Latest / Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar / 3/17/26: Top Iran Official Assassinated, WH Panic Over DropSite Report, Yanis Varoufakis on Iran War

Transcript

3/17/26: Top Iran Official Assassinated, WH Panic Over DropSite Report, Yanis Varoufakis on Iran War · Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

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0:35
Speaker 1: Have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have,
0:36
Speaker 1: Krystal Deed, we do.
0:38
Speaker 2: We've got a bunch of big guests in the show,
0:40
Speaker 2: and we've got a bunch of breaking news. So a
0:42
Speaker 2: top Iranian official reported killed Trump is apparently getting rejected
0:46
Speaker 2: pretty much across the board in terms of his whole
0:47
Speaker 2: straight up Horn moves gambit. Jeremy Scahill is going to
0:50
Speaker 2: join with some important reporting about the negotiations, the lack
0:54
Speaker 2: of negotiatings. The Iranians still saying we have absolutely no
0:57
Speaker 2: interest and any sort of a ceasfire deal. Jannis Verah
1:00
Speaker 2: is going to join to give us his perspective on
1:02
Speaker 2: how this is all going. We're going to take a
1:04
Speaker 2: look at the likely one hundred billion dollar request for
1:09
Speaker 2: war funding and how that's going to go down to
1:11
Speaker 2: you to look at some public polling and how much
1:13
Speaker 2: the American public Democrats in.
1:14
Speaker 1: Particular, have turned on Israel.
1:16
Speaker 2: Rachel Maddow is offering an absolutely abysmal and embarrassing take
1:21
Speaker 2: on the war. And Glenn Deson is going to join
1:23
Speaker 2: us for the first time. Very excited to speak with him.
1:25
Speaker 2: He'll give us a bit of a perspective on how
1:26
Speaker 2: the rest of the world is viewing what's going on.
1:29
Speaker 3: Yes, before we get to that, we did get some
1:31
Speaker 3: shocking news overnight. Let's go and put this up here
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3:00
Speaker 1: Okay, let's take news, all right, Let's do the news,
3:03
Speaker 1: shall we.
3:03
Speaker 3: So with all of that huge news breaking overnight, let's
3:05
Speaker 3: go and put this up here on the screen. Israel
3:09
Speaker 3: is now announcing that the top Iranian official Ali Larijani
3:13
Speaker 3: and the Bussige commander were both killed overnight. According to
3:16
Speaker 3: the Israeli Defense Minister, they were separate stark strikes and
3:20
Speaker 3: part of a joint Israeli American efforts. So we have
3:23
Speaker 3: been of course tracking a little bit of lar Jani
3:26
Speaker 3: since the war began. He's been issuing many of the
3:28
Speaker 3: security proclamations. The Financial Times here in the story about
3:33
Speaker 3: his death quote was one of the most powerful members
3:35
Speaker 3: of the Iranian regime, one of the key civilian figures
3:38
Speaker 3: leading the Islamic Republic. After the killing of the Ayatola Khamane,
3:42
Speaker 3: the Defense Minister said he had been targeted and killed
3:44
Speaker 3: in an overnight strike. They warned that more assassinations and
3:48
Speaker 3: targeted killings would continue.
3:50
Speaker 1: This is being seen.
3:51
Speaker 3: More as a regime collapse effort Larjani was apparently a
3:55
Speaker 3: key figure in the crackdown on those protests that happened,
3:59
Speaker 3: as well as besieged commander, So this is trying to
4:01
Speaker 3: foment some sort of revolution inside of the country. However,
4:06
Speaker 3: initial analysis actually shows that this is likely to increase
4:11
Speaker 3: the amount of control that the IRGC and the new
4:14
Speaker 3: Ayatola will have because he no longer will have any
4:17
Speaker 3: competitors in the security establishment and that lar Jihani himself
4:21
Speaker 3: was kind of more of an independent power base, and
4:23
Speaker 3: this will roll up into the hardline command that has
4:26
Speaker 3: taken over the country. So you could see it a
4:28
Speaker 3: couple different ways. First and foremost was quote unquote revenge
4:31
Speaker 3: I guess for the protesters, same with trying to crack
4:34
Speaker 3: down on the internal security establishment of the country.
4:37
Speaker 1: But second, what is the follow on effect?
4:39
Speaker 3: Very much like the killing of Kamane is more likely
4:42
Speaker 3: to centralize control into the new Ayatola and even if
4:45
Speaker 3: he is injured or he's being controlled, whoever is controlling
4:48
Speaker 3: him will now gain more stature I think inside of
4:51
Speaker 3: the country. That's kind of the initial political reaction. Some
4:54
Speaker 3: of the analysis has been going around.
4:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, be interested to ask Jeremy about
4:59
Speaker 2: what he makes of the and the significance and how
5:01
Speaker 2: much of a blow this is for the Iranians. Few
5:04
Speaker 2: things to say about this. Number One, Clearly the Americans
5:07
Speaker 2: and Israelis are continuing to pursue this idea. If we
5:09
Speaker 2: just keep on taking out the leadership as they did
5:12
Speaker 2: with Hesbela, as they did with Humus, then eventually maybe
5:15
Speaker 2: this thing will crumble. You know, we'll see if they're
5:18
Speaker 2: correct about that. So far, they have not been correct
5:20
Speaker 2: about that. That's what Trump thought would happen in the
5:22
Speaker 2: early days with taking on the Aetola, that the whole
5:24
Speaker 2: thing would just sort of collapse after the decapitation strikes. So,
5:30
Speaker 2: you know, the way the system has been designed and
5:33
Speaker 2: you know, prepared over decades is that even if the
5:36
Speaker 2: top leadership is taken out, they're still able to persist
5:40
Speaker 2: and able to continue governing the country. So that's one piece.
5:44
Speaker 2: The other piece of Zaga alluded to lar Jani himself
5:46
Speaker 2: very you know, interesting and contradictory figure. He was a
5:50
Speaker 2: you know, studying philosophy and math in certain ways, this
5:54
Speaker 2: very like idealistic figure. In other ways, this incredibly brutal
5:58
Speaker 2: and vicious figure. You know, very involved in the crackdown
6:01
Speaker 2: on the protesters, also had been previously very involved in
6:04
Speaker 2: like the government propaganda efforts and some you know, some
6:08
Speaker 2: pretty outrageous propaganda efforts coming from him. So in any case,
6:12
Speaker 2: he has taken off the field and we'll talk to
6:14
Speaker 2: Jeremy about what that may mean going forward. At the
6:18
Speaker 2: same time, you know, we ke been covering Trump has
6:21
Speaker 2: gotten in over his head with the Straight of Horror moves.
6:23
Speaker 2: Apparently reportedly he didn't think Roan closed the Straight of
6:28
Speaker 2: Horn Moves. He thought this whole thing would be over
6:30
Speaker 2: in four days. He thought the Ranian government would completely collapse.
6:34
Speaker 2: Obviously that did not happen. Not only did it not collapse,
6:37
Speaker 2: but they have in effect closed the Straight of Horn moves,
6:39
Speaker 2: at least for the ships that they want to close
6:41
Speaker 2: it for. The Iranians have continued to be able to
6:44
Speaker 2: export oil themselves. Yesterday, Scott Bessett came out and said,
6:48
Speaker 2: we're allowing them to export their oil as if this
6:51
Speaker 2: is you know, really in our court. At this point,
6:54
Speaker 2: they really have taken control and called the shots in
6:57
Speaker 2: terms of what is going to go through the Strait.
6:59
Speaker 2: So Trump making some interesting comments yesterday as he does
7:02
Speaker 2: about you know, he's kind of all over the place.
7:04
Speaker 2: He's saying, oh, yeah, the coalition of these other countries
7:07
Speaker 2: is coming together, and then at the same time talking
7:09
Speaker 2: about how many countries are reluctant to join in the
7:12
Speaker 2: US effort here for very understandable reasons. Let's go ahead
7:15
Speaker 2: and take a listen.
7:16
Speaker 1: To a one.
7:17
Speaker 5: Numerous countries have held me there on the way. Some
7:21
Speaker 5: are very enthusiastic about it, and some are in summer
7:25
Speaker 5: countries that we've helped for many, many years. We've protected
7:29
Speaker 5: them from horrible outside sources, and they weren't that enthusiastic,
7:38
Speaker 5: and the level of enthusiasm it matters to me. We
7:41
Speaker 5: have some countries where we have forty five thousand soldiers,
7:46
Speaker 5: great soldiers, protecting them from harm's way, and we have
7:52
Speaker 5: done a great job. And when we want to know,
7:56
Speaker 5: do you have any mind sweepers, Well, it would rather
7:59
Speaker 5: not involved, sir, I said for you, I mean, for
8:03
Speaker 5: forty years we're protecting you, and you don't want to
8:05
Speaker 5: get involved in something that is very minor, very few
8:09
Speaker 5: shots going to be taken because they don't have many
8:11
Speaker 5: shots left. But they said, we'd rather than not get involved.
8:17
Speaker 5: I just want the fake news media and everybody else
8:19
Speaker 5: to remember that that was said, because when I've been
8:25
Speaker 5: a big critic of all of the protecting of countries,
8:28
Speaker 5: because I know that we'll protect them and if ever needed,
8:33
Speaker 5: if we haven't needed help, they won't be there for us.
