Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Full Episode - Trump’s War Will Hurt His Base The Most - The View Of The War From Inside Iran

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Full Episode - Trump’s War Will Hurt His Base The Most - The View Of The War From Inside Iran · The Chuck ToddCast

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Speaker 1: opportunity for you to take matters into your own hands
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Speaker 1: as well. Hello there, and welcome to the Monday episode
1:53
Speaker 1: of the Chuck Podcast. As you can see, I'm representing
1:56
Speaker 1: the Canes here because in my extended family, I've told
1:59
Speaker 1: you so, we've we've we basically we have Florida State,
2:02
Speaker 1: s m U Auburn, Arkansas. That that's sort of like
2:06
Speaker 1: the large group of schools in our extended family that
2:11
Speaker 1: we consistently rood for. Oh, miss, I got some ties
2:14
Speaker 1: to I'm not going to claim LSU. Sorry, Drew, on
2:19
Speaker 1: that one. That's that's a little hard for me. But
2:21
Speaker 1: you guys aren't in this NCAA tournament yet, and maybe
2:23
Speaker 1: I would if you were there. The bottom line is,
2:27
Speaker 1: there's only in my in my extended family chats where
2:31
Speaker 1: we care about college basketball. There are two teams left
2:35
Speaker 1: that I have some family invested in, or at least
2:39
Speaker 1: two teams that did that didn't lose in the first round.
2:42
Speaker 1: So I'm representing my Canes here with that. But hey,
2:48
Speaker 1: the tournament's kind of played out how we kind of
2:51
Speaker 1: all thought how that it was going to be top heavy,
2:55
Speaker 1: right two years in a row that the top four
2:58
Speaker 1: seeds all went undefeated in the first round. This is
3:01
Speaker 1: the conundrum of nil right. On one hand, some people
3:04
Speaker 1: say it's terrible, it's doing terrible things for college athletics.
3:07
Speaker 1: On the other hand, the good gets better in college basketball,
3:12
Speaker 1: and we have seen right the top twenty five programs.
3:17
Speaker 1: It's just a better it's better quality. College basketball feels
3:22
Speaker 1: like as close to the eighties in competitiveness, where you
3:26
Speaker 1: consistently had three and four year starters on teams. We
3:30
Speaker 1: have that this time. They just don't always stay with
3:32
Speaker 1: the same team for three or four years. But you
3:35
Speaker 1: have that that these veteran players are sticking. They're not
3:40
Speaker 1: testing to see if there's any money to be found
3:42
Speaker 1: in the NBA or go make money overseas. Instead they're
3:44
Speaker 1: staying in college basketball, and you're seeing what that does. Now,
3:48
Speaker 1: what's the part of the tournament? We all love the
3:50
Speaker 1: best ah those twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen seed upsets. So
3:55
Speaker 1: it was fun to watch Sienna give Duke a scare
3:57
Speaker 1: for everybody right to see that that's still ill possible.
4:00
Speaker 1: And there's certainly were some impressive you know, thirteen and
4:04
Speaker 1: fourteen seeds and how they played, but you could see
4:07
Speaker 1: that it was really because what's really been the big
4:11
Speaker 1: difference these days between sort of the power for conferences
4:14
Speaker 1: plus the Big East and everybody else is depth. That's
4:19
Speaker 1: where you see it. And even these these mid majors
4:22
Speaker 1: that have hung. You watched it with Saint Louis, with Michigan,
4:24
Speaker 1: they can hang until they can't and they just sort
4:28
Speaker 1: of run out of bodies. Frankly, it's something I'm concerned
4:30
Speaker 1: about about Miami. I feel pretty good about their ability
4:33
Speaker 1: to match up against anybody for a game, being able
4:36
Speaker 1: to get through a grueling tournament requires a little bit
4:39
Speaker 1: of depth. I think we're seeing that and that's probably
4:42
Speaker 1: going to be what's decisive and who wins this national title. Right,
4:45
Speaker 1: Is Douke going to be healthy enough by the end
4:47
Speaker 1: to pull this off? Is Iowa State going to be
4:50
Speaker 1: healthy enough to stay as competitive as they are? So
4:53
Speaker 1: I know we depth is going to be a big deal.
4:56
Speaker 1: But that's the big the big thing you do there.
