
35:32
rest is all just mechanical engineering so are they going to be less likely to race for a bomb I
35:38
mean would any of this happen if they had had a nuclear deterrent of course that's why we're not
35:42
talking about invading North Korea so the lesson from this would surely be don't give up on your
35:49
nuclear ambitions even when you do have a seemingly friendly administration in the United States
35:56
like Barack Obama who's willing to you know work with you and be in dialogue in order to postpone
36:03
your nuclear aspirations America can't be relied on not to turn around and rip up that agreement
36:08
the next time a new president comes into into office so certainly my lesson my lesson if I were
36:16
an Iranian fearcratic g-hardest leader of the Islamic Republic and I'm not saying I am I'm not
36:25
saying I am but if I were and that's you know clever people will disagree about whether I am
36:34
I would say as soon as this is over go as fast as you can for a bomb because it makes no
36:39
difference whether you do or you don't I mean they're gonna they've just come out they've just come
36:42
for you they're not gonna come again these rail use might try but just go for it and put it
36:48
somewhere as far away as as you possibly can in the eastern mountains or whatever are they
36:53
mountains in the east of Iran they'd have to be central Asia it's hilly so he hasn't gotten rid
37:01
of the new he hasn't he hasn't gotten rid of the nuclear program he certainly set it back whether
37:05
that's by six months 12 months 18 months it's certainly not by five years hasn't obliterated the
37:12
missiles hasn't changed the regime and certainly hasn't made Iran less likely to be a regional threat
37:24
so yeah has gotten rid of long range ballistic missile capabilities if they had any or
37:31
certainly set that back significantly so but the likelihood of Iran being able to deliver a
37:37
nuclear warhead on an intercontinental ballistic missile to the United States was very very very very
37:43
very distant so coming back to John Donald Trump's announcement the reason for doing so the reason
37:51
for the ceasefire that is is that we have already met and exceeded all military objectives and are
37:57
very far along with a definitive agreement capital A concerning long term capital L peace all
38:03
capitals all capitals on peace with Iran and peace in the Middle East we received a 10 point proposal
38:09
from Iran and believe it's a workable basis on which to negotiate I think that was just their
38:15
counteroffer to the 15 I mean he sent them 15 points and I think they scribbled out five and then
38:22
were just like facts this back to him I think don't quote me on that it may not have been a facts
38:30
we received a 10 point proposal from Iran but see he's making it sound like they were the ones
38:34
who buckled when in actual fact he was the one who sent them a proposal and believe it's a
38:38
workable basis on which to negotiate almost all of the various points of past contention have
38:42
been agreed to between the United States and Iran but a two week period will allow the agreement
38:46
to be finalized and consumated on behalf of the United States of America as president and also
38:52
representing the countries of the Middle East it is an honor to have this long term problem close
38:57
to resolution thank you for your attention to this matter exclamation mark president Donald
39:01
Jay Trump so taco three cheers for taco to people who were you know skeptical about this
39:17
strategy I will just say sometimes bullshit bluster has a place and sometimes it can achieve
39:31
something and we're very glad that it has achieved something here and we're very glad that his
39:40
bluff wasn't called ultimately even though it was two weeks ago and then two days after that
39:46
and then five days after that and then two days after that and so on and so forth
39:50
um escalation is sometimes a good policy if the worry is that this sets a new norm for American
40:00
diplomacy uh i lost that worry once he started talking about opening the fucking straight
40:08
indeed i lost many of my worries about the Trump administration's enduring impact on
40:15
American politics in the past two weeks if you want some heartening news from old zepsy i think
40:25
it is now undeniable that trumpism is toast that this is the beginning of the end of Donald Trump
40:34
as a political phenomenon in American national life because the worry has been that this normalization
40:43
of crudeness and this sort of desecration of American nobility will carry on to subsequent
40:51
administrations and there's no doubt that it will in some sense it you know what has been
40:55
contaminated cannot be uncontaminated and we're not going to have the sunny innocent optimism
41:01
of JFK and jackeo ever again but his conduct over the course of the Iran war has become so
41:11
unseemly so unhinged so torridory so unbecoming so of a peace with a very suy generous
41:23
new york gold plated real estate mogul and so inconsistent with the vision of America that
41:30
americans themselves overwhelmingly share that it's now i think much more likely than not
41:38
than he will be regarded as an extraordinary blip in the long history of the united states
41:47
rather than the beginning of a long era of trumpism as some may have feared once his power to
41:57
make or break political careers wanes and that is already beginning and certainly after the midterms
42:03
if he gets a shellacking it will be much much less you know his threats on truth social not to vote
42:11
for this candidate or that candidate will not carry the same weight after november of this year
42:17
he will be a lame duck his base will still care enormously there'll still be 20 percent of the
42:22
population 30 percent of the population who will follow his decrees but you cannot make a viable
42:28
political coalition out of 20 percent of the population a man who is tweeting about how a whole
42:35
