Latest / Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar / 4/22/26: Iran Fires On Ships In Hormuz Strait, Ryan Debunks Laura Loomer, Robert Pape On Iran War

Transcript

4/22/26: Iran Fires On Ships In Hormuz Strait, Ryan Debunks Laura Loomer, Robert Pape On Iran War · Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.
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Speaker 1: dot com. Y, good morning and welcome to Breaking Points.
0:35
Speaker 3: How you doing, Emily doing great? We've got some big
0:38
Speaker 3: breaking news just this morning to get to in a
0:40
Speaker 3: moment when it comes to Aran, So we have all
0:43
Speaker 3: kinds of stuff. We got Jeremy coming up to talk
0:45
Speaker 3: to us about the negotiations, and Jeremy has been in
0:48
Speaker 3: the middle of reporting from the inside. What actually I mean?
0:54
Speaker 3: He called like what two days ago Sunday that this
0:57
Speaker 3: wasn't gonna.
0:57
Speaker 4: Happen Sunday He and Mos were like, yes, why are
0:59
Speaker 4: you guys reporting these negotiations are happening in Islamabad. They're not,
1:04
Speaker 4: Like the runnings are not going. They haven't said they're going. Like,
1:06
Speaker 4: why are you claiming that they're there, they're not. It's
1:09
Speaker 4: so weird, like being in the US and reading US
1:13
Speaker 4: news and being able to then read Jeremy stuff and
1:15
Speaker 4: be like, we're just completely lied.
1:18
Speaker 5: Jesse Waters last night was like there was a coup
1:20
Speaker 5: in Iran. It's just funny.
1:23
Speaker 4: But it's like, wait a minute, you're the most watched
1:25
Speaker 4: like cable news primetime show in the country and you're that.
1:29
Speaker 5: Is just fake. There was no coup, Like is this
1:34
Speaker 5: a game?
1:35
Speaker 6: Right?
1:36
Speaker 4: It's so weird, Like you're not required to say this stuff,
1:38
Speaker 4: so like it's it's it's it's incredible.
1:41
Speaker 5: It's been incredible to watch.
1:42
Speaker 3: Well, we'll have Jeremy sk Hill, Ryan of course is
1:45
Speaker 3: his co founder at dropsite joining us shortly. Actually to
1:48
Speaker 3: break some of this down. We also have Robert Pape
1:51
Speaker 3: on the show today, the fed trumpe, just to keep.
1:54
Speaker 4: Having him back until he's wrong, I mean he's unfortunately cooking. Yeah,
2:00
Speaker 4: the escalation trap as you are trapped into having Robert Pape.
2:05
Speaker 6: For ever.
2:06
Speaker 3: Yes, Well, it's a good trap for the audience, of course,
2:09
Speaker 3: because then they leave better informed.
2:11
Speaker 6: All right.
2:12
Speaker 3: Also, Trump's fed chair pick was testifying in front of
2:15
Speaker 3: the Senate yesterday and it was brutal. I mean, some
2:18
Speaker 3: Democrats really laid into him. Elizabeth Warren really laid into him.
2:21
Speaker 3: So we'll have some details about that. Really interesting new
2:26
Speaker 3: stuff on the AI front, the data center front, the
2:28
Speaker 3: political part of the data center front that we're going
2:31
Speaker 3: to get into. And a crazy reporting coming out of Mexico.
2:34
Speaker 3: Not surprising, but crazy reporting coming out of Mexico about
2:37
Speaker 3: a potential CIA operation. We don't know exactly what it.
2:41
Speaker 4: Was, just a little car accident that ended up with
2:43
Speaker 4: the car engulfed in.
2:44
Speaker 3: Flames, as happens regularly when CIA officers are involved. So
2:50
Speaker 3: two CI officers killed in Mexico. A lot that we
2:55
Speaker 3: don't know yet, but some reportings starting to come out.
2:57
Speaker 3: Will be joined by Wanda vid Rojas to break that
3:01
Speaker 3: story down. And finally, huge political news last night as
3:05
Speaker 3: Virginia's redistricting went through barely as where the votes are
3:09
Speaker 3: now just over a majority of Virginia voters went with
3:12
Speaker 3: the Democrat jerrymandering plan and Democrats are really excited Hakim
3:18
Speaker 3: Jeffreys say, what do you say when they go low?
3:21
Speaker 3: We hit back. Florida is then going to be calling
3:24
Speaker 3: a special session or run de Santus has already called
3:26
Speaker 3: a special session for next week for a Republican Jerry
3:30
Speaker 3: Mendering opportunity, and the fate of the House is up
3:34
Speaker 3: in the air.
3:35
Speaker 5: Yeah, this will be a fun one.
3:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, you got to see these districts. You got to
3:39
Speaker 3: see these districts. They're really something. Also, we should mention
3:43
Speaker 3: Ryan is debating Scott Jennings on the after Party channel,
3:47
Speaker 3: So that's going to I think that pops next week, says.
3:51
Speaker 4: After Party two at GW, And it's like a live
3:53
Speaker 4: evente right.
3:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's going to be at GW. I don't know
3:57
Speaker 3: if the public can still get it in Probably the
3:59
Speaker 3: publicans still get it, but.
4:00
Speaker 5: An event like that sells out immediately.
4:02
Speaker 3: Yes, it's done. It's in like one of the old
4:05
Speaker 3: classrooms that I took, like my history stut my history
4:09
Speaker 3: classes and yeah it'll be this is some war.
4:11
Speaker 4: But anyway, well, school will be back in session for
4:13
Speaker 4: Scott Jenny's birthday.
4:16
Speaker 3: Well said Ryan. All right, Breakingpoints dot Com if you
4:18
Speaker 3: want to get a premium subscription to the show. We
4:20
Speaker 3: appreciate it. Help us keep doing the independent journalism so
4:23
Speaker 3: that we don't report on false Iranian.
4:25
Speaker 5: Right, yes, don't make us do that.
4:28
Speaker 3: Please, don't make us do that. All right, let's start
4:30
Speaker 3: with the latest in Iran. We can go ahead toss
4:33
Speaker 3: this tear street up on the screen from the New
4:35
Speaker 3: York Times. This really is breaking news as we are
4:38
Speaker 3: coming to now. I Ranian forces claimed seizure of two
4:41
Speaker 3: ships after Trump extends truce. So this is right now
4:45
Speaker 3: in the Strait of Hormuz. The IRGC is saying that
4:48
Speaker 3: it has ceased two container ships. Obviously, we have the
4:52
Speaker 3: competing blockades over there. Ryan Fox is reporting three ships.
4:55
Speaker 4: Right yes, and originally the New York Times in their
5:00
Speaker 4: in their first dispatch on this called it an enforcement
5:04
Speaker 4: action on the part of the IRGC, which is kind
5:07
Speaker 4: of delightful because we're talking about American media and Western
5:09
Speaker 4: median propaganda such.
5:10
Speaker 5: It's like it's rare that.
5:12
Speaker 4: You see something neutral or even almost it's almost favorable
5:17
Speaker 4: language too.
5:18
Speaker 3: I would say that's favorable language.
5:20
Speaker 4: You could also describe it as a subjective like they
5:23
Speaker 4: say that they're enforcing this blockade. This was an enforcement action, right,
5:27
Speaker 4: this was an action towards the enforcement of their blockade.
5:30
Speaker 4: Now we have our own blockade of the strait, so
5:34
Speaker 4: when we attack this for now they've changed it.
5:36
Speaker 5: Now it's attacked and boarded.
5:39
Speaker 4: So an editor there like had a cup of coffee,
5:42
Speaker 4: was like, wait a minute, hold on, get the Western
5:45
Speaker 4: propaganda language back into there. So yeah, so this comes
5:49
Speaker 4: and it appears that the US attack on the Iranian
5:54
Speaker 4: ship in the Strait of Hormuz that took place over
5:57
Speaker 4: the weekend was quite debilitating to the ceasefire talks like that.
6:04
Speaker 4: It does seem like the Iranians, who had been suspicious
6:08
Speaker 4: of the seriousness of the White House, used that as
6:11
Speaker 4: more evidence to say, these guys aren't serious.
6:13
Speaker 5: They're firing on our ships in the Strait of removes.
6:16
Speaker 4: They don't they don't recognize Donald Trump's naval blockade of
6:20
Speaker 4: the Strait of hormuves as remotely legitimate. They say this,
6:24
Speaker 4: they say, this is not international waters, and I think
6:26
Speaker 4: we don't need to get into the technicalities of it.
6:28
Speaker 5: But it's basically not like it.
6:29
Speaker 4: It's far enough inland, so you be like trying to,
6:32
Speaker 4: you know, blockade the Mississippi because it pours into the
6:36
Speaker 4: Gulf of America and say, well that Mississippi is international waters.
6:40
Speaker 5: It's like, no, bro, like that, this is Mississippi. You
6:43
Speaker 5: can't you can't do this. So that they said they
6:48
Speaker 5: would respond, and now they have responded.
6:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, they have absolutely responded. So we should also mention
6:53
Speaker 3: that they're actually under fire. They weren't just seized. So
6:56
Speaker 3: I'm reading from NPR here, which also has the three
6:59
Speaker 3: ship number. They say three ships came under fire in
7:01
Speaker 3: the straight of four moves on Wednesday, putting the possibility
7:03
Speaker 3: of any peace talks in jeopardy after a senior Iranian
7:06
Speaker 3: officials said that President Trump's last minute cease fire extension
7:09
Speaker 3: quote means nothing. We're going to get to that in
7:12
Speaker 3: just one moment. But the first ship MPR reports, was
7:15
Speaker 3: attacked and damaged by Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard Corps, according
7:19
Speaker 3: to the British military said no injuries have been reported
7:23
Speaker 3: as of yet. This is according to the UK's Maritime
7:28
Speaker 3: Trade Operation Center. They say the master of a container
7:30
Speaker 3: ship reported that the vessel was approached by one IRGC gunboat.
7:35
Speaker 3: No warning was given, but it then fired upon the vessel,
7:38
Speaker 3: which has caused heavy damage to the bridge. That's according
7:41
Speaker 3: to a post on x from the Maritime Trade Operation
7:46
Speaker 3: Center over in the UK. Iran's as ATPR puts it.
7:49
Speaker 3: Quote semi official Tesnim news agency confirmed the incident, saying
7:53
Speaker 3: the container ship had ignored repeated warnings. This is also
7:57
Speaker 3: from other Iranian news agencies. They are saying the navy
8:01
Speaker 3: attacked a third ship called the Euphoria, and Iranian media
8:06
Speaker 3: reported that the Iranian navy had quote seized the other
8:09
Speaker 3: two vessels, which it identified it as NSC Francesca and
8:13
Speaker 3: the Epimenides. So that's where things stand as of right now.
8:17
Speaker 4: Ryan, Yes, and so yesterday the ceasefire was supposed to expire,
8:23
Speaker 4: and you had what wik coffin Kushner kind of on
8:26
Speaker 4: the way to Islamabad and then turned their plane around.
