Latest / Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar / 7/15/26: Iran Hits US Bases, Robert Pape On Ground Invasion, Trump Praises ICE

Transcript

7/15/26: Iran Hits US Bases, Robert Pape On Ground Invasion, Trump Praises ICE · Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

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Speaker 1: Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here.
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Speaker 4: All right, good morning, and welcome to Breaking Points. Emily
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Speaker 4: it's just going to tell them, you know what was
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Speaker 4: in the show and then they can find that, you know,
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Speaker 4: wherever they want. But Emily, thank you for joining us
1:04
Speaker 4: from the road. I know you'll be able to be
1:06
Speaker 4: here for a segment or two and you know looking
1:12
Speaker 4: forward to us a safe trip back.
1:14
Speaker 5: Yes, no, I appreciate you guys like this.
1:16
Speaker 6: Is one of the things I love about the team
1:17
Speaker 6: is I had to get home for a family thing
1:20
Speaker 6: pretty quickly, and it's just amazing you guys pick up
1:22
Speaker 6: so much of the slack. So I'm really grateful, happy
1:25
Speaker 6: to be joining from the Milwaukee Airport today and we've
1:28
Speaker 6: got a big show. Actually strikes launched, Military strikes, skins
1:32
Speaker 6: run launched just in the hours before we began recording this.
1:36
Speaker 6: So we're going to break down updates from Iran, and
1:39
Speaker 6: we have much more to get to Brian as well.
1:40
Speaker 6: You have a huge slate of guests lined up, So
1:43
Speaker 6: Robert Pepe is going to be here, going to cover
1:45
Speaker 6: that Ice shooting.
1:46
Speaker 5: There's so much to get to this point.
1:48
Speaker 4: Yeah, Wandavid Rojas will be here to talk about you
1:51
Speaker 4: know who the who the man was who was shot
1:55
Speaker 4: by Ice agents in Maine. Another Mexican man was shot
1:59
Speaker 4: in not shot, was hit by a truck in Florida
2:03
Speaker 4: after an encounter with ice. Emily will stick around with
2:07
Speaker 4: us to talk about the New York ban on data centers,
2:12
Speaker 4: or at least a moratorium on data centers. We're going
2:15
Speaker 4: to also talk about an interview we did yesterday on
2:18
Speaker 4: drop Site with Rocanna where he and Jeremy Skahill went
2:22
Speaker 4: back on the legitimacy of armed resistance, as well as
2:27
Speaker 4: whether or not there should be a full arms embargo
2:30
Speaker 4: on Israel. Will also have news in that Julian andrew
2:33
Speaker 4: And from drop Site News interviewed AOC about whether or
2:38
Speaker 4: not she supports an arms in Bargo and she said,
2:40
Speaker 4: in fact, yes she does. At the back end of
2:43
Speaker 4: the show, will be joined by Donovan McKinney, who's a
2:45
Speaker 4: DSA and Justice Democrats backed candidate running in Detroit who
2:51
Speaker 4: is very likely to oust an incumbent in early August,
2:55
Speaker 4: so you're gonna want to stick around for that. We'll
2:57
Speaker 4: also ask him about the abdulh Side Hailly Even's race
3:00
Speaker 4: Will Lawrence race, which is getting hot in Michigan as well.
3:03
Speaker 4: Wanted to start with some I guess we're going.
3:07
Speaker 7: To call it good news. It what led up to.
3:10
Speaker 4: It is not good news, but the event this morning
3:14
Speaker 4: is in fact great news. Muja Had al Sadi, very
3:18
Speaker 4: well respected, well regarded veteran journalists in the West Bank,
3:21
Speaker 4: who's written for drop site as well, was finally released
3:25
Speaker 4: after nearly two years, and we put up a seven
3:27
Speaker 4: of administrative detention in Israeli custody. In other words, no
3:32
Speaker 4: charges whatsoever wherever filed against mujahead he last he last
3:39
Speaker 4: wrote for a drop site in September of twenty twenty four.
3:44
Speaker 4: Here here he is being reunited with his with his
3:48
Speaker 4: father again. There are thousands of Palestinians, many many journalists,
3:53
Speaker 4: and here here he is meeting his family on the
3:55
Speaker 4: road after being dropped dropped off. Who has who are
4:00
Speaker 4: able under the Israelis the Israeli, let's call it law,
4:05
Speaker 4: to be able to be kept in prison for six
4:07
Speaker 4: months on what they call administrative detention, meaning zero charges,
4:11
Speaker 4: no right to challenge your detention, and then every six
4:13
Speaker 4: months they can just reop it. We had been petitioning
4:17
Speaker 4: for his release for nearly two years now and we're
4:21
Speaker 4: deeply glad for him and his family that he's that
4:23
Speaker 4: he's released and looking forward to seeing him get back
4:26
Speaker 4: to the the business of journalism, Emily, He's being released
4:31
Speaker 4: into the reignition of the war between between the United States, Israel,
4:39
Speaker 4: and Iran. We could not get anywhere near through all
4:43
Speaker 4: of the period of the memorandum understanding without it unraveling.
4:47
Speaker 4: We can put up a zero here sentcom announcing a
4:52
Speaker 4: new a new wave of strikes. At six six am
4:55
Speaker 4: Eastern today, sen Commonalth forces began launching a wave of
5:00
Speaker 4: strikes against Iran. The strikes are designed to further degrade
5:03
Speaker 4: military capability capabilities Iranian forces have used to attack commercial
5:08
Speaker 4: shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. Now the targets so
5:12
Speaker 4: far for the United States have included a barracks that
5:18
Speaker 4: would the Iranian Armies three hundred and eighty eighth Brigade
5:21
Speaker 4: in Bombpor. So this is a This was a dormitory
5:25
Speaker 4: that was housing conscripts that the United States struck overnight,
5:29
Speaker 4: resulting in what appears to be a mass casually event. Now, clearly,
5:36
Speaker 4: if you're conscripted into the military, you are a military
5:39
Speaker 4: asset and a military target. But it's just it's just
5:44
Speaker 4: not remotely obvious, like how there's a kind of military
5:49
Speaker 4: benefit to striking a dormitory filled with conscripts in any event,
5:55
Speaker 4: that's that's what they did.
5:58
Speaker 6: Let's and sitcoms explanation as people just saw on their
6:01
Speaker 6: screen is that this was being used to degrade or
6:04
Speaker 6: it was being used straight up for moves wise, was
6:08
Speaker 6: being used to degrade capacities that were used in the right.
6:12
Speaker 4: They're claiming everything, Yeah, they're claiming everything they're hitting is
6:15
Speaker 4: related somehow to Iron's ability to control the straight although,
6:19
Speaker 4: of course, as long as you have a few land
6:21
Speaker 4: mines and a few drones left, you can control the
6:23
Speaker 4: straight up from moves.
6:24
Speaker 7: So I don't quite know how hitting this dorm, but
6:26
Speaker 7: you can go ahead.
6:27
Speaker 6: Well, I was gonna say more news on that front.
6:28
Speaker 6: We'll get to Trump's toll comments from yesterday in just
6:31
Speaker 6: a second. I do want to just take a moment.
6:33
Speaker 6: I mean, military spent dot org is a great website.
6:35
Speaker 6: They have the total death count in this war right now,
6:39
Speaker 6: so that's across all of the different countries. So this
6:43
Speaker 6: includes combined confirmed and estimated deaths across the US, Iranian military,
6:48
Speaker 6: Iranian and Israeli civilians that it needs civilians has built
6:51
Speaker 6: of fighters in Gulf State casualties right now. This is
6:54
Speaker 6: eight thousand, nine hundred and sixty six on the low
6:56
Speaker 6: end and eighteen thousand, three hundred on the high end.
7:00
Speaker 6: So in the United States we've had fourteen to sixteen
7:04
Speaker 6: deaths across the region. This dethil is much higher than
7:09
Speaker 6: I think we've even discussed here in the US.
7:12
Speaker 7: I think that's a good point.
7:13
Speaker 4: And also I think even though the US has not
7:17
Speaker 4: achieved it's kind of military objectives, like the level of
7:20
Speaker 4: destruction that has been rained down upon Iran is, you know,
7:24
Speaker 4: should not be underestimated. Some new grain sites were hit
7:29
Speaker 4: overnight by the United States inside Iran. We also hit
7:32
Speaker 4: a kind of mineral water processing facility, so you know,
7:36
Speaker 4: we're going after the you know, the very basics of
7:40
Speaker 4: life there. And that's, of course, after the Israelis have
7:43
Speaker 4: boasted about having destroyed, you know, every village that they
7:46
Speaker 4: could reach in southern Lebanon. But let's listen to a
7:49
Speaker 4: little bit of Trump explaining is rationale here.
