Latest / Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar / 5/6/26: Trump Blinks On Iran 'Project Freedom', Trump Voters Flip, Van Jones Humiliated On Israel Nukes

Transcript

5/6/26: Trump Blinks On Iran 'Project Freedom', Trump Voters Flip, Van Jones Humiliated On Israel Nukes · Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.
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Speaker 1: dot com.
0:33
Speaker 3: Good morning, and welcome to Breaking Points. Offers are being
0:36
Speaker 3: tossed back and forth between the United States and Iran.
0:40
Speaker 3: Trump seems to have tried everything else. Now maybe he'll
0:42
Speaker 3: try to end this thing. What do you think?
0:44
Speaker 4: It's hard to say. It is hard to say, It always
0:46
Speaker 4: is hard to say.
0:47
Speaker 3: But we have got hard for axios to say. They're
0:49
Speaker 3: reporting everything's great. Markets are popping so pretty usual. Sure
0:53
Speaker 3: that'll be fine.
0:54
Speaker 4: Yes, we have lots of breaking news to get.
0:55
Speaker 3: Too, bye bye bye. Or if you have oil sell.
0:58
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, lots of breaking news to get to so
1:00
Speaker 4: on Iran, it does look like as we are talking
1:03
Speaker 4: to you right now, negotiations are ongoing, and we have
1:07
Speaker 4: some funny reactions just already that we're going to bring
1:10
Speaker 4: in Jesse Waters last night on Fox News. You're not
1:13
Speaker 4: gonna want to miss this. We're also going to be
1:15
Speaker 4: talking about a major move from some Democrats who are
1:18
Speaker 4: demanding they've already broken the taboo basically that you don't
1:22
Speaker 4: talk about Israel having nuclear weapons, but our demanding transparency
1:27
Speaker 4: from the United States on that question. Some We have
1:31
Speaker 4: some good video on that too. We have a good
1:32
Speaker 4: throwback video in that block. People are going to want
1:35
Speaker 4: to pay attention to. Choprah is going to join us
1:39
Speaker 4: as well to talk about the circular funding structure of AI,
1:42
Speaker 4: just as massive backlash to that massive data center in
1:46
Speaker 4: Utah is really popping off. If you haven't seen this yet,
1:50
Speaker 4: you've got to stay tuned.
1:51
Speaker 3: And he also said he can explain to us this
1:53
Speaker 3: fight between Wall Street and Crypto Great that's playing out
1:56
Speaker 3: now on Capitol Hill. I won't explain it anymore because
1:58
Speaker 3: I'm not I'm not. I don't quite get it. It's
2:01
Speaker 3: something about Crypto trying to basically act like a.
2:04
Speaker 4: Bank and the banks are mad about well, wait.
2:06
Speaker 3: A minute, you then you should have to follow all
2:08
Speaker 3: these other rules that we have to follow. That's my
2:10
Speaker 3: understanding of it.
2:10
Speaker 4: And when the special interests are fighting, you know that
2:12
Speaker 4: there's something interesting happening and it is intentionally obtuse. It's
2:17
Speaker 4: like hard to wrap your head around to break it down. Yes,
2:19
Speaker 4: so we'll have roehead here to break it down. And
2:22
Speaker 4: Nick Sureley, if you haven't caught this, went to Cuba.
2:26
Speaker 4: We're excited to talk about this one. We're excited to
2:29
Speaker 4: talk about this one. So we're Nick Sureley went to Cuba.
2:32
Speaker 4: Marco Rebo brief the press yesterday on potentially He touched
2:36
Speaker 4: on potentially what could happen to Cuba next big elections.
2:40
Speaker 4: Last night Indiana Republicans lost primary state Senate primaries because
2:46
Speaker 4: they didn't want to go along with a Trump redistricting plot.
2:50
Speaker 4: That is going to set the tone going forward, of course,
2:54
Speaker 4: for any more map redrawings that are to happen between
2:57
Speaker 4: now and November, and really actually just imperpect to probably
3:00
Speaker 4: into the future. Ryan also what we have in that block,
3:03
Speaker 4: some interesting races in Ohio and Michigan, big wins for Dems.
3:10
Speaker 3: Yes, and we'll do a roundup of what's going on,
3:15
Speaker 3: you know, electorally, to the extent that we can. We
3:18
Speaker 3: don't really cover elections enough here because they're you know,
3:22
Speaker 3: they're kind of sumber. Each one is localized, but as
3:26
Speaker 3: a result we're missing kind of the national picture. So
3:29
Speaker 3: try to get into some of that.
3:30
Speaker 4: Yes, and we have tim Mcaster joining us, who is graduating.
3:35
Speaker 4: He's a twenty twenty six graduate. You know that we've
3:37
Speaker 4: been for months now standing the alarm, paying close attention
3:40
Speaker 4: to those headlines suggesting that this class of graduating college
3:44
Speaker 4: seniors is going to face one of the most dismal
3:46
Speaker 4: job markets in recent memory. Looks like that's turning out
3:49
Speaker 4: to be true. Timmy has a video about his own
3:53
Speaker 4: experience graduating this spring that's gone viral, So we're going
3:57
Speaker 4: to break down some of the numbers with him and
3:58
Speaker 4: just to ask about his experien His experience actually reminds
4:02
Speaker 4: me a lot of what we heard from people who
4:04
Speaker 4: had the misfortune of graduating smack in the middle of
4:06
Speaker 4: the Great Recession.
4:08
Speaker 3: Yes, although at least with the Great Recession, there was
4:12
Speaker 3: there was the assumption that Okay, this is going to
4:14
Speaker 3: be a bad couple of years, but we're going to recover, right.
4:17
Speaker 3: I'm not sure people share that assumption.
4:18
Speaker 4: Now it's much less the future feels much less stable. Yes,
4:23
Speaker 4: all right, well let's get into it. We can start
4:25
Speaker 4: with this post from Baroq revied Obviously.
4:29
Speaker 3: I'll never steal you wrong.
4:30
Speaker 4: He always seems to know something. We don't always know
4:33
Speaker 4: what the big picture is, but he always seems to
4:35
Speaker 4: know something. There's a great clip actually of Vladimir Zelenski
4:38
Speaker 4: confronting Barack Reviede and be like, why is it that
4:40
Speaker 4: you know so much about my conversations? Anyway, that's a tangent.
4:42
Speaker 4: But last night Trump posted on truth Social Based on
4:47
Speaker 4: the request of Pakistan and other countries, the tremendous military
4:50
Speaker 4: success that we have had during the campaign against the
4:52
Speaker 4: country of Iran, and additionally the fact that great progress
4:55
Speaker 4: has been made toward a complete and final agreement with
4:57
Speaker 4: representatives of Iran, we have mutually agreed that while the
5:00
Speaker 4: blockade will remain in full force and effect Project Freeman
5:03
Speaker 4: Freedom parentheses, the movement of ships through the Strait of
5:07
Speaker 4: Horror moves will be paused for a short period of
5:09
Speaker 4: time to see whether or not the agreement can be
5:12
Speaker 4: finalized and signed. As of right now, Reuter's reporting this
5:18
Speaker 4: morning that negotiators are apparently close to a deal. What
5:21
Speaker 4: seems to be on the table is a moratorium on
5:26
Speaker 4: enrichment in exchange for sanctions relief. Now, Ryan, I have
5:31
Speaker 4: a very hard time believing that Donald Trump is going
5:34
Speaker 4: to be greeted as a liberator by the Mark Levins
5:38
Speaker 4: of the world. If he actually goes with sanctions relief.
5:43
Speaker 3: Oh, they will be absolutely livid.
5:46
Speaker 4: Which gives the question of whether he can actually whether
5:48
Speaker 4: he ends up actually making a deal like that.
5:50
Speaker 3: Again, Yeah, we said before this war started that we
5:54
Speaker 3: didn't think Trump wanted to start it, and that we
5:57
Speaker 3: hoped he'd be able to stand up to the pressure
5:59
Speaker 3: that he was under. But we didn't spect suspect that
6:02
Speaker 3: he would be able to. Once again, the question is
6:06
Speaker 3: does Donald Trump have the agency, the independence of the
6:09
Speaker 3: fortitude to do what he thinks is in his own interests,
6:13
Speaker 3: forget the United States, his own interests, or is he
6:18
Speaker 3: going to succume to the pre to pressure from Israel
6:21
Speaker 3: and people like Mark Levin who are arguing that this
6:24
Speaker 3: war needs to keep going. That that's the question in
6:27
Speaker 3: front of him right now.