8:29
Speaker 4: You had the rumors that you had actually reports that
8:32
Speaker 4: Jadvans was going to Islamabad. Those reports were not true.
8:36
Speaker 4: They turned back around. There's no Iranian delegation in Islamabad.
8:40
Speaker 4: And then Trump it came out basically saying and we
8:45
Speaker 4: can go through.
8:45
Speaker 5: His post here.
8:46
Speaker 3: Yeah, we can put it up on the screen.
8:48
Speaker 4: Basically saying that the ceasefires extended indefinitely, and on my glasses.
8:52
Speaker 3: You want to yeah, I got chain, he says, based
8:56
Speaker 3: on the fact that the government of Iran is seriously fractured,
8:59
Speaker 3: not unexpectedly so. And upon the request of Field Marshall
9:03
Speaker 3: asse Munir and Prime Minister Shabaz Sharif of Pakistan, we've
9:07
Speaker 3: been asked to hold our attack on the country of
9:09
Speaker 3: Iran until such time as their leaders and representatives can
9:13
Speaker 3: come up with a unified proposal. I have therefore directed
9:16
Speaker 3: our military to continue the blockade and in all other
9:19
Speaker 3: respects remain ready and able, and will therefore extend the
9:23
Speaker 3: ceasefire until such time as their proposal is submitted and
9:27
Speaker 3: discussions are concluded one way or the other. And then
9:30
Speaker 3: he signed it. President Donald J. Trump. This was after
9:35
Speaker 3: he went on CNBC earlier in the day and said
9:39
Speaker 3: he was not inclined to extend the ceasefire. So the
9:45
Speaker 3: talk of Twitter yesterday was Taco Tuesday.
9:48
Speaker 4: Yes and so, and then let's read the next truth
9:52
Speaker 4: from Trumps social and then we will bring Jeremy and
9:53
Speaker 4: to get his reaction to it. He posted, Iran doesn't
9:57
Speaker 4: want the Strait of Hormus closed. They want it open
10:00
Speaker 4: so they can make five hundred million dollars a day,
10:02
Speaker 4: which is therefore what they are losing if it is closed.
10:05
Speaker 4: They only say they want it closed because I have
10:08
Speaker 4: it totally blockaded parentheses closed.
10:11
Speaker 5: So they merely want to quote save face.
10:14
Speaker 4: People approached me four days ago saying, Sir Iran wants
10:17
Speaker 4: to open up the strait immediately, but if we do that,
10:21
Speaker 4: there can never be a deal with Iran unless we
10:24
Speaker 4: blow up the rest of their country. Their leaders included
10:27
Speaker 4: exclamation point President Donald J.
10:29
Speaker 5: Trump. All Right, so let's bring.
10:30
Speaker 4: In Jeremy Scalhill to unpack what on earth President Donald J.
10:35
Speaker 4: Trump is talking about here. Okay, so Jeremy, what is
10:41
Speaker 4: going on here? Let's start with kind of from the
10:43
Speaker 4: kind of Maga perspective, from the Trump perspective, how are
10:46
Speaker 4: they explaining this, this series of posts and this kind
10:50
Speaker 4: of about face?
10:52
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, look, the fact is that Trump just
10:54
Speaker 7: days ago was saying the Iranians capitulated to everything, that
10:57
Speaker 7: they were going to allow US military forces into Iran
11:00
Speaker 7: on to you know, pick up the quote unquote nuclear dusts,
11:02
Speaker 7: that they were going to work together. That Iran had
11:05
Speaker 7: basically carved into all of Trump's demands as a result
11:08
Speaker 7: of his threat to you know, bomb their civilization. He said,
11:12
Speaker 7: you know JD Van, Steve Whitkoff, and Jared Kushner, like
11:14
Speaker 7: they're literally on their way to Islamabad. I may even
11:17
Speaker 7: come at some point to attend the talks. And then
11:19
Speaker 7: reality kind of you know, hits last night when it
11:23
Speaker 7: became clear that the Iranians were holding firm in their
11:27
Speaker 7: rejection of any future talks until Trump lifted the blockade
11:32
Speaker 7: in the straight of horror moves. And so once that
11:36
Speaker 7: was clear that they weren't going to budge on that,
11:38
Speaker 7: and you know, I was told last night by a
11:40
Speaker 7: senior Iranian official that the highest levels of power in
11:44
Speaker 7: Iran had issued a final decision and that that was
11:46
Speaker 7: their bottom line. Then the ball was back in Trump's
11:49
Speaker 7: court and the Pakistanis were going back and forth between
11:52
Speaker 7: Trump and the Iranians. And finally what happened is that
11:56
Speaker 7: Trump comes out with a post untruth social and he says,
11:59
Speaker 7: I'm extending the ceasefire. This was just hours from it expiring,
12:04
Speaker 7: but he says, I'm going to keep the naval blockade
12:07
Speaker 7: in place. The Iranians then told the Pakistanis, We're not
12:10
Speaker 7: going to move forward with these negotiations and so it
12:12
Speaker 7: came to a standstill. And so what we're seeing now
12:15
Speaker 7: is that a narrative has been crafted by the White
12:17
Speaker 7: House and the kind of Trump aligned media ecosystem where
12:21
Speaker 7: they're saying Trump is it had to do this because
12:24
Speaker 7: there's total disarray right now in Tehran that you know,
12:27
Speaker 7: there's there's reports that the Foreign Minister Arachi and the
12:30
Speaker 7: speaker of the parliament Mohammed Bagara Galibaf are like under
12:34
Speaker 7: house arrests, that the IRGC has essentially seized control of
12:37
Speaker 7: the entire deal making process. That the diplomats were about
12:41
Speaker 7: to make a deal with Trump, but now the IRGC
12:43
Speaker 7: has intervened. You know, Barackravid, who often is the recipient
12:47
Speaker 7: of you know, intentional leaks from the White House or
12:50
Speaker 7: Israeli officials, is now saying, oh, Trump had to do
12:53
Speaker 7: this so that the Iranians could quote unquote get their
12:55
Speaker 7: shit together, and that it may only last three to
12:58
Speaker 7: five days. You know, in talking to Iranian officials and
13:02
Speaker 7: also well connected Iranian analysts, what they're saying is that
13:05
Speaker 7: this is pure psychological warfare. That if you look at
13:09
Speaker 7: the way the United States has systems of succession, that
13:12
Speaker 7: the way that the US is a country also have
13:14
Speaker 7: institutions that Iran is the same, and that this decision
13:18
Speaker 7: that was made on this posture on the Strait of
13:20
Speaker 7: Hormuz actually was made by the highest levels of power
13:24
Speaker 7: in Tehran. It's an attempt to try to allow Trump
13:29
Speaker 7: to save face because, as they put it, he blinked
13:32
Speaker 7: first and wasn't prepared for the Iranians to hold their
13:34
Speaker 7: ground diplomatically.
13:36
Speaker 3: And what do we know so far? What should we
13:37
Speaker 3: be reading into so far at the decision to take
13:41
Speaker 3: three ships or it looks like take three ships as
13:43
Speaker 3: of just this morning US time.
13:45
Speaker 7: Jeremy, Yeah, I mean, look, the Iranians have sort of
13:49
Speaker 7: said that they're not going to strike first. They haven't
13:52
Speaker 7: really officially accepted the extension of the ceasefire. They said
13:55
Speaker 7: that they didn't ask for it, and that Trump, you know,
13:58
Speaker 7: unilaterally decided to extend this ceasefire. But this does appear
14:02
Speaker 7: to be a quite provocative action. They reportedly fired on
14:06
Speaker 7: one ship and then they seize two others. It's unclear
14:10
Speaker 7: really why they did this, other than they said that
14:12
Speaker 7: they were not following rules and that they were interfering
14:16
Speaker 7: with maritime navigational procedures, and so they brought them back
14:19
Speaker 7: to Iran's coastal waters. You know, I mean this type
14:23
Speaker 7: of an action right now, particularly when the Strait of
14:25
Speaker 7: Hormuz is at the center of whether or not there's
14:28
Speaker 7: going to be talks. There's going to be some serious
14:30
Speaker 7: discussion about how this goes down. But it's clear, you know,
14:34
Speaker 7: the Pakistanis have spent an enormous amount of money and
14:37
Speaker 7: that country is in economic shambles as it is. The
14:40
Speaker 7: Pakistanis have been promoting their Prime Minister and their Minister
14:44
Speaker 7: of Defense as sort of like the kingpins of modern
14:47
Speaker 7: diplomacy right now, so the Pakistanis have egg on their
14:50
Speaker 7: faces us Trumpeline media are reporting that, you know, the
14:55
Speaker 7: Pakistanis are furious with Iran. What I was told by
14:58
Speaker 7: Iranian officials last night is that Pakistan had come to
15:02
Speaker 7: Iran and said Trump has agreed that soon before the
15:05
Speaker 7: expiration of the ceasefire, he's going to announce that he's
15:08
Speaker 7: lifting the blockade on the Straight of hor Moves and
15:11
Speaker 7: extending the ceasefire. And the Iranians told me that they
15:15
Speaker 7: had responded to the Pakistanis saying, if that happens, we
15:18
Speaker 7: will schedule a second round of talks for Thursday. Soon
15:22
Speaker 7: after I reported that, Trump posted then his true social
15:24
Speaker 7: saying he's extending the ceasefire, but he's keeping the maritime
15:27
Speaker 7: blockade in place. I went back to the Iranians and
15:29
Speaker 7: they said, you know, look, this has happened before, where
15:33
Speaker 7: the Pakistanis have told us something like this. We don't
15:36
Speaker 7: know if it's that they just said this or that
15:38
Speaker 7: Trump actually told it to them, and then they turned
15:40
Speaker 7: around and told this to Iran. So it's really complicated
15:45
Speaker 7: to determine who's exactly telling the truth right now because
15:49
Speaker 7: of the players involved, not the least of which is
15:51
Speaker 7: are quite erratic and often contradicting himself president.
15:56
Speaker 4: And so that's you know, that's significant news right there
15:59
Speaker 4: as you report. You reported it yesterday too, that the
16:03
Speaker 4: Iranians were ready to come to the table, the meetings
16:06
Speaker 4: would happen tomorrow. The Pakistanis told them, the Pakistani's and
16:10
Speaker 4: the mediators that Trump was going to make X gesture
16:14
Speaker 4: and the gesture was going to be onlifting the blockade
16:16
Speaker 4: and extending the ceasefire, and then that didn't happen. You know,
16:19
Speaker 4: there's a major trust gap right here because you know,
16:24
Speaker 4: multiple negotiations have ended with US surprise attacks. It seems
16:29
Speaker 4: like the US is not doing much to try to
16:32
Speaker 4: regain the trust of their kind of Iranian interlocketors. So
16:37
Speaker 4: what what is the Iranian thinking at this point about
16:43
Speaker 4: whether are we back at war?
16:45
Speaker 5: We're in a bizarre situation. Are we back at war?
16:47
Speaker 4: Like you can't exactly unilaterally declare a ceasefire, but you
16:51
Speaker 4: sort of can.
