Latest / Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar / 5/8/26: Trump Says Ceasefire Still On After US Iran Bombing, Platner Brutal Ad & MORE

Transcript

5/8/26: Trump Says Ceasefire Still On After US Iran Bombing, Platner Brutal Ad & MORE · Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.
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• 0:30
  Speaker 3: Hello everybody, Happy Friday. How's everybody feeling good? Rin excellent.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: We've got Jeremy ska Hill here, of course, of drop
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: site News, joining us at the top of the show
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: to break down some fast moving developments with regard to
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: our war with Iran. I'm still not entirely sure what
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: happened yesterday, Jeremy. Maybe you have more clarity, but it
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: looks like perhaps the Iranians fired on some US ships.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: US retaliated with strikes on carg Island, among other locations.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: Trump is insisting, though that all of this bombing does
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: not amount to a violin of the ceasefire somehow, Mac,
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: if you could pull that up, we can take a
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: listen to that and then get Jeremy's reaction on the
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: other side after the strife is the cease fire with
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: your on still on?
• 1:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah it is. It said they trifled with us. Today
• 1:15
  Speaker 4: we blew them away. They trifled. They call that a trifle.
• 1:19
  Speaker 4: I'll let you know when there's no seas you won't
• 1:21
  Speaker 4: have to know. If there's no cease fire, you're not
• 1:23
  Speaker 4: gonna have to know. You just have to look at
• 1:25
  Speaker 4: one big glow coming.
• 1:27
  Speaker 5: Out of Iran and they better sign their agreement fast.
• 1:31
  Speaker 5: Did The talks are going very well, but they have
• 1:37
  Speaker 5: to understand if it doesn't get signed, they're going to
• 1:40
  Speaker 5: have a lot of pain.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: So not only do you have him adopting a rather
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: is really definition of ceasefire that apparently it doesn't mean
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: an end to the war at all, but then he
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: makes another genocidal nuclear seemingly threat against Iran in those comments. Jeremy,
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: what is your understanding of what happened and what is
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: happening now?
• 1:58
  Speaker 6: You know, Crystal, one of the things that i'd been
• 2:01
  Speaker 6: hearing from Iranian officials prior to this incident in the
• 2:04
  Speaker 6: you know, actually the night that Trump announced that he
• 2:07
  Speaker 6: was ending Project Freedom, the label that he gave this
• 2:11
  Speaker 6: operation in the Strait of Horror Moves that basically was
• 2:15
  Speaker 6: a total failure. I mean, a couple of ships got through,
• 2:17
  Speaker 6: but the state admission was to ensure free passage of
• 2:22
  Speaker 6: civilian merchant vessels, and that clearly didn't happen. But what
• 2:25
  Speaker 6: I was told by Iranian officials is that there had
• 2:28
  Speaker 6: been many more clashes between US and Iranian forces in
• 2:33
  Speaker 6: the Strait of horm Moves than had been reported in
• 2:35
  Speaker 6: the media, and that basically Trump had a couple of problems.
• 2:40
  Speaker 6: One is that the Saudis and the Kuwaitis told the
• 2:43
  Speaker 6: United States that they didn't want to give overflight rights
• 2:46
  Speaker 6: to the United States if they were expanding their operations
• 2:49
  Speaker 6: in the Straight of Horror Moves. I don't think that
• 2:50
  Speaker 6: that was, you know, the sort of definitive thing as
• 2:53
  Speaker 6: it was portrayed in the media. It was one factor
• 2:55
  Speaker 6: here as to why Trump didn't go ahead with sort
• 2:57
  Speaker 6: of keeping that in place. But the the other part
• 3:00
  Speaker 6: of it was that as US warships started to move
• 3:03
  Speaker 6: further past the red lines that the Iranians had said
• 3:07
  Speaker 6: were kind of clearly Iranian territory. Iran considered, first of all,
• 3:12
  Speaker 6: they consider the military blockade itself an active war, and secondly,
• 3:16
  Speaker 6: when US ships come in to clearly defined Iranian territory,
• 3:19
  Speaker 6: they view any counteractions that they take against them as defensive.
• 3:23
  Speaker 6: It's unclear who fired first or you know, what the
• 3:26
  Speaker 6: actual facts are. Right now, both Iran and the United
• 3:28
  Speaker 6: States are claiming the other side fired first. But what
• 3:32
  Speaker 6: is clear is that there was an exchange of fire.
• 3:35
  Speaker 6: The Iranians claim they actually hit some US ships. The
• 3:37
  Speaker 6: United States and sent Kam are denying that. But what
• 3:40
  Speaker 6: happened is that, you know, Trump authorized fairly heavy but
• 3:44
  Speaker 6: very short term bombing of an island off of Iran's
• 3:47
  Speaker 6: coastal territory. They also struck in the city of Minab, which,
• 3:51
  Speaker 6: as you'll recall, was the place where in the opening
• 3:54
  Speaker 6: hours of the February twenty eighth bombing that started this war,
• 3:58
  Speaker 6: the US with cruise miss hit a girls' school, killing
• 4:01
  Speaker 6: one hundred and sixty five people, most of them young girls.
• 4:05
  Speaker 6: And the backdrop of all of this is that there
• 4:08
  Speaker 6: has been this exchange of amendments to a fourteen point
• 4:12
  Speaker 6: proposal for what is being called the Memorandum of Understanding.
• 4:17
  Speaker 6: It's true that this exists. I mean, there's a lot
• 4:18
  Speaker 6: of propaganda coming from the Barakra vid Axios sphere, because
• 4:23
  Speaker 6: what they often do is they say that this is
• 4:26
  Speaker 6: the framework, but actually what they're doing is they're reporting
• 4:28
  Speaker 6: on the US demands, and then that puts the Iranians
• 4:31
  Speaker 6: in a position where it looks like they're either backtracking
• 4:34
  Speaker 6: or it's meant to sort of pressure them. So this
• 4:36
  Speaker 6: was going on, and I guess the news of this
• 4:38
  Speaker 6: is that last night I was told that Iran had
• 4:41
  Speaker 6: finalized its decision prior to Trump initiating this bombing against Iran,
• 4:46
  Speaker 6: and was on the verge of actually sending it to
• 4:48
  Speaker 6: the United States. And then once these strikes happened that
• 4:51
  Speaker 6: Iran publicly said was a violation of the ceasefire. They said,
• 4:55
  Speaker 6: we're pausing or suspending the submission of this proposal. Then
• 4:59
  Speaker 6: I started to hear from Iranians that the Pakistanis were
• 5:02
  Speaker 6: going nuts. They were taken by surprise that the United
• 5:04
  Speaker 6: States had done this. Pakistan is the mediating the primary
• 5:07
  Speaker 6: mediating country, and they were basically frantically trying to get
• 5:10
  Speaker 6: the United States to stop, and Iran, I was told,
• 5:13
  Speaker 6: was prepared to start striking at what they called US
• 5:16
  Speaker 6: interests in the broader Persian Gulf. And it's clear that
• 5:20
  Speaker 6: there were some back channel discussions aimed at sort of
• 5:23
  Speaker 6: calming this down. Marco Rubio says, they expect the Iranians
• 5:27
  Speaker 6: to submit their their sort of version or their amendments
• 5:30
  Speaker 6: to what the US sent them the other day. But
• 5:33
  Speaker 6: I think this could have gone into a very very
• 5:35
  Speaker 6: intense escalation. And the final thing I'll say on this
• 5:38
  Speaker 6: regarding Trump, I mean, think about what he keeps saying.
• 5:41
  Speaker 6: The Iranians are desperate to make a deal. They just
• 5:43
  Speaker 6: want to make a deal. But the fact is that
• 5:45
  Speaker 6: the Iranians are not doing that. And I think that
• 5:48
  Speaker 6: what the American public, because there was such propaganda about
• 5:52
  Speaker 6: the extent of the destruction that was done to Iran.
• 5:55
  Speaker 6: You had this report in the Washington Post yesterday that
• 5:58
  Speaker 6: actually the Iranians retained a huge percentage they said seventy percent,
• 6:02
  Speaker 6: seventy five percent of both ballistic missiles and drones. The
• 6:05
  Speaker 6: American public was led to believe that Iran was basically
• 6:08
  Speaker 6: finished and that it was collapsing, and in fact, the
• 6:10
  Speaker 6: Iranian Foreign minister, in a post on x this morning
• 6:14
  Speaker 6: of Baserachi, said that the CIA assessments as published in
• 6:18
  Speaker 6: the Washington Post are actually incorrect. Our capacity is more
• 6:21
  Speaker 6: like one hundred and twenty percent of our ballistic missiles.
• 6:24
  Speaker 6: Because they're saying they've been rebuilding them, I think they're
• 6:27
  Speaker 6: telling the truth, you know. I think the Iranians have
• 6:29
  Speaker 6: a far more sophisticated manufacturing operation for their ballistic missiles
• 6:33
  Speaker 6: and drones. They also recently got dual used technology imported
• 6:36
  Speaker 6: from China. The United States is aware that those shipments happened,
• 6:42
  Speaker 6: and I think that at the end of the day,
• 6:43
  Speaker 6: one of the scandals of this is that the US
• 6:45
  Speaker 6: has consistently misled, if not outright lied, about the extent
• 6:49
  Speaker 6: of damage. And that's why Trump keeps saying, oh, they
• 6:51
  Speaker 6: want to make a deal. The Iranians still feel that
• 6:54
  Speaker 6: they have leverage, and they think that Trump backed off
• 6:56
  Speaker 6: in the Strait of Hormuz because he was stuck and
• 6:59
  Speaker 6: because he has a vis coming up with Jijingpeng in China.
• 7:02
  Speaker 6: He wants it some kind of a flimsy memorandum of understanding,
• 7:06
  Speaker 6: and Trump wants the Iranians to preemptively say things about
• 7:09
  Speaker 6: their nuclear program that as of this moment when I'm
• 7:11
  Speaker 6: talking to you, the Iranians are saying they are not
• 7:14
  Speaker 6: going to negotiate on the front end of a memorandum
• 7:16
  Speaker 6: of understanding about issues that took three years to negotiate
• 7:20
  Speaker 6: under Barack Obama when the twenty fifteen deal was done.
• 7:24
  Speaker 7: So that's basically if they're supposed to be talking about
• 7:27
  Speaker 7: in the front end fifteen twenty year moratorium on enrichment. Jeremy,
• 7:30
  Speaker 7: your sources are indicating that is, no matter what debt
• 7:33
  Speaker 7: on arrival, they will not be agreeing to enrichment moratoriums.
• 7:37
  Speaker 8: You know.
• 7:38
  Speaker 6: I mean, it's a good question, Emily, And what I've
• 7:40
  Speaker 6: been told up to this moment is that it's possible
• 7:43
  Speaker 6: that the Iranians are going to make some broader general
• 7:46
  Speaker 6: statement about nuclear that could be contained in this MoU
• 7:51
  Speaker 6: There may be some compromise language to that sort of
• 7:53
  Speaker 6: indicates that eventually the Iranians are going to talk about this.
• 7:57
  Speaker 6: Maybe they'll put some statement in there that has to
• 7:59
  Speaker 6: do with like a nuclear way. And you know, Trump
• 8:00
  Speaker 6: keeps saying they have to say that they're never going
• 8:02
  Speaker 6: to build a nuclear weapon. Well, that's been Iran's position
• 8:05
  Speaker 6: for a few decades now, and there was a flatois
• 8:08
  Speaker 6: issued by the late Supreme Leader saying that it would
• 8:10
  Speaker 6: be a sin to possess a weapon of mass destruction.
• 8:15
  Speaker 6: But Trump is really obsessing on that, and maybe that
• 8:17
  Speaker 6: opens some wiggle room where the Iranians essentially restate an
• 8:21
  Speaker 6: existing position, although Emily I will say there is a
• 8:23
  Speaker 6: ferocious debate that's been intensified within Iran's ruling circles right
• 8:28
  Speaker 6: now about whether it was a mistake not to have
• 8:30
  Speaker 6: pursued a nuclear weapon, because the North Korean government remains
• 8:34
  Speaker 6: intact and isn't being you know, bombed by the United
• 8:36
  Speaker 6: States for the sole reason that it has a nuclear weapon.
• 8:40
  Speaker 6: So I think that the Iranians have called it a
• 8:42
  Speaker 6: red line. The idea that they're going to put up
• 8:45
  Speaker 6: terms in any sort of detail or make front end
• 8:48
  Speaker 6: commitments would be a massive concession from the Iranians, and
• 8:52
  Speaker 6: they are saying that they are absolutely not going to
• 8:54
  Speaker 6: do that.