6:28
Speaker 4: So that post just for added context, and I'm here's
6:32
Speaker 4: what you make of this, Ryan basically ends indefinitely. We'll
6:36
Speaker 4: see what happens this quote project freedom Freedom.
6:39
Speaker 3: That funny is that, by the way, to see an
6:41
Speaker 3: American president say Project Freedom is paused.
6:43
Speaker 4: It's been paused. We are now in Project capture tyranny. Yeah,
6:50
Speaker 4: project project tyranny. So anyway, that was on pause after
6:56
Speaker 4: the splashy rollout over the course of Sunday, And that's
7:00
Speaker 4: what that random true social post around I think it
7:03
Speaker 4: was around like six thirty pm last night. Did why
7:07
Speaker 4: Ryan from if you're putting yourself in so break this
7:12
Speaker 4: down what we saw over the course of yesterday.
7:14
Speaker 3: Break down why right Trump said he was going to
7:17
Speaker 3: assure that ships were able to transit you know, the
7:21
Speaker 3: ships that had nothing to do with this. And there
7:23
Speaker 3: is a genuine humanitarian crisis going on inside the Persian
7:27
Speaker 3: Gulf because you have twenty thousand plus people who were
7:30
Speaker 3: not planning on being on boats in this area for
7:34
Speaker 3: this long and so they are running out, running low
7:37
Speaker 3: on food, potable water, people who have pre existing medical
7:40
Speaker 3: conditions and weren't planning on being there that long. Aside
7:44
Speaker 3: from the sheer torture monotony of the entire thing. So
7:49
Speaker 3: he was, Hey, we're going to We're going to handle this,
7:51
Speaker 3: and basically Iron said no, you're not. Iron said, no,
7:54
Speaker 3: we want a comprehensive agreement to end this war. And
7:58
Speaker 3: it quickly became clear that the United States did not
8:02
Speaker 3: have the cards, did not have the military capacity to
8:06
Speaker 3: effectively escort these ships in and out of the strait
8:09
Speaker 3: m hm. And so he paused it and gave up
8:12
Speaker 3: on it.
8:13
Speaker 4: And we should mention actually, just as we are talking,
8:16
Speaker 4: just in another true social post from President Trump, who says,
8:20
Speaker 4: assuming Iran agrees to give what has been agreed to,
8:22
Speaker 4: which is perhaps a big assumption, the already legendary epic
8:25
Speaker 4: fury will be at an end, and the highly effective
8:29
Speaker 4: blockade will allow the horror movez straight to be open
8:32
Speaker 4: to all, including Iran. If they don't agree, the bombing starts,
8:36
Speaker 4: and it will be, sadly, at a much higher level
8:39
Speaker 4: and intensity than it was before. Thank you for your
8:42
Speaker 4: attention to this matter, President Donald J. Trump. So ran,
8:44
Speaker 4: if anything, some confirmation that we're still not off the
8:47
Speaker 4: hamster wheel.
8:48
Speaker 3: Yeah. So, if you read the very top of that again,
8:49
Speaker 3: it sounds like Trump is accepting the Iranian response. Read
8:54
Speaker 3: that very top.
8:54
Speaker 4: Line, assuming Iran agrees to give what has been.
8:57
Speaker 3: Agreed to, Okay, agrees to give what has been agreed to.
9:02
Speaker 4: Yep, which is perhaps a big assumption.
9:04
Speaker 5: He said.
9:04
Speaker 3: So the way I read what he's saying there is
9:09
Speaker 3: that Iran has come forward with amendments. This is what
9:13
Speaker 3: Jeremy was reporting this morning as well, has come back
9:15
Speaker 3: with amendments to what the US had sent. There was
9:18
Speaker 3: a the time period of the moratorium, and there's some
9:22
Speaker 3: questions about so right now the nuclear dust is under
9:25
Speaker 3: the mountain, and Iran had been saying, well, we'll just
9:28
Speaker 3: leave it there and we won't enrich for an X
9:31
Speaker 3: period of time, and they were scratching out and US
9:35
Speaker 3: wanted twenty to start. Iran offered something else. Blah blah blah.
9:39
Speaker 3: What I read from that, and tell me if you disagree,
9:41
Speaker 3: is that Iran responded. And Trump is saying, if Iran's
9:45
Speaker 3: response is serious and they are committed to doing the
9:48
Speaker 3: things that they've just said, then the war is over.
9:52
Speaker 3: We're done, and I accept these terms. That seems to
9:56
Speaker 3: be what he's saying.
9:57
Speaker 4: It seems to be what he's saying, and then the
9:58
Speaker 4: second half of it seems to be suggesting he doesn't
10:02
Speaker 4: believe that it's going to happen. That's how I'm reading it,
10:05
Speaker 4: that he doesn't believe they are well, that like.
10:10
Speaker 3: What he believes kind of who cares, right.
10:14
Speaker 4: Well, he's the one truth socially.
10:16
Speaker 3: But it's up to Iran at that point, like if
10:19
Speaker 3: Iran follows through on what it's saying it's going to
10:21
Speaker 3: do now, well, Iran has its own deep suspicions, like
10:26
Speaker 3: they're expecting another attack.
10:29
Speaker 4: Which he's basically telegraphing in that post.
10:31
Speaker 3: Well, he's telegraphing that if they don't follow through on
10:33
Speaker 3: what they've agreed to. Here, this sounds like he's trying
10:36
Speaker 3: to be a tough guy and accept Iran's offer.
10:40
Speaker 4: It's to me, I feel like I've seen that a
10:43
Speaker 4: couple of times. I'm actually curious what you make of
10:45
Speaker 4: this because I feel like that's been on the table
10:48
Speaker 4: for Trump. And then it gets the ruggets pulled out
10:50
Speaker 4: from under us again because somebody gets in his ear
10:54
Speaker 4: and says, no, this is unacceptable, this is not an
10:59
Speaker 4: acceptable efficient and to the war and then everything resumes again.
11:04
Speaker 4: But I don't know. I mean, it feels like it's
11:06
Speaker 4: a cycle.
11:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know. We'll see this. I think there's
11:11
Speaker 3: a chance that the cycle is coming to an end
11:14
Speaker 3: because Trump has tried everything.
11:16
Speaker 4: I agree with that, like what else is left, like
11:19
Speaker 4: sending more and more troops Iran by firing at some ships,
11:23
Speaker 4: sending some fast boats out.
11:24
Speaker 3: There's real questions about whether or not they hit the Emirates.
11:29
Speaker 3: They're denying it. A lot of Emirates are accusing Saudi
11:32
Speaker 3: Arabia of hitting there the port. Setting all that aside.
11:37
Speaker 3: There there's been a lot of back and forth, and
11:38
Speaker 3: the US did not said it was below the threshold
11:42
Speaker 3: to relaunch hostilities, which suggested, I think to the Iranians
11:46
Speaker 3: and to the rest of the world, that the US
11:48
Speaker 3: doesn't doesn't want that smoke this time.
11:51
Speaker 6: M hm.
11:51
Speaker 3: That like they finally they listened to Iran, which was
11:54
Speaker 3: saying we're going to cut your undersea cables, We're going
11:57
Speaker 3: to furiously demolish Gulf oil infrastructure if you attack us again.
12:03
Speaker 3: And finally someone depending on I was like, hey, they're
12:05
Speaker 3: saying these things, and they did it last time and
12:08
Speaker 3: they might do it again, so we better be really sure,
12:11
Speaker 3: we want to do this. So it seems to me
12:13
Speaker 3: like Trump is blinking here.
12:15
Speaker 4: To make the deal, he'll have to, of course, I think,
12:18
Speaker 4: stand up to a lot of people in his own
12:20
Speaker 4: orbit who have pushed for the war. And this is
12:22
Speaker 4: where the escalation trap has kind of been predicated on
12:25
Speaker 4: the idea of Trump acting as a standard issue Republican
12:30
Speaker 4: cut out type commander in chief who operates not even
12:35
Speaker 4: just republican, actually, I should say, like just a sort
12:38
Speaker 4: of neoliberal to the extent that word means anything but
12:41
Speaker 4: a standard issue establishment politician president, and that he has
12:48
Speaker 4: been in some ways, like in some fundamental basic sense,
12:52
Speaker 4: acting like that over the course of the war, just
12:55
Speaker 4: in the way that he's approached what he wants out
12:58
Speaker 4: of all of this, what his goal is, which has
13:00
Speaker 4: obviously been publicly murky but seems to have been basically
13:04
Speaker 4: guided by Lindsey Graham and Mark Levin. And where the
13:07
Speaker 4: escalation trap I think can fall apart is just in
13:10
Speaker 4: Trump deciding what's in his rational interest rather than what
13:15
Speaker 4: he thinks is in like the rational interests of the
13:17
Speaker 4: blob right.