16:52
Speaker 7: I mean, I'll tell you something kind of informal that
16:55
Speaker 7: I think just sort of peels back a layer on
16:57
Speaker 7: something we don't often get to hear about. And that is,
17:00
Speaker 7: you know, in speaking to an Iranian official last night
17:03
Speaker 7: and asking him sort of what do you think happened here,
17:07
Speaker 7: he said, you know, we don't exactly know, like we
17:10
Speaker 7: don't know what Pakistan was told and and sort of
17:14
Speaker 7: what game is being played here and who the players
17:16
Speaker 7: are that are pulling which levers. But they also said
17:20
Speaker 7: that it's become clear to them that the Pakistani officials
17:23
Speaker 7: that they're dealing with often are scrambling to try to
17:26
Speaker 7: figure out what it is they were just told by
17:29
Speaker 7: Donald Trump and what they can reliably go to the
17:32
Speaker 7: Iranians with. And I tend to think that that's true
17:35
Speaker 7: that actually, you know, there are cases where Trump probably
17:40
Speaker 7: does say something to the Pakistani Prime minister it seems clear.
17:44
Speaker 7: Then it goes, it gets run up the chain, it
17:46
Speaker 7: gets communicated to Iran. The Iranians come back and they say, okay,
17:50
Speaker 7: if that's the case, we'll move forward here. And then
17:54
Speaker 7: you know, as happened last week, Baserachi, the Foreign minister, says, oh,
17:58
Speaker 7: the straight of horror moves is going to be open
17:59
Speaker 7: because because the United States has compelled Israel to respect
18:03
Speaker 7: the ceasefire in Lebanon. Trump then thanks them and says
18:06
Speaker 7: he actually refers to it as the Strait of Iran.
18:09
Speaker 7: And then moments later, Trump goes nuclear on Twitter and says, no,
18:13
Speaker 7: you know, we're keeping our military blockade in place, in
18:17
Speaker 7: the naval blockade in place. And then the Iranians say, okay,
18:19
Speaker 7: we go back to the status quo before this. Right now,
18:22
Speaker 7: what I had been told was that this had been
18:23
Speaker 7: choreographed via the pakistanis that Arachi was going to say X,
18:27
Speaker 7: Trump was going to say, why things were going to
18:30
Speaker 7: calm down a bit, and then the talks were going
18:32
Speaker 7: to proceed. It all gets entirely blown up, and I
18:35
Speaker 7: suspect that there's a combination of the pakistanis playing some
18:40
Speaker 7: dirty games to an extent here and the fact that
18:43
Speaker 7: Trump is erratic and he does say things that he
18:47
Speaker 7: doesn't mean. I mean, just look at the last seventy
18:49
Speaker 7: two hours, all these interviews he did with the New
18:52
Speaker 7: York Post, with PBS, with CNBC. He's saying, I might
18:55
Speaker 7: go to Islamabad. Jared and Steve are on their way. No,
18:58
Speaker 7: actually JD is on. Oh actually they're not going. Now
19:01
Speaker 7: we're going to bomb them back to civilization. Oh, I'm
19:03
Speaker 7: going to extend the ceasefire. Imagine forget that it's iron
19:06
Speaker 7: Let's talk about any country. Imagine having to deal with
19:09
Speaker 7: that when it's actually like war and peace where you
19:13
Speaker 7: have two nuclear powers attacking another country where they are
19:16
Speaker 7: a nation of institutions and they're just basically trying to say,
19:19
Speaker 7: let's figure out our red lines here. I mean, it's
19:22
Speaker 7: crazy making. And Pakistan has a long history of dirty tricks.
19:27
Speaker 7: So all this whole cocktail is really insane that we're
19:31
Speaker 7: looking at right now.
19:32
Speaker 3: Let's put a five on the screen. Just to the
19:34
Speaker 3: point Jeremy was making. This is a Barock reviewed tweet
19:37
Speaker 3: from yesterday twelve pm Eastern time. Steve Witkoff and Jared
19:41
Speaker 3: Kushner are also still in the US. Revined reported at
19:45
Speaker 3: the time the DHS plane that was supposed to take
19:48
Speaker 3: them this morning from Miami to Europe and to Pakistan
19:50
Speaker 3: didn't leave until several minutes ago and is making its
19:52
Speaker 3: way down to Washington, DC. Maybe they are going to
19:56
Speaker 3: see Trump. That was shortly after Barock Revied had posts
20:00
Speaker 3: that Vice President Vance was also still in Washington and
20:03
Speaker 3: a White House official had told him quote, additional policy
20:05
Speaker 3: meetings are taking place at the White House today in
20:08
Speaker 3: which the Vice President will participate. So this is all
20:11
Speaker 3: happening around noon yesterday. There's the deadline looming. So Jeremy,
20:18
Speaker 3: is there any I guess what is the truth as
20:21
Speaker 3: far as you can tell about whether the Iranian side.
20:26
Speaker 3: Jesse Waters was on Primetime last night saying that there
20:28
Speaker 3: had been a coup in Iran. But what truth is there,
20:31
Speaker 3: if any, to the idea that the Iranian side is
20:34
Speaker 3: also kind of in shambles, nobody knows who's in charge.
20:37
Speaker 3: That we've started to hear come from Trump and others
20:40
Speaker 3: in magaworld in the last twenty four to forty eight
20:42
Speaker 3: hours particularly.
20:44
Speaker 7: I don't think there's any doubt that there has been
20:47
Speaker 7: ferocious debate within Iran. In fact, I was speaking yesterday
20:51
Speaker 7: to Hassan Amadia, in one of the best connected and
20:54
Speaker 7: most respected Iranian academics, and he's one of the most
20:58
Speaker 7: prominent people now in Al Jazeera Arabic.
21:01
Speaker 5: His appearances go viral because.
21:03
Speaker 7: Of his debating tactics but also his ability to sort
21:06
Speaker 7: of predict what's going to happen. And what he said
21:09
Speaker 7: is that there was great debate over Iran's decision to
21:13
Speaker 7: accept this two week pause because some factions within Iran
21:19
Speaker 7: believed that Iran had its best leverage by not backing
21:23
Speaker 7: down from the war and forcing Trump to agree to
21:26
Speaker 7: softer terms in any kind of a negotiation framework. And
21:30
Speaker 7: so there's no doubt that there is very intense debate.
21:34
Speaker 7: I'm sure there are shouting matches, I'm sure that there
21:37
Speaker 7: is a lot of animation to it. But I really
21:41
Speaker 7: do get the sense that these stories are primarily aimed
21:45
Speaker 7: at propaganda, its information warfare against the Iranians, and it
21:49
Speaker 7: also is a kind of cover story for the utter
21:52
Speaker 7: chaos of the Trump administration that has played out in public.
21:56
Speaker 7: You know, Ghalibaf, the Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, is
21:59
Speaker 7: an IRGC veteran. He's a multi decade player in Iranian politics.
22:04
Speaker 7: But I'm told that there is no chance that he
22:07
Speaker 7: would be leading this delegation or staking out the positions
22:10
Speaker 7: that he has unless it was signed off on by
22:12
Speaker 7: the Supreme National Security Council of Iran. I mean, I
22:16
Speaker 7: think that we often or that Western media and commentators
22:20
Speaker 7: cartoonize the institutions of other countries. This is not Libya,
22:26
Speaker 7: and this is not Syria. This is a nation that
22:29
Speaker 7: for forty seven years has recognized that the US at
22:32
Speaker 7: any moment could wage a war against it. They built
22:34
Speaker 7: up institutions, and they built up parallel institutions. They have
22:37
Speaker 7: an official armed forces, and then they have the IRGC.
22:40
Speaker 7: They have an official Ministry of Intelligence, and then they
22:42
Speaker 7: have the Islamic Revolutionary Guard COREP Intelligence. They have religious
22:46
Speaker 7: and judicial and political institutions that run in parallel checks
22:51
Speaker 7: and balances in the same way that the United States does.
22:53
Speaker 7: It is true that the Supreme Leader has the right
22:55
Speaker 7: to veto these decisions, but I really think that it
22:59
Speaker 7: is sort of counter intellectual and really oversimplified, and it
23:03
Speaker 7: does a disservice to the American public to imply that
23:06
Speaker 7: Iran is sort of a banana republic. If anything. I
23:09
Speaker 7: think it's a highly sense a centralized state. And I
23:12
Speaker 7: would be very shocked if any of what is being
23:15
Speaker 7: said in the mega media ecosystem turns out to even
23:18
Speaker 7: be minimally true.
23:20
Speaker 4: I would just say that on this program we cannot
23:22
Speaker 4: call in a question the intellect of Jesse Waters. I mean,
23:25
Speaker 4: that's just I think that's just beyond the pan.
23:27
Speaker 3: Well, it's White House Correspondence Sinner Weekend, so Ryan's reminiscing
23:30
Speaker 3: on his.
23:32
Speaker 7: I want to just strongly denounce any violence between journalists. However,
23:39
Speaker 7: I wouldn't call Jesse Waters a journalist. So anyone can
23:42
Speaker 7: google Ryan Graham twenty sixteen bar fight with Jesse Waters, fair.
23:46
Speaker 4: Game, counter intellectual indeed. Well, Jeremy, thank you so much
23:50
Speaker 4: for this update. I really appreciate it.
23:54
Speaker 6: Thank you, guys.
23:57
Speaker 3: Ryan has some original reporting for us this morning. Take
24:01
Speaker 3: it away.
24:01
Speaker 5: This is an interesting one, all right.
24:03
Speaker 4: So on April fourth, the State Department celebrated a new
24:07
Speaker 4: set of arrests, issuing a statement headlined Secretary Rubio revokes
24:11
Speaker 4: green cards of foreign nationals with ties to Iranian terror regime,
24:16
Speaker 4: announcing that quote, the niece and grand niece of deceased
24:19
Speaker 4: Islamic Revolutionary Guard Court Major General Kassam Solomoni were arrested
24:24
Speaker 4: by federal agents unquote. So the two women are Hamana
24:29
Speaker 4: Solomani Offshar, she's forty seven, and her daughter, Serena Hosseini,
24:33
Speaker 4: who is twenty five, and they are or they were
24:37
Speaker 4: legal permanent residents with green cards living in Los Angeles,
24:40
Speaker 4: like a lot of the rest of our Iranian American population. Now,
24:43
Speaker 4: the idea that it's okay to punish to women for
24:45
Speaker 4: being related to a man who previously did battle with
24:48
Speaker 4: the United States when he was alive is itself absurd.
24:51
Speaker 4: None of us are responsible for what our uncles do.
24:54
Speaker 4: God help us all if we are. But because Rubio
24:58
Speaker 4: made such a big deal about these and this claim,
25:01
Speaker 4: it's worth asking whether it's even true. So we reviewed
25:05
Speaker 4: Iranian birth records, identification papers, and other personal documents, including
25:09
Speaker 4: wills and other records, and we can reveal that no,
25:13
Speaker 4: these women have no connection to cost some Soli money whatsoever.