• 8:57
  Speaker 9: Jeremy last night, we had in the middle of all
• 8:59
  Speaker 9: of this, Rachel Scott tweeted out here that Trump apparently
• 9:03
  Speaker 9: called this back and forth, this attack on Iran a
• 9:07
  Speaker 9: love tap, and again when asked if this meant that
• 9:10
  Speaker 9: the ceasefire was over, he said, no, it's still in
• 9:12
  Speaker 9: full effect. What do you think from the Iranians POV
• 9:15
  Speaker 9: how they're interpreting this. Are they interpreting this as a
• 9:18
  Speaker 9: simple love tap and the ceasefire is still on? Or
• 9:21
  Speaker 9: is this gonna, you know, throw a grenade in the
• 9:23
  Speaker 9: middle of everything. How do you think they're interpreting all
• 9:25
  Speaker 9: of this.
• 9:26
  Speaker 6: I think that the Iranians are approaching this with what
• 9:29
  Speaker 6: sometimes has been called by both Hasbala Iran strategic patients.
• 9:33
  Speaker 6: I think Iran could have reacted in a way where
• 9:35
  Speaker 6: they just sort of lit up the Persian Gulf countries again.
• 9:39
  Speaker 6: I mean, there are reports of explosions that happened in
• 9:41
  Speaker 6: Abu Dhabi and Dubai, And certainly the Iranians have carved
• 9:45
  Speaker 6: out the United Arab Emirates as a particular adversary in this.
• 9:49
  Speaker 6: They view them as essentially an Arab satellite of Israel,
• 9:53
  Speaker 6: as doing the bidding of the United States and Israel. So,
• 9:56
  Speaker 6: you know, if there were some strikes, it seems like
• 9:58
  Speaker 6: it's possible that the Iranians did hit the United Arab Emirates,
• 10:02
  Speaker 6: but it wasn't a massive attack, and again it's still
• 10:05
  Speaker 6: not confirmed, but no, I think that they were waiting
• 10:09
  Speaker 6: to see how far this was going to go. If
• 10:11
  Speaker 6: the United States started to assassinate or try to do
• 10:14
  Speaker 6: targeted strikes along with Israel against leadership figures, then I
• 10:18
  Speaker 6: think we would have saw a dramatic escalation. So you know,
• 10:21
  Speaker 6: I get the sense based on the official position Iran
• 10:24
  Speaker 6: is taking, which is that the spokesperson for their Joint
• 10:28
  Speaker 6: Armed Forces the conventional military clearly said this is a
• 10:32
  Speaker 6: violation of the ceasefire, but did not say the ceasefire
• 10:34
  Speaker 6: is over. When Abasarachi, the top diplomat for Iran, finally
• 10:38
  Speaker 6: addressed this situation, he zeroed in on sort of how
• 10:42
  Speaker 6: the United States pattern is that they claimed to be
• 10:44
  Speaker 6: wanting a deal or on the verge of a deal,
• 10:46
  Speaker 6: and then they continue to attack pass. So what we
• 10:49
  Speaker 6: have not heard is the Iranian saying that all of
• 10:51
  Speaker 6: this is over, And my understanding is that they had
• 10:54
  Speaker 6: reached a conclusion on their position that they were going
• 10:57
  Speaker 6: to send via Pakistan back to the United Stas States.
• 11:00
  Speaker 6: That may well happen today, but I wouldn't count on it.
• 11:04
  Speaker 6: Just from Marco Rubio's word. I think there's a lot
• 11:06
  Speaker 6: of diplomacy going on right now, and not just Pakistan,
• 11:10
  Speaker 6: but China is becoming increasingly involved. Basarachi was just in
• 11:14
  Speaker 6: Beijing meeting with senior Chinese officials. The Chinese are becoming
• 11:18
  Speaker 6: increasingly outspoken on Trump's military blockade in the Straight of
• 11:23
  Speaker 6: Horn moves. China has the most to lose in terms
• 11:25
  Speaker 6: of the oil flow through the Strait of Horror moves.
• 11:27
  Speaker 6: It's an incredibly powerful country. Trump very much brags about
• 11:32
  Speaker 6: his close relationship with the Chinese leader, and so I
• 11:35
  Speaker 6: think China is also looking at this and saying Donald
• 11:38
  Speaker 6: Trump's going to be here in a matter of days.
• 11:40
  Speaker 6: He doesn't want to cruise into Beijing on a sort
• 11:43
  Speaker 6: of failure tour. And so I think Trump is the
• 11:46
  Speaker 6: one who's desperate right now, and the Iranians are aware
• 11:48
  Speaker 6: of that. Trump wants some piece of paper he can
• 11:51
  Speaker 6: point to where he can claim that he's now again
• 11:54
  Speaker 6: ending a war by the way which he started and
• 11:57
  Speaker 6: then rolling into China so that he can feel like
• 11:59
  Speaker 6: he's sort of the good guy in all of this.
• 12:02
  Speaker 6: The carts are in the Iranian's hands right now to
• 12:04
  Speaker 6: an extent, and so I wouldn't. I wouldn't look for
• 12:07
  Speaker 6: them to be doing any radical concessions. Trump is the
• 12:09
  Speaker 6: one who's kind of backed himself into a corner here
• 12:11
  Speaker 6: just in the short term.
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: Well, and I also, you know, found it very noteworthy
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: and interesting the reporting from you guys and from other
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: outlets that the Saudis and the Kuwaitis UH said no,
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: we're not going to help you with your Operation Freedom
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: or whatever it was called, which had just been announced
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: with great fanfare. You had multiple press conferences from the
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: Secretary of Date from heg Seth and General Kine coming
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: out and talking about this, touting this thing and heg Seth, Oh,
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: we're putting a red, white and blue dome over the
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: street or something like that. And then just as quickly
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: as it begun, it's completely reversed and we find out
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: behind the scenes the Saudis and Kuwaitis said no, we're
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: we're not going to help you with this, and you
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: need us. So I found that very interesting because that
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: added a limiting factor in that I had considered before
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: on top of the political limitations for Trump, on top
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: of the economic limitations, on top of you know, all
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: of the constraints that he has just in terms of
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: supplies and munitions and capacity. You also add in that
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: your allies, a few of them are going, I'm not
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: sure about everything that you're up to here, and we
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: could pull the plug.
• 13:19
  Speaker 8: Now.
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: The reporting now is that they've said, okay, well you
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: can use our air bases again, you can have flyover
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: rights again.
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: We're all good. But that seemed to be a very
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: significant development in my view.
• 13:28
  Speaker 6: Jeremy, Yeah. I mean, as I said at the onset,
• 13:32
  Speaker 6: you know, I think it was a factor. And you
• 13:35
  Speaker 6: have to remember also that right now there's a competition
• 13:38
  Speaker 6: between and a jockeying for prime position in the Gulf,
• 13:42
  Speaker 6: between the Saudis and the Emordis. And you know, the
• 13:46
  Speaker 6: the tensions and the conflict between Saudi Arabia and the
• 13:49
  Speaker 6: United Arab Emirates also goes back to the civil war
• 13:53
  Speaker 6: in Sudan. You know, the United Arab Emirates is widely
• 13:56
  Speaker 6: seen around the world as facilitating massive war crimes in Sudan.
• 14:01
  Speaker 6: The Saudis were back channeling and trying to get Trump
• 14:04
  Speaker 6: involved with that in a deeper way. The Emordis, by
• 14:07
  Speaker 6: exiting Opek, you know, recently won Trump's praise. They are
• 14:11
  Speaker 6: increasingly overtly and openly intense in their praise of Israel
• 14:16
  Speaker 6: and their claims that they're going to start deeper military cooperation.
• 14:19
  Speaker 6: And I think that, you know, the Kuwaitis and the Saudis,
• 14:22
  Speaker 6: I mean, Kuwait in particular took a massive beating in
• 14:25
  Speaker 6: this war, and it's the place where the single largest
• 14:28
  Speaker 6: number of American soldiers were hit. I mean, Kuwait was
• 14:31
  Speaker 6: just absolutely pummeled alongside the United Arab Emirates. But the Kuwaitis,
• 14:36
  Speaker 6: I think, felt like they are going to be left
• 14:39
  Speaker 6: to fend for themselves when the United States escalates this
• 14:43
  Speaker 6: and then they're right on the front lines. Anyone just
• 14:45
  Speaker 6: pull out a map, look how close Kuwait is to Iran.
• 14:49
  Speaker 6: And so I think from Kuwait's perspective, they're saying, the
• 14:52
  Speaker 6: last time you escalated and started bombing them, we had
• 14:55
  Speaker 6: to endure six weeks of massive strikes raining down on
• 14:59
  Speaker 6: our territory. And by the way, it was just announced
• 15:01
  Speaker 6: this week that Kuwait had to put it in order
• 15:03
  Speaker 6: for billions of dollars worth of new Patriot missiles and
• 15:07
  Speaker 6: interceptors that are not going to be ready for many,
• 15:10
  Speaker 6: many years. I mean, that's another story here. So I
• 15:13
  Speaker 6: don't think the Saudis and the Kuwaitis were saying, Oh,
• 15:15
  Speaker 6: we don't you know, we love Iran now and we're
• 15:18
  Speaker 6: going to sort of heroically block you. I think the
• 15:20
  Speaker 6: perception is you didn't defend us. You put all your
• 15:23
  Speaker 6: effort into Israel and all your effort into waging this
• 15:27
  Speaker 6: war of choice, and you left us as sitting ducks.
• 15:29
  Speaker 6: So at least it was like the twenty four hour
• 15:31
  Speaker 6: protests that they engaged in. But I think the deeper
• 15:34
  Speaker 6: story here is it was just a strategic failure, and
• 15:36
  Speaker 6: that blockade is harming many, many other countries more than
• 15:40
  Speaker 6: it is Iran. Right now, the Iranians can last for months,
• 15:44
  Speaker 6: I think, based on their current supply. They're used to
• 15:46
  Speaker 6: having a resistance economy. The Foundation for Defensive Democracies pumped
• 15:50
  Speaker 6: all this stuff into the Trump administration's head that the
• 15:53
  Speaker 6: oil wells were going to explode within three days in Iran,
• 15:57
  Speaker 6: that the country was going to go into sort of
• 15:59
  Speaker 6: like a deep financial crisis. Yes, they're having trouble with
• 16:02
  Speaker 6: liquidity right now. There's no question about that. Inflation is
• 16:05
  Speaker 6: skyrocketing in Iran. No one is going to say that
• 16:07
  Speaker 6: Iran's economy is doing great, but Iran has many months
• 16:10
  Speaker 6: of supplies and you're not seeing core shortages of food.
• 16:14
  Speaker 6: Malls are still open, stores are still stocked, green markets
• 16:18
  Speaker 6: are still functioning. Gas is still available.
• 16:21
  Speaker 10: You know, this is not.
• 16:22
  Speaker 6: The strangulation that Trump thought, and I think that it
• 16:25
  Speaker 6: was just becoming an epic failure and the clock was
• 16:27
  Speaker 6: ticking toward this China visit and Trump was under a
• 16:29
  Speaker 6: lot of pressure from China in particular to make a
• 16:32
  Speaker 6: deal and stop this.
• 16:34
  Speaker 9: Jeremy, I'm curious, what do you think was the actual
• 16:37
  Speaker 9: purpose behind Project Freedom, because it seems like a rational
• 16:42
  Speaker 9: person looking at the current landscape would understand that commercial
• 16:46
  Speaker 9: shipping vessels are probably not going to go along with
• 16:49
  Speaker 9: a plan to have the US military guide them through,
• 16:52
  Speaker 9: you know, forcing their way through this Iranian blockade of
• 16:55
  Speaker 9: the straight offour moves, Like, was this a genuine attempt
• 16:58
  Speaker 9: that they thought was actually going to work, or was
• 17:02
  Speaker 9: this sort of an attempt to get a provocation from Iran?
• 17:05
  Speaker 9: Or like what do you make of.
• 17:06
  Speaker 11: This or to get around the War Powers resolution.
• 17:09
  Speaker 9: Or to get around the War Powers resolution as well,
• 17:11
  Speaker 9: or is it just like a complete desperation move.
• 17:15
  Speaker 6: I mean, I think what Emily just said is a
• 17:18
  Speaker 6: primary part of this.
• 17:19
  Speaker 10: I mean, I do.