13:18
Speaker 3: Because he has repeatedly said that he doesn't care about
13:20
Speaker 3: the straight and foremost it's not his problem with everybody
13:22
Speaker 3: else's problem. And so if Iranians are saying we're going
13:26
Speaker 3: to open it, and they have now created this what
13:29
Speaker 3: do they call it, the Iranian Persian Gulf Straight Authority,
13:34
Speaker 3: they've said it's open. Just work with the Iranian Persian
13:39
Speaker 3: Gulf Straight Authority, coordinate your entry and exit, pay your fee,
13:45
Speaker 3: and it's open. Like Trump can look at that and like, okay, fine, whatever. Also,
13:50
Speaker 3: because Americans care about what the price of gases at
13:54
Speaker 3: the pump, we don't. We're not really looking under the
13:57
Speaker 3: hood and seeing, well, how much of that went to
14:00
Speaker 3: insurance for the carriers, how much went to bribes you know,
14:04
Speaker 3: how much of that went to the production, how much
14:07
Speaker 3: of that went to the tanker costs, how much of
14:09
Speaker 3: that went to a fee you paid to you know,
14:12
Speaker 3: transit through the strait of horror moves like we don't care,
14:16
Speaker 3: like just people just want the gas to flow at
14:19
Speaker 3: a reasonable price.
14:23
Speaker 4: So, after Trump posted that true social last night, Jesse
14:26
Speaker 4: Waters broke the news live on Fox News. Here's a
14:30
Speaker 4: taste of what the kind of pro Trump reaction to
14:33
Speaker 4: the post was. A two.
14:35
Speaker 7: The president says, based on the request of Pakistan and
14:37
Speaker 7: other countries. We have mutually agreed that while the blockade
14:41
Speaker 7: will remain in full force and effect, Project Freedom will
14:45
Speaker 7: be paused for a short period of time to see
14:48
Speaker 7: whether or not the agreement can be finalized and signed.
14:53
Speaker 7: We suspect the President is letting the Iranians save face.
14:57
Speaker 7: The enemy just yesterday said they control the straight That
15:00
Speaker 7: was obviously a lie, and watching the Americans escort ship
15:05
Speaker 7: after ship out of the Gulf and them not being
15:08
Speaker 7: able to do anything about that was going to be humiliating.
15:13
Speaker 7: Not only were they going to lose whatever military prestige
15:15
Speaker 7: they had left in the region, their negotiators weren't going
15:19
Speaker 7: to be able to fight for their position after they
15:22
Speaker 7: lost their last bargaining chip. The Commander in chief must
15:26
Speaker 7: believe that the Iranians are serious about surrendering if he's
15:30
Speaker 7: going to pause Project Freedom for the sake of a deal,
15:34
Speaker 7: because you could also continue Project Freedom during the negotiations.
15:39
Speaker 7: You know, you do want to get these foreign ships moving.
15:42
Speaker 7: The President must know what he's doing, and we're about
15:45
Speaker 7: to find out how insane in the brain the regime
15:49
Speaker 7: really is.
15:50
Speaker 4: Okay, so ran and all seriousness that actually is in
15:54
Speaker 4: Trump was almost certainly watching that. That's actually kind of
15:57
Speaker 4: an interesting flavor of the reaction Trump is getting from
16:01
Speaker 4: people inside his circle who he cares about. The public
16:05
Speaker 4: relations spin and to the point we were just making
16:08
Speaker 4: about the likelihood of what's on the table sticking. If
16:12
Speaker 4: Trump feels like he can sufficiently convince the Jesse Waters
16:16
Speaker 4: of the world that it wasn't him who blinked, it
16:18
Speaker 4: was Iran, then does this make it more likely we
16:22
Speaker 4: have a peace deal?
16:24
Speaker 3: I guess if that's the best that Jesse Waters can
16:26
Speaker 3: come up with, that's kind of comical. Trump is losing
16:29
Speaker 3: on purpose because he wants to make the enemy feel
16:33
Speaker 3: good about itself. Okay, Jesse, let's go. Let's go with
16:38
Speaker 3: that one.
16:38
Speaker 4: If you're listening to this, Ryan just had a very
16:40
Speaker 4: difficule reaction, he said.
16:42
Speaker 3: Okay, Jesse, what I mean? Incredible? Yeah. So here's because
16:47
Speaker 3: if you have too much success, then the Iranians, they
16:52
Speaker 3: they lose face. You can't have that.
16:55
Speaker 4: You can't have too many haters in this.
16:57
Speaker 3: You have to be better, better guests when you're attack
17:00
Speaker 3: another country.
17:01
Speaker 4: Here's how Trump was discussing the war in the Oval
17:05
Speaker 4: office just hours before he posted that truth social on
17:08
Speaker 4: Tuesday evening A three.
17:10
Speaker 8: I call it a skirmish because Baran has no chance.
17:15
Speaker 5: They never did.
17:16
Speaker 3: They know it.
17:18
Speaker 5: They expressed it to me when I talk to them.
17:20
Speaker 8: Then they get on television they say how well they're doing.
17:24
Speaker 8: And they have no navy totally wiped in, they have
17:27
Speaker 8: no air force totally wiped out, they have no anti
17:30
Speaker 8: aircraft capability, totally wiped out, no radar, they have no leaders,
17:37
Speaker 8: the leaders who wept the whole thing. And then I
17:40
Speaker 8: read the papers and they say how well they're doing.
17:43
Speaker 8: They're not doing well. That's why you have no credibility.
17:46
Speaker 4: Okay, Actually I was reporting early this morning via Barack
17:50
Speaker 4: Revied and Jeremy as well. We can put the next
17:52
Speaker 4: element up on the screen. Exclusive. He wasn't around closing
17:56
Speaker 4: in on one page memo to end the war, according
17:59
Speaker 4: to official reveed posting that among other provisions, this is
18:03
Speaker 4: including well, he says, among other provisions, the deal would
18:07
Speaker 4: involve Iran committing to a moratorium on nuclear enrichment, the
18:10
Speaker 4: US agreeing the lift IT sanctions and release billions in
18:13
Speaker 4: frozen Iranian funds, and both sides lifting restrictions around transit
18:17
Speaker 4: through the Strait of Hormuz. So just as we mentioned earlier,
18:21
Speaker 4: and Ryan, that's basically what Jeremy has as well.
18:23
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, and I just love the idea that Trump
18:29
Speaker 3: is doing it so he doesn't humiliate the Iranians.
18:32
Speaker 4: Well, Joe Wisenthal, this is maybe another part of Trump's
18:36
Speaker 4: thoughts right now, Joe Wisenthal pointing out that markets are
18:39
Speaker 4: already surging, already surging. This was as a four fifty
18:45
Speaker 4: four a m just looking at where things could go
18:50
Speaker 4: from here. Ryan, that probably explains a little bit of
18:54
Speaker 4: Trump's eagerness, if your interpretation of this truth social as
18:59
Speaker 4: of about twenty minutes ago is correct, Trump's eagerness to
19:03
Speaker 4: actually stop the escalation trap in action.
19:06
Speaker 3: Yeah, and Trump and Rubio gave about an hour long
19:09
Speaker 3: press conference yesterday, which is kind of mooted at this
19:12
Speaker 3: point by the developments that have happened since then. But
19:16
Speaker 3: there was one clip I wanted to play from that
19:18
Speaker 3: because I think it suggests how bleak the situation had
19:21
Speaker 3: gotten for Jesse Waters in the United States. We can
19:25
Speaker 3: let's jump to a six here. Here's Marco Rubio in
19:29
Speaker 3: what has to just be a truly historic moment for
19:34
Speaker 3: American collapse, explaining what the new goal of the ongoing
19:39
Speaker 3: war is.