25:18
Speaker 4: It is entirely a case of mistaken identity sparked by
25:22
Speaker 4: right wing activist Laura Lumer and also some fans of
25:26
Speaker 4: the Shah so birth certificates from Iran collected by the
25:31
Speaker 4: family lay out a documented family tree spanning multiple generations,
25:35
Speaker 4: with no connection to Solimani or even to relatives of
25:38
Speaker 4: the late general.
25:40
Speaker 5: So At dropsit news.
25:41
Speaker 4: My colleague Martaza Hussein and I also reviewed other personal
25:44
Speaker 4: identifying documents, including passports, family photographs, and work documentation from
25:49
Speaker 4: both Iran and the US, that strongly contradict the allegations
25:52
Speaker 4: that the two women were connected to the late Iranian
25:55
Speaker 4: commander or that they were living lavishly from any connection
26:00
Speaker 4: to the Iranian government. So I spoke to both women
26:02
Speaker 4: yesterday from their south from their South Texas ice detention facility,
26:07
Speaker 4: which is privately run by the geogroup, and they remain
26:10
Speaker 4: shocked at the situation they find themselves in Hamada.
26:13
Speaker 5: She told me had.
26:14
Speaker 4: Actually previously been imprisoned by the Iranian government for protesting it.
26:19
Speaker 5: When she got to the United States.
26:20
Speaker 4: The thing she told me that she was most looking
26:23
Speaker 4: forward to was being able to freely speak her mind.
26:26
Speaker 4: Serena told me that yes, her mother is highly opinionated,
26:30
Speaker 4: but what they are not is related to Costam Solomoni now,
26:34
Speaker 4: in order for Solemoni to be Hamada's uncle based on
26:37
Speaker 4: her last name, he would need to be the brother
26:39
Speaker 4: of Hamada's father. Hammada's father, Ali Solemoni off Shark was
26:44
Speaker 4: born in Tehran in nineteen forty seven, yet according to
26:47
Speaker 4: the documents, he had no brothers at all, let alone
26:51
Speaker 4: ones corresponding to the identity of General Solomoni, who was
26:54
Speaker 4: born ten years later in a small village in the
26:56
Speaker 4: southern province of Kerman.
26:59
Speaker 5: Ali Solomon Afshar's parents died in his childhood.
27:03
Speaker 4: Historical passport documents also show that Solomani Offshar's family origins
27:08
Speaker 4: go back generations to the city of Yazd in central Iran,
27:12
Speaker 4: a province away from the roots of General Solomoni.
27:15
Speaker 5: The late general is.
27:16
Speaker 4: Also known to have two brothers, Soab and Hosain, who
27:20
Speaker 4: have previously given interviews about their upbringing Roal Kerman that
27:23
Speaker 4: identify themselves as his only brothers. They have no connection
27:27
Speaker 4: to Ali Solomani Offshar. The State Department, though, is standing
27:32
Speaker 4: by its entirely false claims. They told me in a
27:35
Speaker 4: statement quote Hello. The following is on the record a
27:38
Speaker 4: tributal to Assistant Secretary Dylan Johnson.
27:41
Speaker 5: Quote.
27:42
Speaker 4: While we do not comment on matters of classified intelligence,
27:45
Speaker 4: we remain certain of the Secretary's determination. If drop site
27:50
Speaker 4: news scare quotes is aware of anti American green card
27:54
Speaker 4: holders with ties to terrorists present in the United States,
27:58
Speaker 4: we would gladly investigate those individuals for possible termination of
28:03
Speaker 4: legal status and deportation unquote. Now, one of Serena's friends
28:08
Speaker 4: has set up a GoFundMe to help cover legal bills,
28:10
Speaker 4: which I've verified as authentic and will put a link
28:13
Speaker 4: to it in the description. And so Emily, what we'll
28:17
Speaker 4: do is we'll also put we'll kind of we'll put
28:20
Speaker 4: up a Google drive that has all of these records.
28:22
Speaker 4: So we've got, you know, passports, birth certificates, all kinds
28:28
Speaker 4: of other verified documents, like even wills from her grandparents,
28:32
Speaker 4: and the wills list all of the relatives. And so
28:36
Speaker 4: by doing that you can say, okay, here are the
28:39
Speaker 4: here are the possible people that could be her uncle.
28:42
Speaker 4: When they're saying uncle Cossum is their uncle, we're saying,
28:47
Speaker 4: then if you look at God Solana, here are his
28:50
Speaker 4: brothers and sisters. There's no overlap between them. And also separately,
28:58
Speaker 4: they're from completely different areas, so he is. And also
29:01
Speaker 4: you politically you can understand this. The fact that she
29:03
Speaker 4: was in prison for protesting against the government of which
29:08
Speaker 4: Solemani was a leading figure, means it's completely absurd to
29:13
Speaker 4: think that they'd be related. Like, there's no there's no
29:15
Speaker 4: world in which the rural conservative family have cost some
29:17
Speaker 4: Solomoni the niece has a niece who's protesting sole money
29:22
Speaker 4: and going to prison for it. Like maybe in America
29:25
Speaker 4: you have those kinds of things happening, and maybe there's
29:27
Speaker 4: some weird case of that happening in Iran. In any event,
29:30
Speaker 4: it didn't happen. Like, here are the family trees. They
29:33
Speaker 4: are hundreds of miles apart.
29:35
Speaker 3: What was it like trying to verify those documents from
29:38
Speaker 3: the other side of the world.
29:39
Speaker 4: Well, huge ups to Maz who speaks Persian. Of course
29:44
Speaker 4: he does. You guys know, amazing, my colleague. He speaks
29:48
Speaker 4: like seven languages or something like, Hey, ma's I got
29:50
Speaker 4: a whole bunch of Persian documents.
29:52
Speaker 5: Can you read these? He's like, yeah, of course, wow,
29:54
Speaker 5: here you.
29:55
Speaker 4: Go, so uh there and once once you have them,
29:58
Speaker 4: they're pretty straightforward.
30:00
Speaker 3: The other thing I wanted to ask you about was
30:03
Speaker 3: the state departments on the record comment to you, which
30:07
Speaker 3: is interesting to me because they say anti American green
30:11
Speaker 3: card holders I think is the phrase that they use
30:13
Speaker 3: in that they say they're standing by the designation. But
30:16
Speaker 3: that's interesting because it's kind of a shifting of the
30:19
Speaker 3: goalposts from related to solo money to anti American. Now
30:25
Speaker 3: you could see you could see how maybe they're using
30:27
Speaker 3: that in overlapping terms.
30:29
Speaker 5: Point kind of backing off that clam.
30:30
Speaker 4: They're saying, we stand by the determination right, and by determination,
30:34
Speaker 4: I think what they mean, you're that's a good point.
30:36
Speaker 4: They mean our determination basically that we want to kick
30:40
Speaker 4: them out of the country.
30:41
Speaker 3: That you could be a room massa osterk basically.
30:43
Speaker 5: But we're not.
30:44
Speaker 4: But they're but they don't comment on whether they're standing
30:46
Speaker 4: by the original claim right, which was the reason for
30:50
Speaker 4: the arrest. It's slippery that they're related to Solomoni and
30:54
Speaker 4: they calling them anti American is well. First of all,
30:59
Speaker 4: Serena the daughter, seems to be completely apolitical, like she's
31:02
Speaker 4: just caught up in this. Her mom was constantly fighting
31:06
Speaker 4: on Instagram and other places.
31:09
Speaker 5: With supporters of Rezapolovy. She does not want the king.
31:16
Speaker 4: The Shah going back to Iran being brought back to
31:19
Speaker 4: Iran by.
31:20
Speaker 5: A war like many Iranians, but now.
31:22
Speaker 4: There's many rabbit Iranians are Iranian Americans who love the Sha.
31:27
Speaker 4: And what seems to have happened is that they saw
31:30
Speaker 4: her last name and they whipped up this frenzy that
31:34
Speaker 4: she was related to Solamani and then told Lumer and
31:38
Speaker 4: Lumor then went with what she was told by these
31:41
Speaker 4: Iranian Americans who hate her. They don't hate her because
31:45
Speaker 4: she's anti American or anything. They hate her because she's
31:47
Speaker 4: anti Shah. And of the of the different groups who
31:52
Speaker 4: come to this country, to me, the ones that are
31:54
Speaker 4: more offensive are the ones who come here and then
31:56
Speaker 4: agitate to use American service members in the American military
32:02
Speaker 4: to then carry out other grudges in their home country.
32:06
Speaker 4: Hate that whether you're Cuban is really whatever, Like that's
32:11
Speaker 4: not America first, Like our military is not your plaything
32:16
Speaker 4: to go like exercise your grudges.
32:19
Speaker 5: Like I'm sure like that.
32:21
Speaker 3: Maybe that's the argument you make to Laura Lumor.
32:23
Speaker 4: Yeah, sure, there's a lot of like a lot of
32:25
Speaker 4: Somalians have different grievances with other clans, and so exactly.
32:29
Speaker 4: We don't want the US military to go in and
32:32
Speaker 4: like settle those scores. That's not what we're here for.
32:35
Speaker 5: H Nobody signed up for that.
32:37
Speaker 3: So in a way, Lumor is just I mean, you
32:39
Speaker 3: can see how in that sense the cause of Laura
32:42
Speaker 3: Lumis were almost undermining the like America first mentality as
32:47
Speaker 3: you just explained.
32:47
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think so.
32:49
Speaker 4: So we also looked into their asylum claim, so let's
32:53
Speaker 4: so we'll roll through that. So onto the other state
32:56
Speaker 4: department claim, namely that the two arrested women had filed
33:00
Speaker 4: a false claim for asylum which was undercut, they say
33:04
Speaker 4: by the fact that they had visited Iran in subsequent years.
33:07
Speaker 4: So friends of the family and the family themselves say
33:10
Speaker 4: that they had indeed been forced to leave Iran under duress.
33:15
Speaker 4: And it happened after Serena had taken part in a
33:17
Speaker 4: public dance performance in twenty twelve when.
33:20
Speaker 5: She was about twelve years old.
33:22
Speaker 4: So what happened is that she was in Turkey on
33:24
Speaker 4: vacation and she competed in this dance competition for the
33:28
Speaker 4: satellite channel TV Persia. It's illegal to watch TV Persia
33:32
Speaker 4: in Iran, but people can get it anyway, and it's
33:35
Speaker 4: the kind of soft cultural influence that the US government funds.
33:39
Speaker 4: I don't know if they funded TV Persia at the time,
33:41
Speaker 4: but either way, when it aired back in Iran, it
33:45
Speaker 4: went viral, and not in a good way. All hell
33:48
Speaker 4: came down on her and her mom. She was expelled
33:51
Speaker 4: from her public school, that not long after that, expelled
33:55
Speaker 4: from her next school, a private school when the scandal resurfaced,
34:00
Speaker 4: was attacked on occasion, and they continued getting death threats.
34:03
Speaker 4: So here's one of the performances that went viral and
34:06
Speaker 4: aired on TV Persia. So under continuous pressure, they came
34:20
Speaker 4: to the US when she was fourteen and filed for asylum.