• 17:20
  Speaker 6: I do think that there was a thought that if
• 17:23
  Speaker 6: the Iranians truly did refuse to make any sort of
• 17:27
  Speaker 6: a deal with the United States and the US wanted
• 17:29
  Speaker 6: to justify relaunching a war, it seemed like the quote
• 17:34
  Speaker 6: unquote legal case that they were going to try to
• 17:36
  Speaker 6: make was that they were engaged in a defensive operation
• 17:39
  Speaker 6: that was humanitarian in nature, and if there was any
• 17:41
  Speaker 6: violation of that, it would have been because the Iranians
• 17:44
  Speaker 6: were acting as the aggressors. I certainly think that was
• 17:47
  Speaker 6: a factor. I also think that it's possible that there
• 17:50
  Speaker 6: were some ships that the United States in particular wanted
• 17:53
  Speaker 6: to get out of there because they may not have
• 17:55
  Speaker 6: been what they seemed. You know, there may have been
• 17:57
  Speaker 6: cargo on some ships that the United States was intersted
• 18:00
  Speaker 6: in getting out of the Strait, and they you know,
• 18:03
  Speaker 6: I think there may have been aspects to this that
• 18:04
  Speaker 6: could have been a clandestine operation because something was stuck
• 18:08
  Speaker 6: there that the United States wanted out. I also think
• 18:12
  Speaker 6: that in general, you know, what we're what what Trump
• 18:16
  Speaker 6: was was trying to do was prepare for potentially seizing
• 18:20
  Speaker 6: some territory or bombing the coastal areas. The Iranians, when
• 18:23
  Speaker 6: I was talking to them just a few days ago,
• 18:24
  Speaker 6: said they thought it was highly likely that there were
• 18:26
  Speaker 6: going to be intense strikes along the coastal areas some
• 18:29
  Speaker 6: of the islands off of Iran's coasts, combined with leadership strikes.
• 18:32
  Speaker 6: So I think Emily is probably right in terms of
• 18:35
  Speaker 6: the bulk of the rationale behind it. But I think
• 18:37
  Speaker 6: there was probably some intelligence operation that went on that
• 18:40
  Speaker 6: we don't fully understand, because some ships did get out
• 18:43
  Speaker 6: of there, and and I mean, there's a whole other show,
• 18:45
  Speaker 6: but where's that pilot that got shot down and survived,
• 18:48
  Speaker 6: you know, the weapons officer? And you know, I'm not saying, oh,
• 18:52
  Speaker 6: this thing was all cooked up, but it's possible it was.
• 18:56
  Speaker 6: You know this, if this administration isn't parading like those
• 18:59
  Speaker 6: kinds of American heros in front of it, you have
• 19:00
  Speaker 6: to say that why aren't they. That's possible that we're
• 19:03
  Speaker 6: going to meet that pilot and the weapons officer and
• 19:06
  Speaker 6: you know, we're going to hear their harrowing story and
• 19:08
  Speaker 6: we're going to have, you know, a new Hollywood film
• 19:10
  Speaker 6: made about it. But it's really odd, and so all
• 19:13
  Speaker 6: of which is just to say I think that the
• 19:15
  Speaker 6: US has done a number of operations here that are
• 19:18
  Speaker 6: meant to appear one way to the public. It may
• 19:19
  Speaker 6: have been about something else, and that could also be
• 19:22
  Speaker 6: a factor here.
• 19:24
  Speaker 7: And Matt, could you play this clip of President Trump
• 19:26
  Speaker 7: last night. He was touring the reflecting pool outside Lincoln
• 19:30
  Speaker 7: Memorial being painted, the ground being painted, no water in
• 19:35
  Speaker 7: it right now, and he's getting questions.
• 19:38
  Speaker 11: We've played at least one of them so far.
• 19:40
  Speaker 7: But he makes a nuclear threat again just in the
• 19:44
  Speaker 7: middle of the reflecting pool. And or well, he was
• 19:47
  Speaker 7: in the middle of touring the reflecting pool. And Jeremy,
• 19:50
  Speaker 7: I want to get your reaction on the back end
• 19:51
  Speaker 7: as to how this plays in that broader debate that
• 19:54
  Speaker 7: we were talking about. Your sources indicate is happening behind
• 19:58
  Speaker 7: the scenes in Iran, where now the question of whether
• 20:01
  Speaker 7: they should sprint towards nuclear weapons is actually real and
• 20:05
  Speaker 7: there are different factions.
• 20:06
  Speaker 11: So let's listen to the president here.
• 20:08
  Speaker 5: They trifled.
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: I call that a trifle.
• 20:10
  Speaker 5: I'll let you know. When there's no seas, you won't.
• 20:13
  Speaker 7: Have to know.
• 20:14
  Speaker 5: If there's no ceasefire, you're not going to have to know.
• 20:16
  Speaker 5: You just didn't have to look at one big glow
• 20:18
  Speaker 5: coming out of Iran, and they better sign their agreement fast.
• 20:23
  Speaker 7: One big glow coming out of Iran. How does that
• 20:27
  Speaker 7: change the political question of nuclear weapons in Iran?
• 20:31
  Speaker 6: Jeremy, I mean, I think it's I think it's really
• 20:34
  Speaker 6: you know, despite the fact that it's Trump and he's
• 20:36
  Speaker 6: bombastic for an American president to speak in that way
• 20:40
  Speaker 6: and to even raise the prospect and it's pretty clear
• 20:44
  Speaker 6: that that's what he was doing of using a nuclear
• 20:47
  Speaker 6: weapon on Iran. You know, in nineteen forty five, the
• 20:52
  Speaker 6: US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and there's
• 20:55
  Speaker 6: a reason why that hasn't happened since. I mean, it's
• 20:58
  Speaker 6: even even at the most insane points of the Reagan administration,
• 21:02
  Speaker 6: you didn't hear this level of recklessness from the President
• 21:06
  Speaker 6: of the United States.
• 21:07
  Speaker 7: And Reagan behind the scenes was terrified and back to yeah, Gorra.
• 21:12
  Speaker 6: I mean, but people think of it as like Reagan
• 21:14
  Speaker 6: took us to you know, to a couple of minutes
• 21:16
  Speaker 6: before nuclear midnight, and then we've got like Trump just
• 21:19
  Speaker 6: talking about it kind of off the cuff in this way.
• 21:22
  Speaker 6: And I do think I think that there is a
• 21:24
  Speaker 6: very real discussion in Iran. It has gone on the
• 21:29
  Speaker 6: whole time since the early two thousands about actually since
• 21:31
  Speaker 6: the late nineties, about whether Iran should be pursuing weaponizing
• 21:35
  Speaker 6: nuclear material to make a bomb as a massive deterrent
• 21:39
  Speaker 6: against anyone trying to do precisely what we've been watching.
• 21:42
  Speaker 6: That debate has gotten much more more serious, and I
• 21:46
  Speaker 6: think it's why it's part of why this issue of
• 21:49
  Speaker 6: what's going to happen with their sixty percent enriched uranium
• 21:52
  Speaker 6: has become so important to the Iranians. You have the
• 21:54
  Speaker 6: Foreign Ministry spokesperson of the Iranian government say it's as
• 21:58
  Speaker 6: sacred to us as ours. That's not just a sort
• 22:02
  Speaker 6: of rhetorical thing that Smile bag Aye was just sort
• 22:05
  Speaker 6: of dropping off the cuff. What it's a reflection of
• 22:08
  Speaker 6: is the fact that the Iranians now view this as
• 22:11
  Speaker 6: very different than the twenty fifteen JCPOA because they've been
• 22:15
  Speaker 6: faced with an actual existential war that was waged by
• 22:19
  Speaker 6: the United States. And so, you know, that's why I
• 22:22
  Speaker 6: think had you have real contentious debate about what this
• 22:27
  Speaker 6: memorandum of understanding is going to look like, Iran does
• 22:30
  Speaker 6: not want to be perceived by its domestic population to
• 22:34
  Speaker 6: have seeded a millimeter when it comes to the issue
• 22:38
  Speaker 6: of the enriched uranium because of this debate, because there
• 22:41
  Speaker 6: is a view that it was maybe a mistake not
• 22:44
  Speaker 6: to have actually created a nuclear bomb. So it's not
• 22:47
  Speaker 6: just a matter of Iran as setting these red lines
• 22:49
  Speaker 6: and they're doing it from a place of negotiating and
• 22:51
  Speaker 6: later they're going to capitulate.
• 22:53
  Speaker 10: I think that it's.
• 22:53
  Speaker 6: Viewed as a very very serious issue that if they
• 22:57
  Speaker 6: were to give up on the front end of any negotiation,
• 23:00
  Speaker 6: it would be widely perceived as having kind of bent
• 23:02
  Speaker 6: the knee.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: On the other hand, if you think about, okay, well,
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: what's the purpose of developing a nuclear weapon, ideas to
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: serve as a deterrent use the example of North Korea,
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: which I think is quite apt, and you could use
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: the counter examples of say Libya, or even you could
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: think of Ukraine in this circumstance after the dissolving in
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: the Soviet Union. But in any case, I mean they
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: have established that they have another deterrent weapon, which is
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: their control over the Strait of Hormuz. And actually kylein
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: and I were talking Ryan about this. Yesterre and Ryan
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: made the point. You know, in some ways it's actually
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: more effective because you can actually use it. There isn't
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: the same taboo around it, whereas with nuclear weapons, at least,
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: thank god for now, there continues to be a taboo
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: around the actual use. So is that of you within
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: Iran that in effect, maybe we don't need the nuclear
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: weapons as much because we have this other, very significant,
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: consequential and clearly effective deterrent at our disposal.
• 23:56
  Speaker 6: Yes, but I still think that that they nuclear weapon
• 24:01
  Speaker 6: debate is a very very serious one. But certainly the
• 24:04
  Speaker 6: Iranians recognize that they have an incredibly potent weapon that
• 24:09
  Speaker 6: they can deploy using very low risk asymmetric tactics. I mean,
• 24:14
  Speaker 6: Trump is fond of saying that their navy is just
• 24:16
  Speaker 6: sitting at the bottom of the sea. That's true in
• 24:18
  Speaker 6: terms of the big vessels that they had, et cetera.
• 24:21
  Speaker 6: But that's not how they were able to create the
• 24:24
  Speaker 6: situation of the Straight of Hord moves. They did it
• 24:26
  Speaker 6: with very very small firepower and tiny you know, fast
• 24:31
  Speaker 6: boats and political will. And that's why you see right
• 24:34
  Speaker 6: now a scramble among Gulf countries and others to try
• 24:37
  Speaker 6: to find alternate routes but a lot of those alternate
• 24:40
  Speaker 6: routes also would either go across massive land areas or
• 24:44
  Speaker 6: they would necessitate the Red Sea. And in the Red
• 24:47
  Speaker 6: Sea you have ence Allah and Yemen, which also has
• 24:50
  Speaker 6: engaged in its own sorts of blockades. I mean, the
• 24:52
  Speaker 6: other day, an Iranian analyst said to Ryan and I know,
• 24:55
  Speaker 6: you'll know Iran is really escalating when the Red Sea
• 24:58
  Speaker 6: also gets closed. And that hasn't happened at this point.
• 25:01
  Speaker 6: But at the same time, Crystal, I think that will happen.
• 25:04
  Speaker 6: I think other countries are going to realize that there's
• 25:07
  Speaker 6: so much power over the global energy economy concentrated in
• 25:11
  Speaker 6: this small strip of territory controlled by Iran that they
• 25:14
  Speaker 6: have to find alternatives. I think that's going to happen.
• 25:17
  Speaker 6: Iran also is building up its own alternative infrastructure and
• 25:21
  Speaker 6: in recent weeks has signed a number of deals for
• 25:24
  Speaker 6: third country transit routes over land. You know, Iran has
• 25:29
  Speaker 6: borders either maritime or land with you know, roughly a
• 25:32
  Speaker 6: dozen other countries, and seven of those are our land borders,
• 25:36
  Speaker 6: and so you know, the Iranians are looking at, for instance,
• 25:39
  Speaker 6: at Pakistan. The Iran views part of its economic future
• 25:42
  Speaker 6: is becoming a central trade hub, you know, in Asia
• 25:46
  Speaker 6: that also services Europe. So yes, I think I think
• 25:50
  Speaker 6: that Iran has a very powerful weapon that for some
• 25:53
  Speaker 6: time to come will remain in their hands in a
• 25:56
  Speaker 6: very clear and definitive way. The other thing is, remember
• 25:58
  Speaker 6: Trump used to talk about all the ballistic missiles. The
• 26:00
  Speaker 6: ballistic missiles. They don't talk about that anymore, and I
• 26:04
  Speaker 6: think Iran is going to develop much more sophisticated ballistic missiles,
• 26:07
  Speaker 6: probably with a longer range.
• 26:10
  Speaker 9: Jeremy, how do you think Israel plays into these ongoing negotiations.