7:52
Speaker 7: It's a two with the plants, with everything else.
7:55
Speaker 8: And we would like to invest tremendously in the United
7:58
Speaker 8: States as opposed to charging a fee. And I like
8:02
Speaker 8: that actually because I don't think anybody should be able
8:04
Speaker 8: to charge a fee for the for the straight or
8:07
Speaker 8: for any other straight relationship in terms of other sections
8:12
Speaker 8: of the world. I don't think anybody should be really
8:15
Speaker 8: in that position. But we were doing it as a reimbursement.
8:18
Speaker 8: The Gulf States are going to invest a tremendous amount
8:21
Speaker 8: of money into the United States, and that was very
8:25
Speaker 8: satisfactory to me.
8:26
Speaker 9: I think it's actually much.
8:27
Speaker 7: Better so Emily.
8:29
Speaker 4: That is Trump saying that, Okay, maybe the twenty percent
8:32
Speaker 4: fee that he was going to charge was a little
8:35
Speaker 4: bit high, and so he's back to, I guess doing
8:38
Speaker 4: it for free, except in exchange for the generosity of
8:41
Speaker 4: the Gulf States. The Trump announcing that he was going
8:45
Speaker 4: to charge a twenty percent fee was really quite a
8:48
Speaker 4: diplomatic own goal, because the US had consistently been saying
8:53
Speaker 4: that the principle is that they're in international waterways, there
8:57
Speaker 4: cannot be a toll charged, and iron had been talking
9:01
Speaker 4: about charging a one to two percent fee.
9:02
Speaker 7: Something like a million dollars per ship.
9:05
Speaker 4: The Iranians quickly embraced Trump's idea that he was going
9:10
Speaker 4: to put forward this this twenty percent fee, and they
9:13
Speaker 4: just said, we agree there should be a fee. We're
9:15
Speaker 4: going to charge one percent, he's going to charge twenty
9:18
Speaker 4: which which which would you prefer? So yeah, let's roll
9:25
Speaker 4: a little bit more Trump and then and then yeah,
9:27
Speaker 4: discuss or go ahead?
9:28
Speaker 7: Did you have a right?
9:29
Speaker 6: And I was gonna say just yeah, just to see
9:31
Speaker 6: this up. So that was Trump talking in the White
9:33
Speaker 6: House yesterday. We have more soundbites from that press availability
9:36
Speaker 6: he did, but he also sat down for an interview
9:38
Speaker 6: with Fox News where he talked a little bit about
9:41
Speaker 6: the deal making process. And I know, Ryan, you have
9:43
Speaker 6: some recording behind the scenes that you're than you get to.
9:45
Speaker 6: But this is Donald Trump yesterday with Trey Yinks of
9:50
Speaker 6: Fox News talking about where things stand. And again, let's
9:53
Speaker 6: just just we don't need to do this breaking points.
9:55
Speaker 6: Audience understands this perfectly clearly. But before the war, for
9:59
Speaker 6: the war straight upfore news was open and there was
10:04
Speaker 6: of course no war. So I mean, it's just ridiculous
10:08
Speaker 6: even to hear him now say things like what you're
10:10
Speaker 6: about to hear from this Fox News interview.
10:13
Speaker 5: This is a three.
10:15
Speaker 10: Three days ago, we had a deal.
10:17
Speaker 1: When was the last time you spoke with an Iranian official?
10:20
Speaker 10: Well, not me, but let's say my representatives. I have
10:23
Speaker 10: spoken to him, but my representatives the course of.
10:28
Speaker 1: Well, actually an hour ago and what message was delivered.
10:33
Speaker 10: They want to make a deal, but every time they
10:35
Speaker 10: make a deal they break it. They don't want to die.
10:38
Speaker 10: People don't want to die. Yeah, about an.
10:41
Speaker 1: Hour ago, and what message was delivered.
10:46
Speaker 10: You better make a deal. You're not going to have
10:47
Speaker 10: any You're not gonna have anybody left. We're being very
10:51
Speaker 10: careful with the civilian population, as you know. But I said,
10:55
Speaker 10: you better make a deal. You're not gonna have anything left.
10:57
Speaker 10: And you think they will, I don't know if they
11:01
Speaker 10: will or not.
11:02
Speaker 6: That's a not so build threat against civilians, which you've
11:05
Speaker 6: seen at different points in the war.
11:06
Speaker 11: Right.
11:06
Speaker 6: Let's also now take a look at well, actually just
11:11
Speaker 6: let's let's pause on that point for a moment. We've
11:15
Speaker 6: seen that a couple of times over the course of
11:16
Speaker 6: the war him make threats like that.
11:18
Speaker 4: Yeah, and what's so unusual about Trump is that he
11:22
Speaker 4: makes so many wild threats against his enemies. He's going
11:27
Speaker 4: to annihilate their civilization. There won't be anybody left. That
11:32
Speaker 4: the Iranians even insisted on putting into the MoU that
11:35
Speaker 4: he would stop making.
11:36
Speaker 7: Threats like that.
11:39
Speaker 4: That is not the kind of thing that would normally
11:41
Speaker 4: go into a set of negotiating talking points, right because
11:46
Speaker 4: you reach a ceasefire with the other side. It's it's
11:49
Speaker 4: just kind of assumed that because you've reached a ceasefire,
11:53
Speaker 4: neither side is going to threaten to annihilate the other
11:57
Speaker 4: side while you're engaged in the talks produced by the ceasefire.
12:04
Speaker 4: That's not Trump, though, and so the Iranians even insisted
12:07
Speaker 4: that one of the deal points put in the MU
12:10
Speaker 4: was you will stop threatening to annihilate our civilization. And
12:15
Speaker 4: it's kind of stunning that Trump can't stop threatening to
12:19
Speaker 4: genocide in an entire population, Like when you say there
12:23
Speaker 4: will be nobody left. There's only one way to read that,
12:27
Speaker 4: like that that is not like that, is that is
12:30
Speaker 4: nothing other than a threat of complete and total civilizational annihilation.
12:35
Speaker 4: And I think everyone is kind of immune to it,
12:39
Speaker 4: including the Iranians at this point. But it doesn't make
12:41
Speaker 4: it any I mean, I guess it makes it a little
12:44
Speaker 4: less disturbing because they kind of chuckle it off. But
12:46
Speaker 4: when they're out there attacking water facilities, attacking grain facilities,
12:53
Speaker 4: attacking a dorm where soldiers are sleeping, where that you know,
12:58
Speaker 4: there's no I still would love to see some rationale
13:01
Speaker 4: of why they hit that. Meanwhile, let's let's put up
13:05
Speaker 4: a six, which is what the what the Iranians are doing,
13:08
Speaker 4: which is attacking, attacking military facilities. This is I believe
13:15
Speaker 4: a cruise, a cruise missile attack b listic missile attack
13:18
Speaker 4: in Bahrain. And you see there and as this is Jordan.
13:24
Speaker 7: A six is Jordan.
13:25
Speaker 4: So you have these PAC three Patriot missile interceptors that
13:29
Speaker 4: are you can see kind of you can see them
13:32
Speaker 4: kind of flying.
13:33
Speaker 7: By in the night.
13:33
Speaker 4: There those are about I think four million dollars apiece.
13:38
Speaker 7: There goes one and as you see it missed.
13:42
Speaker 9: Uh.
13:42
Speaker 4: The Blistic missiles are estimated to be somewhere between four
13:46
Speaker 4: hundred and six hundred thousand dollars apiece, so you know,
13:49
Speaker 4: basically an order of magnitude cheaper than the Patriot missiles.
13:55
Speaker 4: And what some of the kind of osant folks were
13:59
Speaker 4: observed serving as they were watching this, you know, this
14:03
Speaker 4: base in Jordan getting pummeled, was that after a while
14:07
Speaker 4: they stopped shooting the Patriots, which suggested that the radar
14:11
Speaker 4: system suggested to the radar system that is used to
14:14
Speaker 4: make sure that the patriots can you know, can be
14:17
Speaker 4: launched with some accuracy had itself been destroyed, and so
14:21
Speaker 4: I think they're just kind of left vulnerable.
14:24
Speaker 6: Well, I was gonna say, we can also toggle through
14:25
Speaker 6: a one here. So what you're going to see Iranian
14:29
Speaker 6: strikes against Bahrain, and you see Iranian strikes against Kuwait
14:32
Speaker 6: and then more from Jordan.
14:35
Speaker 7: Resident thrown with a warhead on it.
14:39
Speaker 6: That you could look at all this the shape of it,
14:42
Speaker 6: I was gonna say, and look at all this healthcare
14:44
Speaker 6: and education and infrastructure is just getting blown up in
14:48
Speaker 6: the air.