19:40
Speaker 9: As President Trump has said, and the facts clearly bear out,
19:43
Speaker 9: the United States of America holds all the cards. There
19:46
Speaker 9: is no scenario here in which if they decide to
19:50
Speaker 9: join a ladder of escalation, they wind up getting the
19:52
Speaker 9: last say. But our preference is for these straits to
19:55
Speaker 9: be opened to the way they're supposed to be open,
19:58
Speaker 9: back to the way it was. Anyone can use it,
20:00
Speaker 9: no minds in the water, nobody paying tolls. That's what
20:03
Speaker 9: we have to get back to.
20:04
Speaker 5: And that's the goal here.
20:06
Speaker 3: So the US preference is for things to go back
20:08
Speaker 3: to the way they were. Lindsey Graham is going to
20:12
Speaker 3: be having a difficult day here. He is yesterday kind
20:18
Speaker 3: of trying to talk himself through what he sees as
20:21
Speaker 3: in the next step.
20:22
Speaker 4: Here, we should say this is after the true social
20:24
Speaker 4: post on Hannity. So Trump posts that, Lindsey Gramm reacts.
20:29
Speaker 7: Yeah, how do you now define victory as as just
20:33
Speaker 7: seems to be in the closing days.
20:37
Speaker 6: Regain freedom and navigation of the strait of her moves
20:41
Speaker 6: if they continue to attack our allies like the United
20:44
Speaker 6: Air Members. The UAE has been champion allies They've done
20:48
Speaker 6: everything we vest and more so when Iran attacks them
20:52
Speaker 6: with missiles and drones, we need to be there for
20:54
Speaker 6: the United Air Members if they do this, they continue
20:57
Speaker 6: to do this, attack ships and our allies. I would
21:00
Speaker 6: let Admiral Cooper finish the job, go against targets like
21:04
Speaker 6: General Catalog indicated. I'm not a real advocate of taking
21:08
Speaker 6: car Gland. I think we were to tell the Iranians
21:10
Speaker 6: we will destroy it from the air. That will accomplish
21:13
Speaker 6: the mission I have in mind, which means they can
21:16
Speaker 6: never regenerate anytime soon to become the state largest state
21:20
Speaker 6: sponsor of terrorism, and their nuclear program has been obliterated.
21:23
Speaker 4: We're close to victory.
21:24
Speaker 6: Victory to me would be regaining freedom of navigation of
21:28
Speaker 6: the Strait of Hormuz, degrading a little bit further short,
21:32
Speaker 6: big strong response to degrade their military capability a bit further,
21:37
Speaker 6: threaten carra G Island with destruction and pull out, and
21:41
Speaker 6: try to get Israel and Saudi Arabi.
21:42
Speaker 3: Back to the peace table.
21:43
Speaker 6: The ultimate victory is that Saudi Arabia and Israel make peace,
21:48
Speaker 6: ending the Arab Israeli conflict. Because Donald Trump put a
21:52
Speaker 6: run in a box, he was not Obama, he was
21:54
Speaker 6: not Biden. He didn't beg them, he didn't give them
21:57
Speaker 6: a bunch of money. He blew up their capability to
21:59
Speaker 6: wage war and terrorism. You will go down in history,
22:02
Speaker 6: mister President, as being the greatest peacemaker in the history.
22:05
Speaker 3: Of the Mideast.
22:06
Speaker 6: If you can put Iran in a box and have
22:09
Speaker 6: Saudi Arabian Israel make peace on your watch this year,
22:12
Speaker 6: that is victory.
22:14
Speaker 4: So this is not the JCPOA Ryan He's saying Trump
22:17
Speaker 4: is not giving anyone lots of money. He was only
22:21
Speaker 4: able to.
22:21
Speaker 3: Accomplish this millions of dollars.
22:23
Speaker 4: Literally, that is what's on the table right now. Per
22:25
Speaker 4: this morning's reporting, Lindsey Graham is saying he's not giving them.
22:28
Speaker 3: Billions there money in Trump's defense.
22:31
Speaker 4: The frozen Yeah, but then apparently also lifting sanctions. So
22:36
Speaker 4: these are as the day plays out, We're going to
22:39
Speaker 4: see how the Lindsay Grams react.
22:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is what happens when you lose. And on
22:43
Speaker 3: to Graham's point about regional relations, and we're going to
22:47
Speaker 3: be joined to believe I'm at connon moment to talk
22:49
Speaker 3: about I think why he can talk about why Iron
22:52
Speaker 3: was in the position to get this if if they do,
22:56
Speaker 3: regional relations have been utterly scrambled. So put up a
23:00
Speaker 3: just real Briefly, this is the IRGC spokesperson saying, in
23:06
Speaker 3: recent days, the armed forces of the islam Republic of
23:09
Speaker 3: Iran have not carried out any missile or drone operations
23:12
Speaker 3: against the UAE. Had any such action been taken, we
23:16
Speaker 3: would have announced it with full firmness and clarity. Therefore,
23:19
Speaker 3: the report from that country's Ministry of Defense is categorically
23:22
Speaker 3: denied and is entirely devoid of truth. Should any measures
23:26
Speaker 3: be taken against Iran from Emoradi territories, our response will
23:29
Speaker 3: be severe. Now, obviously we take all statements from all
23:33
Speaker 3: governments with heavy doses of grains of salts. Their point, though,
23:39
Speaker 3: is that they say when we've attacked the UE before,
23:41
Speaker 3: we have said it every single time. More importantly, talking
23:45
Speaker 3: to a lot of different golf officials, both in Saudi
23:47
Speaker 3: Arabian from the Amoradis and looking at their public statements,
23:52
Speaker 3: what emerges is that the UAE actually is not totally
23:55
Speaker 3: convinced that Iran struck the Fujerra Port. Is a strong
24:00
Speaker 3: suspicion that it was Saudi Arabia that hit that port
24:05
Speaker 3: there is all. There is a suspicion that Saudi Arabia
24:08
Speaker 3: hit it in retaliation for the UAE and or Israel
24:12
Speaker 3: previously hitting the East West pipeline. The East West pipeline
24:17
Speaker 3: that was hit earlier in the war was hit with
24:20
Speaker 3: precision that they that they do not believe that Iran
24:24
Speaker 3: possesses from that distance, and Saudi Arabia has it, and
24:31
Speaker 3: so you know, so Saudi Arabia believed that the UAE
24:35
Speaker 3: hit this East West pipeline or that Israel did it
24:38
Speaker 3: in coordination with with the UEE. UA and Israel have
24:41
Speaker 3: not liked the East West pipeline ever, it cuts both
24:45
Speaker 3: of them out. Israel would like would prefer a pipeline
24:48
Speaker 3: that cuts up their direction. UE doesn't want Saudi Arabia
24:54
Speaker 3: to be the kind of hegemonic power there. And so
24:58
Speaker 3: the suspicion, whether it's true not, the very strong suspicion
25:01
Speaker 3: among very powerful goal figures is that the UE and
25:04
Speaker 3: Saudi Arabia are blowing up each other's industrial fossil fuel
25:09
Speaker 3: industrial capacity right now, which.
25:12
Speaker 4: Is wild, Yeah, absolutely wild. Well, let's actually get to
25:15
Speaker 4: AMG Kanlan.
25:19
Speaker 3: Joining us now is American philanthropists and humanitarian activist Ahmed Khan,
25:24
Speaker 3: who has been working who has been traveling to Iran
25:28
Speaker 3: frequently over the years, has a lot of contacts in Iran,
25:32
Speaker 3: and several years ago was engaged in a fascinating kind
25:38
Speaker 3: of interplay in which he helped to get some refugees.
25:42
Speaker 3: And I think people might have missed this news at
25:44
Speaker 3: the time. We can put up a ten refugees from Afghanistan,
25:47
Speaker 3: you know, who had worked with the United States while
25:51
Speaker 3: they're into Iran because they were having such a difficult
25:56
Speaker 3: time getting them all out in time as the kind
26:00
Speaker 3: of American occupation was collapsing and the Taliban was taking over.