34:24
Speaker 4: They won, and they have since become legal permanent residents. Now,
34:28
Speaker 4: Rubio's argument that the women don't deserve asylum as odd
34:32
Speaker 4: because one of the top US complaints about the Iranian
34:35
Speaker 4: government is that they don't respect women's rights. Now, in general,
34:40
Speaker 4: a grant of asylum is called into question if the
34:43
Speaker 4: asylum secul if the asylum seeker travels back to the
34:47
Speaker 4: country where they claimed they feel unsafe, and that honestly
34:51
Speaker 4: makes sense in general, but in the case of the
34:53
Speaker 4: two women, the threats they faced were indeed real, and
34:56
Speaker 4: they were in fact representative of what American authorities said
35:00
Speaker 4: about the repressive nature of the government in Iran. Yet
35:03
Speaker 4: you can also understand that visits home to family would
35:06
Speaker 4: still be relatively safe in their circumstances. You go to
35:09
Speaker 4: the airport, you visit the cousins, you go to the market,
35:12
Speaker 4: you walk in the park, whatever, You're going to be fine,
35:15
Speaker 4: especially if you're covered up. Serena told me she went
35:18
Speaker 4: back to Iran and visited her cousins and her father,
35:21
Speaker 4: but stayed away from those she knew were mad at
35:23
Speaker 4: her and told nobody she was coming.
35:25
Speaker 5: When she returned to the US, she was honest with.
35:28
Speaker 4: Customs officials, was questioned for about forty five minutes and
35:31
Speaker 4: let back in. It never came up again until now.
35:36
Speaker 4: If the Trump administration insists that their asylum claim is
35:40
Speaker 4: bogus and deports them to Iran, Rubio will be simultaneously
35:44
Speaker 4: saying that Iran is in fact safe for such women,
35:48
Speaker 4: undercutting decades of American claims to the contrary, while we
35:52
Speaker 4: also are waging a war on Iran partly because we
35:54
Speaker 4: say those women are not safe in Iran.
35:57
Speaker 5: So which is it?
36:00
Speaker 4: And his friends also disputed characterizations in the press and
36:03
Speaker 4: that were put forward by the State Department that the
36:05
Speaker 4: family had been living lavishly in the United States, pointing
36:09
Speaker 4: out that they had been behind on mortgage payments, that
36:11
Speaker 4: they had been relying on the support of friends to
36:14
Speaker 4: pay for legal support, and iced attention. In reality, the
36:17
Speaker 4: Los Angeles residents had assimilated to the culture of their
36:20
Speaker 4: new country. The jewelry and handbags flaunted on Instagram and
36:24
Speaker 4: highlighted by the US government, were, they said, like much
36:27
Speaker 4: else in North Hollywood, entirely fake. Now worse still, the
36:32
Speaker 4: mother's address was ducked and her house was ransacked and
36:36
Speaker 4: attacked by what appears to be an Iranian American who
36:40
Speaker 4: believed she truly was related to Solimani. Here is ring
36:44
Speaker 4: camera footage that they presented to me. And so this
36:49
Speaker 4: was April eighth, and they got in and they really
36:53
Speaker 4: trashed her house.
36:54
Speaker 3: Didn't say one in the morning, four in the morning.
36:57
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, and so what what what really does appear
37:02
Speaker 4: to have happened is that And there's a lot of
37:06
Speaker 4: kind of show supporters in Iran Shaw's The Sunset takes
37:10
Speaker 4: his name from him.
37:13
Speaker 5: I didn't mean Iran there's a lot of shops, a.
37:15
Speaker 3: Lot of Shot supporters in Iran, just not as in
37:19
Speaker 3: the US. Wants to believe there's.
37:20
Speaker 4: A lot of there's a lot of show supporters in
37:22
Speaker 4: Los Angeles. They're constantly doing these weird protests and whatever.
37:25
Speaker 4: They're very excitable, they're very fervent and passionate believers in
37:32
Speaker 4: their cause, and the cause is going terribly. Trump himself
37:36
Speaker 4: agrees with Hamada that the Shah should not He's what
37:40
Speaker 4: he said, the show is not really up for this.
37:43
Speaker 3: So the Shot himself has kind of said that.
37:45
Speaker 4: The Shot Shah himself, when he goes to bed at night,
37:47
Speaker 4: knows he's not up for this. Yes, I think he
37:50
Speaker 4: like he's up for exactly what he's doing, pretending to
37:54
Speaker 4: be then pretending to go back and going on Fox
37:57
Speaker 4: News and urging people to go out in the streets
37:59
Speaker 4: and get killed. So she's against him. She's also against
38:03
Speaker 4: the running government. That is supposed to be a position
38:09
Speaker 4: that you're allowed to take in the United States. So
38:12
Speaker 4: talking to them last night, it was wild and you
38:16
Speaker 4: could so and Serena would translate for her her mom,
38:20
Speaker 4: and it was a very kind of you could feel
38:22
Speaker 4: the mother daughter relationship. She's like, yeah, you know, my
38:25
Speaker 4: mom is pretty fiery, she's pretty passionate about stuff. And
38:28
Speaker 4: she was really excited when she got to the US
38:31
Speaker 4: that she could finally, you know, speak her mind without
38:35
Speaker 4: the Mullah's you know telling you know, telling her what
38:38
Speaker 4: she can and can't do.
38:39
Speaker 5: Now, Serena too, And it's.
38:41
Speaker 3: The enemies of the Molas, the self declared enemies of
38:43
Speaker 3: the Mulas, who are then putting them in the situation.
38:47
Speaker 4: Yeah, she's like, she she went to prison for speaking
38:51
Speaker 4: out on politics. This is what this is and how
38:53
Speaker 4: they described me. And she went to prison for speaking
38:55
Speaker 4: out on politics back in Iran. Now she's back in
38:58
Speaker 4: prison for speaking on politics. But it's worth worse here there.
39:02
Speaker 4: And Rono's one week here, it's three weeks in counting,
39:07
Speaker 4: and and uh she yesterday was the first day she
39:10
Speaker 4: was really able to speak. Because she has an autoimmune
39:14
Speaker 4: disorder which requires kind of regular blood transmissions. She has
39:19
Speaker 4: a hemoglobin level that was down to six, which people
39:22
Speaker 4: can look that up.
39:23
Speaker 5: That's not good. She got she got some pills finally.
39:27
Speaker 4: From the Geogroup Ice Detention Center, which apparently pushed her
39:31
Speaker 4: hemoglobin levels back up to eight, which is still not
39:34
Speaker 4: high enough.
39:34
Speaker 5: They're not, but they're there.
39:36
Speaker 4: They do not seem to have any interest in offering
39:38
Speaker 4: her the blood transfusions that are like regularly required with
39:41
Speaker 4: her with her condition. But you know, you arrest somebody
39:46
Speaker 4: accusing them of being related to this guy, like you're not.
39:50
Speaker 4: You're responsible for her health care at this point, So
39:54
Speaker 4: it's it's a it's a dire situation for them. I
40:00
Speaker 4: reached out to Lumer and said, if you know, if
40:03
Speaker 4: I can prove to you that these women are not
40:05
Speaker 4: related to Solemony, would you call for them to be released.
40:09
Speaker 5: She said no.
40:10
Speaker 4: Her direct quote was something like I can even pull
40:13
Speaker 4: it up, but it said something like, I want all
40:17
Speaker 4: Islamic immigrants migrants deported.
40:21
Speaker 3: So but she doesn't even know that they're She doesn't
40:23
Speaker 3: even know that they're Muslim. She doesn't not that it matters,
40:26
Speaker 3: but she doesn't even know that.
40:27
Speaker 4: Here's her here's her quote. I want all Islamic immigrants
40:31
Speaker 4: to ported. I don't support any of their asylum claims.
40:34
Speaker 4: And she said, and they are related. She still believes
40:37
Speaker 4: that they're related because she was told. I think she
40:41
Speaker 4: was given a bunch of evidence by these Shah supporters
40:47
Speaker 4: that they're related to solomony. It's it's untrue, it's bad
40:52
Speaker 4: evidence bunk. But I think she genuinely believes it. But
40:57
Speaker 4: as she's saying, she also doesn't care.
41:00
Speaker 3: You know if I don't think Rubio and Trump are
41:03
Speaker 3: particularly worried about the media backlash that getting these cases
41:07
Speaker 3: wrong causes them. But legally, I mean, I have to
41:12
Speaker 3: imagine that the hire you go up at the State Department,
41:15
Speaker 3: they're looking at the shoddy work in the Osterc case,
41:19
Speaker 3: the Khalil case, where you then had the administration working
41:23
Speaker 3: backwards from their determination gone by to try and come
41:28
Speaker 3: up with reasons that people were threats to make their
41:31
Speaker 3: case in the court of public opinion.
41:33
Speaker 5: With Khalil, they thought he was on a student visa.
41:35
Speaker 3: And yeah, exactly, that's right.
41:37
Speaker 4: So they had to like, oh, shoot, he's a Green
41:40
Speaker 4: card holder.
41:40
Speaker 5: Now I need to make.
41:41
Speaker 3: Something up, right, And then they were going back to
41:43
Speaker 3: Instagram posts from like groups that he was affiliated with,
41:47
Speaker 3: right that he didn't have current affiliations with. And it
41:50
Speaker 3: seems like there's a similar situation here where Laura Lumer
41:54
Speaker 3: has a direct line to somebody of some power at
41:59
Speaker 3: the State Department out to Rubio himself, but probably somewhere
42:02
Speaker 3: in the middle that can make these decisions, and then
42:05
Speaker 3: the Secretary signs off on them. They put it in
42:07
Speaker 3: front of you, yeah, maybe Trump, and then they put
42:09
Speaker 3: it in front of the secretary. You have to trust
42:11
Speaker 3: your deputies of your Secretary of State. And then you
42:13
Speaker 3: go back and you're like, who the hell got us
42:16
Speaker 3: from point A to point B on this? And so
42:18
Speaker 3: I wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing them work
42:20
Speaker 3: backwards their statements saying, for example, anti American or anti
42:26
Speaker 3: American asylum claims people anti because asylum clams from anti
42:31
Speaker 3: American people. That is again moving the goalpost. It's very
42:33
Speaker 3: different than saying this person is related to Solomani. So
42:37
Speaker 3: it seems like maybe another or.
42:39
Speaker 4: Really doesn't apply to Serena. I like, if if you
42:41
Speaker 4: really want to say her mom is anti American because
42:46
Speaker 4: she was against the war as it related to bringing
42:50
Speaker 4: the Shah back to power, if you want to make
42:52
Speaker 4: that claim that, I think that's insane. Think I think
42:55
Speaker 4: you're pro American if you're against this war. Frankly, I
42:58
Speaker 4: think this war is anti American, damaging to America. And
43:01
Speaker 4: if we listen to Serena's Mom instead of to net
43:05
Speaker 4: Yahoo America would have made a better decision.
43:07
Speaker 5: Setting that aside.