14:49
Speaker 4: Yeah, and so and right and here is that was
14:51
Speaker 4: a ron firing kind of these like cluster bombs to
14:55
Speaker 4: get around the the interceptors.
14:58
Speaker 7: Another direct hit. You know what this is.
15:04
Speaker 4: It's a reminder that we still had some kind of
15:06
Speaker 4: military material left behind. And Trump, I guess decided that
15:11
Speaker 4: he wanted to see that get that get destroyed as
15:15
Speaker 4: as well. You know, they they're the Iranians are claiming.
15:20
Speaker 7: That they hit.
15:22
Speaker 4: Ship parts, weapons storage and aircraft parts warehouses in Bahrain
15:27
Speaker 4: and m Q nine drone storage in Kuwait.
15:32
Speaker 7: A warehouse UH.
15:34
Speaker 4: In Kuwait that was the that was a major kind
15:37
Speaker 4: of support center satellite communication UH center connected to the
15:42
Speaker 4: the m M one O four, a patriot defense system.
15:46
Speaker 4: They also in Kuwait. They also claim in Kuwait they
15:48
Speaker 4: targeted these Himar's missile launchers, which they're the guesses camp
15:56
Speaker 4: can't bearing which if if so, is a you know,
15:59
Speaker 4: is AUP to have hit that and also would expose
16:02
Speaker 4: this sort of attempted lie that nobody really takes seriously
16:06
Speaker 4: that there aren't no launches coming from Kuwait, which I
16:10
Speaker 4: think everybody understands that there are. And then they went
16:13
Speaker 4: after hangars where drones and an American military jets were
16:19
Speaker 4: stationed as well in Jordan. We don't know if they
16:23
Speaker 4: were still there, we don't know if they were hit,
16:26
Speaker 4: and as well as the management center and ammunition and
16:29
Speaker 4: fuel storages that were in Bahrain where the US Navy
16:33
Speaker 4: fifth Support Base is. And we're seeing a lot of
16:37
Speaker 4: footage emerged from these strikes in real time. And this
16:40
Speaker 4: goes back to the point I was making curious for
16:42
Speaker 4: your take on this that when Trump first launched this war,
16:47
Speaker 4: he had basically a full battery of defense. He had
16:50
Speaker 4: a lot of troops in the in the Gulf and
16:52
Speaker 4: in Iraq. He had two aircraft carrier groups. He had,
16:55
Speaker 4: you know, the full naval missile defense system at the ready.
17:00
Speaker 4: He's now restarting this war in a much hobbled position.
17:04
Speaker 4: At the beginning of the war, you did not see
17:06
Speaker 4: this level of penetration of air defenses, and so he
17:12
Speaker 4: failed strategically the first time around with a full magazine
17:16
Speaker 4: of offensive and defensive weapons. I don't understand how he
17:19
Speaker 4: thinks he's going to do better this time around in
17:23
Speaker 4: a much weakened and depleted position.
17:26
Speaker 6: Well, and I was gonna say, you're about to bring
17:27
Speaker 6: on Robert Pate, but the only way that he can
17:29
Speaker 6: is to escalate, right The only way is either stay
17:32
Speaker 6: in this folding pattern for a matter of months, as
17:35
Speaker 6: I think is being telegraphed right now, which means that
17:37
Speaker 6: all Republicans who are going to run or who are
17:40
Speaker 6: running right now on the cycler, are going to have
17:42
Speaker 6: to defend this constantly up until November, gas prices probably
17:46
Speaker 6: remaining way too high for consumers. If we don't see
17:50
Speaker 6: another spike, we'll still probably see prices be too high,
17:54
Speaker 6: and all of it for either remaining in a holding
17:57
Speaker 6: pattern or escalating, I think that's pretty clearly the only
18:01
Speaker 6: option in from the trunk right now, or take a
18:03
Speaker 6: massive lt right That's again we've been talking about this
18:07
Speaker 6: since the war began, but that's those are the three options.
18:10
Speaker 6: They continue to be the three options. And the question
18:12
Speaker 6: for him is whether the holding pattern is durable, you know,
18:17
Speaker 6: politically and substantively for his position. And it's impossible to
18:23
Speaker 6: know what he's thinking other than that he doesn't want
18:26
Speaker 6: to either escalate or take an ol so eager to
18:29
Speaker 6: hear Professor Paps take on all of this and I
18:31
Speaker 6: know you're about to have a conversation with him, ran Yeah.
18:34
Speaker 4: And meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, apparently with US Blessing, decided that
18:37
Speaker 4: it was this was the right time to strike Yemen,
18:40
Speaker 4: to strike ans A law movement knows that the Hoothis
18:44
Speaker 4: have now shot back and hit a bunch of different
18:46
Speaker 4: facilities in Saudi Arabia, so they're going to close the
18:49
Speaker 4: babel Men depth straight. You combine that with the strait
18:51
Speaker 4: of horm Moves getting closed again, it's a total disaster
18:55
Speaker 4: for the global economy. And when it comes to the
18:56
Speaker 4: American position, there was a very interesting moment in in
19:00
Speaker 4: President Trump's meeting yesterday with the Iraqi Prime minister, in
19:03
Speaker 4: which he basically said, if you can read between the
19:07
Speaker 4: lines here that we've been kicked out of Iraq, let's
19:10
Speaker 4: roll a five to round us out.
19:12
Speaker 8: The military there anymore. It's a very big operation. And
19:17
Speaker 8: what we do have is the oil companies are all
19:19
Speaker 8: going in now and they're doing partnerships with Iraq and
19:24
Speaker 8: they're getting along very well. The relationship is a whole
19:27
Speaker 8: big relationship where we don't need the military. We're there
19:30
Speaker 8: to help them, we're there to protect them if need be,
19:34
Speaker 8: but we don't think that's going to be necessary. And
19:36
Speaker 8: their primary I considered an opponent. They might have considered
19:40
Speaker 8: a friend, but I considered that an opponent. Iran was
19:44
Speaker 8: a big burden on Iraq because they were the believe
19:49
Speaker 8: the Middle East, as you know, and we were just
19:51
Speaker 8: talking about that. But they're not going to have that
19:54
Speaker 8: problem anymore because Iran has been very much destabilized and
20:00
Speaker 8: really their military powers just a tiny fraction of what
20:05
Speaker 8: it was just four months ago.
20:07
Speaker 4: So Emily, we have beaten Iran so badly that we
20:11
Speaker 4: don't even need to be in Iraq anymore. That's the
20:14
Speaker 4: that's the argument that Trump was paking there.
20:17
Speaker 6: And you're reading that person as US being kicked out
20:19
Speaker 6: of Iraq as opposed to Trump's framing of it.
20:21
Speaker 4: Right, right, Yeah, American troops in Iraq were always the
20:26
Speaker 4: greatest vulnerability to Iran because they're the for us to
20:29
Speaker 4: Iran because they are the closest and the easiest targets.
20:32
Speaker 4: Before we launched the war, we basically just moved as
20:35
Speaker 4: much of the personnel out of the Green Zone as
20:37
Speaker 4: we could, which is fortunate as it got completely lit up,
20:40
Speaker 4: not just by Iran but also the Iranian allied militias.
20:43
Speaker 7: That are there.
20:44
Speaker 4: So yeah, there's Trump talking about that we're basically finally
20:48
Speaker 4: done with Iraq. But it was don't worry. It was
20:51
Speaker 4: his choice and it was on his terms. It was victorious,
20:55
Speaker 4: and we've just so weakened Iran that we don't even
20:58
Speaker 4: need to be there anymore. So I guess congratulations to
21:03
Speaker 4: us and to the American people for one more victory
21:07
Speaker 4: under the second Trump term.
21:08
Speaker 6: Well, certainly a victory for the Pape theory. And if
21:12
Speaker 6: we see this start to escalate, I mean you just
21:15
Speaker 6: mentioned strikes on Yemen.
21:17
Speaker 5: The region is hanging by a.
21:18
Speaker 6: Threat obviously, so it's it could signif again we don't
21:23
Speaker 6: need to tell breaking boys viruses. But it could significantly.
21:26
Speaker 6: It could get significantly worse.
21:28
Speaker 5: Than it is.
21:29
Speaker 7: Just at any moment it could.
21:32
Speaker 5: Let's bring in Professor.
21:33
Speaker 4: Grape, the good professor. President Trump asked about ground troops
21:39
Speaker 4: in Iran is.
21:41
Speaker 7: Well, you go ahead and listen. This is be one you.
