Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Special Episode: Trump Starts A WAR Of Choice With Iran

Transcript

Special Episode: Trump Starts A WAR Of Choice With Iran · The Chuck ToddCast

0:04
Speaker 1: Well, like many of you, I woke up to the
0:06
Speaker 1: news that the United States and Israel began their strikes
0:12
Speaker 1: on Iran. And the intent and the intent, according to
0:15
Speaker 1: President Trump and taped remarks in an interview with The
0:18
Speaker 1: Washington Post, is regime change. So let's take a step
0:23
Speaker 1: back here. There's a lot to unpack. Number One, America
0:30
Speaker 1: and Donald Trump's America has embraced the role of world's policemen. Now.
0:36
Speaker 1: It is something that he vigorously campaigned against. It is
0:41
Speaker 1: what arguably made him unique in the Republican field back
0:44
Speaker 1: in twenty fifteen and twenty sixteen, when he did something
0:48
Speaker 1: that at the time seemed sacrilege inside the Republican Party.
0:53
Speaker 1: He eviscerated the Bush Cheney administration for the Iraq War
0:59
Speaker 1: and how it did it. He spent twenty sixteen, twenty
1:02
Speaker 1: twenty and twenty twenty four and all three of those campaigns.
1:05
Speaker 1: In the last ninety days. You can find plenty of clips,
1:09
Speaker 1: plenty of rally speeches where he said, if you don't
1:12
Speaker 1: want new wars, vote for me. If you vote from
1:16
Speaker 1: my opponent, I promise you they're going to start a war.
1:18
Speaker 1: And he would specifically talk about Iran so to say
1:26
Speaker 1: that he did not campaign on this as an understatement.
1:28
Speaker 1: If anything, he campaigned exactly against this. Now, regime change
1:36
Speaker 1: would be great. Let's not pretend that's not beat around
1:40
Speaker 1: the bush. Here, a free Iran, the future is endless. Okay,
1:50
Speaker 1: it could be transformational. So I'm not gonna let's not
1:54
Speaker 1: pretend that a good outcome here isn't fantastic for the
1:57
Speaker 1: world and for the region. The question is whether it's
2:02
Speaker 1: as easy as it looks. It is one thing to
2:08
Speaker 1: do this from the air, but as we learned, what
2:12
Speaker 1: looks easy. Toppling Saddam Hussein was easy. Rebuilding Iraq was hard.
2:18
Speaker 1: Toppling Kamani may be easy. Rebuilding Iran, a country much
2:24
Speaker 1: bigger than Iraq, is not going to be easy. It's
2:27
Speaker 1: going to be quite difficult. Obviously, we know that there
2:34
Speaker 1: are plenty of Iranians that want their country back. We
2:38
Speaker 1: know this is an oppressive regime, and I look forward
2:44
Speaker 1: to Iranians getting a free country and a democracy. This
2:52
Speaker 1: would be an incredible thing. But I can't help but
3:00
Speaker 1: ask and wonder, are we is this really going to
3:04
Speaker 1: be this easy? It rarely is. Now Here's the president
3:12
Speaker 1: did prepare the country that American soldiers might die in
3:16
Speaker 1: this operation. But what he did not prepare the country
3:20
Speaker 1: for is the fallout, is the terrorist fallout that unfortunately
3:29
Speaker 1: is going to happen, whether it's in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Real,
3:35
Speaker 1: New York, Washington, la. The Iranian military is not going
3:42
Speaker 1: to be able to withstand this. They are not going
3:45
Speaker 1: to be able to conventionally push back. But we do
3:53
Speaker 1: need to be vigilant about the fact that there is
3:55
Speaker 1: going to be asymmetrical fallout from this. This is America
4:01
Speaker 1: the aggressor. We have now gone into Venezuela and essentially
4:08
Speaker 1: said we're going to do regime change, and we're in
4:10
Speaker 1: the middle of it. We have done this now and
4:15
Speaker 1: we have said it out loud with Iran. We have
4:23
Speaker 1: pledged to help rebuild Gaza. Let's look at the everything
4:28
Speaker 1: on here. We've got. By the way, just before striking Iran,
4:31
Speaker 1: the President of the United States talked about I think
4:35
Speaker 1: he called it a clean takeover of Cuba. So politically,
4:42
Speaker 1: good luck explaining the American people who aren't happy about
4:46
Speaker 1: high prices, who aren't happy about this economy, who aren't
4:49
Speaker 1: happy about what a the threat of AI to the
4:53
Speaker 1: long term future of work in America is that we're
4:57
Speaker 1: going to rebuild Iran. We're in a nation build in Venezuela.