8:36
Speaker 5: I've just known that for a long period of time,
8:38
Speaker 5: just like I knew about the Straight that it would
8:43
Speaker 5: be a weapon, which I predicted a long time ago.
8:46
Speaker 2: So so far, we don't know many countries that I
8:50
Speaker 2: think I saw one Argentina I believe, signed up and
8:52
Speaker 2: said they were willing to join after we effectively, like
8:55
Speaker 2: you know, ring their elections in favor of Javi or Malay.
8:58
Speaker 2: But in any case, the European nations have been uncharacteristically
9:03
Speaker 2: have found a backbone on here, and the reason is
9:05
Speaker 2: because they're like, Okay, you got yourself into this mess,
9:08
Speaker 2: and if you're going to be escorting ships through the
9:11
Speaker 2: Straight up for moves effectively sitting ducks, I mean, this
9:14
Speaker 2: is not something to be done. It doesn't take a
9:17
Speaker 2: lot of military capability for the Iranians to be able
9:21
Speaker 2: to strike these tankers or whatever ships are trying to
9:23
Speaker 2: escort them through there. So the Europeans thus far are like, yeah, no,
9:26
Speaker 2: I don't think so.
9:27
Speaker 1: There's two reasons that the Europeans don't want to do it.
9:29
Speaker 3: Number one, it's massively, massively politically unpopular, and you're a
9:32
Speaker 3: cure Starmer, who himself is a political joke, is putting
9:35
Speaker 3: out hype real videos about how he stood up to
9:37
Speaker 3: the big bad the United States, and he's like, reform
9:40
Speaker 3: and conservatives wanted to drag us into war.
9:43
Speaker 1: And I stood up and I said no, we're not.
9:46
Speaker 3: And by the way, that was cooler than the way
9:48
Speaker 3: that he did it the rendition. You have multiple other
9:51
Speaker 3: European leaders who are like, I don't want so part
9:53
Speaker 3: of this. The second is actually a bigger strategic question.
9:56
Speaker 3: They have to husband their resources because their population is
9:59
Speaker 3: getting hit by a nat gas by oil. But remember
10:01
Speaker 3: they have Ukraine that they care a lot about, and
10:04
Speaker 3: right now they have to decide, specifically on the munitions front,
10:08
Speaker 3: whether to continue buying their assets from the United States
10:11
Speaker 3: passing them on to the warren Ukraine. They care a
10:14
Speaker 3: lot about the Russian front. There's already a fracturing in
10:17
Speaker 3: the political coalition within the EU. The Belgian Prime Minister
10:20
Speaker 3: came out yesterday and said, look, guys, maybe we should
10:23
Speaker 3: just normalize relations with Russia. They're like, this isn't working anymore.
10:26
Speaker 1: I know. So the whole world is moving on right now.
10:28
Speaker 3: So they have a ton of their own considerations on
10:31
Speaker 3: the continent, not to mention lack of political popularity, and
10:35
Speaker 3: their willingness to take casualties is way lower than the
10:39
Speaker 3: United States. They also look, I mean, if you're like
10:42
Speaker 3: the golf countries. The golf countries were said, there were
10:44
Speaker 3: some of the best allies of the United States. We
10:46
Speaker 3: have a defense cooperation agreements. They bought a ton of
10:48
Speaker 3: missiles from US. Well, they're furious right now over the
10:51
Speaker 3: lack of political and military defense from the United States.
10:55
Speaker 3: We're topping up Israel with new interceptors and new munitions,
10:59
Speaker 3: and for many of them, they feel as if they
11:00
Speaker 3: were thrust into this war through no choice of their
11:03
Speaker 3: own or maybe you know, their political leaders. The monarchs
11:06
Speaker 3: may have supported, but the ordinary people, their economies, a
11:08
Speaker 3: lot of their investors and others, they're freaking out. And
11:11
Speaker 3: this clip which we're about to show you, Trump saying
11:14
Speaker 3: we had no idea that they were going to get hit,
11:16
Speaker 3: isn't going to go over so well.
11:17
Speaker 6: In the Middle East.
11:18
Speaker 1: Let's take a three and take a listen.
11:20
Speaker 5: In the last two weeks, they weren't supposed to go
11:23
Speaker 5: after all these other countries in the Middle East. Those
11:26
Speaker 5: missiles were set to go after them, so they hit Qatar,
11:32
Speaker 5: Saudi Arabia, Uae, Bahrain, Kuwait. Nobody expected that we were shocked.
11:40
Speaker 3: Nobody expected that we were shocked except for every independent
11:43
Speaker 3: analyst on the war in including on the shit.
11:46
Speaker 1: You could go and look back.
11:47
Speaker 3: Seriously, I mean, many of these streets of Parsi interviews
11:50
Speaker 3: that we've done have aged incredibly well over just the
11:53
Speaker 3: last couple of weeks. By the way, what's the cost?
11:58
Speaker 3: Does anybody want to tell me? The cost is not
12:01
Speaker 3: just all of the dead Iranian civilians, all the civilians
12:04
Speaker 3: in Israel, all of the civilians in Lebanon, all of
12:07
Speaker 3: these like poor migrant laborers who are getting struck or
12:11
Speaker 3: working in Kuwait or Dubai Airport. It's also our own
12:15
Speaker 3: American soldiers who we owe the highest responsibility to. So
12:19
Speaker 3: let's go ahead and put a four up there on
12:21
Speaker 3: the screen. As you guys can see in front of you,
12:23
Speaker 3: the number of US troops wounded in Iran now surpasses
12:26
Speaker 3: two hundred across seven different countries, and I think that
12:30
Speaker 3: hits it home.
12:31
Speaker 1: This is not just one attack.
12:32
Speaker 3: That's what they try to sell it to you, as
12:34
Speaker 3: they're like, oh, it was just one attack on a
12:35
Speaker 3: tactical operations center. No, you have two hundred troops who
12:37
Speaker 3: are wounded in seven different countries. You had a medical
12:40
Speaker 3: evacuation flight already from Saudi Arabia from that base are
12:43
Speaker 3: from the tactical operations center which was hit. You have
12:46
Speaker 3: now seven seven different countries. One hundred and eighty have
12:50
Speaker 3: thankfully been able to return to duty, but at least
12:52
Speaker 3: some ten remain in critical condition. You have thirteen Americans
12:55
Speaker 3: which are now dead in the conflict, the same number
12:58
Speaker 3: that were killed in Joe Biden's withdrawal from Afghanistan. And
13:01
Speaker 3: that's just where things stand as of two to three
13:04
Speaker 3: weeks into the conflict. Remember that we have twenty five
13:07
Speaker 3: hundred US Marines which are now on their way to
13:10
Speaker 3: the Middle east'll be arriving sometime within the next week.
13:14
Speaker 3: A lot of eyes and ears open for potential ground operations.
13:17
Speaker 3: You have the a second Airborne who's tactical what was
13:20
Speaker 3: it their training exercise was canceled for potential deployment. So
13:24
Speaker 3: this is just beginning at this point. No signs of
13:27
Speaker 3: an offer rap, which is what we're going to talk
13:28
Speaker 3: to Jeremy about.
13:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we also learned yesterday, you know, that fire,
13:32
Speaker 2: the laundry fire on the gerald Ford aircraft carrier, which
13:36
Speaker 2: these sailors have been at sea already for like almost
13:40
Speaker 2: a year. They're going to break the record for the
13:42
Speaker 2: longest deployment on you without any sort of a break
13:45
Speaker 2: in a long time. That fire, if we're even buying
13:50
Speaker 2: the official story at this point that this was a
13:52
Speaker 2: fire that started in the laundry room. They battled it
13:54
Speaker 2: for thirty hours. Six hundred sailors and crew members are
13:59
Speaker 2: now without their beds, so they're having to sleep on
14:03
Speaker 2: the floor or on tables. By the way, now there
14:07
Speaker 2: is no laundry facility on this aircraft carrier, so all
14:10
Speaker 2: of these thousands of sailors without the ability. I mean,
14:13
Speaker 2: this's not like life threatening, but it sounds incredibly horrible
14:17
Speaker 2: and unpleasant after you've been at sea for all of
14:19
Speaker 2: these many months and keep getting extended and extended and extended.
14:23
Speaker 2: And this is also the ship that was having all
14:25
Speaker 2: the toilet issues. So the whole thing, I mean, it
14:28
Speaker 2: sounds absolutely miserable, and this whole thing is breaking down.
14:31
Speaker 2: And they also had, you know, they completely undersold this
14:35
Speaker 2: fire from the beginning, and there were a bunch of
14:37
Speaker 2: these sailors that had to be treated for smoke inhalation,
14:39
Speaker 2: like this was a serious deal. So this is the
14:42
Speaker 2: sort of thing that you're dealing with as well with
14:45
Speaker 2: this military. And we've had you know, all of these
14:47
Speaker 2: you know, aircraft falling out of the sky. I'm not
14:50
Speaker 2: really sure why we're getting official story. We're not really
14:52
Speaker 2: clear on whether that's accurate either, but you know, yeah,
14:55
Speaker 2: there's already significant, certainly significant damage in terms of you radars,
15:00
Speaker 2: that battery systems, bases in the region, and we are
15:04
Speaker 2: now getting a little bit more of a glimpse into
15:06
Speaker 2: what the actual human toll is, which again is very
15:09
Speaker 2: different from what they told us. You cannot believe these
15:12
Speaker 2: people on anything. They just lie routinely. Routinely they lie
15:17
Speaker 2: about the most basic things, even things that they know
15:19
Speaker 2: will ultimately come out in the end.
15:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I spoke to I spoke to somebody who
15:24
Speaker 3: would know. It's a former US Navy served on board
15:26
Speaker 3: of aircraft carriers apparently, and I've talked about this a
15:29
Speaker 3: little bit about why fire control is so important in
15:31
Speaker 3: the US Navy.
15:32
Speaker 6: Obviously, it's a ship.
15:33
Speaker 1: Fire is bad, right, So.
15:34
Speaker 3: One of the things is apparently when fire gets into ventilation,
15:37
Speaker 3: it makes it incredibly difficult to be able to put
15:40
Speaker 3: it out, and that's one of the reasons why it raids.
15:42
Speaker 3: So the official story may be correct, but the point
15:45
Speaker 3: actually remains. First of all, you know, this is not
15:47
Speaker 3: ever supposed to happen like this is a disaster. It's
15:49
Speaker 3: almost certainly a result. Now of this prolonged deployment, they
15:53
Speaker 3: will likely mark the record for a post Vietnam carrier
15:56
Speaker 3: deployment longest. So what is that fifty years? At some point,
16:00
Speaker 3: they are also being told on board that they're likely
16:02
Speaker 3: to extend at least until May. So it's already March seventeen.
16:06
Speaker 3: They've got a month and a half left to go.
16:09
Speaker 3: You have another carrier strike group which is coming to
16:11
Speaker 3: relieve them of duty. Obviously, these poor guys have been
16:14
Speaker 3: stuck out there. Just imagine, you know, toilets, laundry fire.
16:17
Speaker 3: I mean, it's a nine's six hundred. I don't know
16:19
Speaker 3: if you've ever seen. I mean, I haven't seen a
16:21
Speaker 3: modern aircraft carry I've been on board, you know, some
16:22
Speaker 3: of the ones that are like museums, like in San Diego.
16:25
Speaker 3: It's not a comfortable environment to be living on board
16:28
Speaker 3: for ten months. Yeah, that's with decent food and port
16:34
Speaker 3: calls and all those other So it's not great from
16:37
Speaker 3: what we're learning so far. And these guys, I mean,
16:39
Speaker 3: these poor poor service members. On top of not to
16:42
Speaker 3: mention all of the you know, it's not just that
16:44
Speaker 3: they're at sea, they're also supporting actual combat operations, so
16:47
Speaker 3: their tone tempo of like operation is probably much more,
16:51
Speaker 3: is much higher having to deal with this at home,
16:54
Speaker 3: not all of these US troops who have now been injured.
16:57
Speaker 1: I mean, it's already this is a total nightmare.
17:00
Speaker 3: And it's very obvious that you can see inside of
17:03
Speaker 3: the way that the Trump administration is currently handling this
17:06
Speaker 3: that they just don't know what to do and they're
17:09
Speaker 3: trying and scrambling potentially, which is what we're going to talk
17:12
Speaker 3: about here with Jeremy, about trying to get some sort
17:15
Speaker 3: of off ramp, like trying to open up negotiations on
17:18
Speaker 3: the Iranian side. But you've also got Israel, which is
17:21
Speaker 3: just like hovering over where they're obviously trying to do
17:24
Speaker 3: regime change. They're invading Lebanon. So every day the war
17:27
Speaker 3: goes on, it just continues to rage. Just this morning
17:31
Speaker 3: we officially got the news diesel is now five dollars
17:33
Speaker 3: a gallon, right, so five dollars a gallon. We all
17:36
Speaker 3: live that way under Biden. Remember the grocery store inflation.
17:39
Speaker 3: Every good in the country that's got to be trucked across,
17:42
Speaker 3: that's it. Boom diesel, also jet fuel. It just like
17:45
Speaker 3: I said, Singapore is trading like two hundred dollars a barrel.
17:47
Speaker 3: Dubai Airspace was just closed yesterday, closed like closed, I mean,
17:52
Speaker 3: one of the busiest airports in the world.
17:54
Speaker 4: Right.
17:54
Speaker 3: And Qatar there's a missile interception as of this morning.
17:58
Speaker 3: So it's not like things are turning down every day.
18:02
Speaker 3: They're like ninety five percent capacity and all of that
18:04
Speaker 3: have been lowered. Part of the things that you have
18:06
Speaker 3: to pay attention is, let's say it's true ninety five
18:09
Speaker 3: percent capacity of Iran has has gone down. As we
18:12
Speaker 3: have all now seen with these drones, it only takes
18:15
Speaker 3: one cheap little drone to go into cripple critical oil infrastructure.
18:19
Speaker 3: It totally takes one of these things to wipe out
18:21
Speaker 3: a two hundred million dollar you know, radar balloon. I mean,
18:24
Speaker 3: and we've seen all of this happen already, and remember
18:27
Speaker 3: we still don't know the damage. The satellite companies they're
18:29
Speaker 3: holding the images for two weeks, So two weeks from
18:31
Speaker 3: now we're going to find out what things look like today.
18:33
Speaker 3: And I'm betting you it's not nearly as rosy as
18:36
Speaker 3: the Pentagon that's making us look making it look.
18:38
Speaker 2: Like, Yeah, I really learned something about this on October seventh,
18:42
Speaker 2: when you know, these rallies had built this multi, multi
18:45
Speaker 2: multimillion dollar wall and security fit with these you know,
18:49
Speaker 2: cameras that are trained on gaza automatic machine gun fire
18:53
Speaker 2: if anyone approaches, and hamas, which you know, far fewer
18:57
Speaker 2: resources than the country of Iran has was able with
19:01
Speaker 2: a cheap drone to go and take out the camera
19:04
Speaker 2: and then they were able to break down the wall,
19:06
Speaker 2: like that's all it took, and you know, come in
19:08
Speaker 2: with paragliders like we are in a different era of
19:12
Speaker 2: warfare where yes, like you know, militarily we have all
19:17
Speaker 2: of this capacity and obviously we're nuclear armed and they're
19:20
Speaker 2: not in Israel's nuclear armed and they're not et cetera.
19:22
Speaker 2: And we can bomb them from the air relentlessly. We
19:26
Speaker 2: can target their top leaders and take them out over
19:28
Speaker 2: and over and oh yes, we can do all of that.
19:31
Speaker 2: But the few things that have really made a difference
19:34
Speaker 2: in terms of tilting this in Iran's favor is the
19:37
Speaker 2: fact that number one, they are willing to take so
19:40
Speaker 2: much more pain than we are. Number Two, they understand
19:44
Speaker 2: they thought about us and where all our vulnerabilities were
19:47
Speaker 2: much more, much more than Trump certainly thought about them,
19:53
Speaker 2: and how they would react. And that's where those comments
19:56
Speaker 2: about you know, oh, I had no idea they would
19:58
Speaker 2: target the Gulf air nations. It's like you didn't need
20:01
Speaker 2: a military planner to.
20:03
Speaker 1: Tell you that. You could just have listened to them.
20:05
Speaker 2: They were broadcasting this is our plan, this is how
20:08
Speaker 2: we will respond. This is the threat to you, like,
20:10
Speaker 2: this is what we will do. But because he didn't
20:14
Speaker 2: bother to take any of this seriously, then he comes
20:16
Speaker 2: in sap, oh my god, I can't believe they close
20:18
Speaker 2: the straight from is Oh my god, I can't believe
20:20
Speaker 2: I'm dealing with.
20:20
Speaker 1: This oil crisis.
20:21
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I can't believe they're hitting our allies
20:23
Speaker 2: in the region. How did you not think any of
20:26
Speaker 2: this through? It truly is extraordinary. And let me go
20:29
Speaker 2: ahead and put Jeremy's reporting here up on the screen
20:31
Speaker 2: because it speaks to this as well and where they
20:34
Speaker 2: are in the total miscalculation, at least on Trump's part
20:38
Speaker 2: of how this would all go down. So Irani and
20:40
Speaker 2: officials say that they have been ignoring. They've basically ghosted Witkough.
20:47
Speaker 2: He has been privately requesting for them to talk. Trump's
20:51
Speaker 2: special envoy has been texting Iron's foreign minister asking to
20:54
Speaker 2: start talks to Iran says the war will end only
20:56
Speaker 2: when Aron believes it has established long term deterrence. And
21:00
Speaker 2: so the story here is that Wikoff is basically like,
21:02
Speaker 2: hey guys, let's let's check in, let's talk, let's have
21:05
Speaker 2: you know, discussions, and they're like, no, because you haven't
21:08
Speaker 2: felt enough pain yet, which again is their strategy that
21:11
Speaker 2: they have been broadcasting, and that Treda Parsi told us
21:14
Speaker 2: was likely before this war ever started, that that was
21:17
Speaker 2: the way they're thinking about it, of like, if we
21:19
Speaker 2: don't strike some sort of a blow and cause some
21:21
Speaker 2: significant pain for the Americans in the Israelis. We are
21:24
Speaker 2: just going to be subject to this cycle over and
21:26
Speaker 2: over and over again. So again, this is thoroughly obviously predictable. Now,
21:32
Speaker 2: the Trump administration has planted a story with Barock revied
21:36
Speaker 2: and Axio saying no, no, no, they reached out to us,
21:40
Speaker 2: and we're the ones who aren't ready to deal. I
21:43
Speaker 2: will leave it to you to decide, dear viewer, whether
21:47
Speaker 2: drop Site and Jeremy Scahill are more credible reporters than
21:50
Speaker 2: Barock Revied over at Axios, who just loves to take
21:53
Speaker 2: whatever the administration gives and running with it. But you know,
21:57
Speaker 2: Jeremy's Jeremy sources are on the right and the ones
22:01
Speaker 2: with Brock revied are anonymous. So all of that being said,
22:04
Speaker 2: we have Jeremy standing by to break down his reporting,
22:06
Speaker 2: so let's get to it.