21:44
Speaker 12: Posted today on true social comments that you made back
21:47
Speaker 12: in nineteen eighty eight about carg Island. And at the
21:50
Speaker 12: time you said, one bullet shot at one of our
21:53
Speaker 12: men or ships, and I'd do a number on carg Island.
21:57
Speaker 1: I'd go in and take it. Do you still intend
22:00
Speaker 1: to take cardo?
22:00
Speaker 2: Oh.
22:01
Speaker 10: I can't say that to you because if I did,
22:03
Speaker 10: it would be foolish. But every nice make a little headlines,
22:06
Speaker 10: but it would be foolish. But I'll tell you about
22:08
Speaker 10: carg Island.
22:09
Speaker 12: So we've already are not really not a ground campaign
22:12
Speaker 12: in a limited capacity.
22:13
Speaker 10: I don't want to say that either, but I would
22:16
Speaker 10: say no if I thought it was appropriate. Sometimes you
22:20
Speaker 10: need a ground campaign. But we have other people that
22:22
Speaker 10: will do the ground campaign for us.
22:24
Speaker 1: But we already hit.
22:26
Speaker 10: Carg Island, as you know twice, even three times. I
22:29
Speaker 10: said hit everything, but the oil just leave that little
22:31
Speaker 10: area if I'm twenty five yards out, leave that a
22:34
Speaker 10: little area. Don't touch you ill, because I don't want that.
22:37
Speaker 10: In terms of the world economy, it's you know, it's
22:40
Speaker 10: a chunk of the world economy.
22:42
Speaker 8: So we haven't hit that.
22:43
Speaker 10: At some point we could, but I think it's unlikely
22:46
Speaker 10: as far as taking it is concerned, if we degrade
22:49
Speaker 10: them far enough and deep enough back all.
22:51
Speaker 4: Right, So we had hoped that we had somehow escaped
22:55
Speaker 4: the escalation trap into the warm embrace of the memorandum
23:00
Speaker 4: of understanding reached between the United States and Iran. Unfortunately,
23:05
Speaker 4: it seems like that trap is tinged just as tightly
23:08
Speaker 4: around our ankles. We can put up B two here
23:11
Speaker 4: Professor Robert Pape's piece yesterday over his sub stack, the
23:15
Speaker 4: escalation trap. The escalation trap has entered a new phase,
23:21
Speaker 4: joining us to discuss kind of what that new phase
23:25
Speaker 4: is is. University of Chicago, Professor Robert Pape, Professor, thanks
23:29
Speaker 4: for being here.
23:31
Speaker 9: Thank you very much for having me.
23:33
Speaker 7: Yeah, you got it so.
23:35
Speaker 4: Hoping that we had moved on, not quite what was
23:39
Speaker 4: it in your assessment that kind of pulled us back in?
23:46
Speaker 11: Yes, Well, thank you for talking about this. This is
23:48
Speaker 11: really quite a tragic moment. We're entering some of the
23:52
Speaker 11: most dangerous weeks of this war, quite likely, and people
23:58
Speaker 11: are thinking, well, this is just a turn to say
24:01
Speaker 11: March or early April. It could be much worse than that,
24:05
Speaker 11: and we haven't gotten there yet. But where we are
24:07
Speaker 11: at is very predictable. So as your recall, there have
24:12
Speaker 11: been three core stages of the escalation trap. Stage one
24:17
Speaker 11: is where you have regime change bombing that kills leaders
24:21
Speaker 11: but leaves America weaker because you get a stage two,
24:24
Speaker 11: which is although we kill the leaders and hit targets,
24:28
Speaker 11: Iran lashes back in a horizontal escalation campaign and takes
24:31
Speaker 11: horror moves and now controls twenty percent of the world's energy, and.
24:38
Speaker 9: We will take every effort.
24:40
Speaker 11: We tried punishment campaign for six weeks airpower that failed,
24:45
Speaker 11: we tried two month blockade that failed, and we are
24:50
Speaker 11: still where we are with stage three, which is the
24:53
Speaker 11: ground power dilemma. So if you go to February twenty
24:57
Speaker 11: fifth on the escalation trap, three days before the bombing
24:59
Speaker 11: ULLs see all these stages laid out before the war,
25:02
Speaker 11: and we would get to the ground power dilemma, and
25:04
Speaker 11: that's where we are today.
25:06
Speaker 9: Now, what is that dilemma.
25:07
Speaker 11: Either we physically take Horrorm moves back and you're seeing
25:11
Speaker 11: President Trump repositioning forces to do that, and we can
25:14
Speaker 11: talk about the details, including the ground operations, or we don't,
25:19
Speaker 11: and you get what I call stage four, which is
25:22
Speaker 11: Iran becomes the fourth center of world power. Over the
25:26
Speaker 11: next year or so, it continues to control Horrmus and
25:29
Speaker 11: reball the economic benefits from that, it spreads its sphere
25:32
Speaker 11: of influence here to basically go from Lebanon to the
25:37
Speaker 11: Red Sea to the Gulf. And you see they're basically
25:40
Speaker 11: beginning to do that. And then in about eighteen months
25:43
Speaker 11: they developed nuclear weapons. So this is the actual trajectory
25:47
Speaker 11: of what it means to simply not take Hormus back
25:51
Speaker 11: to walk away. And people keep thinking there's some third option.
25:55
Speaker 11: There's not a third option, and we've tried every possible
25:58
Speaker 11: third option. Now, something very specific, I think, just to
26:02
Speaker 11: drill into what happened in the last few weeks that
26:05
Speaker 11: I think can help make some sense here for your listeners,
26:09
Speaker 11: because I understand the whipsaw here because I face it
26:13
Speaker 11: every day with my substack. You know, it's now almost
26:16
Speaker 11: seventy thousand. We got a lot of people emailing me
26:19
Speaker 11: and telling me all kinds of things, so I definitely
26:21
Speaker 11: feel this.
26:23
Speaker 9: But what I just want to sort of explain here is.
26:26
Speaker 11: Well, what happened with the MoU And you know you've
26:29
Speaker 11: had me on I'm not surprised this thing fell apart,
26:32
Speaker 11: But what exactly happened here with President Trump? Why didn't
26:36
Speaker 11: he just keep going forward? Well, there's really two reasons
26:40
Speaker 11: here that's very important to understand. Reason number one is
26:45
Speaker 11: that the reason Trump said he wanted to do the
26:49
Speaker 11: MoU was to avoid the oil inventories running down. You
26:54
Speaker 11: were call he said, we're going to run out of
26:55
Speaker 11: oil in four weeks, which means he would become Herbert Hoover.
27:00
Speaker 11: And then everybody said, well, okay, so that means he
27:02
Speaker 11: can't avoid that. Well, no, The problem is, if you
27:05
Speaker 11: look at the oil inventory curves, which I'm sure President
27:08
Speaker 11: Trump is getting, we're still running down. We're basically still
27:13
Speaker 11: on the Titanic heading to the iceberg. There's no we
27:18
Speaker 11: haven't diverted from the iceberg. We're going to hit that
27:21
Speaker 11: iceberg somewhere around the middle of August. We don't know
27:24
Speaker 11: the exact days here. That's what all these oil experts
27:27
Speaker 11: are debating. Is it August seventh, August fifteenth, September one.
27:32
Speaker 11: But this is not not a problem. It's we're going
27:35
Speaker 11: to hit this iceberg. And so President Trump the MoU failed.
27:40
Speaker 11: From his perspective.
27:42
Speaker 9: JD.
27:43
Speaker 11: Man said, the reason Trump told us to do this
27:45
Speaker 11: was to fill the oil copperce this one did not work.
27:48
Speaker 11: He's still at risk of becoming Herbert ub So this
27:51
Speaker 11: is an issue Number one. He's desperate. He's not using
27:55
Speaker 11: these options because they're going to win in a certainty.
27:58
Speaker 11: He's desperate because he sees certain becoming Herbert Hoover and
28:03
Speaker 11: he's being very desperate trying anything to avoid it. There's
28:06
Speaker 11: a second reason, which is the MAGA opinion polls. The
28:10
Speaker 11: mega opinion polls are very strongly in favor of regime
28:14
Speaker 11: change in Iran. And President Trump needs MAGA to turn out.
28:20
Speaker 11: He doesn't need Democrats to turn out. They're not going
28:23
Speaker 11: to vote for him. He doesn't need even the Independence.
28:25
Speaker 11: What he needs is MAGA in these midterms to turn out.
28:29
Speaker 11: That's what midterms are always about. It's the base. Well,
28:34
Speaker 11: he's also feeding a big part of his base. There's
28:37
Speaker 11: only a small part of his base. It's at Tucker
28:39
Speaker 11: Carlson part of his base. So people, I think have
28:42
Speaker 11: just been misreading the mid term incentives here for Trump.