4:59
Speaker 1: But anyway, but progress, let me give you a quick
5:01
Speaker 1: rundown of what's to come later in the show. May
5:04
Speaker 1: be joined by Suzan kan Por. She's an independent Iranian
5:07
Speaker 1: American journalist, somebody I've gotten to know. I met her
5:11
Speaker 1: when I was in Abu Dhabi back in December and
5:13
Speaker 1: we were she's been covering this. She's got a lot
5:16
Speaker 1: of sources in country, a lot of She's worked at BBC,
5:20
Speaker 1: she's worked at NBC. She's now in the independent space
5:24
Speaker 1: and just trust me, it's no, there's no you know,
5:27
Speaker 1: she is covering this from the Iranian perspective, from those
5:31
Speaker 1: that want freedom and Iran and so I think it's
5:35
Speaker 1: a point of view that's necessary and I think it's
5:36
Speaker 1: a point of view that gets lost here. You know,
5:38
Speaker 1: we sort of We get Israel's point of view, we
5:40
Speaker 1: get what we think from the regime's point of view,
5:42
Speaker 1: we get Donald Trump's point of view, But what about
5:45
Speaker 1: the people on the ground right and what about the diaspora?
5:49
Speaker 1: What are their feelings about this? So I think it's
5:52
Speaker 1: a I definitely think you will enjoy this conversation with Suzan.
5:57
Speaker 1: She is terrific and I've enjoyed getting to know her
6:02
Speaker 1: over the last few months. A few other things I
6:05
Speaker 1: want to alert you to tomorrow, as in Tuesday, I'm
6:12
Speaker 1: very excited I'm going to be launching a new podcast show.
6:20
Speaker 1: I'm going to be co hosting it with somebody. I
6:21
Speaker 1: want to not get ahead of things here, I will
6:25
Speaker 1: just leave you this clue. It is in the sports
6:28
Speaker 1: history space. I'll be teaming up with a terrific journalist
6:32
Speaker 1: who happens to have a deep knowledge in the area
6:35
Speaker 1: of sports. But again, we will wait till I can't
6:40
Speaker 1: step on my own press release on things like that.
6:42
Speaker 1: But I'm very excited. Debuts Tuesday. Everything comes out Tuesday.
6:46
Speaker 1: You'll start to see opportunities to take a listen to
6:51
Speaker 1: the show in this feed and other feeds here because
6:53
Speaker 1: guess what if I'm involved. I want you guys to
6:55
Speaker 1: know about it, just like when I'm involved with my
6:57
Speaker 1: other projects and including I have a fascin interview this
7:00
Speaker 1: week on Newsphere. For those of you who subscribe, you
7:05
Speaker 1: may have already watched it. It is with Robert Albriton.
7:09
Speaker 1: He is one of the original founders of Politico. He
7:13
Speaker 1: is just recently decided to hire up some former Washington
7:18
Speaker 1: Post journalists, including perhaps their single best congressional reporter and
7:25
Speaker 1: analysts that they have there and Paul Kane, and he
7:28
Speaker 1: wants to try to fill the void that the Washington
7:30
Speaker 1: Post has chosen to leave here in Washington, d C.
7:34
Speaker 1: And it is if you are in the media business
7:37
Speaker 1: and you are curious what is happening in the DC market,
7:40
Speaker 1: what is Robert Albritton up to? And you should know
7:42
Speaker 1: a little bit about his family history. His father was
7:47
Speaker 1: the one time owner of the Washington Star, which was
7:50
Speaker 1: a serious competitor an afternoon paper here in Washington, but
7:53
Speaker 1: a serious competitor of the Post. There's some terrific journalists
7:56
Speaker 1: who who go back to the Washington Stars days, but
8:00
Speaker 1: in the sixties and seventies it was the other paper
8:02
Speaker 1: of Washington. His family also owned one of the TV
8:06
Speaker 1: affiliates here and was in the TV affiliate ownership business. WJLA,
8:10
Speaker 1: the ABC affiliate in d C, was an All Britton station.
8:13
Speaker 1: The A and WJLA stands for Albritton, Joe L Albriton. Well.