22:10
Speaker 3: Joining us now is Jeremy Scahill, co founder of drop
22:12
Speaker 3: site News.
22:12
Speaker 1: Great friend of the show. Good to see you, Jeremy,
22:14
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me back.
22:15
Speaker 3: So, Jeremy, we broke down a little bit of your
22:18
Speaker 3: reporting and the White House's denials via Axios. Why don't
22:22
Speaker 3: you just break down more if you can about these
22:25
Speaker 3: alleged communications that Steve Wikkoff and the White House are
22:29
Speaker 3: denying happened, in which the Iranians are saying, yeah, they
22:31
Speaker 3: keep reaching out to us and are basically leaving him
22:33
Speaker 3: on red this entire time.
22:36
Speaker 7: You know, I think it was on the third day
22:39
Speaker 7: of the Israeli US bombing of Iran I started hearing
22:44
Speaker 7: from Iranian officials who were telling me off the record.
22:48
Speaker 7: At first, they were saying, it's interesting because a number
22:51
Speaker 7: of third countries have been sending messages to Iran saying
22:57
Speaker 7: that the Trump administration wants to start back and talks
23:01
Speaker 7: about sort of you know, endgame and if Iran is
23:04
Speaker 7: interested in.
23:05
Speaker 4: Having some kind of dialogue.
23:07
Speaker 7: And my understanding in that early stage was that Iran's
23:11
Speaker 7: political leadership had made a decision that they were not
23:14
Speaker 7: going to talk for one central reason that they felt
23:17
Speaker 7: that they need that the primary goal in this war
23:20
Speaker 7: was to send a message that the US and Israel
23:23
Speaker 7: can't just bomb Iran every four months and pretend to
23:26
Speaker 7: be engaging in negotiations. And so, you know, they informed
23:30
Speaker 7: those third party countries that Iran is not interested in talking,
23:33
Speaker 7: and then you started having Trump once he was informed
23:37
Speaker 7: of this, and this is from the perspective of the Iranians.
23:40
Speaker 7: Start saying openly, Oh, the Iranians are begging us to talk.
23:43
Speaker 7: The Iranians want to make a deal. I'm not ready
23:45
Speaker 7: to talk to them yet. And then, you know, some
23:48
Speaker 7: days after that, so this was early last week, I
23:52
Speaker 7: was told by a senior Iranian official that Steve Whitkoff
23:55
Speaker 7: had sent WhatsApp messages to Iranian officials, including a bass Aarachi,
24:01
Speaker 7: the country's foreign minister, And I said, oh, I want
24:04
Speaker 7: to go to Witcoff and ask him that that's what
24:06
Speaker 7: I told told the Iranians, and they said, well, you know,
24:09
Speaker 7: this is still off the record because we haven't figured
24:11
Speaker 7: out if if we're going to respond or how we're
24:13
Speaker 7: going to deal with with this. So I was, you know,
24:16
Speaker 7: I was sort of informed of this for several days,
24:19
Speaker 7: and then I kept pushing the Iranian sources and I said,
24:21
Speaker 7: I want to go to Witcoff and ask him about this,
24:23
Speaker 7: because Trump keeps saying over and over that the Iranians
24:27
Speaker 7: are begging him to talk, and the Iranian officials were saying,
24:31
Speaker 7: you know, do you can you imagine a boss Arachi,
24:34
Speaker 7: the foreign minister of iround like texting Steve Whitcoff, the
24:36
Speaker 7: guy who he was supposedly negotiating with when they turned
24:39
Speaker 7: around Bomb.
24:40
Speaker 4: He absolutely has not.
24:41
Speaker 7: And they said, in fact, we're just trying to figure out,
24:43
Speaker 7: like what our diplomatic response is going to be to this.
24:46
Speaker 7: Do we tell him we're not ready or do we
24:48
Speaker 7: just ignore him? And they what they ended up on
24:51
Speaker 7: was we're not going to respond to him at all.
24:54
Speaker 7: What they have done, though, is they've told this is
24:57
Speaker 7: what they've told me, that they've told third party countries
24:59
Speaker 7: that Iran's demands include a ceasefire that would apply to
25:06
Speaker 7: not only Iran but to Lebanon and Iraq as well,
25:10
Speaker 7: that they want reparations for the damage that has been
25:12
Speaker 7: done in this war, and that they want a UN
25:16
Speaker 7: Security Council resolution. But they still aren't at that point
25:19
Speaker 7: because they feel that the deterrence has not been established
25:22
Speaker 7: firmly enough yet to try to raise the costs so
25:25
Speaker 7: high that the US wouldn't consider doing this again in
25:28
Speaker 7: a few months time. So then the intermediaries from other
25:31
Speaker 7: countries go back and they've told this to Trump, and
25:34
Speaker 7: you know, you get some flashes of reality from Trump
25:38
Speaker 7: sometimes where he's saying, you know, when he says, you know,
25:40
Speaker 7: I think they want to talk, but they're not ready yet.
25:42
Speaker 4: They're not just around of the position.
25:44
Speaker 7: I think part of what he is revealing to the
25:47
Speaker 7: public there is that he's aware that Iran's position is
25:49
Speaker 7: we're not going to engage in a ceasefire right now.
25:52
Speaker 4: And so what happened yesterday was I go to the
25:55
Speaker 4: White House and I.
25:57
Speaker 7: Sent Steve wik koffl what's that messag because that's his
26:00
Speaker 7: preferred way of communicating, and I asked, you know, I
26:05
Speaker 7: asked for comment on this. And typically when we go
26:08
Speaker 7: to the White House, they do give us comment, but
26:11
Speaker 7: it'll be, you know, sort of a copy and paste
26:13
Speaker 7: of whatever Trump's latest statement was, and I'll say, I
26:15
Speaker 7: refer you to the president's remarks on this. But in
26:17
Speaker 7: this case, they send this response that read like Trump
26:22
Speaker 7: had dictated it himself for his truth social feed, you know,
26:26
Speaker 7: calling dropsite abhorrent and saying that we're carrying water for
26:30
Speaker 7: the Islamic you know, terrorist regime, and that we're engaging
26:34
Speaker 7: in what they called america last behavior. And the only
26:38
Speaker 7: reason we that I think it wasn't Trump doing it
26:40
Speaker 7: is because there were no all caps in it, but
26:42
Speaker 7: other than that, it basically was like a truth social post.
26:45
Speaker 7: And you know, there's a there's an old saying in
26:47
Speaker 7: journalism that you know, you you never know that a
26:50
Speaker 7: story is true until it's officially denied.
26:53
Speaker 4: And I think this is a case.
26:54
Speaker 7: Where they then freaked out about this because it's humiliating,
26:57
Speaker 7: and they go to one of their favorite journalists, Barack Revide,
27:01
Speaker 7: and they spin the Alice in Wonderland upside down version
27:04
Speaker 7: of this, and it's like they could solve this in
27:06
Speaker 7: two seconds. Show Arachi's text messages where he's begging Steve
27:10
Speaker 7: Wickcoff to talk.
27:11
Speaker 6: That would be my challenge to them.
27:13
Speaker 7: Okay, Steve Wickcoff, let's see the text messages and put
27:16
Speaker 7: them out because what the Iranians are saying is there
27:18
Speaker 7: aren't any text messages for anyone to put out from
27:20
Speaker 7: their end.
27:21
Speaker 1: Yeah.
27:21
Speaker 2: Well, in the timeline there makes sense too, because you
27:24
Speaker 2: know you said it was day three where Witco starts
27:27
Speaker 2: reaching out like hey guys, you up question mark and
27:31
Speaker 2: Trump reportedly thought this would be over in four days,
27:34
Speaker 2: So that would be the time period where they're like,
27:36
Speaker 2: all right, we you know, we killed their leader and
27:38
Speaker 2: we've destroyed our other capabilities. They have to be willing
27:41
Speaker 2: to capitulate now, right right, and then you know, are
27:44
Speaker 2: just completely ignored by them. I wanted to get your reaction, Jeremy,
27:48
Speaker 2: to this news that broke overnight that to Iranian official,
27:52
Speaker 2: Ali lar Jani and Bestiege commander Gallam Reza Solamani were
27:56
Speaker 2: both killed overnight. This is according to Israel's Defense Minister Katz,
28:01
Speaker 2: in separate strikes. You know, how significant of a blow
28:04
Speaker 2: is if confirmed, How significant of a blow is this
28:07
Speaker 2: to the Iranians.