43:09
Speaker 4: Serena doesn't even have, as far as I can tell,
43:11
Speaker 4: much of an opinion on this.
43:13
Speaker 3: They might find something, but who knows. They don't have
43:16
Speaker 3: it or in front of us right now, that's for sure.
43:18
Speaker 4: But she seems mostly like a political and like a
43:22
Speaker 4: normal twenty five year old person in Los Angeles who
43:25
Speaker 4: just wants to dance. And no, she's a twenty five
43:30
Speaker 4: year old version of the twelve year old you saw
43:31
Speaker 4: on stage there.
43:32
Speaker 3: And then you get into these protracted legal battles where
43:35
Speaker 3: the State Department, whether or not, again, I don't think
43:37
Speaker 3: Rubio and the State Department and the Trump administration overall
43:40
Speaker 3: are particularly concerned about the fallout in public opinion. I
43:46
Speaker 3: think they feel confident they can make these cases and
43:49
Speaker 3: it's not going to be a big deal to voters.
43:52
Speaker 3: But they do then have to make these cases in court,
43:55
Speaker 3: and it's a pain in the ass when you have
43:57
Speaker 3: to work backwards and start coming up with reasons that
44:02
Speaker 3: you had, you know, evidence in the first place.
44:05
Speaker 4: And the best they're going to have for them is
44:08
Speaker 4: the fact that they went back to Iran immigration attorneys
44:12
Speaker 4: will tell you that's like that's bad for your for
44:15
Speaker 4: your case, because you said you're not safe there you
44:18
Speaker 4: went there. Yeah, I think they have an extremely credible
44:24
Speaker 4: point to make, like, yes, it was very dangerous and
44:27
Speaker 4: it would still be dangerous to live there, but flying back,
44:31
Speaker 4: not telling anybody, visiting your father and your cousins, if
44:35
Speaker 4: that's all you do, that actually is safe.
44:37
Speaker 3: But again, that's just about the asylum and she.
44:39
Speaker 5: Told she and Serena says she told the government ahead
44:41
Speaker 5: of time.
44:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's that's also still just like yeah.
44:44
Speaker 4: It's fine a green card holder because at that point
44:47
Speaker 4: they weren't asylum pending. They were green card holder or something, which.
44:51
Speaker 3: Is again different than whether or not they're anti Americans.
44:53
Speaker 4: Right, And also they had a chance when they flew
44:56
Speaker 4: back and said, hey, we were just in Iran, this
45:00
Speaker 4: is our situation, and we're like cool, come on back
45:03
Speaker 4: in to then years later on a false claim that
45:08
Speaker 4: you related to a dead guy, arrest them is I
45:15
Speaker 4: would like to say on American.
45:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was a great drop site reporting run.
45:20
Speaker 5: Well, thank you, let's go ahead. Well hopefully it does something.
45:23
Speaker 3: Anyway, it probably will, we'll see, let's go ahead and
45:26
Speaker 3: bring in Professor Pape. We're happy to be joined once
45:31
Speaker 3: again by front of the show Professor Robert Pape at
45:33
Speaker 3: the University of Chicago, and of course, the Escalation Trap
45:37
Speaker 3: sub stack. Make sure to subscribe to that if you
45:39
Speaker 3: haven't yet. Professor Pape, thank you so much for joining
45:41
Speaker 3: us once again.
45:42
Speaker 8: Yeah, thanks for having me. I really enjoy these discussions.
45:46
Speaker 8: You guys are just the best. So thank you so
45:48
Speaker 8: much for having me.
45:49
Speaker 3: Well, we appreciate you for being here.
45:51
Speaker 5: Yeah, keep the compliments flowing and we'll stay happy.
45:56
Speaker 6: It'll be part of the escalation problem.
46:00
Speaker 3: Yes.
46:01
Speaker 4: In fact, I've been noticing, and I don't tell me,
46:03
Speaker 4: tell me if you noticed this at all, It feels
46:06
Speaker 4: like Iranian officials have actually been following some of your analysis,
46:11
Speaker 4: particularly the argument that they they're becoming a major power
46:16
Speaker 4: like I've seen them sort of.
46:18
Speaker 6: That may be, that may be right.
46:20
Speaker 8: And so just just so listeners know, so, Russian television
46:24
Speaker 8: wants me on and has for a long time. Iranian
46:28
Speaker 8: media various kinds wants me on. I just won't do
46:32
Speaker 8: that here. So I'm laying out what to expect for
46:36
Speaker 8: the world here, and I'm not trying to you know, uh,
46:42
Speaker 8: certainly not help the bad guys here or something like that,
46:45
Speaker 8: and it's not You're not seeing somebody who's in any
46:48
Speaker 8: way other than an American supporter.
46:52
Speaker 6: Here, So everybody.
46:54
Speaker 8: Knows my my ideal world is where America remains number one,
46:58
Speaker 8: where the strongest is country in the world. We want
47:02
Speaker 8: everybody to come here because we're the best place on
47:05
Speaker 8: the planet to be and I think we need to
47:08
Speaker 8: get back to being the best place in the planet
47:10
Speaker 8: to be here. But we're not going to get there
47:13
Speaker 8: if we don't understand the world that's coming at us.
47:17
Speaker 3: Well, let's just start by getting your reaction to the
47:19
Speaker 3: whirlwind of events yesterday where the deadline was looming, where
47:25
Speaker 3: jd Vance, Jared Kushner, Steve Whitkoff, We're supposed to go
47:29
Speaker 3: to Islamabad and everybody was waiting trying to figure out
47:33
Speaker 3: if the plane had taken off. They ended up, of course,
47:36
Speaker 3: not going, and Trump extended the deadline. We woke up
47:39
Speaker 3: this news to this morning to news that there were
47:42
Speaker 3: ships fired on in the Strait of Hormuz, So Professor
47:46
Speaker 3: Pape wild twenty four hours. What do you make of it?
47:48
Speaker 8: Yes, but fully in line if you're following the substack
47:51
Speaker 8: posts here. This is just in line with the expectations
47:54
Speaker 8: I've been laying out.
47:55
Speaker 6: On both sides.
47:56
Speaker 8: So and what you are seeing, number one is and
48:00
Speaker 8: as I've been saying, you know from my early post
48:03
Speaker 8: about how Trump has the illusion of control, Trump's just
48:07
Speaker 8: lost control. So so the bottom line is America is
48:11
Speaker 8: not winning. Trump is not in control.
48:14
Speaker 6: And what you.
48:14
Speaker 8: Were seeing is a rising trajectory for Iran is it's
48:19
Speaker 8: just growing, you know, sort of bit by bit. It's
48:22
Speaker 8: not exactly linear. There's some pauses, but it is growing,
48:25
Speaker 8: just as I've been saying, and Iran has cards to play.
48:29
Speaker 8: They are more in control as each day passes. And
48:32
Speaker 8: since the first hour of the bombing, America has been
48:35
Speaker 8: less in control and has less cards to play. And
48:38
Speaker 8: that's actually playing itself out now in detail.
48:41
Speaker 6: Let me just.
48:42
Speaker 8: Shift over to the details here because I did post
48:45
Speaker 8: these here, these longer articles about what's happening with why
48:49
Speaker 8: is the ceasefire breaking down? Well, the ceasefire is breaking down,
48:53
Speaker 8: not because this is not a case of misunderstanding where
48:58
Speaker 8: you need to have negotiators get to the table talk
49:01
Speaker 8: to each other face to face to clarify things. Now
49:05
Speaker 8: that's not what's occurring here. What's occurring is a zero
49:07
Speaker 8: sum problem. We have two zero sum problems, and that's
49:11
Speaker 8: what's breaking us in the negotiations to break down. You see,
49:14
Speaker 8: we have two issues, the nuclear enrichment and Iran's control
49:19
Speaker 8: of the Strait of hormones. And these are classic zero
49:23
Speaker 8: sum issues. Iran cannot both control and not control the
49:28
Speaker 8: strait of hormones.
49:29
Speaker 6: There's no middle ground here.
49:30
Speaker 8: Iran cannot both have enriched uranium to make a bomb and.
49:34
Speaker 6: Not have enriched uranium to make a bomb.
49:36
Speaker 8: So there's no real way to cut this pie evenly,
49:41
Speaker 8: you know, fifty to fifty sixty forty, that's just not
49:44
Speaker 8: what's occurring. One side has to give up, essentially, and
49:48
Speaker 8: what you're seeing is both sides, rather than give up,
49:51
Speaker 8: prefer to escalate. Now, Donald Trump is also trying to
49:55
Speaker 8: find a third way. So I've been arguing this for
49:58
Speaker 8: some time and explain this. I just explained or in detail,
50:01
Speaker 8: that we're at a fork in the road. Either we
50:04
Speaker 8: pull back here from escalation and Iran becomes the fourth
50:08
Speaker 8: center of world power, or we go forward with escalation. Well,
50:12
Speaker 8: Donald Trump is trying so hard to get a third way,
50:16
Speaker 8: which is can't you just give me the fig leaf
50:19
Speaker 8: of a cover, Iran, so that I can declare victory
50:23
Speaker 8: and then I'll maybe even give you the straight of
50:25
Speaker 8: horror moves or something here under the table. We'll just
50:29
Speaker 8: kind of let me just have my victory. Okay, they're
50:33
Speaker 8: not doing that, folks, They're not doing that. And there's
50:35
Speaker 8: I think a very simple reason they're not doing that,
50:38
Speaker 8: which is they want a torpedo donald Trump's presidency. I
50:42
Speaker 8: think this has got the classic earmarks here where they
50:47
Speaker 8: want Donald Trump to become the lamest of lame ducks.
50:51
Speaker 8: Now he's hurt right now. He's a wounded animal as
50:54
Speaker 8: it comes to his presidency. That's why he's squirming trying
50:57
Speaker 8: to get out of this thing. But he's not unrecoverably wounded.
51:02
Speaker 8: So I think what you're seeing on the part of
51:04
Speaker 8: Iran is they're they're gonna want to string this out.
51:08
Speaker 6: Now.
51:08
Speaker 8: I don't know exactly how far they can string it out,
51:11
Speaker 8: but I can tell you they're gonna want to string
51:13
Speaker 8: it out at least to November.
51:16
Speaker 6: Now, that's horrible for the economy. Think about that.
51:19
Speaker 8: I'm about to do a new substatuse. I did this
51:21
Speaker 8: one on the economy. I'm about to do a new
51:23
Speaker 8: one projecting out even further. So uh here, because what's
51:27
Speaker 8: happening is this this everybody wants this to be over.
51:32
Speaker 8: Well that's because they are not Iran. Okay, all right,
51:37
Speaker 8: that's the and what Iran is now once is they
51:41
Speaker 8: have uh they want to become that emerging power.
51:44
Speaker 6: Okay, So how do you do that?