28:47
Speaker 11: And what you see is he is of the ship
28:49
Speaker 11: on the captain of the Titanic. He's heading us here,
28:53
Speaker 11: and it's because he does it. He's desperate to find
28:56
Speaker 11: a way to avoid hitting the iceberg, even if that
29:00
Speaker 11: means this super highly risky set of options, which by
29:04
Speaker 11: the way, I am not in favor of. I want
29:06
Speaker 11: to be very very clear, I am not supporting this idea.
29:13
Speaker 11: I believe all the bad things that everybody is saying.
29:18
Speaker 11: My job is to be though, put my policy, my
29:22
Speaker 11: preference aside, and say, setting that aside, where are we
29:26
Speaker 11: actually heading. That's why the escalation trap has been on
29:30
Speaker 11: the money month after month after month after month after month.
29:33
Speaker 11: We're in five months now of this being on the money,
29:36
Speaker 11: and your listeners will will know you guys push back
29:39
Speaker 11: at me all the time, right, and I don't want
29:43
Speaker 11: this to be the case. I'm just following twenty years
29:47
Speaker 11: of modeling where this heads and understanding the real dilemmas
29:53
Speaker 11: that are at work. Even as we're heading to a
29:57
Speaker 11: really potentially costly future.
30:00
Speaker 4: Here, the part I'm trying to figure out is why
30:06
Speaker 4: Trump forgot about the physical limitations that he was so
30:09
Speaker 4: clear about at the beginning of the MoU when he
30:12
Speaker 4: was explaining to people publicly why he agreed to the
30:17
Speaker 4: terms of the truce. As you said, he said multiple times,
30:21
Speaker 4: if I didn't, it was going to be bedlam, I
30:25
Speaker 4: think was the word he used. And multiple times in
30:27
Speaker 4: this long interview that not long press convers he held,
30:30
Speaker 4: he talked about Herbert Hoover.
30:31
Speaker 7: You know, he has he has basically.
30:33
Speaker 4: Two South Stars I guess you could call them, and
30:35
Speaker 4: that's Jimmy Carter and that's Herbert Hoover and those and
30:39
Speaker 4: to him, Carter involves around two that. You know, he
30:42
Speaker 4: believes that the Iranian hostage rescue attempt that went south
30:45
Speaker 4: is you know what really created his that that combined
30:50
Speaker 4: interestingly with the oil embargo that led to gas lines
30:53
Speaker 4: and high gas prices, that that created his presidency. And
30:56
Speaker 4: then Herbert Hoover. Of course, nobody needs to be reminded
31:00
Speaker 4: what happened to Herbert Hoover. So that that's his big concern,
31:03
Speaker 4: and he was saying that because inventories are low it's
31:05
Speaker 4: patrol and reserve is low like he needed to get
31:09
Speaker 4: he needs He needed to reach a deal or.
31:11
Speaker 7: Else it was going to be. But that nothing has
31:14
Speaker 7: changed like we've had.
31:16
Speaker 9: That's that's the problem here. Nothing has changed.
31:19
Speaker 11: The oil inventories with the mo OU are still going down,
31:24
Speaker 11: which means the mo OU is Trump's road map to
31:27
Speaker 11: becoming Herbert Hoover.
31:29
Speaker 9: Right, that's what he sees.
31:31
Speaker 11: Now, you can disagree with him, but see, this is
31:33
Speaker 11: what the media is not quite getting. Your question is
31:37
Speaker 11: a very understandable one, and I understand why you're asking,
31:42
Speaker 11: but it's hard to listen to what I'm saying because
31:44
Speaker 11: it's so we don't want this to happen. But here's
31:47
Speaker 11: the problem. The problem from Trump's perspective is the mo
31:51
Speaker 11: OU was supposed to be his offering to avoid becoming
31:54
Speaker 11: Herbert Hoover. But the mo OU has turned out to
31:58
Speaker 11: still run the oil inventory to ground. If you look
32:01
Speaker 11: at the ships passing the Straight of Hormones, they're still
32:04
Speaker 11: virtually you know, they're almost zero, they're not quite zero.
32:08
Speaker 11: We got a little bit of oil out, but it's
32:11
Speaker 11: because Iran is shutting down the Strait of Horrmons. It's
32:15
Speaker 11: not just Trump shutting down the Strait of Hormones. Iran
32:19
Speaker 11: decided to be very aggressive in enforcing the MoU and
32:24
Speaker 11: shut down the Strait of Hormones. It was Iran who
32:27
Speaker 11: initiated the shutting down of the Strait of Horror moves,
32:30
Speaker 11: not President Trump. And so why is that. It's because
32:34
Speaker 11: Iran wants revenge. Iran has moved from survival to ambition
32:39
Speaker 11: to revenge. And that's what you see with those tens
32:42
Speaker 11: of millions pouring out. And these are all connected. This
32:46
Speaker 11: is these are not separate issues. Iran is shutting down
32:51
Speaker 11: the Strait of Horror moves here because Trump won't honor
32:55
Speaker 11: the mo U, and Trump can't honor they can't honor
32:59
Speaker 11: them without the big loss on his record. So the
33:02
Speaker 11: bottom line is that what's happening is the MoU is
33:09
Speaker 11: become simply a roadmap to Trump hitting the iceberg anyway,
33:14
Speaker 11: And what he's trying to do now is use military
33:17
Speaker 11: force to see if he can minimize how long the
33:21
Speaker 11: oil the damages to the world's economy. I don't think
33:26
Speaker 11: he's going to succeed. I think it's the risks are
33:29
Speaker 11: too great. But this is why he's doing this. And
33:35
Speaker 11: I think if we don't take this seriously, we can't
33:38
Speaker 11: really try to convince him to do something else. So
33:43
Speaker 11: if you really, just if we really just keep dismissing
33:45
Speaker 11: why he's doing it, even though he's telling us so directly,
33:49
Speaker 11: then you're never going to persuade the decision makers. And
33:52
Speaker 11: I know because I've advised every West Wing, including the
33:55
Speaker 11: first Trump White House from twenty one to twenty four
33:59
Speaker 11: chiefs of half of the Air Force. You're not going
34:02
Speaker 11: to convince them by telling them they're stupid, their ideas
34:06
Speaker 11: are bad. You've got to understand where they're coming from.
34:10
Speaker 11: And if you don't, then the only thing you can
34:12
Speaker 11: do is wait to vote them out of office in
34:14
Speaker 11: twenty twenty eight. But by twenty twenty eight, look at
34:17
Speaker 11: all the damage that's going to happen. So this is
34:20
Speaker 11: really the problem that we face. We're having a hard
34:23
Speaker 11: time seeing it from Trump's perspective because the oil inventories,
34:29
Speaker 11: if you just show the chart, they're still going down.
34:32
Speaker 11: That's what he said the problem was, and the MoU
34:35
Speaker 11: didn't fix the problem.
34:38
Speaker 4: Well, so I'll put the pushback I would give on
34:41
Speaker 4: that would be and we could put this chart up
34:44
Speaker 4: up in posts the MoU assigned June seventeenth, and I
34:48
Speaker 4: think the Titanic in the Iceberg analogy is actually useful.
34:53
Speaker 4: If Trump thought that he was driving like an F
34:55
Speaker 4: one car and that Hormuz traffic was going to do
34:59
Speaker 4: so hairpin turn and go from zero to pre m ou,
35:05
Speaker 4: then whether or not those you know, people that you're
35:07
Speaker 4: advising want to be called idiots or not, that's an
35:09
Speaker 4: idiotic thing to think, like, it's going to take some
35:12
Speaker 4: time to get it back up and as and you
35:14
Speaker 4: do actually see the traffic coming through the Strait of Hormuz,
35:19
Speaker 4: you know, significantly expanding, elevating, like you're seeing more and
35:22
Speaker 4: more ships go through now about a week ago when
35:26
Speaker 4: when the when the shooting really kicked back off, then
35:30
Speaker 4: you see it collapsing again, and so the what So
35:35
Speaker 4: for Trump, it's like, okay, yeah, you didn't immediately refill
35:38
Speaker 4: all your inventories and strategic petroleum reserve stockpile, but the
35:42
Speaker 4: ships were coming through, So how is stopping it going
35:45
Speaker 4: to helping him?
35:46
Speaker 9: That's right.
35:47
Speaker 11: So there was another choice that Trump could have made,
35:50
Speaker 11: and apparently he signed some of the orders to do this,
35:53
Speaker 11: which is when he signed the m OU he could
35:56
Speaker 11: have withdrawn all fifty thousand US troops from region. He
36:01
Speaker 11: could have withdrawn all twenty two carriers and twenty destroyers
36:07
Speaker 11: and cruisers from the region, and Iran would have been
36:10
Speaker 11: probably quite happy with that and not shot at chips.