28:08
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, I think it's significant that Israel cats
28:11
Speaker 7: came out and said this rather than it just being
28:14
Speaker 7: speculation or something in the media. But again Iran has
28:17
Speaker 7: not confirmed this yet. I mean, Ali lar Rajani is
28:20
Speaker 7: one of the most important figures in Iran going back
28:24
Speaker 7: to the nineteen nineties, and he was involved with nuclear
28:27
Speaker 7: negotiations going back to the nineteen nineties. He's also a
28:30
Speaker 7: scholar of Kant, you know, a.
28:32
Speaker 4: Highly educated man.
28:34
Speaker 7: He recently was named as the secretary of the Supreme
28:38
Speaker 7: National Security Council, which is the most important security apparatus
28:43
Speaker 7: in Iran. But he was I think viewed and I've
28:48
Speaker 7: just been talking to sources in Iran and they said,
28:50
Speaker 7: you know, if confirmed, what this means is that the
28:52
Speaker 7: Israelis have assassinated one of the figures that would have
28:57
Speaker 7: been a more moderate voice in any discussions that lead
29:01
Speaker 7: to the end of this war or sort of what
29:03
Speaker 7: happens next. And there was some suspicion that I've heard
29:07
Speaker 7: that part of why the Israelis wanted to assassinate Ali
29:11
Speaker 7: Lerajani it was not just because of his role in
29:14
Speaker 7: the national security apparatus in this war, but also because
29:18
Speaker 7: Trump has been indicating that he may want to just
29:21
Speaker 7: try to make a deal with Iran and may not
29:23
Speaker 7: want to go, you know, all the way to completely
29:25
Speaker 7: smashing or dismantling the state. So you know, it's it's
29:29
Speaker 7: certainly significant. And I think that the pattern that we've
29:33
Speaker 7: seen is that when figures like Larajani or more or
29:36
Speaker 7: others who are considered in a in a more moderate camp,
29:40
Speaker 7: that when they're taken out, the people that replace them
29:44
Speaker 7: tend to be to take a much harder line. And
29:47
Speaker 7: so you know how this is going to impact things.
29:50
Speaker 7: I think this is netnya who hoping that another phase
29:53
Speaker 7: opens up where there's uprisings within Iran. We haven't seen
29:57
Speaker 7: any evidence of that yet, but I think the Israelis
29:59
Speaker 7: are very much pushing and hoping that that happens, and
30:02
Speaker 7: trying to facilitate that happening. And I think it's also
30:05
Speaker 7: to an extent, attempt to make sure that there aren't
30:07
Speaker 7: really going to be these kinds of figures around to
30:09
Speaker 7: talk toward the end of the war.
30:11
Speaker 3: Very much like the Humma strategy right back in with Gaza,
30:15
Speaker 3: so very much of the playbook. We've all talked about
30:17
Speaker 3: it now a lot over the years. We do want
30:19
Speaker 3: to talk about Wikkoff. Let's put a eight up there
30:21
Speaker 3: on the screen. Apparently Wickkoff is staunch supporter of Israel.
30:25
Speaker 3: I think we knew that, but apparently counts Miriam Madelson
30:27
Speaker 3: as a dear friend, and Carrie is a custom pager
30:30
Speaker 3: gifted to him by net Yahoo and senior Mossad officials.
30:34
Speaker 3: I have to be honest, Jeremy, I think I misread Wikoff. So,
30:37
Speaker 3: Mick Wikoff obviously was one of those people who pressured
30:39
Speaker 3: Benjamin Netanyahu early on in the Trump administration.
30:42
Speaker 1: He pressured the ceasefire.
30:44
Speaker 3: Seemed to be somewhat of a diplomat or somebody who
30:47
Speaker 3: was a diplomatic in the way that he shed some
30:50
Speaker 3: of the pre existing notions about way things should be
30:52
Speaker 3: able to should happen, open to talking to anybody to putin,
30:56
Speaker 3: I said, oh wow, I appreciate that I praised him
30:58
Speaker 3: a lot. Here is he showing us a true colors?
31:00
Speaker 3: Is he totally out of his depth? Is the way
31:02
Speaker 3: that the iranis seemed to play? What's your understanding having
31:05
Speaker 3: talked to the counterparties on the other side.
31:07
Speaker 7: I mean, I uh, I don't know. I don't know
31:09
Speaker 7: that you entirely got it wrong. And you you and
31:13
Speaker 7: I talked about Wikkoff at that time when this first started,
31:16
Speaker 7: You know, I think Wikkoff is also a manifestation of
31:19
Speaker 7: part of what's happened with Trump as well. In his
31:22
Speaker 7: first term as as president, Trump was very nervous about
31:27
Speaker 7: sort of waging a wider war against Iran. Here there
31:30
Speaker 7: was great consternation about the decision to assassinate custom Suleimani,
31:33
Speaker 7: the Neo Khon wing of the Trump base, or that
31:36
Speaker 7: administration was a minority player in the in the running
31:41
Speaker 7: of the administration, and then Trump two point zero. Now
31:44
Speaker 7: you have the Merriam Adelson, Netanyahu wing of the MAGA
31:49
Speaker 7: movement that has literally purchased this part of American foreign policy.
31:54
Speaker 7: Trump is not an ideological person, you know, he's a
31:57
Speaker 7: he is a businessman. I don't believe he's a religious man.
32:00
Speaker 7: I don't believe he believes in much of anything. And
32:02
Speaker 7: so he's sort of been purchased to an extent, bought
32:05
Speaker 7: in in other ways, and I think that he sets
32:08
Speaker 7: the tone for what Wickcoff is going to be. So
32:10
Speaker 7: when Trump was running for president this time, I think
32:13
Speaker 7: genuinely he was telling Wikoff, you forced, you need to force.
32:17
Speaker 4: Bob to do this.
32:18
Speaker 7: And so when those are the deployment orders from Trump
32:21
Speaker 7: to his real estate buddy, I think Wikoff was a
32:24
Speaker 7: key player in sort of, you know, pushing that Gaza
32:27
Speaker 7: deal through. At the same time, though, you have Jared Kushner,
32:30
Speaker 7: who is an ideological religious figure that has a different
32:34
Speaker 7: level of connections to the entire Israel situation. And I
32:38
Speaker 7: think that that Wickkoff has been radicalized immensely. It's not
32:42
Speaker 7: that he wasn't already a Zionist, It's not that he
32:44
Speaker 7: already didn't have some of these convictions, but I think
32:47
Speaker 7: that those tendencies within Wikoff were brought out by this
32:50
Speaker 7: whole situation, and he was sort of radicalized to become
32:53
Speaker 7: a fanatical Zionist Israel firster. And it's just, you know,
32:57
Speaker 7: it shows you what happens when you get put in
32:59
Speaker 7: this meek grinder of ideology. And Metnyaho's been doing this
33:02
Speaker 7: since the nineteen nineties and they have really successfully played Wickcough,
33:08
Speaker 7: and I think that Kushner has also successfully played both
33:11
Speaker 7: Witcough and Trump.
33:12
Speaker 2: Interesting, Jeremy, I wanted to know what you make of
33:16
Speaker 2: Trump's increasingly desperate efforts to convince US allies to join
33:21
Speaker 2: him in some fool's errand of attempting to reopen the
33:24
Speaker 2: Straight of Horror Moves. It seems that, you know, among
33:27
Speaker 2: the many things certainly he didn't anticipate, he seemed to
33:30
Speaker 2: not believe they would.
33:31
Speaker 1: Actually close the street.
33:33
Speaker 2: It's also been reporting that a lot of war planners
33:36
Speaker 2: thought that, yeah, is possible they closed the Straight of
33:38
Speaker 2: Horn Moves, but that would be very damaging to them
33:40
Speaker 2: as well. But it seems the Iranians have been able
33:43
Speaker 2: to not fully close the street, be able to pick
33:45
Speaker 2: and choose this ship can come through. Our experts are
33:48
Speaker 2: going out to China, but if you're you know, an
33:50
Speaker 2: ally of the US or Israel, you're not coming through.
33:53
Speaker 2: You're not going to be able to do what you
33:55
Speaker 2: want to do here. So what do you make of
33:57
Speaker 2: how central this has become to the war effort.
34:00
Speaker 7: I mean, it's extremely central, and I think you know,
34:03
Speaker 7: Iran has been wargaming this for many years. In fact,
34:07
Speaker 7: weeks before this war happened, in the month of February
34:11
Speaker 7: twenty twenty six, Iran did wargames in the Strait of
34:14
Speaker 7: Horror Moves that included operations aimed at shutting it down
34:18
Speaker 7: or attacking any quote unquote enemy vessels military vessels that
34:22
Speaker 7: tried to come into the Strait of Horror Moves. So,
34:24
Speaker 7: you know, we don't even have to back up that far.