51:46
Speaker 8: You keep the straight of horror moves and you make
51:48
Speaker 8: sure everybody knows you're in control, which is what they
51:51
Speaker 8: just did this morning with demonstration number two. In about
51:54
Speaker 8: a year, you want nuclear weapons, You're gonna they're gonna
51:57
Speaker 8: want nuclear weapons here and numbers three is you want
52:01
Speaker 8: to go down in history as the country that torpedoed
52:05
Speaker 8: Trump's presidency when the Democrats couldn't just think about that
52:09
Speaker 8: on their legacy. You see, this would now establish them
52:13
Speaker 8: in this powerful way. And you're gonna if that happens,
52:17
Speaker 8: If they torpedo Donald Trump's presidency, Oh my goodness, the
52:21
Speaker 8: cow twing that's going to come to them from you know, UAE,
52:25
Speaker 8: because the governments in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, they're
52:29
Speaker 8: going to start to be fearful. Well, if you can
52:31
Speaker 8: torpedo Trump's presidency.
52:33
Speaker 6: What are you going to do to me? So this is.
52:35
Speaker 8: What the game we're in is power politics of the
52:39
Speaker 8: first order. This is not real estate negotiation. This is
52:44
Speaker 8: not you know, this idea of just getting to Yes,
52:46
Speaker 8: I knew Roger Fisher's son here, so I'm familiar with
52:51
Speaker 8: all of this. This is now power politics of the
52:54
Speaker 8: first order, and we are not playing up to Iran's
53:00
Speaker 8: just beating us at power politics, and they're doing it
53:04
Speaker 8: almost every single day.
53:06
Speaker 5: So Joe Kent, the.
53:09
Speaker 4: Former top of Trump official who resigned in protests, has
53:12
Speaker 4: put out a version of another third way that he
53:15
Speaker 4: sort of presented, which is similar to what you were
53:18
Speaker 4: talking about, but not exactly. He was saying what Trump
53:21
Speaker 4: should do is just walk away but and slash but
53:28
Speaker 4: leave sanctions in place, and you then leave Iran in
53:32
Speaker 4: this situation where they are then left to negotiate bilateral
53:36
Speaker 4: or multilateral deals around passage through the Strait of Hormuz.
53:41
Speaker 4: But they it's very difficult for them to then fire
53:44
Speaker 4: on Israel or anybody else at that point if they're
53:48
Speaker 4: not fired on themselves, because then they become the aggressor
53:52
Speaker 4: rather than defending themselves. But if sanctions continue to choke them. Yes,
53:58
Speaker 4: they'll be getting revenue, Yes they'll have control of the
54:02
Speaker 4: straight up from Moose, but without the ability to kind
54:05
Speaker 4: of engage with the kind of international economy they would,
54:09
Speaker 4: they'd be slowly choking out.
54:10
Speaker 6: Well, yeah, so Joe Kent's.
54:13
Speaker 8: Joe Kent's plan is a version actually of you walk
54:17
Speaker 8: away and Iran becomes the fourth center of world's power,
54:21
Speaker 8: maybe a little more slowly because he's trying to slow
54:24
Speaker 8: it down a little bit. It's not really a third way.
54:28
Speaker 8: That's not a third approach because there's no actual way
54:32
Speaker 8: to stop Oran from exerting more power in Kent's plan,
54:38
Speaker 8: and what I'm specifically referring to in the in the
54:42
Speaker 8: whole in Kent's plan is the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
54:47
Speaker 8: So if we follow Kent's plan here and okay, we
54:51
Speaker 8: keep the blockade even going here, the US blockade going,
54:56
Speaker 8: what that's going to do is it's still going to
54:59
Speaker 8: open the door for Iran, not necessarily in a week,
55:04
Speaker 8: but in several months, to topple the governments of the
55:08
Speaker 8: UAE in Saudi Arabia over time. You can never really
55:13
Speaker 8: put a time clock on how you topple governments and
55:16
Speaker 8: so forth. But they have a lot more powerful ways
55:19
Speaker 8: because they're in the region. There are different groups inside
55:23
Speaker 8: of the UE in Saudi Arabia that they don't like
55:25
Speaker 8: to talk about, who are minorities who they try to
55:28
Speaker 8: keep a close eye on, of course, but Iran, if
55:32
Speaker 8: you can penetrate Iran, they can penetrate you. So this
55:36
Speaker 8: whole game here is it will will change. And so
55:41
Speaker 8: the idea that Ken has as well, we'll have a
55:44
Speaker 8: stable equilibrium that will keep a containment banned around around Iran.
55:53
Speaker 8: And that's just not what's going to happen. This is
55:55
Speaker 8: not Iraq. This is not a situation like Iraq. It's
55:59
Speaker 8: worse than a raq there. I mean some similarities, of course,
56:01
Speaker 8: but it's worse than Iraq. And so what he's doing
56:04
Speaker 8: is he's saying there's a fork in the road. His
56:06
Speaker 8: paper is saying, I want to take this fork over here,
56:10
Speaker 8: back away, you know, slow down this rise of Iran
56:13
Speaker 8: becoming the fourth center of world power. And noticing Kent's plan,
56:17
Speaker 8: they still get nuclear weapons, they can still process all
56:20
Speaker 8: that material and become a nuclear weapons state in Kent's plans,
56:24
Speaker 8: So this will you know, and that's really the hole.
56:27
Speaker 6: In the plan. And I'm not not saying I'm not.
56:31
Speaker 8: I'm telling you what the choices are in front of us, Okay.
56:35
Speaker 8: And and in this situation, one final point with Ken's
56:39
Speaker 8: plan is just recognized the world still the economy still
56:43
Speaker 8: goes over the cliff or the dips here. So he's
56:46
Speaker 8: not actually stopping the he's not opening the strait of
56:51
Speaker 8: horror moves for the UAE and Saudi Arabia to have
56:55
Speaker 8: its oil exports come out here. So just just be aware.
56:59
Speaker 8: This is the fork in the road he's choosing clearly
57:04
Speaker 8: saw A. And then there's B escalation. He doesn't want
57:07
Speaker 8: to do that, and I can appreciate that.
57:10
Speaker 6: I'm not really.
57:10
Speaker 8: Happy about escalation either, So I'm not I'm not really
57:14
Speaker 8: fundamentally saying that this the choice he wants, is necessarily wrong.
57:18
Speaker 6: I just think we need to go into this with
57:20
Speaker 6: open eyes.
57:22
Speaker 8: And I'm not going to sell the country a bill
57:24
Speaker 8: of goods and say, oh, sure, this will all be
57:27
Speaker 8: fine over here. And this is what people are frustrated
57:32
Speaker 8: with me, because they want me to be the happy
57:34
Speaker 8: guy who says, well, if only we would not do
57:37
Speaker 8: AX and only do this over here everything's working out,
57:41
Speaker 8: and I'm sorry we Donald Trump has doomed us to
57:44
Speaker 8: a trap. And and what you're seeing is Joe can't
57:48
Speaker 8: choosing one side of that trap.
57:50
Speaker 6: But he's not. He's not he's not getting out of.
57:52
Speaker 4: The trap because the move would be a U turn
57:54
Speaker 4: at the fork and go back hard. The move would
57:58
Speaker 4: be to drive pull a U turn at the fork
58:00
Speaker 4: of the road and go backwards and not well, the move.
58:04
Speaker 6: Would be go to star trek and we go back
58:06
Speaker 6: in time. If we don't do this at all, let
58:08
Speaker 6: me come up.
58:10
Speaker 8: I mean, we're just not in a situation where we
58:12
Speaker 8: can have these magical ideas and go back to February
58:16
Speaker 8: twenty seven. Iran has learned something even I think even
58:22
Speaker 8: more than their material gains. They learn something in the
58:26
Speaker 8: last eight weeks they did not know before, which is
58:30
Speaker 8: they can beat America. Not just survive, they can actually
58:34
Speaker 8: beat America. And they're not just beating Donald Trump. Nobody
58:39
Speaker 8: in America is coming up with this brilliant plan where
58:43
Speaker 8: you're going to use escalation dominance that we're all going
58:45
Speaker 8: to be happy with to win.
58:47
Speaker 6: And I'm saying this is not good.
58:49
Speaker 8: This is not good when you're when a major rival
58:52
Speaker 8: in the world really understands they can beat you. Here
58:58
Speaker 8: this is different. And this is what Donald Trump has done.
59:00
Speaker 8: More than anything else he's He's given Iran actual knowledge
59:06
Speaker 8: they did not have before. They had uncertainty before, and
59:09
Speaker 8: they thought, well could they survive? This is way beyond survival.
59:13
Speaker 8: And this is why this is what's happened here is
59:16
Speaker 8: Trump will go down as the worst president probably ever
59:20
Speaker 8: that we've had, Worse than Jimmy Carter, worse than Linda Johnson.
59:23
Speaker 8: And this, this, this catastrophic disaster will probably go down
59:28
Speaker 8: certainly the worst since Vietnam. And it won't have necessarily
59:32
Speaker 8: the military casualties of Vietnam. But Vietnam did not wreck
59:35
Speaker 8: the world's economy. And in the two thousand and three
59:39
Speaker 8: Iraq War did not wreck the world's economy. We didn't
59:43
Speaker 8: have gas prices shooting up like this in that That's
59:46
Speaker 8: that's why, Uh, this is Donald Trump is this is
59:50
Speaker 8: all on his back, and Iran is not letting him
59:54
Speaker 8: off the hook with some face saving gesture.
59:57
Speaker 6: And that's going to frustrate people.
59:59
Speaker 8: But now come January, so as bad as I'm painting it,
1:00:03
Speaker 8: I'm saying it's going to possibly get quite worth much
1:00:06
Speaker 8: worse here, because I think they want a torpedo Trump's
1:00:08
Speaker 8: presidency more than the Democrats want to do it.
1:00:11
Speaker 6: I mean imagine that they want to do it worse
1:00:13
Speaker 6: than the Democrats.
1:00:14
Speaker 8: So what you're what you're getting here is maybe by
1:00:17
Speaker 8: January here, when Trump's presidency is thoroughly wrecked unrecoverable, the
1:00:24
Speaker 8: Republicans want to get him out of Dodge, not just
1:00:27
Speaker 8: simply the Democrats here. Then you might actually have a
1:00:32
Speaker 8: situation where they want to because they will be around
1:00:36
Speaker 8: for decades, okay, and and the US will be around
1:00:39
Speaker 8: for decades. But I'm really, I really think this is
1:00:44
Speaker 8: this missing ingredient that I'm not hearing in the media
1:00:48
Speaker 8: that Iran I think has a true interest in wrecking
1:00:52
Speaker 8: Trump's presidency. And send me emails, folks, listen, you know,
1:00:57
Speaker 8: if I'm missing this on all these other channels, you
1:00:59
Speaker 8: just let me know. I'm on those channels. I'm watching
1:01:02
Speaker 8: them on TV, I'm listening to them on podcasts. I'm
1:01:05
Speaker 8: just not hearing people explain that Iron wants to wreck
1:01:10
Speaker 8: Trump's presidency and that's going to take some time. I mean,
1:01:13
Speaker 8: if you're really going to do this for real you see,
1:01:16
Speaker 8: and make it so he can't come back. After January sixth,
1:01:19
Speaker 8: the Democrats let him back back in office. I mean,
1:01:22
Speaker 8: think about that. They weren't. You want to wreck a president.