• 26:13
  Speaker 9: I mean, I think it's pretty clear that throughout the
• 26:16
  Speaker 9: entirety of the ceasefire they probably would have preferred the
• 26:18
  Speaker 9: US to go back to a full blown kinetic war
• 26:20
  Speaker 9: with Iran. They've failed to achieve pretty much all of
• 26:23
  Speaker 9: their core objectives going into this war, Like, do they
• 26:26
  Speaker 9: have real influence over whether or not a deal is
• 26:29
  Speaker 9: even possible? What degree do you think they could potentially
• 26:33
  Speaker 9: impact this going forward?
• 26:35
  Speaker 6: You know, I think I think the Israelis were very
• 26:37
  Speaker 6: happy at what happened. I think they were a huge
• 26:41
  Speaker 6: part of it. I think they presented cooked intelligence to
• 26:44
  Speaker 6: the White House. Among other things. There's political pressure, et cetera.
• 26:46
  Speaker 6: But I also think that they intentionally contaminated the intelligence
• 26:50
  Speaker 6: pipeline to Trump. And you know, that's not on the Israelis,
• 26:54
  Speaker 6: that's in their interest to do it. That's on US
• 26:56
  Speaker 6: intelligence professionals. It's also what happens when you bring in
• 26:58
  Speaker 6: Fox News hosts that have actual intelligence professionals to be
• 27:03
  Speaker 6: running the show. I mean, look a look, I mean
• 27:04
  Speaker 6: Telsea Gabber, the Director of National Intelligence, has been kept
• 27:08
  Speaker 6: outside of the loop on Iran, in part because she's expressed,
• 27:12
  Speaker 6: you know, skepticism about some of these core issues in
• 27:15
  Speaker 6: the past. There's no question that Israel has had an
• 27:18
  Speaker 6: enormous influence over all of this. But I don't think
• 27:21
  Speaker 6: that Israel necessarily thinks it's such a bad thing if
• 27:24
  Speaker 6: this ends under Trump in this way, because I think
• 27:26
  Speaker 6: what the Israelis realize is that Iran has stayability and
• 27:31
  Speaker 6: it's to its advantage when it's in a military confrontation
• 27:34
  Speaker 6: with the United States. And I think that the next
• 27:36
  Speaker 6: phase of this is that the Israelis are going to
• 27:38
  Speaker 6: look at how to really ratchet up the economic desperation
• 27:41
  Speaker 6: inside of Iran. I think they do want to bring
• 27:43
  Speaker 6: down the government. I think that they believe that the
• 27:46
  Speaker 6: best way to do that is to just utterly destroy
• 27:49
  Speaker 6: the fabric of the Iranian state economically. So while you know,
• 27:53
  Speaker 6: while there may be some short term deals or agreements
• 27:56
  Speaker 6: that the Israelis may not like, I still think they
• 27:59
  Speaker 6: feel like what they're going to get out of this
• 28:01
  Speaker 6: is in the long run, an attempt to further weaken
• 28:04
  Speaker 6: and bring down Iran. I think they're going to fail
• 28:07
  Speaker 6: at that, but that's when I think they're in part calculating,
• 28:10
  Speaker 6: and also they want to continue their war in Lebanon.
• 28:14
  Speaker 6: They're threatening to resume the genocidal operations in the thirty
• 28:17
  Speaker 6: three percent of Gaza that is not under occupation right now.
• 28:21
  Speaker 6: They're weaponizing the Board of Peace to basically say that
• 28:24
  Speaker 6: there isn't really going to be a ceasefire anymore in
• 28:27
  Speaker 6: Gaza until the Palestinians surrender and say we have no
• 28:30
  Speaker 6: right to armed resistance against occupation anymore. So I don't
• 28:33
  Speaker 6: think that this is entirely bad at all for the Israelis,
• 28:36
  Speaker 6: even if a deal is signed. In fact, I think
• 28:38
  Speaker 6: Israel would be in trouble if this war resumed in
• 28:40
  Speaker 6: a very serious way, because I think the Iranians would
• 28:43
  Speaker 6: massively attack them with a replenished supply of ballistic missiles.
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 28:49
  Speaker 7: I was just going to say, the Mark Levin crew
• 28:53
  Speaker 7: immediately on what late Tuesday into early Wednesday, was saying
• 28:57
  Speaker 7: absolutely no to that frame work that it emerged about
• 29:02
  Speaker 7: potentially unfreezing Iranian assets and then lifting sanctions. But I guess,
• 29:08
  Speaker 7: Jeremy that could. I mean, that's just Mark Levin. I
• 29:11
  Speaker 7: guess at the end of the day, Yeah.
• 29:17
  Speaker 6: I get that, and I understand why. What I what
• 29:19
  Speaker 6: I'm saying though, is that we're dealing with Donald Trump.
• 29:21
  Speaker 6: We're not dealing with like with Barack Obama constitutional law scholar,
• 29:26
  Speaker 6: and I don't mean to you know, I've spent many
• 29:28
  Speaker 6: years criticizing Barack Obama. I guess what I'm saying, though,
• 29:30
  Speaker 6: is that no one can trust an agreement that Trump
• 29:32
  Speaker 6: claims he's making. And you know, the Iranians were supposed
• 29:36
  Speaker 6: to have certain funds unfrozen, and Joe Biden was the
• 29:39
  Speaker 6: one during his presidency after October seventh that blocked that.
• 29:44
  Speaker 6: It's very easy for them to you know, reverse almost
• 29:48
  Speaker 6: any concessions they would make to the Iranians, and Iran
• 29:51
  Speaker 6: is well aware of that. So while I understand why
• 29:54
  Speaker 6: those guys have all taken out that position, because they
• 29:56
  Speaker 6: want the total maximalist pummeling, destroy murder Iran position.
• 30:02
  Speaker 10: I think the Israelis are far more sophisticated.
• 30:04
  Speaker 6: Than those Yahoo's and the Israelis recognize that whatever Trump says,
• 30:08
  Speaker 6: and that's evidenced by the Gaza deal, it doesn't really
• 30:11
  Speaker 6: mean anything as long as the winks and nods are
• 30:13
  Speaker 6: happening behind the scenes. And I would bet there's some
• 30:15
  Speaker 6: very heavy winking and nodding going on between Trump and
• 30:18
  Speaker 6: Israel on this matter.
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: The last thing I wanted to dig in a little
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: more with you, Jeremy. You mentioned this previously, but we
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: just had this reporting about this CIA analysis delivered to
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: policy makers that says Iran can survive the US naval
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: blockade for at least three to four months before facing
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: more severe economic hardship, finding that contradicts those hailing and
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: imminent collapse predominantly as you were talking about the you know,
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: the Israeli think tank, the Zionist think tank that has
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: been pushing these sorts of analyzes. US Intel also indicates
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: Iran retains about seventy five percent of his pre war
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: inventories of mobile launchers and about seventy percent of its
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: pre war stockpiles of missiles. For US official has also
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: been able to recover underground storage facilities and repair damage missiles.
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: This week, Trump painted a more dire picture of Iran situation,
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: saying their economy is crashing, their currency is worthless, and
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: their missiles are mostly decimated. So you know, this is
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: again our own intelligence agencies, which are probably still too
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: optimistic about how imminent Iran's collapse was, but we were
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: being pushed these narratives. Are their oil was or going
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: to explode in fourteen days, you know, fourteen days to
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: stop Iran? They're just going to completely collapse here imminently,
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: and that does not appear to be remotely the case.
• 31:35
  Speaker 11: It's three to.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: Four months of the straight up hor moves being closed.
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: There are going to be economies collapsing. Certainly ours will
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: be one of them, but you know, the whole global
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: economic order is going to not be able to make
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: it through that period of time. You know, in the
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: level of supply shock that would entail me.
• 31:53
  Speaker 6: Remember Crystal that when the nineteen seventy nine Islamic Revolution happened,
• 31:58
  Speaker 6: soon after the Iotola came to power. The US supported
• 32:04
  Speaker 6: Iraq in launching a war against Iran that went on
• 32:07
  Speaker 6: for eight years. And you know, so Iranians, especially the
• 32:11
  Speaker 6: generation of leaders in Iran right now who grow up
• 32:14
  Speaker 6: who grew up fighting that war and living through that war,
• 32:17
  Speaker 6: and you know, throughout the nineteen eighties, understood what hardship meant,
• 32:21
  Speaker 6: understood what supply shortages meant, understood what an economy that
• 32:25
  Speaker 6: was in a state of deterioration looked like. I mean,
• 32:28
  Speaker 6: that's why they talk about a resistance economy. And so
• 32:31
  Speaker 6: you know, we're talking about a period here of weeks
• 32:35
  Speaker 6: and then using these terms like they're strangling the Iranian economy.
• 32:39
  Speaker 6: I think maybe even three to four months is conservative.
• 32:42
  Speaker 6: You know, Iran is a massive country of ninety three
• 32:45
  Speaker 6: million people. It's an agricultural society. It exports goods. You know,
• 32:51
  Speaker 6: the ways in which the Iran Iranian economy is suffering
• 32:54
  Speaker 6: right now has a lot to do with just cash
• 32:57
  Speaker 6: flow and liquidity, and that can certainly have an impact.
• 33:00
  Speaker 6: And then when you have inflation off the charts. The
• 33:03
  Speaker 6: reason that the protests started in early January were on
• 33:06
  Speaker 6: economic matters. You know, in American terms, we would say
• 33:09
  Speaker 6: it was small business owners that started saying like, we
• 33:12
  Speaker 6: can't survive, you know, in this economy where we have
• 33:16
  Speaker 6: the punishing American sanctions and we have financial mismanagement on
• 33:20
  Speaker 6: the part of our authorities, and that's what people were
• 33:22
  Speaker 6: saying openly, and Iotola Ali Khameni actually said that the
• 33:26
  Speaker 6: people need to be listened to on this. When most
• 33:28
  Speaker 6: Shaba Khameni was named as the Supreme Leader, he told
• 33:31
  Speaker 6: the story where he had talked about riding sort of
• 33:34
  Speaker 6: in disguise in taxis and listening to ordinary Iranians in
• 33:38
  Speaker 6: the way that they spoke about the country and saying
• 33:40
  Speaker 6: that he considers their voices worth more than opinion polls.
• 33:44
  Speaker 6: These are interesting statements that are made by the Supreme
• 33:47
  Speaker 6: leadership of Iran, who are also revered in the Shia
• 33:51
  Speaker 6: Islamic community around the world. And so I guess the
• 33:54
  Speaker 6: point that I'm making here is that if you look
• 33:57
  Speaker 6: at the past forty seven years of history, which Trump
• 33:59
  Speaker 6: and Rubio are frequently invoking, there's a part of it
• 34:03
  Speaker 6: that actually Americans should understand, which is that if there's
• 34:06
  Speaker 6: any country in the world that knows how to survive
• 34:08
  Speaker 6: under sort of the threat of American or Israeli attack
• 34:12
  Speaker 6: under really punishing sanctions and has to deal with how
• 34:16
  Speaker 6: do you feed the people and maintain power, your grip
• 34:19
  Speaker 6: on power in these kinds of intense circumstances. It's Iran,
• 34:23
  Speaker 6: It's the Islamic Republic of Iran. So you know, our
• 34:26
  Speaker 6: reporting consistently has shown that the Iranians are not in
• 34:29
  Speaker 6: a state of panic, and they were saying even before this,
• 34:32
  Speaker 6: you know, very important Washington post piece came out. Everything
• 34:35
  Speaker 6: that was in that post piece, we can survive for months.
• 34:37
  Speaker 6: They're exaggerating the extent of the damage to our ballistic missiles,
• 34:40
  Speaker 6: and they're going to continue to find out if they
• 34:42
  Speaker 6: keep attacking us, because every time they say we're decimated,
• 34:45
  Speaker 6: we turn around and strike again, and sometimes we do
• 34:47
  Speaker 6: it even harder.
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: Jeremy S.
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: K Hill Drop Site News. Always grow to have your insights,
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: just truly invaluable. Thank you so much, first.
• 34:55
  Speaker 6: Time on a Friday. Really nice to be with you, guys.
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: I helped, not the last.
• 34:58
  Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, have a good weekend, everybody.
• 35:02
  Speaker 10: Thanks you such Jeremy.
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: All right, so we have a few interesting developments in
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: what is now the Platner versus Susan Collins' crucial main
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: Senate Race Mac if you want to pull up Graham
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: out with his first ad directly attacking Susan Collins, and
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think it's pre devastating in my opinion.
• 35:23
  Speaker 10: Yeah, let's go ahead and take a listen.