8:17
Speaker 1: Robert is his son. Robert got in the media business himself,
8:22
Speaker 1: working with John Harrison Jim Vandeheide found Politico. After selling
8:27
Speaker 1: it successfully to Axel Springer, he started a journalism institute
8:32
Speaker 1: to try to help train young journalists. But I'll be
8:36
Speaker 1: honest to me, it looked like he was just waiting
8:38
Speaker 1: to see what he was going to do next. He
8:40
Speaker 1: had made a nice, tidy profit off of Politico, and
8:44
Speaker 1: he certainly had the ability to do something here and
8:47
Speaker 1: wants to, you know, now, get into the local space,
8:52
Speaker 1: be a I don't know if it's necessarily a competitor
8:56
Speaker 1: with the posts, quasi competitor with the post, but at
8:58
Speaker 1: the same time leaning in more on the on some
9:05
Speaker 1: of the local vacuums. That that, and what was interesting
9:10
Speaker 1: is look in our conversation, it's pretty clear things are
9:14
Speaker 1: a bit unformed. Still, let me just I hope you
9:18
Speaker 1: take a look at it. Yes, it's behind a paywall.
9:19
Speaker 1: I encourage you, if you've not subscribed, take a trial,
9:23
Speaker 1: take a look. There's some terrific independent journalists covering the
9:26
Speaker 1: war in Iran, in particular what's going on in Cuba.
9:29
Speaker 1: There is plenty to learn from Newsphere. It is a
9:32
Speaker 1: really sort of an elite, high quality news organization with
9:36
Speaker 1: some of the some of the most intriguing journalists that
9:39
Speaker 1: are on the ground experts in their space yours truly. Obviously,
9:43
Speaker 1: I'm I'm an investor, I'm a participant. I'm a big
9:47
Speaker 1: fan of this. I think the technology is terrific as well.
9:51
Speaker 1: So let me just give you a few quotes that
9:53
Speaker 1: Robert gave me in the interview, and again I really
9:56
Speaker 1: encourage you. I'll have some clips on my Instagram feed,
9:59
Speaker 1: We'll have some c so you'll be able to circulate
10:01
Speaker 1: some of them. But let me just give you a
10:04
Speaker 1: few quotes from him that gives it just gives you
10:06
Speaker 1: a taste of the conversation that we had. But he
10:09
Speaker 1: really does give an idea that I think this is going.
10:12
Speaker 1: He wants to try to rethink what a local news
10:15
Speaker 1: organization could be. How do you engage the community in
10:18
Speaker 1: a way that maybe their participants, not just consumers of
10:23
Speaker 1: the product. What do I mean by that, Well, think
10:25
Speaker 1: local sports, think sports coaches helping to make sure maybe
10:29
Speaker 1: be incoming a platform to showcase use sports streaming feeds
10:38
Speaker 1: so that parents can and grandparents and aunts and uncles
10:41
Speaker 1: can keep up with their sons, daughters, grandkids, nieces and nephews, etc.
10:47
Speaker 1: On that. So he is thinking about sort of all
10:50
Speaker 1: the sort of more modern ways. How do you We're
10:53
Speaker 1: a hyper local community. People care what's going on in Arlington, Virginia,
10:59
Speaker 1: but they may not care that much what's going on
11:00
Speaker 1: Montgomery County. But they also care about what's going on,
11:02
Speaker 1: but both of us may care about what's going on
11:04
Speaker 1: in Congress. So he wants to try to figure out
11:06
Speaker 1: how do you engage how do you be a hub
11:09
Speaker 1: for the micro local at the same time without it
11:12
Speaker 1: becoming too resource dependent where it becomes impossible to do
11:18
Speaker 1: that and be able to run an organization that doesn't
11:25
Speaker 1: lose money. So a few things, a few quotes from him.
11:29
Speaker 1: So I'm the mission, he says. So, I think what
11:32
Speaker 1: our mission here is to do is really cover what
11:35
Speaker 1: I call the village in Washington, which is it's not
11:38
Speaker 1: the entire area. I think we need to cover the
11:40
Speaker 1: various places where people live too. But I think a
11:43
Speaker 1: huge portion of what we're going looking to do is
11:46
Speaker 1: acknowledge the fact that we're a factory town. Right, And
11:49
Speaker 1: he makes this point whether folks live in rest In
11:51
Speaker 1: or Hyattsville, which are local areas in Virginia and Maryland
11:54
Speaker 1: suburban areas. I want to admit it. Everybody's indirectly here
11:57
Speaker 1: because some job has something to do with the fact
11:59
Speaker 1: that the public governments here, So we're all tied into it.