civilization will die and is conducting foreign policy by saying open the fucking straight you crazy
42:42
bastards or you'll be living in hell that that is not that is so not normal and that is so inconsistent
42:52
with the sort of fairly patrician piety of middle america um certainly of the tenor of the deep
43:00
south certainly of the aspirations of the intelligentsia on the coasts that as soon as a viable
43:08
alternative comes along whether that's from the democratic party or the republican party i think
43:14
there will be an embrace of a turning away from that kind of crudeness and bombast so if anything
43:23
came out of the last two weeks of the around conflict i think it is Donald Trump's epitaph
43:31
however that doesn't change the fact that fuel prices are still very high that fertilizer
43:35
prices are shockingly high that that's going to have flow on effects to the entire economy that
43:40
because of the economy over heating interest rates going up certainly in Australia i'm already
43:44
paying hundreds of hundreds of dollars a month more on my mortgage than i was unfortunately unlike
43:48
in the united states where you'd lock in a mortgage for decades at the point of purchase in
43:53
Australia everybody has uh floating uh mortgages that that react instantly to rate rises for the
44:00
majority of the life of their loan so it really starts pinching and it really starts hurting and
44:04
there is not going to be a huge appetite for this to continue very much longer which means that at
44:09
the end of this two-week ceasefire Trump's going to have to pull a rabbit out of his ass and figure
44:14
out what he is willing to tolerate and not tolerate uh moving forward in terms of Iran that maybe
44:21
somewhat constrained by Israel's actions i mean i think one of the great under recognized stories
44:27
at the moment unfortunately is the situation in Lebanon where uh the Netanyahu government uh which
44:35
never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity to just allow its enemies to flounder like
44:43
it's so this so strategically misguided it blows my mind there was a great cover of the economist uh
44:50
which had uh uh which was about what China is gaining from the war in Iran and it had a photo
44:58
of Xi Jinping looking quite smug in the background and in the foreground out of focus was Trump screaming
45:06
with like a bloviating yellow face it seemed to be an actual photo um uh drawing it below maybe an AI
45:15
and uh the caption was uh never interrupt your enemy when he's making a mistake
45:21
and that's so true of China being quiet right now just let America flounder and it should have
45:31
been true of the Israeli position towards Hesbola where Iran you know is an absolute basket case
45:41
at the moment has much more important things to think about than holding Hesbola together which is
45:45
essentially a paramilitary wing of the Iranian state they are based in southern Lebanon
45:51
they are very hostile towards Israel it is untenable for Israeli towns to be under constant
45:57
threat from uh rocket bombardment from Hesbola but it is equally untenable for Lebanese towns to be
46:03
under constant threat of bombardment from Israeli rockets and of course it is untenable for people
46:08
on the west bank to be treated the way they are and for people in Gaza to be treated the way they are
46:13
so morality in these situations is complicated and the strategic thing for the Israeli government to
46:17
do regarding Hesbola would have been to encourage western countries to coordinate uh a sort of
46:24
multilateral support for the Lebanese government um in isolating a Hesbola there was a real
46:31
opportunity while Iran is weak to get the various anti-Hesbola coalitions in Lebanon together
46:37
and to formally exclude Hesbola from the Lebanese body politic i mean no one has suffered more
46:43
from Hesbola than Lebanese people my heart goes out to Lebanon this great vibrant exciting place
46:49
i mean i've been to Lebanon i've made friends in Lebanon some of them were even jihadists some of
46:55
them were even uh Hesbola had Hesbola family members um you know these are again an amazing
47:03
and vibrant and ancient and great and educated civilization who deserve better than to be ripped apart
47:10
by this Iranian proxy force and Israel's response to it so there was a real case to be made
47:16
for trying to find a peaceful way to finally exclude Hesbola from Lebanese uh society politics
47:24
and culture and all that Israel had to do was to shut up up and not give Lebanese people a reason
47:32
to rally around Hesbola in southern Lebanon and of course Netanyahu cannot take a win without
47:39
it being a bombastic showy win for himself so instead they have invaded southern Lebanon
47:46
we're not paying attention to it because we're so distracted by Iran and fuel prices and so on
47:50
but it really is a calamity for people in southern Lebanon and it is i think a calamity to the long
47:55
term strategic interests of Israel and uh certainly for Jews around the world as well who always
48:01
get tarnished with the misdeeds of Israel um because that's just going to flare up and create
48:08
solidarity amongst uh you know people in southern Lebanon for Hesbola it's going to strengthen
48:14
the spine of Hesbola in fact Hesbola originated as a resistance against the against Israel's invasion
48:20
of southern Lebanon in the early 1980s um and then became this perverted awful jihadist sect with
48:28
the support of Iran but uh you know you only have to look at the history of backlashes and you
48:34
look at the uh american intelligences support for the Mujahideen in Afghanistan in order to attack
48:43
it would make life difficult for the Soviet Union and how that then became the Taliban and then
48:49
that became 9-11 and then you go back in after 9-11 and you also go into Iraq and all of a sudden
48:58
what you thought was bad in al-Qaeda becomes even worse in the form of ISIS as a blowback against
49:04