• 35:24
  Speaker 8: Susan Collins charade is moving. We know Flins that you
• 35:29
  Speaker 8: pretend to be remorseful at the start of a new
• 35:32
  Speaker 8: forever war that you chose to let have. We don't
• 35:35
  Speaker 8: care that you are concerned while we go broke as
• 35:39
  Speaker 8: you sell us out to the President and to the
• 35:42
  Speaker 8: Epstein class who are engineering the greatest redistribution of wealth
• 35:46
  Speaker 8: from the working class to the ruling class in this
• 35:50
  Speaker 8: nation's history. Symbolic oppositions doesn't reopen hospital week. Condemnations don't
• 35:57
  Speaker 8: bring back Roe v Way in selling out the same
• 36:01
  Speaker 8: working class voters who delivered mandate for change after mandate
• 36:05
  Speaker 8: for change is not forgivable. A performative politics that enables
• 36:11
  Speaker 8: the destruction of our way of life is disqualified. As
• 36:15
  Speaker 8: a United States Senator, I am running because it is
• 36:19
  Speaker 8: time for change.
• 36:21
  Speaker 9: I'm a grand platic and I approved this message absolutely brutal.
• 36:25
  Speaker 9: Somebody made the point on Twitter, and I think it's
• 36:27
  Speaker 9: true that the way that he pronounces Susan Collins in
• 36:31
  Speaker 9: that voice might give him a five point bump just
• 36:33
  Speaker 9: by itself.
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: I mean the voice is pretty incredible.
• 36:37
  Speaker 11: Yeah, booming announce your voice. Yeah yeah, ending there is.
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: Emiline from your perspective, because obviously I'm going to be
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: biased here.
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: To me, I'm like inject that right into my veins.
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: But I mean, do you think that that will be
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: effective in Maine state where you know, Susan Collins has
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: defied the odds before and she clearly is a small
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: state where she has like a direct connection to voters,
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: which has allowed that, even as the state has become
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: war blue, to continue returning her to office.
• 37:05
  Speaker 7: It's a really good question because it's going to be
• 37:07
  Speaker 7: like retail politics versus retail politics in this case, and
• 37:10
  Speaker 7: I think Platner has to be careful. This is a mistake.
• 37:13
  Speaker 7: I don't know if you guys would agree with this,
• 37:15
  Speaker 7: but I think this was a mistake we saw in
• 37:16
  Speaker 7: the Gideon campaign where it looked really flashy and like
• 37:20
  Speaker 7: it was backed by a lot of.
• 37:21
  Speaker 11: National dem money.
• 37:24
  Speaker 7: And certainly that's the case in literally any big race
• 37:27
  Speaker 7: when you have the Senate in question. But you don't
• 37:30
  Speaker 7: want to necessarily lean into that when your opponent's strength
• 37:34
  Speaker 7: is being a great retail politician who is familiar.
• 37:38
  Speaker 11: Was absolutely not flashy.
• 37:40
  Speaker 7: And that's where I think Platner is an interesting foil
• 37:44
  Speaker 7: for Susan Collins because if you're looking at those ads,
• 37:46
  Speaker 7: I mean, he's going around in his dropkick Murphy's sweatshirt
• 37:50
  Speaker 7: and his last line there was it's time for change.
• 37:54
  Speaker 7: That is also very interesting because we've seen politicians make
• 37:58
  Speaker 7: this argument before with with great success. It's a matter
• 38:01
  Speaker 7: of whether or not voters believe that you represent that
• 38:04
  Speaker 7: change and if they believe that the change is worth
• 38:08
  Speaker 7: the risk of getting rid of the status quo. And
• 38:12
  Speaker 7: so that means you have to be pretty tired of
• 38:14
  Speaker 7: the status quo. And he's leaning into like this is
• 38:17
  Speaker 7: the other thing. Like in that ad, he leans into abortion,
• 38:21
  Speaker 7: and he leans into war. He leans into these issues
• 38:26
  Speaker 7: that establishment Democrats feel like are left really left coded.
• 38:31
  Speaker 7: But it's like, I actually think that's smart because it's
• 38:34
  Speaker 7: the way that you motivate the base to turn out, which,
• 38:38
  Speaker 7: as we've seen in some of these special elections, been
• 38:41
  Speaker 7: very very motivated and primaries, Democratic voters are very very motivated.
• 38:45
  Speaker 10: This cycle.
• 38:46
  Speaker 7: That's how Platner, in a state that has some purple
• 38:49
  Speaker 7: tendencies like Maine, is able to get people if he's
• 38:52
  Speaker 7: if he's if the AD is a proxy for what
• 38:54
  Speaker 7: we're going to see rhetorically on his campaign. Leaning into
• 38:57
  Speaker 7: some of those issues is actually pretty smart, I think.
• 39:00
  Speaker 7: And also because he's bundling into this whole thing about
• 39:04
  Speaker 7: the status quo, and that I do think is a
• 39:07
  Speaker 7: pretty powerful argument.
• 39:08
  Speaker 9: I think to your point on him hitting that change
• 39:11
  Speaker 9: note at the end of the AD, I think what
• 39:13
  Speaker 9: he's trying to do is tap into because and I
• 39:15
  Speaker 9: saw this with this other video that he recently released
• 39:17
  Speaker 9: where he sat down with I think it was a
• 39:19
  Speaker 9: three time Trump voter, and I think he's trying to
• 39:22
  Speaker 9: tap into the frustration that a lot of Trump voters
• 39:25
  Speaker 9: who are sort of turning away from him right now
• 39:27
  Speaker 9: feel that Trump what's going to be the guy who
• 39:30
  Speaker 9: became Epstein class thing is is a note on that
• 39:34
  Speaker 9: as well, but this feeling that the system is completely broken,
• 39:37
  Speaker 9: the status quo isn't working for anybody. You know, my
• 39:40
  Speaker 9: life is getting progressively worse, my kids are going to
• 39:42
  Speaker 9: do worse than I did, et cetera. And people felt
• 39:45
  Speaker 9: like Trump might be that change candidate, and so they
• 39:47
  Speaker 9: gave him a couple of chances and things still aren't
• 39:50
  Speaker 9: feeling better for them, and so he's trying to sort
• 39:52
  Speaker 9: of hit that note of I'm going to be the
• 39:55
  Speaker 9: guy to genuinely provide real, material, tangible changes for working people.
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: Well, and also, you know, directly in conjunction with with
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: Susan Collins, Graham really just needs Democrats to not ticket
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: split and vote for Democrats on other you know, and
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: other races, and then Susan Collins because they like the
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: bipartisanship blah blah blah. And so what he's also saying
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: is like, all right, we're sick of this game of
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: pretending like she's different when she's just the same old,
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: same old helping Trump. I don't know if you hear
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: my dog is like dreaming right now in the background
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: at Bart making those little dream barks.
• 40:30
  Speaker 7: Anyway really pro Susan Collins.
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, she's trying to way in here.
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: But in any case, you know, the the idea that
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: Susan Collins is there supporting Trump, supporting the Epstein class,
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: that she's really just like the other Republicans, that's going
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: to be central for him, and I think it's a
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: message that, based on what I'm seeing from the shift
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: in Democratic voters, I think it's a message that lands
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: this cycle better than it ever would have landed in
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: the past. And my evidence for that is not only
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: the races in Virginia where you had even the guy
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: you know who was running for attorney general who had
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: like threaten to murder his opponent or whatever, even he wins,
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: but you also have the redistricting that passes in the state.
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: This very hard ball. Listen, We're just going to erase
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: these districts that Republicans were able to win in the past,
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: and very much a shift away from the previous Democratic
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: Party era where they say, oh, let's have a redistricting commission,
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: let's make it all fair. Now it's no, we are
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: going to play the same game. We're going to go
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: in and we're going to be hardball. We're going to
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: be hardcore partisan, just like the Republicans are. And so
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: that makes the landscape much more difficult for Susan Collins.
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: I mean, frankly, I don't think she really has a prayer.
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: I think this race is going to be impossible for
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: her to win, given the national climate, given where the
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: Democratic base is, and given what in effective candidate Graham
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: Plattner truly has proven to be. I don't did you
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: guys see that the Bulwark guys Jonathan v Last jbl
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: was making the case that Graham Plattner may be our
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: next president. I mean, that's quite doneing, because first of all,
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: he's not even ever been elected to anything. He's still
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: in this competitive Senate race. Second of all, obviously there's
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: all the Reddit convo and the tattoo and all of
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: that sort of stuff. You know, thirty just be coming
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: into office, et cetera. But I think that's a testament
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: to how compelling of a how compelling he is in
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: his ideological positioning, how clear throated he is in what
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: he believes, and his willingness to fight for it, what
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: the Democratic base is looking for right now. And also,
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: you know, frankly, a lack of a lot a lot
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: of other talent on the Democratic bench. So you know,
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: I think the fact that you have the Bulbard guys
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: who are former Republicans being like, yeah.
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: That's right, maybe maybe this was the guy.
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: Now they will say quickly say like we're not arguing
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: for him, we're just saying we're doing the analysis. But
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: I thought it was pretty wild and very noteworthy to
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: see them making the case because he is such a
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: sort of compelling figure specifically for the Democratic base that
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: I also think does have significant crossover support if you
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: look at the polling that we've seen so far.
• 43:11
  Speaker 11: Well, he's just a perfect candidate for the moment.
• 43:13
  Speaker 7: And I do want to say, and we've talked about
• 43:16
  Speaker 7: this a couple of times, Susan Conns was able to
• 43:19
  Speaker 7: handle Sarah Gideon despite a lot of people seeing glimmers
• 43:23
  Speaker 7: of hope in Sarah Gideon when we were at the
• 43:24
  Speaker 7: same stage of that race. And it's because Collins has,
• 43:27
  Speaker 7: for whatever reason, a really smart political operation where you're
• 43:32
  Speaker 7: already seeing this. She's been saying she's not taking things
• 43:36
  Speaker 7: for granted, and she's been very judicious and what she's
• 43:39
  Speaker 7: said and what she hasn't said, how she's talked about things,
• 43:42
  Speaker 7: she hasn't talked about things. She hasn't gone all in
• 43:45
  Speaker 7: on the Nazi attacks like Republicans elsewhere are already doing it.
• 43:49
  Speaker 7: You saw, like literally the first press release from the
• 43:51
  Speaker 7: RNC invoked Nazi stuff against Graham Platner after Janet Mills
• 43:56
  Speaker 7: dropped out of the race, and so Collins hasn't jumped
• 43:58
  Speaker 7: on that bandwagon yet. I think it reflects her judiciousness,
• 44:02
  Speaker 7: her approach to these I guess these culture war questions
• 44:09
  Speaker 7: can be reserved and smart in a different way than
• 44:12
  Speaker 7: we see Republicans in the rest of the country. And
• 44:14
  Speaker 7: she was able to pull ahead pretty significantly at the
• 44:17
  Speaker 7: end of that race in twenty twenty. But he's a
• 44:19
  Speaker 7: really great candidate for this moment. And I said this
• 44:21
  Speaker 7: on Megan Show this week, did you guys see the
• 44:24
  Speaker 7: most Sarota. Sarota sat down with Platner and this is
• 44:28
  Speaker 7: just like super casual conversation, and I thought this was
• 44:31
  Speaker 7: a huge interesting moment where he asks Platner about whether he.
• 44:36
  Speaker 11: Would go on Talker and Graham.
• 44:38
  Speaker 7: They're just sitting there, like two guys, just sitting and
• 44:40
  Speaker 7: having a normal conversation. He was like, you know, to
• 44:42
  Speaker 7: be honest, I'm kind of torn on that.
• 44:43
  Speaker 11: It's like this is a.
• 44:45
  Speaker 7: New era because politicians used to come into those conversations
• 44:49
  Speaker 7: wearing makeup and ready to trot out a talking point
• 44:54
  Speaker 7: line about well, you know, we're having internal conversations. That's
• 44:59
  Speaker 7: like perfect scripted meant to seem natural. He's literally just
• 45:03
  Speaker 7: bringing people in on his stream of consciousness thought process,
• 45:08
  Speaker 7: and that's what people want to see right now.
• 45:10
  Speaker 11: It's not an act.
• 45:11
  Speaker 7: He literally was talking through why he's going back and
• 45:14
  Speaker 7: forth on that question. And that is what I think
• 45:17
  Speaker 7: a lot of people don't get about the new media atmosphere.
• 45:20
  Speaker 7: It's not just about filming your videos on your iPhone,
• 45:23
  Speaker 7: even though it's still scripted. You have to actually have
• 45:25
  Speaker 7: the kind of unscripted substance to go with it. And
• 45:28
  Speaker 7: he is a very very strong candidate for that. So
• 45:31
  Speaker 7: I feel like this is old politics versus new politics,
• 45:34
  Speaker 7: and as much as it's old ideology versus new ideology too.
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: The other problem for a season Collins and Matt Mack.