12:02
Speaker 1: That's our primary village. But then we go down to
12:05
Speaker 1: but it's not just covering Congress in the White House
12:07
Speaker 1: and agencies. It also goes to people who live here.
12:09
Speaker 1: They don't work one hundred percent of the time. What
12:12
Speaker 1: else is going on?
12:13
Speaker 2: Right?
12:14
Speaker 1: Kids in school, they want to make sure. They want
12:16
Speaker 1: to know what's going on with their neighbors. They want
12:18
Speaker 1: to know all these things. They're interested in sports, they're
12:20
Speaker 1: interested in weather, They're interested in all kinds of basic
12:22
Speaker 1: things that anybody in des Moin or Tapeka or Houston
12:25
Speaker 1: would be interested in today. So I think there's a
12:27
Speaker 1: magic blend between two of those that works to make
12:30
Speaker 1: it the hometown paper seems pretty simple enough. Again, there's
12:34
Speaker 1: a lot more to it. Trust me, I don't. I'm
12:38
Speaker 1: not shy about, you know, giving them my points of
12:41
Speaker 1: view and my ideas and we banter back and forth.
12:45
Speaker 1: If you care about the future of local media, if
12:47
Speaker 1: you care about the future of Washington media, if you
12:49
Speaker 1: care about the future of the information ecosystem, I think
12:51
Speaker 1: you'll enjoy this conversation. I'll tell you one thing about
12:57
Speaker 1: Robert Albert. He's kind of a happy warrior. He really
13:01
Speaker 1: I think he. I think, Look, you know, you never
13:06
Speaker 1: know for sure, but I really think he because he's
13:09
Speaker 1: grew up here, he lives here. I think that's a
13:12
Speaker 1: huge distinction with Jeff Bezos. I think he didn't by
13:15
Speaker 1: not ever living here, he didn't understand what the Washington
13:18
Speaker 1: Post meant to people personally. And I think that lack
13:22
Speaker 1: of knowledge of him not leaving living here, I think
13:26
Speaker 1: he might have cared. You know, he might have understood
13:28
Speaker 1: it more because he lived in Northwest Seattle. He never
13:30
Speaker 1: lived here. And this is what happens. This is why
13:32
Speaker 1: you never want to sell see your sports teams bought
13:34
Speaker 1: up by outsiders. You never want to see your local
13:36
Speaker 1: institutions bought up by outsiders because they do not have
13:41
Speaker 1: the personal investment. And that's ultimately what feels like the
13:46
Speaker 1: distinction here between all Burton and Bezos. One grew up
13:49
Speaker 1: here seems to do, at the end of the day,
13:52
Speaker 1: care about the community and maybe care what his friends
13:55
Speaker 1: and neighbors think of what he's doing as a steward
13:57
Speaker 1: in the community, versus the Jeff Bezos, who has no
14:00
Speaker 1: friends and neighbors. Here just a little thought there. But anyway,
14:05
Speaker 1: so I've got that, I've got the new podcast on
14:08
Speaker 1: sports history launching on Tuesday that I'm very excited about.