34:26
Speaker 7: We can say that literally days before this war began,
34:30
Speaker 7: the Iranians were wargaming those types of scenarios in the
34:33
Speaker 7: Strait of Horror Moves. I think that, you know, we
34:36
Speaker 7: have to connect this though, crystal, to the fact that
34:38
Speaker 7: the Marine Expeditionary units are being deployed that could be
34:42
Speaker 7: anywhere between two thousand and five thousand troops. These are
34:45
Speaker 7: sort of the nine to one one forces of the
34:48
Speaker 7: US military. They may try to take this island, harg
34:52
Speaker 7: Island that they bombed repeatedly. Ninety percent of Iran's oil
34:56
Speaker 7: passes through there. Trump says that he hasn't yet decided
34:59
Speaker 7: to bomb the actual oil that's on that island, but
35:02
Speaker 7: you could see discussion about trying to seize that as
35:06
Speaker 7: a territory. Trump's having an enormous difficult time getting any
35:10
Speaker 7: nations to agree to deploy. The German Chancellor, who you
35:13
Speaker 7: know has largely acted sort of like a poodle for
35:16
Speaker 7: Trump since he became the leader of Germany, issued a
35:21
Speaker 7: statement yesterday and multiple German officials said, we're not going
35:24
Speaker 7: to get involved with this. They said the Americans in
35:26
Speaker 7: Israelis didn't tell us about this beforehand. They said they
35:29
Speaker 7: didn't need us, so now all of a sudden they
35:30
Speaker 7: want us to go there. It's not a NATO mission.
35:33
Speaker 7: I think, if you know, if the Trump administration wants
35:35
Speaker 7: to start attempting to escort ships through there, you're going
35:39
Speaker 7: to you're going to be much closer to Iron's coastal territory.
35:42
Speaker 7: You're going to put yourself in range of short range missiles,
35:45
Speaker 7: and you have the possibility of many more Americans dying
35:49
Speaker 7: I don't think the world really has an appetite for
35:51
Speaker 7: this at all. But you know, we've seen and you
35:55
Speaker 7: guys are reported on this. Trump doesn't seem to be
35:59
Speaker 7: fully listened to what military advisors are saying. And you know,
36:05
Speaker 7: and I think that if they're contemplating putting boots on
36:07
Speaker 7: the ground, then Americans should brace for more coffins coming
36:11
Speaker 7: home draped in the American flag. And it's it's shocking
36:15
Speaker 7: to say that. You can't rule out that they're contemplating
36:18
Speaker 7: this right now, but it's real, it's true, and the
36:21
Speaker 7: Neo Kon wing of the Maga movement is in pole position.
36:24
Speaker 4: Right now in this White House.
36:25
Speaker 6: Very very very true.
36:27
Speaker 3: Jeremy, thank you as always for joining us. Keep it
36:29
Speaker 3: up Dropside News linked down in the description. We appreciate
36:32
Speaker 3: you man, thanks for joining us.
36:34
Speaker 4: Thank you guys for all your work.
36:38
Speaker 2: For more on the Irun war. We are joined this
36:40
Speaker 2: morning by Jannis Fara Faucus. He, of course, is an economist.
36:43
Speaker 2: He's a best selling author. He's a former Greek finance
36:45
Speaker 2: minister and also host of the podcast The Econo Class.
36:49
Speaker 1: Great to see you, sar.
36:50
Speaker 6: Good to see you, bigle, to see your game.
36:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, So just off the top here your
36:54
Speaker 2: reaction to the purported goals to the best we know
36:58
Speaker 2: them of this war and how this all seems to
37:00
Speaker 2: be going well.
37:02
Speaker 8: It is going abysmally for Donald Trump, whatever his goals were.
37:06
Speaker 8: It is a war that he started without much of
37:10
Speaker 8: a strategy regarding how he's game to ended. This is
37:13
Speaker 8: not me of course. It hacks back to Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan.
37:18
Speaker 8: There is a very long tradition of the United States
37:22
Speaker 8: pursuing its strategy or forever war on behalf of the
37:25
Speaker 8: military industrial complex. It works really very well for those
37:27
Speaker 8: who are selling guns and bombs and missiles. It doesn't
37:32
Speaker 8: work very well for the American people. It doesn't work
37:35
Speaker 8: quite all well for the rest of the world. So
37:38
Speaker 8: you know, on the altar of forever war that suits
37:43
Speaker 8: the military industrial complex and now the AI industrial complex
37:46
Speaker 8: or military complex.
37:49
Speaker 6: We are caught in a conundrum that.
37:53
Speaker 8: Is jebardizing the well being of the vast majority of
37:57
Speaker 8: the human species, and we have a Donald who is
38:02
Speaker 8: slowly realizing that he has fallen headlong into a tramp
38:06
Speaker 8: of his own making. My assessment is that Trump was
38:09
Speaker 8: actually winning on all fronts up until he made that
38:13
Speaker 8: the ridiculous decision essentially to fall into na Danyahu's Trump
38:18
Speaker 8: of you know, fighting Natanyahu's war, and from now on
38:24
Speaker 8: there is nothing can save Donald Trump politically.
38:28
Speaker 3: One of the things we wanted to talk to you about, Jannis,
38:30
Speaker 3: in particularly as your expertise with respect to Europe many
38:33
Speaker 3: of the other US allies. We have been stunned already
38:37
Speaker 3: to see an almost total rejection by the United States
38:40
Speaker 3: request for assistance in the Strait of Hormuse. Guys, we
38:43
Speaker 3: can go ahead and put b one up here on
38:45
Speaker 3: the screen. We have a summary of all of the
38:48
Speaker 3: US allies. Japan says it currently does not plan to
38:51
Speaker 3: dispatch naval vessels. We can go to the next one.
38:54
Speaker 3: Australia said it will not do so. South Korea says
38:57
Speaker 3: we will not do so. The United Kingdom said they
39:00
Speaker 3: will not be drawn into a war with Iran. The
39:02
Speaker 3: European foreign ministers said they will discuss it, but are
39:06
Speaker 3: not expected to expand its role. The Germans explicitly say
39:09
Speaker 3: they will not participate. The Danes saying that they ahead
39:12
Speaker 3: of the EU meeting it would be wise to keep
39:14
Speaker 3: an open mind, but as a small country we are
39:17
Speaker 3: not as a small country, large maritime nation, but we
39:20
Speaker 3: don't expect to do so. Italy, and then of course
39:22
Speaker 3: Greece as well says it will not engage in military operations.
39:25
Speaker 3: It's pretty stunning to say that not even a single
39:27
Speaker 3: one of these people are willing to step up. I'm
39:31
Speaker 3: curious for your reaction as to why this time they're
39:33
Speaker 3: willing to stand up to the United States and what
39:35
Speaker 3: it means for the US and for Europe.
39:38
Speaker 8: I wish you were right that they were standing back
39:40
Speaker 8: against the United States.
39:43
Speaker 6: They're simply refusing to do, you know.
39:45
Speaker 8: To send ships to a suicide mission, to a mission
39:50
Speaker 8: that is bound to fade. Because, let's face it, even
39:53
Speaker 8: if all those naval vessels of every possible you know,
39:59
Speaker 8: flag from Japan all the way to Norway where to
40:03
Speaker 8: accumulate to a mass at the state of Homus, well,
40:08
Speaker 8: this is a very asymmetrical situation.
40:10
Speaker 6: The Anians only need, uh, you know.
40:13
Speaker 8: To send one or two drones pass these vessels and
40:18
Speaker 8: they will succeed in what they are interested in, which
40:21
Speaker 8: is to make sure that the insurance costs of these
40:25
Speaker 8: vessels are so high that it's uneconomical for them even
40:29
Speaker 8: to try to pass the streets. But you know where
40:33
Speaker 8: I disagree and I wish you were right, is that there,
40:36
Speaker 8: you know, are European leaders, the Japanese, the Canadians or
40:40
Speaker 8: Stilians are standing up to the United States. They're not
40:42
Speaker 8: doing no such thing. So you take Chancellor of Merds
40:46
Speaker 8: of Germany, a typical example of someone lacking the moral
40:54
Speaker 8: spine and the intelligence to oppose Donald Trump Washington, DC.
40:59
Speaker 8: On the one hand, he says, oh, we're not going
41:01
Speaker 8: to take part in this.
41:04
Speaker 6: Of course they won't take part of this.
41:05
Speaker 8: But at the same time he allows Ramstein, the largest
41:08
Speaker 8: American military base in Germany, to be used in order
41:11
Speaker 8: to do bombard a United Nations member state, and therefore,
41:17
Speaker 8: you know, become complicit. Germany is complicit in the violation
41:21
Speaker 8: of international law. The Brits who are doing the same
41:24
Speaker 8: thing with their basis in Cyprus, the Arab States, you know,
41:30
Speaker 8: they still maintain the United States military on their ground
41:36
Speaker 8: and therefore they're opening themselves up to missile and drawn
41:39
Speaker 8: attacks by Iran. My country, Greece, our pathetic government sent
41:45
Speaker 8: a frigate and f sixteens to Cyprus to do what
41:49
Speaker 8: to protect the British sovereign ground of their clatility base,
41:54
Speaker 8: which the United States has been using in order to
41:57
Speaker 8: attack Ran illegally. So our governments are quite pathetic, maybe
42:03
Speaker 8: be very straightforward of this. On the one hand, they
42:07
Speaker 8: are complicit in the United States attack on the run.
42:10
Speaker 8: They may not like it, but they are complicit. They
42:12
Speaker 8: are choosing to be completed in it. And on the
42:14
Speaker 8: other hand they say, well, when again to Saint Denni
42:16
Speaker 8: vessels to achieve the unachievable.
42:19
Speaker 2: I'm curious for your view on the likely economic fallout.
42:22
Speaker 2: We can put B three up on the screen. This
42:25
Speaker 2: was an analysis for the GCC member States. Goldman Sachs
42:28
Speaker 2: predicts that if this war goes on another two months,
42:32
Speaker 2: they're going to see massive falls in their GDP, Qutar
42:35
Speaker 2: and cu Wait in particular, But obviously they are global
42:39
Speaker 2: implications for the street continuing to be more or less
42:43
Speaker 2: closed reverberations throughound all of the economies of the world.