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: You can pull up the.
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: I'm Running video that caught a lot of attention of
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: many people, but Ken Klippenstein, as one of them is Look,
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: she actually is on the younger side for the Senate.
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: She is the only the twenty eighth oldest senator, which
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: is crazy.
• 45:57
  Speaker 11: She's thirteen years younger than Nancy Pelosi.
• 46:00
  Speaker 10: She's twenty years younger than Chuck Grassley.
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: What is she She's like seventy three or something. So
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: I'm chicken for you know, in senate terms, but she's not.
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: You know, she shows visible signs of age. One of
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: those is a quite significant tremor that she's had for
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: some time. And so people watch this launch video of hers,
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: We're like, this is not a great look. Let's go
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: ahead and take a look at this. This is perfect
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: for twenty twenty six because I'm running so you can
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: see for those just listening, she like pulls out sneakers
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: from a box and her hand is visibly shaking and
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: her head is visibly shaking, and you know, it's not
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: to attack people who have medical conditions, et cetera. She
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: had never revealed why she had these very noteworthy tremors,
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: which she's had for a long time, have gotten worse
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: over time. And I also think people are more sensitive
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: to now because we had Biden whose brain melted before
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: all of our eyes. He was like decaying in office,
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: and we're watching the same thing play out now with Trump,
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: where a majority of Americans are going, this guy is
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: not mentally or physically fit to be our president. He
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: is an old man and seems like he's completely out
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: of it, falling asleep in press conferences, et ce. So
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: I think there's a heightened sensitivity to you know, candidates,
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: and I think there's a problem for Janet Mills too,
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: by the way, as part of why she was so
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: defeated in the region to drop out before election day.
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: There is more sensitivity among the public to re electing
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: people who are old.
• 47:37
  Speaker 7: Yeah, and especially people who don't want to talk about
• 47:39
  Speaker 7: right Like with Biden, it was always we're fine, We're fine.
• 47:42
  Speaker 7: And so I think that's probably why Colin's very early
• 47:45
  Speaker 7: after Kenny Clips orchestrated a social media tornado, he.
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: Very effectively bullied her into really everybody actually was.
• 47:59
  Speaker 11: Everybody's been wondering for years.
• 48:00
  Speaker 7: I mean, I don't know, like I can't say whether
• 48:03
  Speaker 7: it seems like it's gotten worse or not, but I
• 48:05
  Speaker 7: think everybody's always, at least in like right circles, everybody's
• 48:08
  Speaker 7: always been like, what is that? And she just pretty
• 48:12
  Speaker 7: quickly into this race, came out and had an explanation.
• 48:16
  Speaker 7: Whether that explains it or not, whether people are satisfied
• 48:19
  Speaker 7: with it or not, I don't know, but I do
• 48:20
  Speaker 7: think Crystal, it underlines the point that you were making,
• 48:23
  Speaker 7: which is it's not even just I think people are
• 48:25
  Speaker 7: sensitive to age, but they're doubly sensitive if it feels
• 48:28
  Speaker 7: like you're covering something up because what happened with Biden.
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, guys, Well I've got a jump. I
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: don't know if you guys want to do a couple
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: more topics, but I've got to run. I've got an
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: appointment I got to get to. So thank you.
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: I enjoyed it as always, so yah.
• 48:41
  Speaker 9: See, welcome everybody to our fabulous Ama portion. For our
• 48:50
  Speaker 9: lovely and beautiful premium subscribers out there, it's just going
• 48:54
  Speaker 9: to be me and Emily for today. Crystal had to run,
• 48:56
  Speaker 9: but we're going to do our best to answer some
• 48:59
  Speaker 9: of these questions out there. Should I throw the first
• 49:01
  Speaker 9: one up here on the screen?
• 49:03
  Speaker 7: I offered to answer them on Crystal's behalf, but well, yeah,
• 49:06
  Speaker 7: we can throw something in there if we want, if
• 49:08
  Speaker 7: we know what she has to say.
• 49:10
  Speaker 9: Okay, So this first one here is from David Say,
• 49:15
  Speaker 9: who says I am not a fan of nuclear proliferation,
• 49:17
  Speaker 9: but if Iran had some nuclear bombs, wouldn't we all
• 49:21
  Speaker 9: be better off right now? Would we would be spared
• 49:25
  Speaker 9: all this death and destruction? What do you think about that?
• 49:28
  Speaker 10: Emily?
• 49:29
  Speaker 7: I mean it's like the central question about nuclear proliferation,
• 49:33
  Speaker 7: and I guess I just I don't know. And that's
• 49:38
  Speaker 7: part of what is so we've become so numb to
• 49:41
  Speaker 7: with nuclear proliferation, is the uncertainty in a nuclear world. Right,
• 49:46
  Speaker 7: It's one thing if you have uncertainty in a world
• 49:49
  Speaker 7: where nuclear weapons aren't on the table. I think there's
• 49:52
  Speaker 7: a really good case to be made for that premium
• 49:55
  Speaker 7: subscriber's point.
• 49:57
  Speaker 11: But I just I genuinely don't know.
• 50:00
  Speaker 7: I mean, we could have seen, Like we make our
• 50:02
  Speaker 7: judgments based off of what feels like a very confident
• 50:05
  Speaker 7: eighty years of nuclear proliferation where we've made it through
• 50:11
  Speaker 7: without a crisis. But this technology is literally older, is
• 50:14
  Speaker 7: literally younger than some people on this earth. Like, this
• 50:17
  Speaker 7: is something that has developed over the span of one
• 50:20
  Speaker 7: human life, one generation basically, And so I'm not confident
• 50:25
  Speaker 7: that just because we've seen limited nuclear conflict in the
• 50:30
  Speaker 7: first eighty years of its existence between.
• 50:32
  Speaker 9: Only one only one nuclear conflict it was yeah, it
• 50:36
  Speaker 9: was us, but yeah.
• 50:37
  Speaker 7: Right, but that's what people say, Well, it limited, it
• 50:39
  Speaker 7: limited it going forward, and that I just think we're
• 50:44
  Speaker 7: very confident in what's happened over a short period of time.
• 50:46
  Speaker 7: North Korea could act at literally any moment in a
• 50:50
  Speaker 7: way that it's correct, yes, and in a way that
• 50:52
  Speaker 7: disproves all of what we think has been proved by
• 50:55
  Speaker 7: the recent decades of nuclear history.
• 50:58
  Speaker 11: So I don't know what do you think about that, Mac, Yeah,
• 51:00
  Speaker 11: I mean.
• 51:00
  Speaker 9: I think generally I'm against nuclear proliferation. I think that
• 51:04
  Speaker 9: we should be trying to drastically scale down the amount
• 51:07
  Speaker 9: of nuclear weapons that we have around the world, like
• 51:09
  Speaker 9: as a global community kind of thing. I mean, there's
• 51:13
  Speaker 9: I can see kind of the argument for you know,
• 51:16
  Speaker 9: maybe the US would be less likely or less aggressive
• 51:20
  Speaker 9: in trying to do let's say, like a future war
• 51:22
  Speaker 9: with China, knowing that they have nuclear weapons that's, you know,
• 51:25
  Speaker 9: a conventional war. Maybe that would lead to millions and
• 51:28
  Speaker 9: millions of people dying. I don't know if that's going
• 51:30
  Speaker 9: to stop us from, you know, trying to do that
• 51:32
  Speaker 9: at all. But yeah, I mean, in a general sense,
• 51:35
  Speaker 9: I'm against nuclear proliferation. But if this specific question is
• 51:38
  Speaker 9: about Iran, I don't think as many in the US government,
• 51:43
  Speaker 9: in the Israeli government would claim that the Iranians are
• 51:46
  Speaker 9: suicidal and that if they got their hands on a nuke,
• 51:48
  Speaker 9: they would instantly try to blow up Israel or blow
• 51:50
  Speaker 9: up the region, and you know, obviously that would result
• 51:52
  Speaker 9: in the destruction of their country as well. I think
• 51:55
  Speaker 9: they're relatively rational actors, and they would want it for
• 51:59
  Speaker 9: you know, self preservation purposes and for a deterrent purpose.
• 52:03
  Speaker 9: I think, you know, if maybe we can cut a deal,
• 52:07
  Speaker 9: let's do this, Let's say Iran doesn't get a nuclear
• 52:10
  Speaker 9: weapon and Israel has to give up their nuclear weapons
• 52:12
  Speaker 9: as well. I think that's a fair that's a fair
• 52:15
  Speaker 9: trade off that we can we can meet in the
• 52:16
  Speaker 9: middle on.
• 52:17
  Speaker 11: There you go. I'm a total hippie on this. I
• 52:20
  Speaker 11: totally believe in nuclear disarmament across time.
• 52:23
  Speaker 10: I'm with you on that.
• 52:24
  Speaker 7: It's so unpredictable. It's like we're so confident about how
• 52:28
  Speaker 7: this has gone. But I mean, we're fighting a proxy.
• 52:30
  Speaker 7: We're basically fighting, yeah, for Ukraine.
• 52:33
  Speaker 11: Yeah, I mean yeah, So.
• 52:35
  Speaker 9: That's well, it's also like it's not as if like
• 52:37
  Speaker 9: threats aren't lobbed out all the time. I mean, you know,
• 52:40
  Speaker 9: we've had Trump sort of like in some some ways
• 52:42
  Speaker 9: vaguely and in other ways not so vaguely, hint that
• 52:45
  Speaker 9: he would deploy a nuclear weapon. You know, we've had
• 52:48
  Speaker 9: sort of indications roughly from like the Russians, you know,
• 52:51
  Speaker 9: Israelis I've seen in the past sort of like float
• 52:53
  Speaker 9: things out as like a wink and a nod. So
• 52:56
  Speaker 9: it's not as if like the threats aren't there so
• 52:58
  Speaker 9: terrifying stuff. But next question that we have here, this
• 53:01
  Speaker 9: one is specifically for you. Emily comments on Ryan and
• 53:06
  Speaker 9: Emily appearing in one of the Iranian lego videos. I
• 53:10
  Speaker 9: know that that was a great honor for both of you.
• 53:13
  Speaker 9: I think if you look at the actual clip, at
• 53:16
  Speaker 9: least that I saw, they didn't really get you accurately portrayed, right.
• 53:21
  Speaker 9: They had you with like dark brown hair, and I
• 53:23
  Speaker 9: don't know if the outfit was on par, but how
• 53:26
  Speaker 9: did you feel being being in one of those Iranian masterpieces?
• 53:31
  Speaker 11: That was a bit surreal.
• 53:33
  Speaker 7: It's not clear how close the relationship is with the government.
• 53:35
  Speaker 7: Ryan did a great interview with them over at drop
• 53:38
  Speaker 7: site asking some of those questions, and yeah, I wasn't
• 53:42
  Speaker 7: really in. I was kind of like on the side
• 53:45
  Speaker 7: it was Ryan.
• 53:46
  Speaker 11: Was the star.
• 53:46
  Speaker 10: Let's be clear, it was symbolically it was symbolically you though.
• 53:49
  Speaker 11: Yes, right now, if Ryan were here.
• 53:52
  Speaker 7: I would probably disagree with him on his proliferation of
• 53:58
  Speaker 7: the lego video.
• 54:01
  Speaker 11: It was pretty wild to see.
• 54:03
  Speaker 7: Ryan's like it was so specifically Ryan, but you know
• 54:08
  Speaker 7: what I mean, like they really good job.
• 54:10
  Speaker 11: They did a good job with Ryan.
• 54:11
  Speaker 7: And to see that be picked up on it, it's
• 54:14
  Speaker 7: like a it's such a weird new media moment where
• 54:17
  Speaker 7: they're very very online and they kind of understand where
• 54:23
  Speaker 7: the like American Left is better than like Hakeem Jeffries.
• 54:28
  Speaker 9: Probably yeah, well yeah, I mean probably for sure. You know,
• 54:33
  Speaker 9: I think the videos are interesting. Some of them are
• 54:36
  Speaker 9: kind of cringe a little bit, where it's you know,
• 54:38
  Speaker 9: some of the rap videos where it's like I get
• 54:39
  Speaker 9: the notes that you guys are hitting here, and I
• 54:41
  Speaker 9: agree with a lot of them, but it's also, you
• 54:44
  Speaker 9: know whatever, it's a little bit cringe sometimes. But I'm curious,
• 54:48
  Speaker 9: what do you think about because from my perspective, the
• 54:51
  Speaker 9: US is just getting completely and maybe this is just
• 54:54
  Speaker 9: the social media ecosystem that I'm in that feeds me
• 54:57
  Speaker 9: this kind of stuff, but it just seems like we're
• 54:59
  Speaker 9: getting clob over the head in the narrative war or
• 55:02
  Speaker 9: in you know, the meme war, if you will, like
• 55:06
  Speaker 9: everything that I see from Pete Hegseth or what the
• 55:08
  Speaker 9: White House account is tweeting, it's all just so like
• 55:12
  Speaker 9: a cringe and sort of like over the top nationalism
• 55:16
  Speaker 9: and you know whatever else. And the Iranians are sort
• 55:19
  Speaker 9: of like gesture maxing to use a term there, and
• 55:24
  Speaker 9: sort of like dancing around us.