1:01:26
Speaker 8: You got to do worse than what happened here, and
1:01:28
Speaker 8: I think they're trying.
1:01:29
Speaker 3: To do that now. I wanted to get you to
1:01:31
Speaker 3: respond to a very influential popular historian, Neil Ferguson, who's
1:01:36
Speaker 3: of course at the Hoover Institute now. He posted a
1:01:40
Speaker 3: viral x I guess tweet yesterday and it's super interesting. Now,
1:01:46
Speaker 3: back when the war began, Professor Pape, you were already
1:01:50
Speaker 3: warning of the escalation trap. Neil Ferguson's first column on
1:01:54
Speaker 3: this was tepid, but I would say bullish on the US.
1:01:58
Speaker 3: Now as of yesterday he's saying his point seven in
1:02:02
Speaker 3: this was the Iranians have survived regime change and discovered
1:02:06
Speaker 3: that closing the strait is just as powerful a lever
1:02:09
Speaker 3: in economic warfare as they had always hoped. It's not,
1:02:12
Speaker 3: despite the Russian quip a quote economic nuke, because unlike
1:02:15
Speaker 3: a nuclear weapon, you can use it. Then he says,
1:02:18
Speaker 3: where we go from here is fairly predictable. I would
1:02:20
Speaker 3: be surprised. If Trump now deploys ground forces, there will
1:02:23
Speaker 3: be more negotiations. So Islamabad here we come. There may
1:02:26
Speaker 3: have to be more bombing if the Iranians dust down
1:02:29
Speaker 3: the North Vietnam Vietnamese playbook of stringing the US negotiators
1:02:33
Speaker 3: along Neil's actually the Kissing Kissinger's biographer. He continues to say,
1:02:37
Speaker 3: the final compromise will take longer to be agreed upon
1:02:40
Speaker 3: than mister market currently believes. What's your expense of your
1:02:45
Speaker 3: response to this professor Pate, because in a way, he's
1:02:47
Speaker 3: come around to your perspective.
1:02:50
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, that's right.
1:02:51
Speaker 8: So one thing that your listeners would not be surprised
1:02:56
Speaker 8: about but won't know, is I do more than talking
1:03:01
Speaker 8: to the media. I talk to very important people outside
1:03:05
Speaker 8: of the media. These are people in government. These are
1:03:07
Speaker 8: people not in government. And we have more lengthy back
1:03:11
Speaker 8: and forth here, and and you're willing to give me
1:03:14
Speaker 8: quite lengthy back and forth.
1:03:15
Speaker 6: I really appreciate that most of the media won't do that,
1:03:18
Speaker 6: but we have.
1:03:19
Speaker 8: Your audience gets more informed, and so you can actually
1:03:22
Speaker 8: have that intelligent conversation. And you see right away that
1:03:26
Speaker 8: he's directly on the pay path, right that is. I mean,
1:03:28
Speaker 8: there's no gap, there's no daylight anymore. Well, I'm just
1:03:32
Speaker 8: pointing out and I won't talk about these private conversations
1:03:35
Speaker 8: who they are and so forth, but it does.
1:03:38
Speaker 6: It is the case that there are very very smart people.
1:03:42
Speaker 8: I highly respect people, even people that may seem to
1:03:46
Speaker 8: disagree with me. There are people I highly respect in
1:03:50
Speaker 8: that way, and I will have lengthy conversations with them
1:03:53
Speaker 8: offline so we can talk about things that they really
1:03:57
Speaker 8: want to hear about, which which might appear to the
1:04:00
Speaker 8: ordinary person to be you know, sort of off track
1:04:03
Speaker 8: or in the weeds, but when you get the experts together,
1:04:06
Speaker 8: this is what the talk is like. I'm sorry to
1:04:08
Speaker 8: say that we get to into the weeds and we
1:04:10
Speaker 8: get it to certain things and it really does matter here,
1:04:14
Speaker 8: and I value that tremendously here, and I think that
1:04:17
Speaker 8: for me is quite an honor and that Perguson, And
1:04:21
Speaker 8: whether it's an honor to me or he just come
1:04:23
Speaker 8: out with his own view, I don't really, that's not real.
1:04:26
Speaker 6: That's not a here to there.
1:04:27
Speaker 8: What it really means is the world is coming around
1:04:30
Speaker 8: and these frameworks that I've been playing out super smart
1:04:34
Speaker 8: people everybody is I think I get so much email
1:04:39
Speaker 8: here about the benefits of the frameworks, the actual frameworks.
1:04:43
Speaker 8: You see what I mean, not just simply commenting on
1:04:46
Speaker 8: yesterday's news. And I think that's what you see here.
1:04:49
Speaker 8: And I'm really glad I started the sub stack.
1:04:51
Speaker 3: I could not be happier, and we're glad to have
1:04:54
Speaker 3: you here, Professor Pape, to talk about the sub stac
1:04:56
Speaker 3: Hope everybody goes over and subscribes to the escalation trap.
1:05:00
Speaker 8: Yeah, I think that people need to be aware just
1:05:03
Speaker 8: before we leave here that so yesterday I published a
1:05:08
Speaker 8: trajectory on the sub stack here and this was I said,
1:05:12
Speaker 8: the ceasefire is about to end in just a few hours.
1:05:14
Speaker 8: Don't be surprised if you see the next stage would
1:05:18
Speaker 8: be demonstration attacks and what you're seeing and I don't
1:05:23
Speaker 8: think Iran could have read it and responded in time.
1:05:25
Speaker 6: It's just not possible.
1:05:26
Speaker 8: But what you're seeing is the validation of this when
1:05:29
Speaker 8: Iran took those ships. And then the other thing you
1:05:31
Speaker 8: didn't mention is they had a parade where they brought
1:05:34
Speaker 8: in the missiles. I don't know if your listeners can
1:05:37
Speaker 8: see or your viewers can see the missiles. This is
1:05:40
Speaker 8: just like with North Korea. This is just like with Russia,
1:05:44
Speaker 8: just like with China.
1:05:45
Speaker 6: And what they're doing with those missiles is they're saying,
1:05:49
Speaker 6: you mess with us, We're going to go beyond demonstration.
1:05:52
Speaker 6: And those missiles have American city names on them. Now
1:05:55
Speaker 6: they can't really reach American City. So I don't want
1:05:58
Speaker 6: America to freak out over this. But what they are
1:06:01
Speaker 6: doing is they're moving up a ladder of escalation that
1:06:05
Speaker 6: other countries have done. This is just you know, if
1:06:08
Speaker 6: you studied this for thirty years demonstration, there's whole articles
1:06:12
Speaker 6: on this, you would see they're moving up a standard
1:06:15
Speaker 6: wrung themselves. And the fact that they're having those missiles
1:06:19
Speaker 6: out there, that tells me that this is not going
1:06:22
Speaker 6: to be over anytime soon. The idea that they're simply
1:06:26
Speaker 6: now going to cowtow here and just surrender that power,
1:06:30
Speaker 6: I don't think. So they're feeling their oats here and
1:06:34
Speaker 6: they're sending a direct signal. Maybe most Americans don't understand it,
1:06:38
Speaker 6: but those people in the White House get it, which
1:06:41
Speaker 6: is America, you're next. You keep targeting us in our homeland.
1:06:46
Speaker 8: Yeah, so maybe Joe Kent's not necessarily all all bad.
1:06:51
Speaker 3: Right, Well, I think he's trying to speak Trump's language
1:06:53
Speaker 3: and be persuasive.
1:06:54
Speaker 8: Well, he's trying to speak Trump's language. But Trump wants
1:06:57
Speaker 8: a clear victory. He wants it's the fig leaf of victory.
1:07:02
Speaker 8: And the reason is because that way he can recover
1:07:04
Speaker 8: his presidency. I don't think Iran is gonna be If
1:07:08
Speaker 8: Iran was gonna give him the fig leaf of victory,
1:07:10
Speaker 8: they would have met with Jade Vance and I don't.
1:07:13
Speaker 8: And I think that's a clear sign that they understand
1:07:16
Speaker 8: what Trump wants. He and he's banging them for this,
1:07:21
Speaker 8: and I think that this is just not I don't
1:07:24
Speaker 8: think they're gonna play that game, because this is signaling
1:07:28
Speaker 8: to me intel to me that they're revealing their preference.
1:07:33
Speaker 8: They would rather wreck his presidency than give the fig
1:07:36
Speaker 8: leaf of a cover for him to declare victory. That's
1:07:40
Speaker 8: why he can't declare victory. Now, what's he gonna say?
1:07:43
Speaker 8: You know, they took a ship and now we won.
1:07:45
Speaker 8: I mean, this is just not Yeah, they're making it
1:07:48
Speaker 8: impossible for Trump to declare victory and walk away. He
1:07:51
Speaker 8: can still walk away, he just can't walk away with
1:07:54
Speaker 8: a victory.
1:07:54
Speaker 5: He can declare it.
1:07:55
Speaker 6: Yeah, but he can try it.
1:07:57
Speaker 8: But they're gonna say they're gonna do the next thing
1:07:59
Speaker 8: and say, sure, they're going to have the big image
1:08:01
Speaker 8: Trump to Claire Victory.
1:08:02
Speaker 6: We take ship Trump to Claire Victory.
1:08:05
Speaker 8: We topple UAE's that's what they want, that's what they're doing.
1:08:10
Speaker 8: And I'm just saying this is this is power politics
1:08:13
Speaker 8: of the first order. Trump's playing domestic politics. Okay, Iran
1:08:18
Speaker 8: is playing power politics. And you can see that when
1:08:21
Speaker 8: our CIA goes into topple governments, as we have done,
1:08:25
Speaker 8: including in Iran. Okay, we're playing hardball for real. We
1:08:30
Speaker 8: made paper it over with we're mister you know, Trump said,
1:08:33
Speaker 8: we're mister and I no, we're rarely mister nice when
1:08:36
Speaker 8: we topple governments. Here, we're pretending to have the fig
1:08:40
Speaker 8: leaf of this we toppled. It took us fifteen years
1:08:43
Speaker 8: to topple the Syrian government. So over time you might
1:08:46
Speaker 8: be able to topple a government like fifteen years, you see,
1:08:51
Speaker 8: So you keep at it for fifteen solid years, you
1:08:53
Speaker 8: might be able to topple the Syrian government. But in
1:08:56
Speaker 8: that fifteen years versus Iran, you can see Iran has
1:08:59
Speaker 8: a lot of cars to play in that period of.
1:09:01
Speaker 3: Time, Professor Pepe, thank you so much for being so
1:09:05
Speaker 3: generous with your time. Once again, we really appreciate it.
1:09:08
Speaker 6: Well, and thank you.
1:09:09
Speaker 8: It's just a great pleasure and honor to be on
1:09:12
Speaker 8: with you in every possible way. And I just wish
1:09:15
Speaker 8: your folks and the audiences hear all the best.
1:09:17
Speaker 5: They love to hear that. All right, we'll talk to
1:09:20
Speaker 5: you later.