42:47
Speaker 2: What do you expect if this war continues to drag
42:49
Speaker 2: on as it appears likely to do, given that Iran
42:52
Speaker 2: has projected that they are nowhere near ready to pursue
42:55
Speaker 2: a ceasefire.
42:57
Speaker 8: Well, you don't need to be an economic genius to
42:59
Speaker 8: know that the Gulf States, their business model is finished.
43:03
Speaker 8: We have the United States and Israel have killed it.
43:06
Speaker 8: They've killed then econs. And it's not something that has
43:11
Speaker 8: just been done. Now, let's not forget that this has
43:15
Speaker 8: been happening now for five six years. I remember when Trump,
43:19
Speaker 8: in the dying days of his first administration, took out
43:22
Speaker 8: a military commander of Iran, Sulimani. Sulimani was just about
43:27
Speaker 8: to meet his Saudi Arabian counterpart to strike a deal
43:31
Speaker 8: a piece still between Iran and Saudi Arabia. After that,
43:36
Speaker 8: you know, essentially what the Americans, with the support and
43:39
Speaker 8: the egging on Israel, was trying to do was to
43:41
Speaker 8: stop at the tont between Saudi Arabia and Iran. That
43:46
Speaker 8: didn't work because a couple of years later it was
43:49
Speaker 8: the United Arab Emirates that opened an embassy in i Ran.
43:54
Speaker 8: Later on it was Qatar, it was even you know,
44:00
Speaker 8: the Arabia into twenty twenty three. Essentially, Israel has been
44:06
Speaker 8: added now for five six years.
44:09
Speaker 6: What do I mean by being added?
44:11
Speaker 8: They've been trying to ensure that there's no the town
44:14
Speaker 8: between the Emirates, between the Golf States and Iran, and
44:20
Speaker 8: you know, that's the main reason why they entrapped Donald
44:22
Speaker 8: Trump into this attack on Iran at the cost of
44:27
Speaker 8: decimating the business model of the golf Stags. Nevenaho has
44:33
Speaker 8: succeeded with the complicity explicit thinking. I don't know whether
44:38
Speaker 8: it was something that Trump understood that he was doing,
44:41
Speaker 8: but nevertheless he was playing the Natanu game of wrecking
44:47
Speaker 8: both the town between Iran and the Gulf States and
44:53
Speaker 8: the Golf State economists. But since you're asking me about
44:56
Speaker 8: the economic implications, the economic implications awful in your own country.
45:00
Speaker 8: I mean, if you are a mega blue collar worker
45:05
Speaker 8: driving one hundred and fifty miles a day to go
45:08
Speaker 8: to your bullshit job in order to make ends meet,
45:12
Speaker 8: and you have to pay these gas prices, you are destroyed.
45:15
Speaker 6: I mean.
45:15
Speaker 8: Trump came out the other day with an inane comment
45:18
Speaker 8: that the United States is a net oil and gas producer,
45:22
Speaker 8: which is true, and therefore he said, since you know
45:25
Speaker 8: we are a net exporterer, if the price of fossil
45:28
Speaker 8: fuse goes up, we make more money. Well, who are
45:31
Speaker 8: you to say that? Have you asked your own base?
45:35
Speaker 8: Are they share holders in Chevron? Are they share holders?
45:38
Speaker 6: Excellent? They're not. They you know things are bad enough.
45:42
Speaker 8: They elected you because of the unaffordability crisis or affordability crisis,
45:48
Speaker 8: and now affordability has gone into the dustping of history.
45:52
Speaker 6: And it's not just that.
45:54
Speaker 8: You know, last year I was one of the commentator's
45:58
Speaker 8: economists politicians who were arguing that, you know that his
46:02
Speaker 8: tartiffs were not that big a deal, unlike other economists
46:05
Speaker 8: who were pulling their hair out. Maybe it's because I
46:07
Speaker 8: don't have much hair. I wasn't pulling mine out over
46:11
Speaker 8: the tariffs. And the reason why those tariffs and you
46:14
Speaker 8: remember the Liberation Day spasm in the stock markets didn't
46:18
Speaker 8: last long and very soon after that market were gung
46:23
Speaker 8: ho again and they became bullish again. Well, the reason't
46:27
Speaker 8: is because back then the situation was very different to
46:31
Speaker 8: what it is now. The war that he has unleashed
46:34
Speaker 8: against the Iran, even if it ends today, is going
46:37
Speaker 8: to have long term effects. The damage is permanent. It
46:40
Speaker 8: is not temporary. It's not like Liberation Day. I remember
46:43
Speaker 8: last year you had in your country, in the United States,
46:45
Speaker 8: you had a massive wave of investment due to AI.
46:51
Speaker 8: Well this is going to be stamped now. Why because
46:55
Speaker 8: AI is very energy intense very energy hunger, and with
47:00
Speaker 8: energy going through the roof, the AI investment spree is
47:06
Speaker 8: severely circumscribed. Then at the same there's another element to this.
47:13
Speaker 8: Last year, this time around Liberation Day, you remember, the
47:18
Speaker 8: FED was in the process of cutting interstates, not as
47:22
Speaker 8: fast as don't some.
47:24
Speaker 6: Wanted them, but they were cutting interstates. Well.
47:27
Speaker 8: Now, with yields going through the roof, you know, ten
47:30
Speaker 8: year bond guilds in the United States, in the United Kingdom,
47:35
Speaker 8: in Britain, in Britain, in in Frankfurt and Brussels, in Tokyo,
47:43
Speaker 8: all the West Central banks are either slowing down the
47:48
Speaker 8: raid at which they're cutting interstage or they're actually going
47:50
Speaker 8: to start increasing them we already saw in Australia and
47:53
Speaker 8: increasing in interest stage.
47:55
Speaker 6: So you know, this is a perfect storm.
47:56
Speaker 8: We have energy going up, AI invest and tapering, interstates
48:03
Speaker 8: going up. As I said, even if the war stops today,
48:08
Speaker 8: which it can't because you know, Donald Trump has no
48:11
Speaker 8: way of the escalating unless he opens the state of Hormose,
48:14
Speaker 8: which the Anians are never going to allow because the Anians,
48:17
Speaker 8: you know, they've they felt an existential crisis. They were attacked,
48:23
Speaker 8: their leaders. Whatever you may think of Hamani. He was
48:26
Speaker 8: the leader of a member state of the United Nations,
48:29
Speaker 8: and he was burdered by the Israelis and the Americans.
48:32
Speaker 8: And you know they're saying, no, I mean, we're not
48:35
Speaker 8: going to let you come back at us.
48:37
Speaker 6: We are going to bring you down.
48:39
Speaker 8: And even if it means bringing down the Gulf States,
48:41
Speaker 8: even if it means damaging significantly Bangladesh and India. You know,
48:46
Speaker 8: these are countries in South Korea. These are countries that
48:49
Speaker 8: rely on the natural gas and the oil that goes
48:51
Speaker 8: through the states of Hormuse.
48:53
Speaker 6: So you know, Donald Trump, like George W.
48:56
Speaker 8: Bush before him, like l in the nineteen sixties, has
49:01
Speaker 8: been caught into a trap of his own making, and
49:04
Speaker 8: he doesn't know how to riggle out of it.
49:07
Speaker 6: Honest.
49:07
Speaker 3: You have described as previously as a breakdown in the
49:10
Speaker 3: neoliberal economic order. What do you see exactly the different
49:14
Speaker 3: pieces that make this happen.
49:16
Speaker 8: Well, this breakdown goes back to two thousand and eight,
49:19
Speaker 8: to a great financial collapse to Lehman Brothers. You know,
49:23
Speaker 8: American led dollarized capital is never recovered fully from two
49:28
Speaker 8: thousand and eight. You have to remember that between two
49:30
Speaker 8: thousand and eight and the end of the pandemic. In
49:33
Speaker 8: twenty twenty two, the central banks of the West pumped
49:37
Speaker 8: out thirty five trillion.
49:40
Speaker 6: Dollars, that is, thirty five billion dollars.
49:43
Speaker 8: That was quite the division, if you remember, while at
49:46
Speaker 8: the same time imposing austerity to the vast majority of
49:49
Speaker 8: people in the United States, in Europe, in Britain. So
49:53
Speaker 8: if you have this combination of austerity for the many,
49:56
Speaker 8: which depresses demand and therefore in turn the secondary effect
50:02
Speaker 8: is that it depresses investment in productive machines, in you
50:07
Speaker 8: real stuff, and at the same time you print thirty
50:11
Speaker 8: five trillion and you give it to the financials who
50:14
Speaker 8: give you a big business, that use it to buy
50:16
Speaker 8: back their own shares, so as the prices go up,
50:18
Speaker 8: but there's no investment. And the only people who invest
50:21
Speaker 8: in this world of ours essentially other Chinese on one
50:25
Speaker 8: hand and big tech on the other, who are not
50:27
Speaker 8: producing anything except the power through you know, Amazon, dot
50:31
Speaker 8: Com and Uber and so on, to reach deep into
50:34
Speaker 8: your pockets and take money out, which then is not
50:37
Speaker 8: invested into productive capacity. It is invested into more machines
50:42
Speaker 8: that create more power for the chief basis of the
50:44
Speaker 8: world to put their long arms deeply into your pocket.