• 55:26
  Speaker 7: They have a huge advantage in the meme woar, which
• 55:28
  Speaker 7: is basically that they're the underdog. And so it's if
• 55:32
  Speaker 7: you're taking yourself really seriously as the United States, like
• 55:35
  Speaker 7: we're just talking purely in the meme war and in
• 55:38
  Speaker 7: this conversation about like who is out mocking the other,
• 55:43
  Speaker 7: and if you're the United States and you're kind of
• 55:45
  Speaker 7: peacocking on social media, it's super easy then for the
• 55:48
  Speaker 7: lesser power to poke at you again, just like in
• 55:52
  Speaker 7: terms of propaganda. So they have a built in advantage
• 55:55
  Speaker 7: that they've definitely maximized in some of those videos that
• 56:00
  Speaker 7: the Epstein stuff I think has been pretty smart from them,
• 56:05
  Speaker 7: and they what was it was Rogan? Who was Rogan
• 56:09
  Speaker 7: or Schultz? Both of them have said a version of this.
• 56:11
  Speaker 7: I think they've been like the right wing social media
• 56:16
  Speaker 7: stuff is so lame, like they're so lame, and it's
• 56:20
  Speaker 7: it's because I think the it was kind of the
• 56:23
  Speaker 7: opposite of Biden and Kamala, where Trump was seen as
• 56:28
  Speaker 7: a bit of an underdog in twenty twenty four, like
• 56:31
  Speaker 7: that he was making his comeback, he had on all
• 56:33
  Speaker 7: the law fair tried to lock him up, and that
• 56:35
  Speaker 7: gave right wing memurs an advantage because they were the
• 56:38
  Speaker 7: ones that was like that were poking at the current
• 56:42
  Speaker 7: power and so they came in with so much momentum
• 56:46
  Speaker 7: culturally in January twenty twenty five that they still haven't
• 56:51
  Speaker 7: realized they lost a lot of momentum. So it comes
• 56:54
  Speaker 7: across is like very very cringe.
• 56:56
  Speaker 10: Yeah.
• 56:56
  Speaker 9: I think it's also, you know, it's hard to win
• 56:58
  Speaker 9: sort of the meme war propaganda battle when you're failing
• 57:03
  Speaker 9: and kind of humiliating yourself in the actual literal war
• 57:06
  Speaker 9: relative to like, you know, Trump seemingly completely delusional on
• 57:10
  Speaker 9: the current state of the war. You know, we just
• 57:12
  Speaker 9: covered earlier today, he's like fifty percent off on the
• 57:15
  Speaker 9: estimations of Iron's missile capacity that they have right now,
• 57:18
  Speaker 9: They're still in control of the Straight of four moves,
• 57:21
  Speaker 9: Like even though we are the dominant power, we're sort
• 57:23
  Speaker 9: of getting bullied around in some ways, and so it's
• 57:26
  Speaker 9: hard to win that propaganda battle when the Iranians are
• 57:29
  Speaker 9: still in, you know, a position of control and strength,
• 57:32
  Speaker 9: and it can sort of troll us in the middle
• 57:34
  Speaker 9: of that.
• 57:36
  Speaker 7: Especially when Trump is kind of the taco stuff right,
• 57:41
  Speaker 7: like the taco stuff is very It gives them an
• 57:44
  Speaker 7: advantage in the mean war because he's blustering intentionally literally
• 57:49
  Speaker 7: he writes about this in the Art of the Deal,
• 57:51
  Speaker 7: doing business transactions and negotiations. He's intentionally blustering, and then
• 57:57
  Speaker 7: it gives them an ability to do okay before and
• 58:01
  Speaker 7: after here's what you said, expectations versus reality, And that's
• 58:05
  Speaker 7: of course going to be powerful when you're just like
• 58:07
  Speaker 7: scrappy memeurs.
• 58:09
  Speaker 9: All right, we got this next one here breaking points.
• 58:12
  Speaker 9: So what is your favorite way to decompress from the
• 58:15
  Speaker 9: news or a bad day? Hot tea at yoga? Uh toak?
• 58:19
  Speaker 10: What is that? Oh toe? Yeah? Take it? Okay? Yeah?
• 58:23
  Speaker 9: Yeah, that's solders answer. So token not me, not me,
• 58:27
  Speaker 9: that's a Soder exclusive thing.
• 58:29
  Speaker 11: Yeah, you're right. Someone I asked this yesterday.
• 58:33
  Speaker 6: Uh.
• 58:33
  Speaker 7: I DoD an episode of my show every Friday where
• 58:35
  Speaker 7: it's it's kind of like AMA the whole time, and
• 58:37
  Speaker 7: someone asked the same question, and I was thinking about
• 58:39
  Speaker 7: it because I don't usually I haven't. I haven't thought
• 58:41
  Speaker 7: about this, and my answer is that, like you don't,
• 58:44
  Speaker 7: like it's just you kind of can't.
• 58:47
  Speaker 10: Because it's so twenty four hours.
• 58:50
  Speaker 7: It is, and like there's almost no point, right, Like
• 58:55
  Speaker 7: we have to learn to live with this level of
• 58:58
  Speaker 7: I think it's just totally a post nuclear thing to
• 59:00
  Speaker 7: bring it back to nuclear conflict because there's constant stress.
• 59:05
  Speaker 7: They're basically when you have nuclear powers, there are no borders,
• 59:08
  Speaker 7: and you just can't become numb to that level of
• 59:12
  Speaker 7: concept that like obviously you have to have you have
• 59:15
  Speaker 7: to be mentally healthy and the like, you know, you
• 59:18
  Speaker 7: don't want to be ill. But at the same time,
• 59:21
  Speaker 7: I don't really try to decompress. To be honest, I
• 59:24
  Speaker 7: feel like you kind of have to always be on MAC.
• 59:27
  Speaker 7: I don't know what you think about that, but if
• 59:28
  Speaker 7: you're not, I mean it's it's important to always beyond
• 59:31
  Speaker 7: and then to kind of learn to live with that.
• 59:34
  Speaker 11: And rather than decompressing.
• 59:36
  Speaker 7: I was thinking about this because I was like, I
• 59:38
  Speaker 7: used to watch a bunch of reality TV. I do
• 59:40
  Speaker 7: that less now, not intentionally, just because I'd rather be
• 59:46
  Speaker 7: like honestly watching a documentary or reading something because it's
• 59:51
  Speaker 7: that sounds like kind of annoying. But at the same time,
• 59:53
  Speaker 7: it's like there's so much going on right now that
• 59:56
  Speaker 7: if you are easy to fall behind, yeah, and if
• 59:59
  Speaker 7: you aren't leaning in, yeah, it's easy to fall behind.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 9: Well, I'm slightly less disciplined than you, I think. I
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 9: think my decompression is going to the gym. I hit
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 9: the gym every day. That helps just to like center
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 9: your mind or keep your body moving or whatever else.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 9: And then watching anime. That's a decompression thing for me.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 9: But to your point, I think that it almost like
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 9: you kind of have to have I don't know if
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 9: it's like an understanding or acceptance of it, but maybe
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 9: it's just like something a little bit wrong in people's
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 9: brains who are obsessed with politics. Because I know so
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 9: many people in my life that if you talk for
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 9: even like twenty minutes about what's currently going on in
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 9: the world, they're gonna be overwhelmed and they're gonna be
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 9: depressed or they're not going to want to talk about it.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 9: And you know, even people who watch this show like
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 9: you're already in like the top ten percent or you know,
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 9: even smaller of people who consume the news like you're
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 9: you're an outlier relative to the general population. A lot
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 9: of people just it's too much, and that's you know,
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 9: just some extent acceptable, but it's also like, we do
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 9: have to live in the reality that we're facing right now,
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 9: and if we're not paying attention, if we're not staying informed,
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 9: then it's only gonna get worse.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 10: It's not gonna get better magically by itself.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 7: Well, and Mack, you've seen this just like in your
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 7: own family, but there's no beat reporters now, and so
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 7: that for me is partially what's very overwhelming, and it's
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 7: why like, yeah, I'm still I'm not gonna listen. I'm
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 7: not gonna miss an episode of the Salt Lake City Housewives.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 7: But at the same time, if you are doing a
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 7: show like Breaking Points, you are a generalist, and that
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 7: means you should be really deep on Israel. It means
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 7: you should be really deep on Mexico. It means you
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 7: should be really deep on Canada. It means you should
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 7: be really deep on trade policy, health care policy, and
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 7: so from my perspective, it's like, if you're not spending your.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 11: Time doing that, then you're not as good as you
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 11: could be.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 7: And so one of the things I like doing, I
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 7: like taking like really long bike rides, and I'll just
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 7: pop on like a deep dive audiobook or podcast while
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 7: I do that. But to your point, it's like there
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 7: is something about having a like what you were saying
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 7: with the Jim, about having.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 11: Your like the physical.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 7: Resistance training or that pressure coupled with thinking about some
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 7: of those things that can be actually like weirdly peaceful.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 9: Yeah, there you go. One more thing here that we got.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 9: This is specifically for you again, Emily, although I could
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 9: chime in on this Emily slash Ryan, what was your
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 9: favorite part of the Scott Jennings debate? Anything surprise either
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 9: of you about Scott's points or the way that the
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 9: crowd was on Ryan's side about Israel.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 7: Mac I'm actually really curious for your take on this.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 7: I'll just quickly say I was surprised to hear Scott
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 7: refer to America as a nation of ideas.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 11: That's like a.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 7: Real like that's scene on the right as like a
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 7: very cringe centrist thing to say in a red flag
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 7: anytime you hear a politician talk like that, and not
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 7: that Scott's politician, although he has been rumored to potentially
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 7: be looking at political office.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 10: All that is g mockler.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 9: First, that's right, say what to put your your finger
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 9: out of my face?
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 11: No, he dropped an F bomb?
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 10: Did he say?
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 11: Oh?
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 10: He said get your hand on my face?
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 8: Wow?
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 11: Yeah, he said something like that.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 7: And it was shortly after the debate, so who knows
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 7: if Ryan was under his skin. Yeah, I still had that,
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 7: but I was surprised to hear him say that. And
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 7: I still it's true that that event was organized under
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 7: the auspices of a conservative group. I don't know that
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 7: the argument was all conservatives because there were a lot
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 7: of grim heads that came. As you can imagine on
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 7: a college campus, there are a lot of grim heads.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 11: And that was.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 9: Actually so funny because I've like gone out to bars
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 9: before and literally had people ask me about Ryan, like
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 9: just randomly people that I've met Ryan.
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 11: And I went to the bar after the debate.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 7: And he was getting like, you know, walking on a
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 7: college campus with Ryan. It was like walking through the
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 7: DNC with Ryan, which you experience. It was hilarious, but
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 7: so I don't know if the people who cheered were
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 7: all the conservative kids on the when Ryan said he
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 7: thinks Israel should be sanctioned. I definitely think some of
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 7: them were, and I wasn't totally surprised by that, but
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 7: I do think it should be a wake up call
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 7: to people on the right who are still resisting the
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 7: reality about where opinion is on this. They would they
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 7: would look those kids and say, well, you've been brainwashed,
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 7: You've been totally taken in by the like the Islamists,
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 7: and would say, yeah, but you actually hear that still
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 7: in the power structure of the right, which sounds crazy,
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 7: but that's what they would say to those kids. And
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 7: I don't think they would necessarily be able to make
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 7: that argument to their faces, because the students would just say, no,
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 7: we really don't like what happened in Gaza, and then
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 7: they would have to reckon with that.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 9: Yeah, I mean, And I don't even know as much
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 9: of the extent. Obviously, I don't run in young right
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 9: wing circles, but I don't know the extent to which
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 9: like the humanitarian concern about Gaza plays into that as
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 9: much as at least like from an outside perspective, For me,
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 9: it feels more like it's a you know, we don't
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 9: want our money being sent to Israel, Like why are
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 9: we giving them handouts? Or why are we, you know,
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 9: giving them billions of dollars every year and fighting wars
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 9: on their behalf, And it feels like they control our
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 9: government and they have this massive influence over you know,
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 9: our political leaders, which I think all of those are true,
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 9: but it feels more like that than the humanitarian thing.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 10: So I'm curious, what do you make of that?