5:01
Speaker 1: We're going to nation build in Cuba, and it's not
5:05
Speaker 1: a nation It could be someday, but we've already pledged
5:09
Speaker 1: to rebuild Gaza. So Gaza, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, all in
5:15
Speaker 1: just over a year. Responsibilities now in the United States.
5:19
Speaker 1: And make no mistake, this is the famous pottery barn
5:25
Speaker 1: rule that Colin Powell wants to vote invoked about Iran,
5:30
Speaker 1: about Iraq, if you break it, ye own it. So
5:34
Speaker 1: we are destroying Tehran right now. We are destroying big
5:39
Speaker 1: pockets of Iran right now. We have a moral responsibility
5:46
Speaker 1: and ethical responsibility because just walking away, the consequences of
5:52
Speaker 1: that are even worse than some of the consequences we've
5:56
Speaker 1: all been thinking about. Another angle to this story that
6:03
Speaker 1: just needs underlining here is that the irrelevance of Congress continues.
6:10
Speaker 1: The fact that we'll see how members of Congress react
6:16
Speaker 1: the so called Gang of Eight, which is made up
6:18
Speaker 1: of course, of the Senate, the two Senate leaders, to
6:20
Speaker 1: two House leaders, the Ranking and Chair of the House Intel,
6:24
Speaker 1: and the Ranking and Chair of the Senate Intel. There's
6:26
Speaker 1: your eight, your so called gang of eight. They all
6:29
Speaker 1: were giving a heads up. Looks like it was Marco
6:33
Speaker 1: Rubio that did the calls to Mark Warner, at least
6:37
Speaker 1: to some of the Democrats. We don't know if it
6:38
Speaker 1: was all of them, if he did all the calls,
6:41
Speaker 1: but we do know the Democrats have gone public and
6:44
Speaker 1: said that they spoke to Reveal before the strike started.
6:49
Speaker 1: As I went through this earlier this week, the rationale
6:52
Speaker 1: the President gave seemed to really be regime change, and
6:55
Speaker 1: he never just said regime change, right, he was sort of, well,
6:58
Speaker 1: there's the nuclear thing, but then he said we had
7:00
Speaker 1: obliterated their nuclear program. Then they expanded it to ballistic missiles. Essentially,
7:06
Speaker 1: what they were saying and what was the subtex Now,
7:09
Speaker 1: in hindsight, pretty obvious is the regime is a danger
7:14
Speaker 1: and is an imminent threat. That's essentially the case. So
7:22
Speaker 1: it is notable that the president went to war with
7:24
Speaker 1: iron with less evidence. Then President Bush went to war
7:29
Speaker 1: with a rock, and of course that evidence didn't turn up.
7:38
Speaker 1: As for the political fault out on this, I told
7:40
Speaker 1: you one where I think it's going to be very difficult.