50:48
Speaker 8: You know, you realize that this is not a sustainable
50:53
Speaker 8: macroeconomy and the result is that, you know, we have
50:57
Speaker 8: stagnation in the West, the carnage that don't Trump said
51:02
Speaker 8: he saw in you know, the working classes of the
51:06
Speaker 8: United States, which was there. You know, he did have
51:11
Speaker 8: a point when he was raising this. Of course, now
51:14
Speaker 8: he's making it far worse. He invoked that sense of
51:18
Speaker 8: carvage amongst the blue collar workers to get elected to
51:21
Speaker 8: the White House in order to enrich big tech and
51:24
Speaker 8: the military industrial complex and you know, essentially promote the
51:30
Speaker 8: agenda of Beniamin Netanyahu and his forever wars in the
51:33
Speaker 8: Middle East.
51:34
Speaker 2: Let me get your reaction to something that Ray Dalio
51:38
Speaker 2: was writing about. So he says, his reading of history
51:41
Speaker 2: and sense of what is happening now leads him to
51:44
Speaker 2: believe that if the US were to lose in this way,
51:47
Speaker 2: in that way, specifically being unable to take control retake
51:50
Speaker 2: control of the Straight of Hormuz, there would be a
51:53
Speaker 2: significant risk that losing control of FORMUS would be for
51:55
Speaker 2: the US what the suaz Canal crisis was for Great
51:58
Speaker 2: Britain in nineteen fifty six. Analogous defeats were for the
52:01
Speaker 2: Dutch Empire in the eighteenth century, in the Spanish Empire
52:04
Speaker 2: in the seventeenth century. The pattern of events that leads
52:07
Speaker 2: to the breakdown of empires is almost always the same.
52:11
Speaker 2: Do you see this war with a Run as existential
52:14
Speaker 2: for the US Empire and the current existing world order?
52:19
Speaker 8: I think it's far fetched to make such gross predictions
52:23
Speaker 8: at the moment. Let's not forget that we've had many
52:30
Speaker 8: prognostications in the past of the demise of america'shi Germany.
52:35
Speaker 8: In the late nineteen sixties, when America, for the first
52:38
Speaker 8: time after the the nineteen hundreds, went from being a
52:44
Speaker 8: curplus country to being a deficit country. When Richard Nixon
52:47
Speaker 8: in August of nineteen seventy one blew up the bread
52:50
Speaker 8: and wood system, which was a pride and joy of
52:53
Speaker 8: you know, American politicians and American finances and American diplomats
52:57
Speaker 8: and economists. Again, then in the late sixties eighty seventies,
53:02
Speaker 8: people were procrastigating the end of American hire Germany. America
53:07
Speaker 8: has lost almost every war that he has waged since Vietnam.
53:11
Speaker 8: Every war begins with claims of mission accomplished, and then
53:18
Speaker 8: very soon after that ends up in a quagmire. From
53:21
Speaker 8: mentioned in the United States extricates itself, sometimes with sometimes
53:26
Speaker 8: very ignominiously. Remember the helicopter departing from the American embassy
53:31
Speaker 8: in Saigon, or similarly under Biden from Kabul. So let's
53:37
Speaker 8: not rush into conclusions. There's no data that.
53:41
Speaker 6: I mean, all empires at some point collapse or Wayne.
53:46
Speaker 8: It's true about all the empires that you mentioned, the
53:48
Speaker 8: Dutch Empire, the Spanish Empire, the British Empire. But you know,
53:52
Speaker 8: the American Empire has shown a remarkable capacity to increase
53:58
Speaker 8: hit Germany at the same time as it depletes its
54:04
Speaker 8: soft power as well as as its.
54:07
Speaker 6: Industry.
54:09
Speaker 8: After nineteen seventy one, we had a remarkable phenomenon, and
54:12
Speaker 8: this is the result of the Nixon Shock of August
54:14
Speaker 8: ninety seventy one. America went deeper into the red, and
54:19
Speaker 8: the more into the red the United States went, both
54:22
Speaker 8: in terms of its street deficits and it's federal budget deficit,
54:25
Speaker 8: the more hegemonic it became. That has never happened before
54:28
Speaker 8: to any empire. Every impactle got into the red. Very
54:31
Speaker 8: soon after that weaned and died. We said, because of
54:34
Speaker 8: the power of the exorbitant privilege of the dollar because
54:38
Speaker 8: you know, sometimes this is this is a paradox, but
54:42
Speaker 8: it ceases to be a paradox once we started looking
54:46
Speaker 8: into it. People talk to me about the dollarization and
54:51
Speaker 8: the way in which the dollar is going to be
54:53
Speaker 8: thrown off its thrown Well, you know, I asked them
54:57
Speaker 8: the question, okay, now, what is it that keeps the
55:00
Speaker 8: dollar hegemony today?
55:02
Speaker 6: And the answer is it's enemies.
55:04
Speaker 8: So you know, China doesn't want to see the dollar
55:07
Speaker 8: being defroned. Why because they have four and a half
55:11
Speaker 8: trillion dollars in savings. So you know, if you had
55:14
Speaker 8: your savings in a Swiss bank account, would you want
55:16
Speaker 8: to see Swiss banks go under?
55:17
Speaker 6: No, you wouldn't.
55:19
Speaker 8: So you know, the Chinese are the real adults in
55:21
Speaker 8: the room at the moment, and they're doing whatever it
55:23
Speaker 8: takes in order to stop Trump from destroying American here Germany,
55:27
Speaker 8: not because they are philanthropic towards the Americans, but because
55:29
Speaker 8: you know, they have their savings in US dollars for
55:32
Speaker 8: the time being, they are slowly shifting their savings away
55:35
Speaker 8: from it. Now when a significant part of the world,
55:40
Speaker 8: including Saudi Arabia, including India and so on, shift their
55:45
Speaker 8: savings away from a dollar system. That's when the American
55:50
Speaker 8: Empire would start withering.
55:52
Speaker 2: Lastly, surfer from me. On a different but related matter,
55:57
Speaker 2: Cuba is being threatened directly by Trump. He says, I'm
55:59
Speaker 2: just going to take it. Their electrical grid has reportedly
56:03
Speaker 2: suffered a complete and total collapse, according to the country's
56:07
Speaker 2: power operator. Obviously this puts, you know, thousands of people's
56:11
Speaker 2: lives at risk. The island is effectively under a US
56:14
Speaker 2: led embargo, doing them somewhat of what we did in
56:17
Speaker 2: Gaza as well. What do you make of what is
56:21
Speaker 2: happening to Cuba right now, what we're doing to Cuba
56:23
Speaker 2: right now, and how this fits into whatever Trump's aims
56:26
Speaker 2: are around the world.
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Speaker 8: The timp administration is committing a crime and international violation
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Speaker 8: of international law and basic moral standards by what it
56:41
Speaker 8: is doing in Cuba. Whatever you may think of the
56:44
Speaker 8: Cuban regime, it is clear but given that doesn't have
56:47
Speaker 8: any support from anywhere, you know, long gone other days
56:50
Speaker 8: when Cuba could rely on the Soviet Union, China, Russia,
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Speaker 8: they may pay lip service to Cuba. The fact that
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Speaker 8: the people of Cuba remain broadly in support of the
57:07
Speaker 8: system of government that they have broadly in support, with
57:10
Speaker 8: a lot of you know, criticisms and a lot of
57:14
Speaker 8: moaning and groaning and so on. But nevertheless, the fact
57:16
Speaker 8: that this regime is in Cuba is still there just
57:21
Speaker 8: goes to show that it does have.
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Speaker 6: Still support.
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Speaker 8: The idea that somehow to go back to the Precastro era.
57:33
Speaker 6: Will be liberation is an abomination.
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Speaker 8: Remember that before Castro's revolution, Cuba was effectively annexed by
57:41
Speaker 8: the mafia it you know, by prostitution, by drug cartels.
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Speaker 6: And so starving a whole population.
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Speaker 8: In order to force them to overthrow a government that
57:56
Speaker 8: does have an intertaporlar support is just an awful abomination
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Speaker 8: of a crime. Now Gazz of course, is going to
58:05
Speaker 8: stigmatize our generation independently of our politics, in the next
58:09
Speaker 8: hundred two hundred years, people who think of us as
58:12
Speaker 8: a generation which allowed the genocide in Gaza to continue
58:15
Speaker 8: and to continue even after the suppose this is fire,
58:18
Speaker 8: because it's going on as we speak now by other means,
58:20
Speaker 8: through starvation, through denying them. You know, they're still operating
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Speaker 8: our children without anesthetics, because they really are. It does
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Speaker 8: not allow us, we speak, anesthetics to go into Gaza unbelievable.
58:32
Speaker 2: Well, it may not take an economic genius to figure
58:34
Speaker 2: out some aspects here, like oil prices going up is
58:36
Speaker 2: going to be bad. But we're very fortunate and glad
58:39
Speaker 2: to have an economic genius to help us sort through
58:41
Speaker 2: these many things. Joanna Spair Faugust, thank you so much
58:43
Speaker 2: for your time today.
58:43
Speaker 1: Thank you sure, my pleasure.
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Speaker 4: H