36:14
Speaker 9: So that was the real choice that he.
36:17
Speaker 7: Had, and p coordinated.
36:18
Speaker 4: Like the real part the problem was they went they
36:20
Speaker 4: tried to go through the Omani side with their Well,
36:22
Speaker 4: that's what.
36:23
Speaker 11: What I'm trying to say, sir, is that is that
36:25
Speaker 11: the real fork in the road happened when he signed
36:28
Speaker 11: the MoU. When he signed the MoU, he had a choice.
36:32
Speaker 11: Is he going to let Iran become the fourth center
36:35
Speaker 11: of world power fully control the straight of horror moves
36:38
Speaker 11: for Reel or not? And what it would mean to
36:42
Speaker 11: allow the Iran to fully do the MoU, because remember
36:46
Speaker 11: the MoU is all concessions to Iran. What it would
36:49
Speaker 11: mean is withdraw fifty thousand combat forces from the region,
36:53
Speaker 11: all our bases in Baharain, et cetera. That's what Iran wants,
36:58
Speaker 11: and also all of the twenty chips. And notice that
37:02
Speaker 11: was his real choice, and apparently he even signed in
37:05
Speaker 11: order to start to do some of that but then
37:08
Speaker 11: he decided he couldn't accept that was too big of
37:11
Speaker 11: a loss because then his magabase would not turn out
37:15
Speaker 11: in the midterms. And that's the problem. There's no third way,
37:19
Speaker 11: there's no compromise where we share the straight.
37:23
Speaker 9: Of horror moves.
37:24
Speaker 11: People keep thinking this is a business deal and we're
37:28
Speaker 11: just going to meet in the middle, triangulate in the middle.
37:31
Speaker 11: This is great power politics. And President Trump had a choice.
37:35
Speaker 11: You either let Iran get on the trajectory control or
37:39
Speaker 11: moves one hundred percent become the fourth center of world power,
37:44
Speaker 11: or you physically take it back. There's no other way
37:47
Speaker 11: around it. And in order to avoid where we are, sir,
37:52
Speaker 11: what you would need to do is physically withdraw all
37:55
Speaker 11: of the forces here. And some people were arguing for that.
37:59
Speaker 11: Joe Kemp was arguing that effectively. Ron Paul was arguing
38:03
Speaker 11: for that effectively. So there were voices arguing too, if
38:07
Speaker 11: we marched in, we could march out. And President Trump
38:11
Speaker 11: just wouldn't go that far because he'd lose MEGA and
38:15
Speaker 11: he needs MEGA. So this is the problem that the
38:17
Speaker 11: reason I think the reason people are having a hard
38:20
Speaker 11: time seeing it is most of the media is not
38:22
Speaker 11: really very much into MAGA. They haven't gone to Trump.
38:26
Speaker 11: I've been to Trump rallies because that's part of my book,
38:28
Speaker 11: Our Own Worst Enemies. This is my field research. I've
38:31
Speaker 11: been to Butler's all weekend with these folks. These folks
38:34
Speaker 11: are they're loyal to Trump only if he is a winner.
38:40
Speaker 11: This isn't This is another way to think about it.
38:42
Speaker 11: Is they they have faith in Trump not because he's
38:46
Speaker 11: a good man. Okay, it's because he's a winner. And
38:50
Speaker 11: once he lets Iran become the fourth center of world
38:53
Speaker 11: power and on the road to getting nuclear weapons for real,
38:57
Speaker 11: And where's the actual option anybody's them up with to
39:01
Speaker 11: stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons? All of the people
39:04
Speaker 11: on from the JCPO explain Trump's getting nowhere with stopping
39:08
Speaker 11: Iran getting nuclear weapons. So everybody agrees fundamentally that the
39:13
Speaker 11: only way to stop this is to let Ron keep
39:16
Speaker 11: Hormuz and keep its nuclear threshold or if not over
39:21
Speaker 11: the threshold status. And that's the problem for Trump. He
39:24
Speaker 11: can't own that l and keep MAGA for the midterms.
39:29
Speaker 4: On this trajectory, my sense is that he's going to
39:32
Speaker 4: be Hoover and lose Hormuz.
39:34
Speaker 11: Yeah, that's what happens. That's how, that's how Lyndon Johnson.
39:38
Speaker 11: So what he's doing is he's trying to avoid becoming
39:42
Speaker 11: Herbert Hoover. And what he'll likely become is Lyndon Johnson.
39:47
Speaker 11: And there's no way for him to become Ronald Reagan.
39:49
Speaker 11: He's looking for a way for him to become Ronald Reagan.
39:54
Speaker 11: Pull a rabbit out of the hat. This is going
39:56
Speaker 11: to somehow, you know, like with the air traffic control strike.
40:00
Speaker 11: You know, with Ronald Reagan, suddenly everybody will get oh
40:02
Speaker 11: my god, it was the most brilliant thing. But the
40:05
Speaker 11: reason this happens. And I study preventive wars for a
40:08
Speaker 11: living for thirty years, so I'm not just generally studying
40:13
Speaker 11: international relations. Preventive wars happen because the attackers see certain
40:20
Speaker 11: loss and then they take highly risky actions to avoid
40:24
Speaker 11: a certain loss. So think of it as they see
40:27
Speaker 11: one hundred percent loss and now they take a risk
40:30
Speaker 11: it's only eighty percent. And that's what we're seeing here.
40:33
Speaker 11: In all the commentary, everybody's saying this is almost surely
40:37
Speaker 11: going to fail. Well for President Trump, that's right, But
40:40
Speaker 11: to not do it is an even worse outcome for
40:43
Speaker 11: him and his presidency. If the world suffers, that's secondary
40:48
Speaker 11: for Trump.
40:49
Speaker 4: Yeah, well we're all screwed. Professor Paipe, thanks as always.
40:54
Speaker 7: For the rent.
40:55
Speaker 9: I wish I had better news.
40:57
Speaker 4: Maybe next week we're learning a bit more about Joan
41:02
Speaker 4: Sebastian Guerrero, who is the Colombian man killed by ice
41:06
Speaker 4: in in Maine and one of the one of the
41:08
Speaker 4: witnesses who was there for this execution on this on
41:13
Speaker 4: the Streets of Maine described how Guerrero said before he
41:19
Speaker 4: died that he had tried to stop. I want to
41:21
Speaker 4: play a little bit of his of his eyewitness testimony
41:25
Speaker 4: before we get to Wanda vid Rojas to talk a
41:27
Speaker 4: little bit about what what more we have learned about
41:32
Speaker 4: this victim, as well as another man who died after
41:37
Speaker 4: in interaction with ice down in Florida, followed by President
41:41
Speaker 4: Trump who is now saying that he wants to reverse
41:43
Speaker 4: the ICE decision to stop traffic stops and get back
41:46
Speaker 4: to doing it.
41:47
Speaker 7: But let's roll see two here.
41:49
Speaker 5: I didn't witness the shooting.
41:51
Speaker 13: I witnessed the aftermaths and the car coming down and
41:56
Speaker 13: then being hit again by the Ice suv.
42:00
Speaker 9: And the.
42:03
Speaker 5: Victim being moved out.
42:06
Speaker 13: Taken out of the vehicle and I I heard him
42:10
Speaker 13: say I tried to stop Ice agent and got out,
42:14
Speaker 13: tried to open the door and had a difficult time it.
42:16
Speaker 1: Eventually opened it and pulled the guy out. His face
42:20
Speaker 1: was bloody, his head was bloody.
42:22
Speaker 9: I know that.
42:25
Speaker 13: He was still cognizant because they told him to calm
42:28
Speaker 13: him down. I feel somebody needs to know what's what
42:31
Speaker 13: a bystander saw, not what Ice tells you. It's too
42:37
Speaker 13: often I says things that are just are not true,
42:42
Speaker 13: and at least from this is what I saw.
42:44
Speaker 5: Now, whether.
42:48
Speaker 13: Their version is different, that's up to them.
42:51
Speaker 4: Joan Sebastian was killed in front of his daughter, and
42:53
Speaker 4: we're trying to learn.
42:54
Speaker 7: As much as we can about him.