7:42
Speaker 1: We now have a lot of obligations, and that's going
7:45
Speaker 1: to be interesting. That's where I think the president is
7:47
Speaker 1: going to have problems with his party. His party will
7:50
Speaker 1: rally around him. Getting rid of Kamani is not going
7:55
Speaker 1: to be unpopular in the Republican Party. It's not going
7:58
Speaker 1: to be unpopular in this country. What's going to be
8:01
Speaker 1: unpopular in this country is diverting American money to Iran
8:07
Speaker 1: to rebuild Iran. And that's where he's the president will
8:12
Speaker 1: find his limits at some point. Now, maybe he doesn't care,
8:15
Speaker 1: maybe he will walk away, Maybe he has this. Maybe
8:18
Speaker 1: he hopes the Gulf States, who by the way, are
8:21
Speaker 1: remarkably united around the United States and Israel on this one,
8:26
Speaker 1: will help rebuild Iran, and that would obviously be better,
8:31
Speaker 1: just like it's better if the help folks in the
8:33
Speaker 1: region help rebuild Gosm. But one of one of my
8:43
Speaker 1: favorite phrases is the law of unintended consequences, and it's
8:53
Speaker 1: the long tail of this decision. It's hard to sit
8:57
Speaker 1: here and say, I can you know, I know exactly
8:59
Speaker 1: what it's going to be. But we know history has
9:05
Speaker 1: told us every time the United States has tried to
9:08
Speaker 1: orchestrate an outcome in Iran. It's not going well. The
9:20
Speaker 1: original Islamic Revolution in some ways was stoked by our
9:29
Speaker 1: support for the previous regime. So this has to be
9:36
Speaker 1: of the Iranian people, and the next set of leaders
9:39
Speaker 1: have to be small d democrats. We cannot be sitting
9:43
Speaker 1: here in picking kings and picking presidents. What he's doing
9:46
Speaker 1: in Venezuela, I think is very dangerous. It's an illegitimate
9:50
Speaker 1: person in charge and he's sort of treating them like
9:54
Speaker 1: a coppo in the mob. Well, I'm just promoting you
9:56
Speaker 1: from within. You're helping mind my oil business over here
10:01
Speaker 1: in Venezuela. The people have to make this decision. It
10:07
Speaker 1: can't be an overlord in Washington, DC. This Iranian regime
10:20
Speaker 1: is one of the worst ever. They have been a
10:24
Speaker 1: funder of terrorism, They have manufactured all sorts of propaganda
10:30
Speaker 1: and in the region, they have been the evildoers behind a
10:35
Speaker 1: lot of violence in the region. They deserve no sympathy.
10:49
Speaker 1: The President of the United States owes the American people
10:51
Speaker 1: though an explanation of why now, why this is important,
10:59
Speaker 1: and why he believed this isn't going to lead to
11:06
Speaker 1: you know? Is this you know? And why are we
11:08
Speaker 1: picking the way we're picking and choosing these things. Ukraine's
11:16
Speaker 1: sovereignty and freedom is not the priority that Iran's is
11:20
Speaker 1: for him, apparently that Venezuela's is. Apparently that potentially Cubas is.
11:26
Speaker 1: Now you might say there's a big difference. He's not
11:30
Speaker 1: going to mess with Russia in China, so Taiwan and
11:33
Speaker 1: Ukraine good luck. He is willing to mess with other
11:37
Speaker 1: countries because we're bigger than them. This goes back to
11:42
Speaker 1: what you've seen from people like Stephen Miller and others
11:45
Speaker 1: on him, who say that basically it's the law, it's
11:51
Speaker 1: the rules of the jungle that now apply. But this
11:57
Speaker 1: isn't how you get to restore a rules based order,
12:03
Speaker 1: and so the long tail of this is what should
12:07
Speaker 1: concern all of us. This was not done. There's I
12:13
Speaker 1: think a lot of questions about how legal this action is.
12:20
Speaker 1: As much as the President certainly deserves criticism for ignoring
12:27
Speaker 1: the constitutional protocol here and ignoring Congress, it's on Congress
12:32
Speaker 1: that has given up all these powers. Over decades. They've
12:35
Speaker 1: let presidents abuse this aspect of the power, the role
12:46
Speaker 1: of commander in chief, and they have abdicated every single
12:53
Speaker 1: Speaker of the House going back fifty years, has abdicated
12:57
Speaker 1: their leadership on this issue. So, yes, he didn't go
13:03
Speaker 1: to Congress, but Congress has done nothing to force him
13:07
Speaker 1: and make him accountable for this. We're going to hear
13:11
Speaker 1: a lot of folks upset that he didn't go to Congress. Well,
13:19
Speaker 1: there's been a lot of words used over the years
13:21
Speaker 1: when various presidents have essentially gone around Congress because they
13:26
Speaker 1: wanted to execute a certain military operation, whether it's Barack
13:30
Speaker 1: Obama and Libya, whether it's Donald Trump with what he's
13:33
Speaker 1: done here. You can go on and on. But someday
13:43
Speaker 1: Congress is going to members of Congress are going to
13:45
Speaker 1: read the Constitution and fail find out that their article won.
13:51
Speaker 1: But apparently that day is not now. So look it
13:56
Speaker 1: is the next The next twenty four to forty eight
13:59
Speaker 1: hours may might be the easy part. The hard part
14:03
Speaker 1: is the next six months, the next six years, and
14:07
Speaker 1: perhaps the next decade. We have to be very involved.