26:05
Speaker 3: The Washing Post reported this is back in twenty twenty
26:07
Speaker 3: one that you kind of had the idea, wait a minute,
26:11
Speaker 3: looking at a map here, Iran is a country that
26:15
Speaker 3: might actually be willing to help here. And as a
26:18
Speaker 3: result of that, you've developed, you know, contacts in the
26:20
Speaker 3: kind of humanitarian space in Iran which will which will
26:25
Speaker 3: be relevant to our conversation today. But give us the
26:29
Speaker 3: thumbnail version of that of that story. Were you surprised
26:33
Speaker 3: that the Iranians were willing to be helpful because you
26:36
Speaker 3: can imagine ron like I think most Americans would say,
26:40
Speaker 3: why would Iron help they you know, this is an
26:43
Speaker 3: American occupation, there are enemies. I presume they would just
26:47
Speaker 3: tell us to get bent.
26:50
Speaker 10: Yeah, I mean that's the corporate media, you know, story
26:54
Speaker 10: that they tell us, and it's just not true, which
26:56
Speaker 10: is I mean, obviously most of those reporters have.
26:59
Speaker 5: No idea what they talking about.
27:00
Speaker 10: They don't know anything about Iran, They've never been there,
27:03
Speaker 10: they don't know any Iranian people except for maybe some
27:05
Speaker 10: you know, lunatics and shisha joints in La or Vancouver
27:09
Speaker 10: or something. So what that was was that was actually
27:13
Speaker 10: after the American withdrawal, and as you remember, it was
27:17
Speaker 10: a it was a complete fiasco and disaster. And the
27:20
Speaker 10: reality is the Biden administration left behind many, many people
27:26
Speaker 10: who actually worked for the United States and risked their
27:29
Speaker 10: lives for the United States mission in Afghanistan. They wound
27:32
Speaker 10: up taking some people who didn't do anything for the
27:35
Speaker 10: United States. So I had been over there and you know,
27:39
Speaker 10: had committed to get these people out and I wasn't
27:42
Speaker 10: gonna give up, even though the United States has already
27:44
Speaker 10: pulled out. So this is actually after the United States
27:46
Speaker 10: had pulled out and sort of we went to Iran
27:49
Speaker 10: and they said sure, and we actually did it in
27:52
Speaker 10: the Iranian consulate in Herad, Afghanistan to where the west
27:55
Speaker 10: of Afghanistan near the Iranian border, and charted a plane
27:59
Speaker 10: from Mashadi on and you know, they gave the they
28:02
Speaker 10: gave the visas, we flew them and now they're all
28:05
Speaker 10: either in the United States or Canada.
28:07
Speaker 5: And doing really really well.
28:08
Speaker 10: And you know, it wasn't surprising to me because that's
28:12
Speaker 10: what sort of diplomacy is. And unfortunately right now we
28:14
Speaker 10: don't really have any professional diplomats doing this kind of work.
28:18
Speaker 10: We have, you know, sort of people who develop mixed
28:21
Speaker 10: use commercial properties and that's not really relevant to being
28:26
Speaker 10: peaceful and getting along with people. I think the Irunnan
28:30
Speaker 10: government is always anxious to.
28:34
Speaker 5: Find common ground.
28:36
Speaker 10: I mean, who wants to be in war, Like nobody
28:38
Speaker 10: literally wants to be in war, you know among people well,
28:41
Speaker 10: I mean certainly governments and you know, the weapons industry
28:45
Speaker 10: and then people with real other agendas of their issues.
28:49
Speaker 5: But for me, it wasn't surprising and that was a
28:51
Speaker 5: great So.
28:53
Speaker 3: You've you've been in war zones for the last twenty
28:56
Speaker 3: plus years everywhere from you know, Gaza Rwanda to Ukraine
29:00
Speaker 3: and beyond, based on the information that you have from
29:03
Speaker 3: your sources and travels, is the what is the situation
29:09
Speaker 3: in Iran? And how would you compare it to the
29:13
Speaker 3: effort that the US has made to annihilate the country,
29:17
Speaker 3: smash the economy, and bring it to its knees, to
29:20
Speaker 3: bring about a capitulation.
29:22
Speaker 10: Well, I mean, the reality is, most of the work
29:24
Speaker 10: I've done, I think ninety percent of it has been
29:26
Speaker 10: in countries that the United States.
29:27
Speaker 5: Has invaded and wars of choice, and I just.
29:30
Speaker 10: Sort of, as an American, go there and try and
29:32
Speaker 10: do what any individual could possibly do, whether it's being
29:35
Speaker 10: humanitarian aid or reconstruct. I've done everything you can imagine
29:39
Speaker 10: in the Christian provinces of Nineveh in Iraq, I rebuilt
29:42
Speaker 10: churches and rebuild homes of Christians that have been displaced
29:46
Speaker 10: by ISIS, which happened as a result of the US
29:48
Speaker 10: invasion of Iraq. I did the same things in Afghanistan.
29:51
Speaker 10: In Syria, I actually evacuated Syrians who work for US
29:55
Speaker 10: Special Forces whose lives are in danger when US Special
29:58
Speaker 10: Forces came out of Syria. So I've done, you know,
30:02
Speaker 10: sort of everything you can imagine in all these wars
30:06
Speaker 10: of choice, but this literally is the worst one. I mean,
30:09
Speaker 10: we were given absolutely no reason to do this. You know,
30:13
Speaker 10: we were told that they're two weeks away and two
30:16
Speaker 10: weeks away, and apparently, you know, US intelligence figured out
30:21
Speaker 10: that after the June bombings, there were nine to twelve
30:23
Speaker 10: months away if they so chose, and there was a
30:25
Speaker 10: fut was you know, against pursuing a nuclear weapon. And
30:30
Speaker 10: apparently now they are still nine to twelve months away.
30:32
Speaker 10: So what was achieved. We dropped over thirty thousand bombs
30:36
Speaker 10: between Operation Epic Fury and Roaring Lion the Israelis.
30:41
Speaker 5: I mean, these are giant bombs and missiles.
30:44
Speaker 10: We killed children, We destroyed hospitals, we destroyed schools.
30:48
Speaker 5: So essentially, we've.
30:49
Speaker 10: Done an incredible job of uniting the America Iranian people
30:53
Speaker 10: behind their government and behind their country. Before their government,
30:57
Speaker 10: I would say, but behind you know, sort of, they're
30:59
Speaker 10: united now. And this is something that's completely different than
31:03
Speaker 10: we've seen before. Perhaps the Israeli's goal was regime change
31:08
Speaker 10: that was never going to happen. Perhaps it was complete chaos,
31:12
Speaker 10: you know, that was never going to happen either, And
31:14
Speaker 10: I think apparently we've got good news today that epic
31:17
Speaker 10: fury is over. So you know, I think it's maybe
31:20
Speaker 10: a cause for celebration, But in terms of thinking this
31:23
Speaker 10: through and doing this, I mean, this is what happens
31:25
Speaker 10: when you have people who have no idea about the
31:28
Speaker 10: country they're dealing with whoever or the decision makers are.
31:31
Speaker 10: I mean, I was sure none of them knows what
31:33
Speaker 10: Ashia is. None of them knows that there are tens
31:36
Speaker 10: of millions of Iranians, for veter or worse, who are
31:39
Speaker 10: religious Shia and support their government.
31:41
Speaker 5: None of them know that.
31:42
Speaker 10: Actually from the protesters in January, many of them now
31:47
Speaker 10: are out protesting in support of the government, or you know,
31:50
Speaker 10: they say in support of the country. And so the
31:53
Speaker 10: protesters in January were economic and they've understood now that
31:57
Speaker 10: that was a result of sanctions of years and years
31:59
Speaker 10: of sanctions. We've had sanctions on Iran since nineteen eighty six.
32:03
Speaker 10: We had them in seventy nine and eighty as a
32:05
Speaker 10: result of the hostage crisis. We pulled them off and
32:07
Speaker 10: then Reagan started again. President Reagan started again in eighty six.
32:10
Speaker 10: I mean, they're debilitating, right, and I think everybody in
32:14
Speaker 10: Iran knows that. I think you know, it's just it's
32:18
Speaker 10: just basically, we've achieved the opposite of I think what
32:21
Speaker 10: we wanted to achieve.
32:22
Speaker 4: Yeah, So I was going to ask about that question,
32:24
Speaker 4: because this is the rationale behind our Cuba policy too.
32:29
Speaker 4: Why was there not a regime change despite the debilitating sanctions,
32:34
Speaker 4: despite the administration taking out almost the entire top layer
32:39
Speaker 4: of leadership. On the first day of the war, they
32:43
Speaker 4: were being told, apparently, according to reports by Israel, there
32:47
Speaker 4: was a decent likelihood that people would rise up, freedom
32:50
Speaker 4: loving Ironians would rise up and they would overthrow the IRGC.