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 7: So I kind of actually disagree with that because I
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 7: would say I think a lot of them it's almost
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 7: more transgressive in the sense that I'm writing a piece
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 7: about this right now, should've been thinking about it. There's
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 7: this like real reconsideration happening. And if like you've watched
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 7: Tucker on this, he's genuinely pretty thoughtful about why he
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 7: thinks there were war crimes committed in Gaza and why
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 7: he thinks it was just from a He says this
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 7: from a Christian perspective moral and a lot of these
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 7: young conservatives are new Catholics, they're converts, or they're people
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 7: who are taking faith with way more seriously, so they're
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 7: leaning into their Pope maxing. They're leaning into those arguments
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 7: and in a way that like, even if you don't
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 7: want to take them at their word, it's it's actually
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 7: kind of more transgressive because it's not just saying Israel
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 7: controls the American government, although some of them are saying that,
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 7: but some of it is also like no, no, no,
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 7: this is.
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 11: About the entire American project.
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 7: This is about the proxy wars, This is about America
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 7: being the bad guy overall on the world stage, where
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 7: something you know, like Dave Smith will talk about and
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 7: that's I think there's something like kind of deeper happening,
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 7: and it's actually like more titillating and transgressive for a
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 7: young right winger than saying Israel controls the American government.
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 11: To say no, no, no, like we're we're Howard.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 7: Zen maxing and Pope maxing, and we're going in a
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 7: totally different direction. So anyway, some of it's America first,
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 7: but I think some of it is that too.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 9: Yeah, I have seen you know, clips of that from
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 9: both Candice and Tucker, although that's that's much more of
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 9: a recent development, like things that leftists were saying at
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 9: the very start of the genocide in Gaza, Like, you know,
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 9: two years later, they've sort of come around to and
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 9: they're waking up to the fact that war crimes were
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 9: committed every single day. But so, you know whatever, I'm
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 9: not mad that they've come around to that position. That's
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 9: interesting though, that you you frame it as sort of
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 9: like America the bad guys is because it's like, I
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 9: feel like a year ago, if I was having a
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 9: conversation with one of these right wing people, they would
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 9: call me, like, you know, a radical communist America hater
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 9: or whatever. If I pointed out that we were the
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 9: bad guys, not just over the last you know, a
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 9: couple of years, but take it back to Vietnam, take
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 9: it back to the Korean War, I would make the
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 9: case for that, like we've been the bad guys for
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 9: most of American history around the world, Like look at
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 9: the history of the CIA and overthrowing democratically elected leaders
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 9: and backing death squads in Latin America, Like we've always
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 9: been the bad guys. Do you think that that sort
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 9: of element is going to come through, like almost like
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 9: a not even just an anti war America first element,
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 9: but like a full on anti imperialist element.
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 11: Yes, And I don't.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 7: Think with everybody, but I think what's happening right now.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 11: Is the wall of Cold.
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 7: War propaganda has holes being poked in it, and when
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 7: that falls, that falls. And you and I could do
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 7: a whole episode on who's the bad guy in Contras
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 7: versus Sandinistas. My argument would just be that both sides
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 7: were the bad guys. And what's so dangerous about right
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 7: now is that the when people wake up and realize,
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 7: you know, what really happened with the Contras, and they
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 7: realize the US government or the Right itself. So if
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 7: we're talking about young conservatives that the right itself was wrong,
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 7: morally wrong and lying or using propaganda, then that is
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 7: like a pillar. That's one of the pillars, and like
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 7: the big building of propaganda. And when those start going,
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 7: you lose so much trust across the board, like it
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 7: just all starts to shatter and crumble. And I don't
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 7: think the institutional right is prepared for that at all,
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 7: but they have to be, because it's that foundation is
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 7: now being chipped away at and it will be a reckoning,
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 7: and it should be a reckoning. I think, honestly it
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 7: should be a reckoning because I'm one of those people
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 7: that has like really really deep moral concerns about the
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 7: way our and especially the way the right during the
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 7: Cold War period built up a philosophy of proxy wars
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 7: and like imperialism by proxy wars and then use a
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 7: lot of propaganda to kind of mask the truth about that.
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 11: And we're still trying to do it.
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 7: I mean, it's been happening in Ukraine, you could read
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 7: into some of what's happening in Iran as that. So
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 7: it's it's really really dangerous for the right and instead
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 7: of reckoning with it, honestly, they're just calling all of
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 7: these kids kamis and it sucks, like it's it's gonna
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 7: be a really really really big problem.
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 10: Yeah.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 9: No, I mean it'll be interesting to your point, like,
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 9: because it does feel like those pillars have I mean,
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 9: they've been collapsed on the left or the you know,
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 9: I think even amongst liberals they're collapsing now. But if
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 9: they fully collapse, Like, how is the US going to
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 9: try to sell a war with China, like where we're
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 9: going to try to do another Red Scare? Do you
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 9: think that young people are going to fall for that
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 9: that we need to you know, do another massive war,
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 9: Like no, I don't. I think that's done for us,
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 9: and Iran probably put the nail in the coffin on that,
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 9: you know, on top of point, on top of everything.
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 9: Like you could make maybe the case that what people
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 9: wouldn't have fallen for it post the disaster in Iraq,
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 9: in Afghanistan and all of those failures. But this Iran
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 9: war has just been a total humiliation and has blown
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 9: up any sort of propaganda efforts from the American government.
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 9: I think everybody sees through it across the political spectrum
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 9: at this point, so it's going to be hard for
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 9: them to try to sell anything in the future.
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 7: Well, and just to go back to I mean, we
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 7: could do this with Nicaragua, or we could do this
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 7: with like Cuba, we could do it with Chile and Ayende.
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 7: But like when you are told that the Americans were
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 7: the good guys, even if you come around to my perspective,
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 7: which was two bad sides, you know, you had two
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 7: bad sides as proxies for the Soviet Union in the
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 7: United States, which were in this reasonably hysterical race to
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 7: prevent nuclear annihilation among their civilians, their civilization, which is
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 7: why you saw at desperate times and desperate measures and
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 7: some really evil stuff go down, even if you come
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 7: to my perspective that those are two bad sides acting badly.
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 7: If you are told that one is the good guy,
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 7: incontrovertibly and that it is unpatriotic to question them and
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 7: democracy and yes, and if you were told that for
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 7: your whole life, and the kind of illusion starts to crumble,
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 7: that is going to poison people against the United States,
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 7: going to poison.
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 9: You're describing my life's journey. That's how you become a
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 9: That's how you become a leftist.
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 7: Yes, or it's how you become a reactionary yeah, or yeah.
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 10: A fascist or something so yeah, exactly.
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 7: No, but really that's and so that's what's on the
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 7: table right now, if if the institutional left and the
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 7: institutional right don't humble themselves and come up with better
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 7: answers for people who are waking up to the propaganda.
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 7: So we're in a dangerous place.
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 9: Yep, I think we can we can end it off
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 9: there if you want, Unless you got anything, No.
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 11: Tell me what you thought of the debate. I'm curious
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 11: what you thought of the day.
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 9: Oh yeah, I mean I thought it was I only
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 9: saw like a couple of longer form clips. I didn't
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 9: watch through the entirety of it, but I thought that
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 9: Israel thing was pretty funny. I don't I can't comprehend
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 9: in my mind some of the arguments that Scott makes
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 9: and how and whether or not he genuinely believes it.
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 9: I mean, I guess I'll take him at face value
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 9: that he believes it. But like to say with a
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 9: straight face to Ryan Grim, I'm assuming he knew who
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 9: Ryan was going into that, But to say with a
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 9: straight face, like you seem to think that it's a
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 9: bad thing that Israel plays a large role in American politics,
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 9: I'm like, yeah, yes, that's a that's a bad thing.
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 9: I mean, it would be a bad thing for any
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 9: other country to play a large role in American politics.
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 9: I mean, if you know, if whatever, if Pakistan had
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 9: a massive influence, if you know, the Pakistan lobby was
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 9: funneling hundreds of millions of dollars into the coffers of
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 9: like eighty percent of Congress, I would think that's a problem. Like, yeah,
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 9: that's that's bad and it's not good for our country.
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 9: And so I just thought it was pretty funny to
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 9: watch that. Backup I was like, he's stepping into a
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 9: Rake kind of moment.
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 7: But yeah, no, I would have been curious to pair
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 7: Ryan with someone who is like kinda MAGA. But I
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 7: also thought it was going to be interesting to pair
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 7: him with somebody who's sort of centrist MAGA, like kind
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 7: of establishment republican maga who came around reluctantly to maga.
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 7: It would have been interesting to do Ryan against like
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 7: a real Stephen millerhead, but to see him, I think
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 7: against somebody who was like Scott Jennings pretty much a
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 7: like mainstream DC conservative. Some interesting stuff came out in
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 7: that contrast too, like what you were just saying, like, yeah,
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 7: that's not that's very obvious if you're talking to Ryan
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 7: Grim But it's not obvious to I think still a
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 7: lot of people in DC that the left and many
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 7: on the right think that way too.
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 9: That's interesting that there's still that that mainstream bubble. I
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 9: think it was Crystal was making the point yesterday too
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 9: on Jonathan Greenblatt because he was on with Jake Tapper.
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 9: It seems like he's getting the cold shoulder now from
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 9: from Morning Joe, because they seem like they don't really
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 9: take him that seriously anymore after that last like disastrous interview.
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 9: But it's just interesting to see, like the conversation was
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 9: basically about how if the mission of the ADL on
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 9: paper is to stop anti Semitism, which I don't think
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 9: that's actually Jonathan Greenblat's job. But if that was his
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 9: job to stop the rise of anti Semitism, well he's
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 9: failing on that right now. If his other job is
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 9: to defend Israel and to make sure that the American
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 9: people stand with Israel, which I think is closer to
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 9: his real job, he's also failing on that. But then
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 9: if his third job, which may actually be what he's
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 9: attempting to do right now, is just to try to
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 9: intimidate sort of the remaining pillars that do stand with
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 9: Israel institutionally in the media or institutionally in the government,
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 9: and to make them afraid of touching certain wires and
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 9: using certain talking points or saying anything that goes against
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 9: IDF printed statements. If that's his job, he's still succeeding
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 9: in some ways, because you still see the mainstream media
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 9: is you know, will run Israeli talking points, will have
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 9: on you know, IDF commanders, and not challenge them in
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 9: any meaningful capacity. You know, Congress over willingly still with Israel,
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 9: Like there's this massive, massive disconnect that's going on here
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 9: between the establishment and the people, and that as an
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 9: issue I think has exposed it more than almost anything
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 9: else in recent recent years.
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 7: Oh, that's so interesting. Yeah, it's but this is like
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 7: the report that they put out on anti Semitism said
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 7: that it had declined over the course of the last year,
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 7: but was still like at a higher rate than it
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 7: had been I think probably pre October seventh. So I
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 7: don't I mean, it's I don't know what they're trying
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 7: to say because those numbers are so cooked.
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 11: Anyway, Yeah, it's all.
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 10: Right, right, it's a bit interesting.
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 7: Yeah, I have to go watch that clip of Crystal
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 7: making that point because I didn't I actually didn't even
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 7: see the Tapper clip.
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 10: Yeah, it was a Tapper.
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 9: I think he did challenge him a little bit or
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 9: just ask some basic follow up questions like do you
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 9: count criticizing Israel as anti Semitism? And he sort of
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 9: danced around the retort.
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 11: Yes, there are incidents listed as.
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 9: Anti huge sizeable portion of them. It's just criticizing Israel
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 9: or some phrase that you know, he gets offended by
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 9: or whatever.
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 7: We were all going through it in the group chat,
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 7: and like there are tons of examples where it was
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 7: like this person said something about Israel.
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 9: This person said like, oh, like from the River to
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 9: the sea or end Zionism or whatever, and that was
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 9: considered anti Semitic harassment.
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 10: So yep, hell boy, Well this was fun.
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 5: Mac.
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 10: Yeah, yep, that's all we got for you guys today.
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 9: We'll have more for you guys Monday, unless anything crazy
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 9: happens over the weekend. We returned to a full blown war,
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 9: or somebody sends a nuke somewhere.
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 11: Or do you think Soccer does a UFO disclosure.
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 9: Or UFO disclosure that's possible, a though I think Soccer
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 9: maybe going out of town this weekend, so we'll have
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 9: to see. Maybe we can get Ryan to do a
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 9: UFO segment.
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 7: Or Sager does one from the road Crystal and Kyle style.
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 10: Yeah exactly.
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 9: All right, Well that's all we got for you guys,
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 9: signing off and we will see you later.