14:13
Speaker 1: But let's get to what's going on in the world
14:18
Speaker 1: of politics. And as you know, I've said it before
14:21
Speaker 1: and I will say it again, there is only one
14:25
Speaker 1: story at the moment. You know, Ultimately, the war in
14:31
Speaker 1: Iran is impacting everything. It's impacting the economy, it's impacting politics,
14:35
Speaker 1: It's impacting everything this point. So we're far enough into
14:38
Speaker 1: this war to say this as plainly as possible. Everything
14:43
Speaker 1: else is downstream of this, the economy, the election, energy prices,
14:46
Speaker 1: the broader media environment. And yet for all the coverage,
14:49
Speaker 1: one basic question remains unanswered on this war. What does
14:52
Speaker 1: the end of this look like, Because wars tend to
14:56
Speaker 1: end one of two ways, total surrender or a viable
15:00
Speaker 1: links it ran. Right now, it's hard to see either,
15:03
Speaker 1: and that's what makes this moment so dangerous. So let's
15:06
Speaker 1: start with something that might seem secondary of the war itself,
15:08
Speaker 1: but politically it's not. Gas prices. The rising energy costs
15:13
Speaker 1: are not politically neutral, and this is a huge problem
15:16
Speaker 1: for the president. They hit different voters in different ways,
15:21
Speaker 1: and in this case, the voters who are going to
15:23
Speaker 1: feel this first, who are feeling in the moment and
15:26
Speaker 1: they're getting the artists, are the voters that are most
15:29
Speaker 1: likely part of Donald Trump's coalition. In a city, a
15:32
Speaker 1: gas hike is an annoyance on an app in the
15:36
Speaker 1: excerbs and in rural America, a majority of whom are
15:40
Speaker 1: Trump supporters, and we're Trump voters. This is a tax
15:43
Speaker 1: on simply existing. You can't subway your way out of
15:48
Speaker 1: a commute in Pennsylvania, Ohio. You live it. And that's
15:52
Speaker 1: the shift here that matters the most. This isn't just
15:56
Speaker 1: an economic hit to all of us, it's to a
15:59
Speaker 1: specific group of voters. It's a breach of the populist
16:02
Speaker 1: contract that Trump agreed to with them, the promise that
16:07
Speaker 1: the system would work better for them. It's blown up
16:10
Speaker 1: in their face, one expensive.
16:15
Speaker 3: Gas tank at a time.
16:18
Speaker 1: Your costs were supposed to go down, instead they're going up.
16:21
Speaker 1: Your life was supposed to get easier. Instead it's gotten
16:23
Speaker 1: more complicated. The cost of simply getting through the day
16:26
Speaker 1: is right. There is now a tax I'm just picking
16:28
Speaker 1: up your kids from school. There is a new Trump
16:30
Speaker 1: tax on just going to the grocery store. There's a
16:33
Speaker 1: new Trump tax I'm going from one job to another.
16:39
Speaker 1: And this war has no clear endpoint, which brings us
16:44
Speaker 1: to the core strategic issue. So we're trying to apply
16:47
Speaker 1: pressure right now, economic and military on a regime that
16:50
Speaker 1: may not respond to pressure the way small deed democracies do.
16:54
Speaker 1: We think in terms of incentives, costs go up, behavior changes,
17:01
Speaker 1: pain increases, pressure builds. I'll give you a simple answer.
17:04
Speaker 1: We shack up taxes on cigarettes. Just made them vice taxes.
17:08
Speaker 1: The point was to get people to make it so
17:10
Speaker 1: expensive that they would change their habit, and for the
17:12
Speaker 1: most part people have. It's pretty it's been a pretty
17:16
Speaker 1: effective way to to help cut back. That's just a
17:23
Speaker 1: small incentive. Right, it's a behavioral incentive, But that logic
17:29
Speaker 1: doesn't cleanly apply in this war. At the moment, we're
17:31
Speaker 1: trying to play chess against a regime that is not
17:34
Speaker 1: operating on a conventional strategic board. You cannot bank on
17:38
Speaker 1: rational economic actors when the leadership views suffering as a
17:42
Speaker 1: tool of domestic control. Right, we sit here and think, hey,
17:47
Speaker 1: your people are going to suffer these This regime was
17:50
Speaker 1: willing to kill its own people that protested them. So
17:54
Speaker 1: the president threatening them with more suffering, it may not
18:00
Speaker 1: have the impact he thinks it's supposed to have. Sanctions
18:03
Speaker 1: are a scalpel. The regime wields a sledgehammer. This is
18:07
Speaker 1: a system that has repeatedly shown it is willing to
18:11
Speaker 1: absorb pain. Look at how long we've had sanctions on Iran.
18:16
Speaker 1: They not only absorb it, then they impose it and
18:18
Speaker 1: they punish their own people, all to maintain power. So normal, small,
18:25
Speaker 1: the democratic incentives are not going to work.
18:27
Speaker 3: With these folks.
18:28
Speaker 1: So the pressure Then the question becomes what is the
18:31
Speaker 1: pressure point? What does force a change in behavior? I
18:36
Speaker 1: think we naively thought just eliminating the Ayatola was going
18:41
Speaker 1: to do it, and that there was going to somehow
18:43
Speaker 1: be all these people below who were not devoted to
18:45
Speaker 1: the regime. Oh, the ietol is gone. Let's go cut
18:48
Speaker 1: a deal, just like he got in Venezuela. And I
18:53
Speaker 1: am concerned. I'm going to repeat this. He is not.