32:56
Speaker 4: That didn't happen. Why and what's happened now?
33:01
Speaker 10: To your point, that was complete nonsense. It was never
33:05
Speaker 10: going to happen. I will literally, there are millions and
33:07
Speaker 10: millions of people who support the government. There are millions
33:10
Speaker 10: of people who are critics of the government, but they
33:12
Speaker 10: do not want to change their government. They don't want
33:15
Speaker 10: a foreign country coming in and changing their government. They've
33:18
Speaker 10: had that, and they've had that for years. I mean,
33:20
Speaker 10: everybody knows about Mozadek and fifty three, but it happened
33:23
Speaker 10: in forty one. It happened in twenty five. The British
33:25
Speaker 10: and the US have done this over and over and
33:27
Speaker 10: over again, and Iranians in Iran know this and they
33:30
Speaker 10: know nothing good comes out of it, so that's why
33:34
Speaker 10: it didn't happen. And again with the result of killing
33:38
Speaker 10: all these top leaders, what they've done is revitalize the
33:42
Speaker 10: Iranian government actually, which is I think what they didn't want.
33:45
Speaker 10: It was really sort of decaying gerontocracy, and I think
33:49
Speaker 10: Ayatola kamene knew that and they probably just left himself
33:53
Speaker 10: out to be to be martyred. And you know, look,
33:57
Speaker 10: the reality is anyone who's worked in a bureaucracy knows
33:59
Speaker 10: that DoD there's probably two thousand people who were better
34:03
Speaker 10: equipped to be the Secretary of Defense than Pete Hexith
34:06
Speaker 10: and State Department, there's probably a thousand people who are
34:09
Speaker 10: better than Mark Rubio. So literally when people say, oh,
34:12
Speaker 10: now there's the B team or the C team or
34:14
Speaker 10: the D team, actually they're better people.
34:16
Speaker 5: They're younger, they're smarter, and.
34:19
Speaker 10: I don't know that that's what the United States wanted
34:21
Speaker 10: because now they're really dealing with an adversary. So you know,
34:24
Speaker 10: it's just like the misinformation from the media and the
34:27
Speaker 10: government is just crazy, Like there were zero refugees.
34:31
Speaker 1: Right.
34:31
Speaker 10: You imagine thirty three thousand bombs, thirty one provinces in
34:35
Speaker 10: the country. Nobody left the country. All the borders are open.
34:38
Speaker 10: I Ruanians don't need a visa to Armenia. They're great allies. Turkey,
34:43
Speaker 10: no visa, you could cross any time. All the borders
34:45
Speaker 10: remained basically during the bombing, they remained normal. You know,
34:50
Speaker 10: there's truck traffic and then people going on vacation, and
34:53
Speaker 10: I talked to plenty of them. I was on all
34:55
Speaker 10: the borders and there was nobody who said, you know,
34:58
Speaker 10: there's some giant revolution about to occur in.
35:00
Speaker 3: Iran uh So, last night on Emily's Megan Kelly Network program,
35:07
Speaker 3: there was a really fascinating call in from an American
35:11
Speaker 3: responding to Trump's war in iran Wan. To play that
35:13
Speaker 3: and get your get your thoughts on it, Let's roll
35:16
Speaker 3: a eight.
35:17
Speaker 9: Hi.
35:18
Speaker 11: First of all, I want to say that I voted
35:19
Speaker 11: for Drum three times, a hardcore supporter of his, but
35:23
Speaker 11: I am extremely disappointed and what he's doing. He needs
35:27
Speaker 11: to blow them to smithereens. He needs to come back
35:29
Speaker 11: in America and take care of us, the American people.
35:32
Speaker 11: I mean, I would never I can't believe that out
35:34
Speaker 11: of my mouth. I'm saying these things because I am
35:37
Speaker 11: completely disappointed with him. He's gonna lose, and he's gonna
35:40
Speaker 11: We're gonna lose the election in November, all of them.
35:43
Speaker 11: Trust me. If he continues this route. The gas prices
35:47
Speaker 11: are so high, you know, working two dogs, we can
35:50
Speaker 11: still barely make it. My son and my grandkids are
35:54
Speaker 11: never going to be able to own a home. I mean,
35:56
Speaker 11: this is not the way it's supposed to go.
35:58
Speaker 4: You know.
36:00
Speaker 11: I don't understand what's going on. A friend who has
36:02
Speaker 11: a business, and the terms killed my friend's business. They've
36:05
Speaker 11: been in business for forty years. I don't know what
36:08
Speaker 11: happened to Trump, but this is not the same person
36:10
Speaker 11: I voted for. And if he doesn't, I'm giving him
36:14
Speaker 11: personally till the end of May. If we're still in
36:17
Speaker 11: this mess and gas prizes has not come down, and
36:20
Speaker 11: he hasn't blown the Iranian people too, I mean he
36:23
Speaker 11: needs to get in and just destroy them, as simple
36:25
Speaker 11: as that. If he doesn't do that, I will never
36:29
Speaker 11: vote for him again, and I will never believe a Republican.
36:31
Speaker 11: I mean, he's really damaging. I can't believe I'm saying this.
36:35
Speaker 4: That was Connie in Las Vegas said you can't make
36:38
Speaker 4: it work in two jobs, that her sons will never
36:41
Speaker 4: be able to afford a home. She also went on
36:43
Speaker 4: in the call, this is unserious XM to say that
36:46
Speaker 4: she was supposed to retire in two years. Doesn't think
36:49
Speaker 4: she's ever going to retire. She said she was giving
36:51
Speaker 4: Trump he heard this at the end of the call,
36:53
Speaker 4: until the end of May. Her perspective was you either
36:56
Speaker 4: have to I think she said something like just blow
36:58
Speaker 4: the Iranians. It was like another four or five minute call,
37:02
Speaker 4: but something about how below the Iranians and get out
37:04
Speaker 4: of there, blow them up and get out of there.
37:06
Speaker 4: But in the rest of the call, it sounded like
37:08
Speaker 4: she was talking about the government, the IRGC specifically. And Ryan,
37:12
Speaker 4: I don't know if you had anything to add on
37:13
Speaker 4: the question for Ahmud.
37:15
Speaker 3: No, yeah, I guess the other question would be for
37:20
Speaker 3: Amican related to this. You you know, you've you've done
37:23
Speaker 3: this relief work all around the world. You said that
37:26
Speaker 3: there were no you know, no refuge there's no refugee
37:30
Speaker 3: crisis in Iran. What about humanitarian aid? Like how are
37:32
Speaker 3: they doing? You know, did you offer any kind of aid,
37:36
Speaker 3: what's what's been the reaction there.
37:38
Speaker 10: Yeah, I checked out what the situation was, and of
37:41
Speaker 10: course it's tough. But my contacts through the Turkish Red
37:45
Speaker 10: Cress and who are working in Iran said, basically, the
37:49
Speaker 10: stuff that you're sending to Lebanon and Gaz, I just
37:51
Speaker 10: keep sending it to Lebanon and Gaza. We were getting
37:54
Speaker 10: by and that's kind of again the opposite.
37:56
Speaker 5: Story of what you're being told.
37:58
Speaker 10: You know, your people who are people on these people
38:01
Speaker 10: on the media that show up from these fake thing
38:02
Speaker 10: tanks that are like, you know, people are collapsing and
38:05
Speaker 10: the place is collapsing and it's falling apart, and that's
38:08
Speaker 10: just not the case. I mean, we did hit thousands
38:10
Speaker 10: of hospitals and schools and civilian infrastructure, but somehow they're
38:15
Speaker 10: they're piecing it back together and there's no urgent appeal.
38:18
Speaker 10: The reality is five million people were internally displaced. So
38:21
Speaker 10: you know the difference between internally displaced and the refugees.
38:24
Speaker 10: The refugees the one that leaves their country. These people
38:27
Speaker 10: lost their homes, but they didn't want to leave the country,
38:30
Speaker 10: and they're voting.
38:30
Speaker 5: You know, people often vote with their.
38:32
Speaker 10: Feet so that's another sort of data point that you
38:36
Speaker 10: know things are they're not okay, but people want to
38:39
Speaker 10: stay right.
38:40
Speaker 5: And so yeah, I've been told multiple.