the your actions in Iraq you know everything has consequences and if you go stomping around smashing
49:11
people in the face don't be surprised if things don't go perfectly in terms of what their children
49:17
and grandchildren want to do to you so i would be focusing more on Lebanon at the moment um i would
49:23
also be focusing on i mean i think it is collateral damage of this whole conflict in the
49:29
Middle East the other collateral damage is NATO which functionally i think no longer exists
49:34
um the other collateral damage is western european democracies who are going to have to find a
49:39
way to spend a lot more money on defense uh which means that they're going to have to spend less
49:43
money on social services which means that it's going to be harder for them to stay in power and
49:48
to have their populations cop to uh accepting low fewer government handouts in order to bolster
49:54
their armaments more and that will probably give rise to more popularity for far right parties
50:00
which say why do we have to be that you know doing all of this kind of pro-western pro-European
50:06
nonsense we could just cozy up to Putin uh befriend China be transactional in our relationships
50:13
you know downplay the EU and treat it as every man for himself not a pretty world to live in but
50:20
it is a it is a world that trump and the forces that brought him to power have brought um
50:28
Iran's an interesting situation because the paranoia that the Iranian regime has always had
50:33
when we're talking about them stockpiling missiles ever since the 1980s is that you know it doesn't
50:37
really matter what they do they have to make sure that they can defend themselves against the
50:42
United States and Israel because America and Israel fundamentally want to attack them regardless
50:47
because of just for who they are and in one way you can say that silly and paranoid in another way
50:55
you can say it's true and it may not even be the wrong position to sound like a terrible
51:05
hawker but it may not even be the wrong but if you have a government that is truly and genuinely
51:12
committed to a jihadist ideological uh islamist fearcratic reading of the world where they will hunt
51:23
down every Jew behind every stone and put a bullet in his head and drag him through town and
51:29
they will go out and they will destroy and blow up as many Americans as possible wherever they
51:34
can be found in the world and where the west is just intrinsically inimical to them when like
51:40
this town ain't big enough for the two of us as far as the uh the fearcrats who run Iran are concerned
51:46
then they do have reason to suspect that we might not want a world in which they exist
51:52
like that does come a point at which after you keep saying death to America death to
51:57
Israel death to America death to Israel over and over and over again and you prove through
52:01
words and deeds that you are trying as hard as you can to get a nuclear capability
52:08
you know maybe it isn't the craziest thing in the world just that the world is like you know what
52:12
jihadists don't get nukes that's just a bottom line jihadists don't get nukes jihadists don't
52:18
even really get countries they shouldn't at least to the to our greatest to the greatest extent
52:22
that we possibly can we should not have half of the population being forced to cover their hair
52:29
because there are sexist homophobic misogynistic fearcratic arseholes with gums and revolutionary
52:36
guard henchmen and goons jailing everybody for having different political beliefs and uh you know
52:44
so that to some extent Iran has a right to be paranoid um uh a few comments uh on the coming
52:52
through on the on the sub stack um uh Tony says uh he did start this war he did arrest Maduro but
53:01
he doesn't typically follow through his craziest threats uh yes that's right marks as the emperor
53:07
has no clothes Iran has had 47 years to prepare for this war um yes also true can we just wrap
53:13
with uh the moon are we happy about the moon are we happy with the Artemis if I hear one more
53:18
person say why do we if you go back to the moon i thought we already went to the moon
53:21
half a century ago we don't know you wanted to send people back there it's very expensive there
53:25
were people here who need things can't we sort out of problems and printed it from she really
53:30
should you big you again in the year i'm gonna slap you in the face i'm gonna send you off to
53:36
survivor make your wrestler crocodile uh it's it's part of the human endeavor part of the optimism
53:45
of the human experiment is going out and finding stuff and we haven't been doing enough of it
53:51
and now we've been sailing around further than any people have ever been into into planetary into
53:56
stellar space through the black holes and the wormholes uh or something like that and then they
54:02
popped out the other side and now the astronauts are heading back to earth when they arrive back here
54:08
they're gonna be like a hundred years older than when they left because they went through a time portal
54:12
and a rupture in the space time continuum i haven't been across the details but it's something like
54:16
that and they took these incredible photos of the far side of the moon it's never been seen before
54:22
well the original Apollo astronauts like glanced out of the little port hole but it was dark and
54:27
so they couldn't see anything but they've done it when it's bright the sun's shining on the far
54:32
side of the moon nobody's ever witnessed it they got the 4k cameras it's it's glorious so just
54:37
give us that and let us remember that human beings are still capable of great things
54:45
on that happy note i will leave you humans are capable of great things uh fuel prices suck but
54:51
they will come down as long as this ceasefire holds trump always chickens out and thank god for that
54:57
and trumpism is toast uh hope you have a lovely day i'll see you next time