14:12
Speaker 1: If we want the outcome that President Trump wants here,
14:19
Speaker 1: just dropping some bombs and walking away is not going
14:21
Speaker 1: to guarantee that outcome. We have to be extraordinarily involved.
14:25
Speaker 1: But the more we get dragged into it, the more
14:28
Speaker 1: that's going to put domestic pressure. Now I know the
14:32
Speaker 1: President's instincts here. He is going to just say, ah,
14:35
Speaker 1: so what walk away if it becomes too hard, walk away.
14:40
Speaker 1: But the long term message that sends to everyone around
14:43
Speaker 1: the world about America is willing to come in with
14:46
Speaker 1: a baseball batant sledgehammer, but we're not willing to come up,
14:52
Speaker 1: come in to rebuild. So we have to be involved
14:56
Speaker 1: in this now. It is a moral obligation, is an
15:00
Speaker 1: ethical obligation, and it is a security obligation. If we
15:04
Speaker 1: don't help rebuild what we have destroyed, people will be
15:09
Speaker 1: coming for us. And it's asymmetrical. So the President owes
15:15
Speaker 1: the American people that kind of direct conversation because we
15:24
Speaker 1: are this isn't going this isn't this isn't going to
15:30
Speaker 1: be free. Now, the consequences if he had not done it,
15:38
Speaker 1: if he had negotiated some sort of uncomfortable agreement, it
15:46
Speaker 1: might not have stuck. But as you see, whether the president,
15:53
Speaker 1: whether anybody believes his word anymore, and I'm sure plenty
15:58
Speaker 1: plenty of folks have stopped taking him at his word
16:01
Speaker 1: for a long time, you cannot take him at his word.
16:04
Speaker 1: I mean, I've put it on my own x feet
16:06
Speaker 1: if you want to take a look. But the number
16:08
Speaker 1: of people who have been quoted as saying what the
16:11
Speaker 1: president or ordered last night, what we're in the middle
16:14
Speaker 1: of doing right now in Iran is exactly what he
16:17
Speaker 1: said he would never do. It's what Pete Haig says
16:21
Speaker 1: said the Pentagon wouldn't be doing. It's what Tulsa Gabbert
16:25
Speaker 1: was the rationale why she supposedly decided to leave the
16:28
Speaker 1: Democratic Party to join Team Trump. And here's somebody to watch.
16:34
Speaker 1: What kind of is Tulsa Gabbert a serious person? If
16:38
Speaker 1: she's a serious person with any principles left, I assume
16:44
Speaker 1: she will resign before the weekend. We'll see if that happens.
16:56
Speaker 1: But this is a monumental moment. We have chosen to
17:01
Speaker 1: be the world's policeman. You've heard me advocate talk about
17:07
Speaker 1: that before. If we choose not to be the world's
17:10
Speaker 1: cop we're not going to like to if others do it.
17:13
Speaker 1: But the success or failure of this mission is not
17:17
Speaker 1: going to be decided today, tomorrow, or the next week.
17:20
Speaker 1: The success or failure of this mission is how Iran
17:28
Speaker 1: is rebuilt and whether or not our credibility remains if
17:39
Speaker 1: we don't participate, if we don't lead this charge. This
17:47
Speaker 1: so we've got this is the political question I have
17:50
Speaker 1: in my head. What kind of tolerance is the American
17:56
Speaker 1: people going to have for America now running Venezuela, likely
18:04
Speaker 1: soon to be running Cuba, rebuilding Gaza, and now rebuilding
18:10
Speaker 1: Iran in a year and frankly, in an era where
18:17
Speaker 1: the country supposedly was tired of worrying about everybody else
18:21
Speaker 1: and not looking inward. So I guess one thing you
18:26
Speaker 1: can say for sure is is if you believe there
18:29
Speaker 1: really was an America First movement that was being led
18:31
Speaker 1: by Donald Trump, that movement has come to an abrupt
18:36
Speaker 1: and clear end this weekend. All right, I'll have more
18:42
Speaker 1: to say on Monday. Enjoy your weekend, and let's hope
18:47
Speaker 1: for the safety of everybody of all of our troops
18:51
Speaker 1: that have been asked to be involved in this operation.