38:42
Speaker 10: Times I'll look into it, and no one's really said
38:46
Speaker 10: we have an urgent appeal, like for example, with Lebanon,
38:49
Speaker 10: I have an urgent appeal from the Catholic Church even
38:52
Speaker 10: up to the Vatican where their clinics and hospitals are overwhelmed.
38:55
Speaker 10: But in Iran no such thing, which is wild considering
38:59
Speaker 10: the amount tonnage from land syon air, the bombs and
39:02
Speaker 10: missiles that that that landed on Iran. And to Connie's point,
39:08
Speaker 10: look at the EOD budget. They want to do one
39:10
Speaker 10: point five trillion. Now it was one trillion, And the
39:12
Speaker 10: reality is if you ask any like soberminded longtime d
39:16
Speaker 10: D employee, like what should the DoD budget be really
39:19
Speaker 10: to keep American safe? The answer is like five hundred
39:22
Speaker 10: maximum is what you'll get. So now they want to
39:24
Speaker 10: it's already double that and now to be triple that.
39:26
Speaker 10: Like the things we could do with that money, you know,
39:29
Speaker 10: we could actually have a real education system or hospitals
39:33
Speaker 10: at schools, and our airports can not look like we're
39:36
Speaker 10: a developing world country. I mean, this is obviously the
39:39
Speaker 10: healthcare you know, so obviously she's she's got a point
39:43
Speaker 10: on that. I mean it's a misallocation of resources that's
39:45
Speaker 10: just brutal.
39:46
Speaker 4: M Yeah. And like you said earlier, I mean you
39:50
Speaker 4: go around the world, people don't want war. People don't
39:53
Speaker 4: want war.
39:53
Speaker 10: Yeah, No normal citizen wants to be in war. Like
39:56
Speaker 10: you don't meet anyone Like so, I met a truck
39:58
Speaker 10: driver just exited Iran in Armenia and he was crying.
40:01
Speaker 10: I said, oh, you're okay, and he's just, you know,
40:04
Speaker 10: why are they bombing us? Like, you know, what did
40:06
Speaker 10: we do to them? And I really had no answer
40:09
Speaker 10: for him because he's like, can you tell me what
40:11
Speaker 10: they were?
40:11
Speaker 5: What did we do to them? Why are they doing this?
40:14
Speaker 10: And you just feel like normal people just don't want
40:17
Speaker 10: any part of this, and there's got to be a
40:19
Speaker 10: better way than just twenty four seven air strikes. Like
40:23
Speaker 10: for example, I know someone at US Transcom and they
40:26
Speaker 10: told me we've done over four thousand airlifts to Israel,
40:31
Speaker 10: like I think the Israeli government has said we've done
40:33
Speaker 10: four hundred and three full of weapons since February twenty
40:36
Speaker 10: eight four thousand is just a crazy number. The one
40:40
Speaker 10: hundred planes a day, like what a waste of resources
40:44
Speaker 10: and which leads to people dead?
40:46
Speaker 3: Like?
40:47
Speaker 5: What is that?
40:48
Speaker 3: Well, hopefully this is it for the foreseeable future. I'm
40:52
Speaker 3: at con Thank you so much for being here, really
40:55
Speaker 3: appreciate it.
40:56
Speaker 5: Thanks Emily, Thanks Ryan, take care of be well you too. Yeah.
40:59
Speaker 5: We have good news, I think, I hope so yeah.
41:02
Speaker 5: Fingers crossed.
41:05
Speaker 4: A group of House Democrats is demanding that the United
41:09
Speaker 4: States break the taboos surrounding Israel's nuclear weapons. We can
41:14
Speaker 4: put our first element up on the screen. This was
41:15
Speaker 4: a story in the Washington Post that reported on a
41:19
Speaker 4: letter saying a group of House Democrats is urging the
41:22
Speaker 4: Trump administration to publicly acknowledge Israel's undeclared nuclear weapons program,
41:26
Speaker 4: a move that would abandon decades of US policy but
41:30
Speaker 4: confirm what has been an open secret among intelligence officials
41:35
Speaker 4: since the late nineteen sixties. Now, this letter was addressed
41:38
Speaker 4: to Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The Post published the
41:43
Speaker 4: letter in full, and you can see I'm very curiously
41:45
Speaker 4: at Ryan Grim's reaction to this. Again, thirty House Democrats
41:49
Speaker 4: not just squad type House democrats either, you have like
41:53
Speaker 4: Al Green on their AOC is on it like a
41:56
Speaker 4: balance on it. Some of the you know, great gasar
41:58
Speaker 4: or some of the obvious type smartbook can but it's
42:02
Speaker 4: not just squad types. Lloyd Doggett is on this so
42:07
Speaker 4: we can also then, Ryan take a little trip down
42:11
Speaker 4: memory lane to Jonathan Pollard years ago. That's a familiar name,
42:15
Speaker 4: but set us up, Ran because you had us pull
42:17
Speaker 4: this clip to kind of understand the significance of what's
42:20
Speaker 4: really happening here.
42:21
Speaker 3: Yeah. So Jonathan Pollard one of the maybe the most
42:24
Speaker 3: infamous Israeli spy who helped build Israel's nuclear program by
42:31
Speaker 3: stealing American nuclear secrets and sending them to Israel. As
42:37
Speaker 3: we reported a while ago, and this has been in
42:40
Speaker 3: books and other stuff. When net Yahoo came to the
42:46
Speaker 3: US in the nineties, he mentioned to President Clinton that
42:52
Speaker 3: Israel had tapes of him in communication with Monica Lewinzy
42:56
Speaker 3: just mentioned it like as a friend would do, not
42:59
Speaker 3: making any threats whatsoever, just saying, hey, just bro, fyol,
43:04
Speaker 3: We've got these tapes.
43:05
Speaker 4: Something to think about.
43:06
Speaker 3: Not great. Then he also said I need you to
43:10
Speaker 3: free John th and Pollard as part of this piece
43:12
Speaker 3: deal that I'm trying to get get broken with arafat
43:15
Speaker 3: here the George Tennant, who was the CIA director at
43:19
Speaker 3: the time, told Clinton, if you do that, I'm resigning
43:23
Speaker 3: and saying that's why I'm resigning, like we as the
43:26
Speaker 3: American intelligence community, it will not allow this spy to
43:32
Speaker 3: be sent back to Israel. That was the nineties. He
43:35
Speaker 3: was eventually kind of given some humanitarian parole in twenty
43:39
Speaker 3: fifteen by the Obama administration, and then the Trump administration
43:45
Speaker 3: allowed him to head back to Israel, where he promptly
43:49
Speaker 3: threatened to nuke the United States. So let's roll pollard.
43:54
Speaker 12: The Obiden administration, as I called it, did threaten us.
43:58
Speaker 12: But I said, you're miss and if you think there's
44:01
Speaker 12: never a choice, there was a choice. He said, well,
44:04
Speaker 12: what is it to have our weapons cut off?
44:06
Speaker 4: I said no.
44:07
Speaker 12: Let me bring you back to October nineteen seventy three
44:11
Speaker 12: during the Kippur War, when Henry Kissinger instituted an arms
44:16
Speaker 12: embargo against US. He stopped the aerial resupply of our
44:23
Speaker 12: army at that point to extract diplomatic concessions from US.
44:28
Speaker 3: And what happened.
44:30
Speaker 5: What happened was.
44:33
Speaker 12: An A four Skyhawk was parked at Telnoth air Base
44:39
Speaker 12: with some interesting weapons under its wings, and we told
44:44
Speaker 12: the Americans, take your eye in the sky and take
44:48
Speaker 12: a good look at the airplane that's on that runway.
44:53
Speaker 12: And the next day the airlifts started. So the guy
45:00
Speaker 12: that I was talked with chairlift to to Israel the
45:04
Speaker 12: arms Aerol.
45:04
Speaker 4: So in other words, we threatened there.
45:07
Speaker 12: We threatened to use unconventional weapons. So I'll read it
45:10
Speaker 12: at that, and so he said, is this what your
45:13
Speaker 12: want us to threaten?
45:14
Speaker 9: Now?
45:15
Speaker 12: I said, absolutely, except this time I want us to
45:17
Speaker 12: go forward with it if necessary.