42:56
Speaker 4: We understand that, according to the Administration, he came to
43:00
Speaker 4: the United States in twenty twenty three. It's unclear yet
43:05
Speaker 4: if he was pursuing an asylum claim. The reports are
43:09
Speaker 4: that he had a work permit as well as a
43:11
Speaker 4: Social Security card. That that that doesn't tell you a
43:15
Speaker 4: whole lot about his immigration status. Wanda vid Rojas is
43:21
Speaker 4: joining us now to talk a little bit more about this. Wandavid,
43:23
Speaker 4: thanks for being here, Thanks for having me on Ryan,
43:26
Speaker 4: So let's put up see one again. This was one
43:30
Speaker 4: of his one of his social media posts where he says,
43:33
Speaker 4: frem porta Patria.
43:36
Speaker 7: So this kind gives us a little bit of.
43:38
Speaker 4: An indication of where he fits kind of in the
43:41
Speaker 4: Colombian political spectrum.
43:43
Speaker 7: Walk us through what we can what we can glean
43:45
Speaker 7: from that.
43:47
Speaker 14: Yeah, it's especially tragic. I mean, I don't want to
43:52
Speaker 14: you know, it's it's ironic, but you know, I don't
43:57
Speaker 14: really want to make too much.
43:58
Speaker 7: Light about this. This guy.
44:00
Speaker 14: Yeah, he was apparently executed in front of his three
44:02
Speaker 14: year old daughter. His wife is still grieving, and it's
44:06
Speaker 14: one of the most horrific shooting. Thank god, there's really
44:08
Speaker 14: not a whole lot of video about it, because otherwise
44:11
Speaker 14: I think there would be a lot more outrage. But
44:16
Speaker 14: this guy apparently was a supporter of Colombia's current president Electprietor,
44:22
Speaker 14: who's like a Farr literal Miami Neocon is a dual
44:28
Speaker 14: citizen of the US and lived for ten years here
44:31
Speaker 14: in Miami before becoming president. So and yeah, the the
44:37
Speaker 14: Colombia's current president elect. Like, yeah, he says he's a
44:39
Speaker 14: registered he said during the campaign he just got elected
44:42
Speaker 14: that he's a registered Republican, that he voted for President Trump,
44:47
Speaker 14: and that he wants to let Trump bomb Columbia. So
44:51
Speaker 14: that's to give people an idea. So and here's an
44:56
Speaker 14: interesting set. Actually, eighty percent of cologn Mbians in the
45:00
Speaker 14: US that voted in the past election voted for de
45:04
Speaker 14: la Spiega. So a lot of Columbia's immigrant population here
45:09
Speaker 14: in the US is just very right wing.
45:11
Speaker 7: So it's it's especially tragic.
45:13
Speaker 14: A friend of mine pointed out, it's like, hey, this
45:15
Speaker 14: guy very conceivably could have ended up supporting Trump right right.
45:20
Speaker 4: Meanwhile, down in Miami, I want to put up C
45:22
Speaker 4: three here, there was an inter interaction at a gas
45:25
Speaker 4: station between Ice and.
45:29
Speaker 7: What appeared to be some Mexican migrant labors.
45:32
Speaker 4: Man ran from there when it was immediately then hit
45:36
Speaker 4: by a truck in Saint Augustine and and died on
45:39
Speaker 4: the scene. This is obviously a different scenario than being
45:44
Speaker 4: shot as we saw in Houston and then in Maine.
45:48
Speaker 7: But in reaction to.
45:51
Speaker 4: The two and then you know, three deaths Ice related
45:54
Speaker 4: deaths within within a week. Ice interestingly said that they
45:58
Speaker 4: were going to stop the practice of these traffic stops Ice.
46:05
Speaker 4: You know, most police forces in general are trained not
46:09
Speaker 4: to put themselves in front of moving vehicles. And that
46:13
Speaker 4: was something that all police, that all police understood kind
46:17
Speaker 4: of before Minnesota. But that's something also the public overall
46:22
Speaker 4: understood after Minnesota, because it's just it's just common sense.
46:25
Speaker 4: You're you are in fact, the law as it as
46:30
Speaker 4: it's written, is that if you put yourself in front
46:33
Speaker 4: of the car recklessly, that does not then produce the
46:40
Speaker 4: justification to shoot the person. Like if if you're the
46:42
Speaker 4: one that creates the danger for yourself, you can't then
46:46
Speaker 4: resolve the danger that you created by killing somebody like
46:49
Speaker 4: that is that is that is how police are trained,
46:51
Speaker 4: and that is that is the law, and it's also
46:54
Speaker 4: just plain common sense. And so ICE said, they're they're
46:57
Speaker 4: going to pause these these traffic stops. We're going to
47:00
Speaker 4: put up C six. Which is Trump's response to this,
47:04
Speaker 4: and get your reaction to it. Trump says, the men
47:08
Speaker 4: and women of ICE are doing a great job.
47:10
Speaker 7: One that has to be done.
47:12
Speaker 4: Crime is way down in America in many cases with
47:15
Speaker 4: numbers that haven't been seen in decades. The open border
47:18
Speaker 4: policy of Sleepy Joe Biden allowed twenty five million to
47:22
Speaker 4: people to pour into our country unchecked and unvetted. Many
47:24
Speaker 4: were criminals, and we have to get them out. In
47:26
Speaker 4: order to do this, we must be strong, tough, and smart,
47:29
Speaker 4: and we cannot give up one of ICE's most important
47:31
Speaker 4: and effective crime fighting tools, the traffic stop. Once we
47:34
Speaker 4: are playing right into the criminals hands. The radical left
47:38
Speaker 4: Democrats would like to see this done, but it won't
47:40
Speaker 4: happen on my watch.
47:41
Speaker 7: Ice.
47:42
Speaker 4: Be judicious, fair and smart, and go back and do
47:45
Speaker 4: your very important job. Keep those crime state records coming,
47:49
Speaker 4: crime stat records coming. Remember, you are loved and respected
47:52
Speaker 4: in America. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
47:55
Speaker 4: President Donald J.
47:55
Speaker 7: Trump, so want de vive.
47:57
Speaker 4: That feels like it was that came after a Steven
48:01
Speaker 4: Miller phone call, and the reference to the stats, I
48:04
Speaker 4: feel like is the giveaway there. Miller has a quota
48:09
Speaker 4: that he is kind of insisting that the federal government
48:11
Speaker 4: hit and in order to hit that, you hit, you know,
48:15
Speaker 4: you hit courthouses, you hit immigration facilities where people are
48:18
Speaker 4: you going to get fingerprinted otherwise following law? Or you
48:21
Speaker 4: just start pulling everybody over who looks like they might
48:23
Speaker 4: be an immigrant and check their papers. What's what's your
48:26
Speaker 4: What was your reaction to ICE announcing that they were
48:30
Speaker 4: going to pause it and now Trump telling them no,
48:31
Speaker 4: get back on it.
48:34
Speaker 14: Yeah, like you said, there's clearly some inter administration wrangling
48:37
Speaker 14: over this stuff, most likely due to Steven Miller. I mean, look,
48:42
Speaker 14: I'm going to be completely honest. I have a very
48:45
Speaker 14: similar perspective to Sager about this stuff. You know, I
48:49
Speaker 14: think that the previous administration had way too lacks of
48:52
Speaker 14: a policy basically just like letting anyone come here and
48:55
Speaker 14: you know, stay here for years on end while they're
48:57
Speaker 14: asilum claim was adjudicated. Most of these asylum claims. Frankly,
49:02
Speaker 14: I think we're fraudulent. At the same time, that doesn't
49:05
Speaker 14: mean you should just go around killing people who came
49:08
Speaker 14: here regularly, whether they have an asylum claim. They're legally
49:11
Speaker 14: either here legally or illegally. They're human beings Jesus, And
49:15
Speaker 14: all this does is just discredit your own cause of
49:19
Speaker 14: mass deportations. I mean, you know, we can debate about
49:22
Speaker 14: exactly what level of deportations would be just, but I mean, yeah,
49:28
Speaker 14: it's just all these kinds of hardline tactics. You know,
49:30
Speaker 14: there's been fifty people killed in iced attention. There's been
49:35
Speaker 14: four people shot I think at these traffic stops since
49:39
Speaker 14: the start of the year. Obviously Renee Goods was the
49:43
Speaker 14: most famous case. So I mean, yeah, there's really nothing
49:50
Speaker 14: good that I can say. There's so many better ways
49:52
Speaker 14: that this could be done. I mean, starting by the
49:54
Speaker 14: fact that really there's just been no interests at all
49:58
Speaker 14: in punishing employers of illegal labor. And if you look
50:02
Speaker 14: at corporate prosecutions of employers of illegal immigrants, they're at
50:08
Speaker 14: all time lows, and they have been for multiple administrations.