45:19
Speaker 3: And that nice. After that, unconventional unconventional weapons, some fancy
45:25
Speaker 3: weapons under the wing. After that, Mike Hakkavi, our ambassador
45:29
Speaker 3: to Israel, met with Pollard, which then drew protests from
45:34
Speaker 3: American officials in the embassy who were like, what on
45:37
Speaker 3: earth are you doing. Meanwhile, Pollard is taking the hint
45:41
Speaker 3: you can put up B three here he's announcing according
45:44
Speaker 3: Tomes of Israel, you know he's planning on entering politics,
45:47
Speaker 3: slamming that yahoo Bennett from the right. Obviously, yes, right,
45:51
Speaker 3: So I look forward to when Pollard is Prime minister.
45:55
Speaker 3: People saying that they condemn the Pollard government, but not Israel.
46:00
Speaker 4: So yeah, that'll be interesting.
46:02
Speaker 3: By the way, I was looking through the list of
46:04
Speaker 3: the thirty people that signed. A ton of them are
46:05
Speaker 3: not coming back to Congress next time, however, super interesting
46:09
Speaker 3: some that are interestingly. One of them Maxine Dexter.
46:13
Speaker 4: Oh, that is interesting.
46:14
Speaker 3: So Maxine Dexter, she beat Primilage Giapaul's sister, Yes, Soshila Giapaul.
46:20
Speaker 3: Promila Giapol signed this letter. She got more than two
46:24
Speaker 3: million dollars from a pack that they secretly funneled through
46:27
Speaker 3: max Group three fourteen action. Yes, so she was elected
46:31
Speaker 3: with two plus million dollars worth of a pack secret
46:33
Speaker 3: a PAC money and is running again and is running again.
46:36
Speaker 3: She's been and she has been constituents hammer her constantly
46:40
Speaker 3: for that secret eight PAC money. She's Portland area, Yes, yeah, yeah,
46:44
Speaker 3: and so that's interesting that she would sign this.
46:48
Speaker 4: That's very interest a pack you spent two million bucks to.
46:50
Speaker 3: Get her in there. She's now she's telling Israel to
46:52
Speaker 3: out it's nuclear program, which has legal implications because if
46:58
Speaker 3: the United States ever acknowledged that Israel had undeclared nuclear weapons,
47:03
Speaker 3: and it is not a signatory to any of these treaties. Yes,
47:06
Speaker 3: we can't arm a country like that. It is illegal
47:08
Speaker 3: to arm that country, which means it is illegal to
47:12
Speaker 3: arm them.
47:13
Speaker 4: There is so much on the line, and I get
47:15
Speaker 4: that this is just like a silly little letter people
47:17
Speaker 4: will say from House Democrats, but it's a huge sign
47:20
Speaker 4: that this taboo with massive implications is in the process
47:24
Speaker 4: of shattering. Van Jones on CNN was discussing this with
47:27
Speaker 4: Abby Phillip. It had a little bit of, honestly a
47:30
Speaker 4: crash out. You can see why. I mean, he's sort
47:33
Speaker 4: of calm throughout, but you can see he's pulling at
47:36
Speaker 4: the stud that Ryan's talking about. Why why? Why these
47:39
Speaker 4: House Democrats saying it rollly?
47:41
Speaker 13: Clip here Here are some of the questions that Joaquin
47:44
Speaker 13: caught Castro is posing on this issue. Maybe this might
47:49
Speaker 13: answer some of your questions. What nuclear weapons capability does
47:53
Speaker 13: Israel have? Has the Administration received any assurances from Israel
47:57
Speaker 13: that nuclear weapons will not be used? Has is Real
48:00
Speaker 13: communicated to the United States any nuclear doctrine, any red
48:03
Speaker 13: lines or thresholds for nuclear use in the context of
48:07
Speaker 13: the current conflict with Iran? Has the Administration assessed what
48:10
Speaker 13: circumstances could lead Israel to con consider nuclear use. What
48:15
Speaker 13: contingency planning has the administration conducted for such a scenario?
48:19
Speaker 4: I mean we do, I mean, I is there.
48:24
Speaker 3: I'm asking an honest question why. I mean, if there's
48:28
Speaker 3: been some rumor that says that going to nuke around
48:32
Speaker 3: Here's the thing.
48:33
Speaker 4: I guess the question is.
48:34
Speaker 13: The question is again, now there's been a change of
48:37
Speaker 13: status quo. There's a war between the United States, Israel,
48:43
Speaker 13: and Iran that is going on right now in the
48:45
Speaker 13: Middle East, and under those circumstances that is actually different
48:50
Speaker 13: from what we've been experiencing for the last you know,
48:55
Speaker 13: forty fifty years. And so under those circumstances, there's only
48:58
Speaker 13: one power in the Middle East that has a nuke,
49:02
Speaker 13: and it's Israel. And so the question is, what are
49:05
Speaker 13: the circumstances? What are the boundaries? Are there any boundaries?
49:09
Speaker 13: They don't acknowledge that they have them, people know that
49:12
Speaker 13: they do, but are there any boundaries? I think that
49:14
Speaker 13: seems like a fair question.
49:16
Speaker 4: I'm assuming that they're in executive session. It seems like
49:20
Speaker 4: a great question asked the abby. Phillips says, but Ryan
49:23
Speaker 4: van Drones is saying why, I think because he's getting
49:26
Speaker 4: it exactly to your point. He's saying why because he
49:29
Speaker 4: believes the answer is so that because Democrats now want
49:33
Speaker 4: to stop arming Israel. I think that's what he was
49:35
Speaker 4: My interpretation is that's what he's pushing it. He's saying, well,
49:39
Speaker 4: nobody thinks Israel is actually going to douk run. So
49:41
Speaker 4: the only reason you're doing this he didn't come out
49:43
Speaker 4: and say it, but is because you don't want to
49:45
Speaker 4: keep sending arms and military support to Israel, period. And
49:49
Speaker 4: I think that's obviously what the real threat is to
49:51
Speaker 4: people like Van Jones here.
49:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, and the status quo position on a lot of
49:56
Speaker 3: Democrats at this point is, Okay, we're not going to
50:01
Speaker 3: subsidize Israeli weapons transfers anymore, but we're still going to
50:06
Speaker 3: facilitate massive weapons transfers, right, And the next uh terrain
50:12
Speaker 3: for the fight is going to be, no, we should
50:14
Speaker 3: actually not be sending period, we should not even be
50:17
Speaker 3: selling Israel weapons as long as they are continuing this
50:21
Speaker 3: expansionist project into Lebanon, into Syria, into into Gaza, into
50:28
Speaker 3: the West Bank, and then in fact they should be
50:30
Speaker 3: under sanctions. And if you're making the case that they
50:33
Speaker 3: should be sanctioned, having an illegal, undeclared nuclear program. I
50:38
Speaker 3: believe we're at war with Iran over its nuclear program
50:43
Speaker 3: right right now. Well maybe maybe maybe we're maybe we're
50:47
Speaker 3: pausing that, you know, project freedom momentarily. But yeah, so
50:51
Speaker 3: that that that will play in when if if the
50:54
Speaker 3: US you know, if if if the American people are like,
50:57
Speaker 3: wait a minute, we don't we don't necessarily try just
51:00
Speaker 3: the ability of this country to self regulate its behavior.
51:06
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is too. I mean, this is a big
51:09
Speaker 4: picture conversation we've been having about around for a long time,
51:11
Speaker 4: which you look at polling in America, support is just
51:13
Speaker 4: cratering for Israel almost across the board except for among
51:16
Speaker 4: older Republican voters, and you're starting to see, I mean,
51:20
Speaker 4: this letter kind of shatters the taboo in and of itself.
51:23
Speaker 4: And so as these conversations increase, you have like Pollard
51:29
Speaker 4: being somebody who's entering Israeli politics. You have an ascendant
51:33
Speaker 4: far right in Israeli politics because there's this idea that
51:38
Speaker 4: it's the this is kind of the end of the
51:40
Speaker 4: line when it comes to protection and that shield from
51:45
Speaker 4: the United States, because Americans no longer buy that the
51:48
Speaker 4: relationship is beneficial. Is mutually beneficial to the American people
51:53
Speaker 4: and so sort of a sign there that's probably correct.
51:57
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I love the Van Jones response, Why what
52:03
Speaker 3: are these guys alone? Why are you singling out this
52:06
Speaker 3: this Israel in the middle of the East, just because
52:08
Speaker 3: they're the only UH country with an undeclared nuclear program.