50:11
Speaker 14: Now all of the enforcement is on the workers, the
50:14
Speaker 14: people who were here irregularly, and that obviously it has
50:18
Speaker 14: costs not to mention the fact, like you know that
50:21
Speaker 14: case in Florida, my hometown of Coral Springs of Florida
50:25
Speaker 14: and Broward County ice agents like surrounded the home of
50:29
Speaker 14: this Peruvian man who, yeah, I was here illegally or
50:32
Speaker 14: had had like an asylum claim. They surrounded his entire
50:36
Speaker 14: home with like rifles, and it's like, guys, not only
50:41
Speaker 14: is this not necessary, it's disruptive to American citizens. So obviously, yeah,
50:45
Speaker 14: like we saw in Minnesota, this has costs for citizens
50:49
Speaker 14: as well, and.
50:50
Speaker 4: AOC was asked about this at the capital before Trump
50:54
Speaker 4: announced that he was going to push them to rescind
50:57
Speaker 4: their rescinding of the policy.
50:58
Speaker 7: Let's listen to C.
50:59
Speaker 15: Five.
51:00
Speaker 6: She's bragging about the fact that they had additional body
51:03
Speaker 6: cameras in the Homeland security funding and they had more
51:06
Speaker 6: safeguards than the suspector generals.
51:08
Speaker 5: Do you think that that was I mean, was.
51:10
Speaker 15: That Senator Collins wrote the blank check to allow these
51:16
Speaker 15: officers to conduct themselves in the way that they have
51:20
Speaker 15: in Maine in the first place. And she's the one
51:22
Speaker 15: who's poured resources into it. And just because now that
51:25
Speaker 15: there's live footage of the atrocities that she has enabled
51:30
Speaker 15: doesn't make it better than preventing them from happening in
51:33
Speaker 15: the first place.
51:35
Speaker 4: Right, So that's a going after Susan Collins for expressing
51:38
Speaker 4: concern about the killing after having given all the weapons
51:41
Speaker 4: for it to happen. And then here's four with her
51:45
Speaker 4: h talking about Trump's policy.
51:47
Speaker 14: What do you think of DHS suspending vehicular stops in
51:52
Speaker 14: the aftermath of Houston and Maine.
51:54
Speaker 15: I mean, I think they shouldn't be a lot of
51:56
Speaker 15: the stuff that they're doing shouldn't even be allowed in
51:58
Speaker 15: the first place, and I think they're trying to get
52:03
Speaker 15: ahead of the fact that people should realize that what
52:06
Speaker 15: they are doing shouldn't be allowed. And so I think
52:11
Speaker 15: that you know, they they should be they should be
52:17
Speaker 15: facing consequences for killing innocent people in the stream, and
52:22
Speaker 15: they're just trying to escape from those consequences. While I'm
52:24
Speaker 15: glad that they are temporarily, I assume.
52:27
Speaker 7: Yeah, And so one devid to your point.
52:29
Speaker 4: I know that you know, you and Soccer kind of
52:31
Speaker 4: line up on a lot of elements of this immigration policy.
52:35
Speaker 4: But as I've been arguing, if they can't do it
52:36
Speaker 4: in a way that is civil without killing people, they're
52:42
Speaker 4: going to lose the kind of public support for the
52:44
Speaker 4: thing that you and Sager want done. If you were
52:50
Speaker 4: advising them on how to pursue the policy, what would
52:54
Speaker 4: you tell them.
52:56
Speaker 14: Yeah, it's like I said before, I mean, there's just
52:59
Speaker 14: no enforcement at all on the employer's side. And if
53:02
Speaker 14: you if you had like a national regime of be verify,
53:05
Speaker 14: a lot of this problem would solve itself. And look, personally,
53:09
Speaker 14: I would be for some kind of amnesty for me.
53:13
Speaker 14: It would be something like for people who have been
53:15
Speaker 14: here like at least ten years or more, and then
53:19
Speaker 14: you know, other people would say, oh, no, it should
53:21
Speaker 14: be less or whatever. But yeah, if you like spent
53:24
Speaker 14: a lifetime here and have abided by the law for
53:27
Speaker 14: me personally, and that a lot of Republicans will disagree
53:30
Speaker 14: with this, Yeah, I think, you know, this would go
53:33
Speaker 14: a long way towards solving the problem if a lot
53:36
Speaker 14: of people were given a path to citizenship. And there's
53:39
Speaker 14: also debates about like you know, like when we talk
53:42
Speaker 14: about amnesty, people think that's like immediate citizenship for x
53:46
Speaker 14: amount of people. Not necessarily it tends to be like
53:48
Speaker 14: a gradual process that people have to pay back and
53:52
Speaker 14: the taxes that the taxes that they would theoretically owe,
53:54
Speaker 14: and then they would get like a work permit and
53:56
Speaker 14: then eventually the residency and citizenship something like that. I
54:00
Speaker 14: could go along with that if it's paired with an
54:03
Speaker 14: aggressive national regime of everify, because if you implement those
54:08
Speaker 14: two things in tandem, then yeah, you wouldn't need to
54:10
Speaker 14: have this kind of draconian enforcement all the time. Yeah,
54:14
Speaker 14: But to your point, what they're doing right now, it's
54:16
Speaker 14: just discrediting their own cause and it's enabling radical opponents
54:21
Speaker 14: on the other side. And this is what I'll say
54:23
Speaker 14: to Democrats. I mean, please, for the love of God,
54:26
Speaker 14: we cannot go back to the previous policy.
54:29
Speaker 7: I don't mean I don't say.
54:31
Speaker 14: That because you know I love Republicans or hate immigrants
54:34
Speaker 14: or anything like that. On the contrary, if we go
54:36
Speaker 14: back to what we had before, we're just going to
54:38
Speaker 14: get another nativist administration in the future. So a lot
54:43
Speaker 14: of this discourse around like abolishing ICE voters, in my opinion,
54:48
Speaker 14: like you see that kind of stuff. When you know
54:50
Speaker 14: I say this myself included, interpret that as we're going
54:53
Speaker 14: to abolish ICE and then there's just going to be
54:55
Speaker 14: no more immigration enforcement. If you really want to do that,
54:58
Speaker 14: you need to make clear that, Look, we'll get rid
55:01
Speaker 14: of ICE, but there will still be enforcement. And I
55:03
Speaker 14: agree criminals should be prioritized, but enforcement shouldn't just be
55:09
Speaker 14: against criminals. I mean, like I said that, the truth is,
55:12
Speaker 14: most of these asylum claims are fraudulent, and if you
55:15
Speaker 14: come here defraud the asylum system intending just to work,
55:20
Speaker 14: eventually you should be removed. I'll site this is the
55:23
Speaker 14: last thing I'll say. Yeah, I'll cite a former congressman
55:26
Speaker 14: Barbara Jordan. She said, for the system would be credible,
55:29
Speaker 14: people have to be deported at the end of the process.
55:31
Speaker 7: This is just common sense.
55:33
Speaker 5: Yeah.
55:33
Speaker 4: I do think that Democrats, a large swath of them,
55:37
Speaker 4: have abandoned or moved away from defending the Biden administration's
55:42
Speaker 4: border policy and are have kind of given up and say,
55:45
Speaker 4: you know what, Okay, we can't defend not having a border. Fine,
55:49
Speaker 4: We're fine, We'll do a border, but we need to
55:52
Speaker 4: abolish ICE, which is this rogue agency that's doing you know,
55:58
Speaker 4: you know, mascale internal moves at home depots and seven
56:01
Speaker 4: elevens and traffic stops that lead to them, you know,
56:04
Speaker 4: shooting and killing people in the streets, including Joan Joan's imatchin,
56:09
Speaker 4: who was not a target at all, like this was
56:12
Speaker 4: this appears to be just a guy who was in
56:13
Speaker 4: the wrong place at the wrong time, or I mean,
56:18
Speaker 4: not necessarily that it was the Ice. ICE I'd say
56:20
Speaker 4: was the wrong place at the wrong time. But in
56:23
Speaker 4: any event, he's the one that didn't survive the encounter.
56:26
Speaker 4: But I take your point that the the the public
56:31
Speaker 4: might be might be conflating some of that. So we'll
56:34
Speaker 4: we'll see how they kind of navigate that as they're
56:37
Speaker 4: as they're kind of shaping what their their their immigration
56:40
Speaker 4: policy is. That doesn't produce another nativist backlash in the future.
56:45
Speaker 4: But wandavide, thanks as always for for being here. Where
56:48
Speaker 4: can people find your stuff?
56:50
Speaker 11: Uh?
56:50
Speaker 14: Follow me on X and I have a sub stack.
56:53
Speaker 14: It's called a social democracy with a populist characteristics. Also
56:56
Speaker 14: a column to said unheard, So check me out I unheard.
56:59
Speaker 7: Excellent. Well, thanks for being here.