18:58
Speaker 1: I think that only General Kine tried to be specific
19:03
Speaker 1: with him about the potential calamities that could come with this,
19:07
Speaker 1: the un you know, the the unintended consequence of starting
19:11
Speaker 1: this war. Why do I think General Kine was the
19:14
Speaker 1: only one, because he also then went to the Wall
19:15
Speaker 1: Street Journal, Washington Post, and New York Times and seemed
19:18
Speaker 1: to make sure his skepticism was his public and was
19:21
Speaker 1: in every place that the president could see it. But
19:24
Speaker 1: it doesn't sound like anybody else told the president what
19:26
Speaker 1: he didn't want to hear. Everybody told him what he
19:28
Speaker 1: wanted to hear on this. And this is what happens.
19:31
Speaker 1: This is why a presidency built the way he built it,
19:35
Speaker 1: where loyalty is one hundred percent, and telling him news
19:38
Speaker 1: that he doesn't want to hear can get you fired.
19:41
Speaker 1: This is how you end up in a circumstance like this.
19:45
Speaker 1: So look, this is this is why sick of fans
19:49
Speaker 1: in an administration actually endanger your life and my life.
19:55
Speaker 1: These sick of fans, these spineless folks who just want
19:58
Speaker 1: to be close to power, who are willing to do
20:01
Speaker 1: whatever it takes to keep dear leader happy, are putting
20:05
Speaker 1: you and I in danger, are rising the cost of
20:08
Speaker 1: our gas prices. That's mindlessness. Now maybe he does this anyway,
20:13
Speaker 1: but let's not pretend he was told all of the
20:16
Speaker 1: consequences in the detail that he needed to be told.
20:20
Speaker 1: That might have where other presidents did set themselves up
20:25
Speaker 1: to make sure they were getting feedback that wasn't sickophantish
20:31
Speaker 1: in nature. This president, he has designed an administration to
20:35
Speaker 1: be sick of fantic I mean, we've seen those cabinet meetings.
20:38
Speaker 1: They're embarrassing. They're hilarious, except that it impacts all of
20:44
Speaker 1: our lives. If we were observing another country, we would
20:47
Speaker 1: mock and just find it absolutely Like God, look at
20:51
Speaker 1: these nutjobs and what they do. We do laugh at
20:55
Speaker 1: North Korea when we see the North Korean anchors, We
20:58
Speaker 1: laugh at Bagdad Bob. Suddenly we have, you know, propaganda pede.
21:04
Speaker 1: It's really it again. But wasn't so dangerous It would
21:09
Speaker 1: be funny, But it's extraordinarily dangerous situation than being in Again.
21:15
Speaker 1: We're here in this where he's boxed himself in, where
21:19
Speaker 1: I think we're gonna end up escalating because we have
21:21
Speaker 1: no other choice.
21:23
Speaker 2: Is it?
21:23
Speaker 1: Perhaps even finding an exit ramp at this point would
21:27
Speaker 1: just essentially hand the region and hand global superpower to China.
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23:25
Speaker 1: So here we are. There's no clear incentive for surrender.
23:28
Speaker 1: There's no clear off ran for the United States. There's
23:33
Speaker 1: every chance that we just are sort of you know,
23:35
Speaker 1: we basically the United States may have made the exact
23:38
Speaker 1: same miscalculation that Russian made with Ukraine. Now this will
23:41
Speaker 1: be easy, this will be quick. We'll overwhelm them for
23:46
Speaker 1: more than five years into that war in Ukraine. And
23:50
Speaker 1: then there's the coalition question. So over the last year,
23:54
Speaker 1: US foreign policy has been defined less by partnership and
23:58
Speaker 1: more by transaction and coercion. Tariffs, public pressure, burden sharing demands,
24:09
Speaker 1: beating up these folks in public. Right, these things have consequences.
24:13
Speaker 1: So when you treat your foreign policy like a protection racket,
24:17
Speaker 1: your partners start acting like reluctant customers. They'll do what
24:20
Speaker 1: they have to, but they're not going to be there
24:22
Speaker 1: when you need them. They're not going to be looking
24:25
Speaker 1: for shared victories with you. They're going to basically be
24:28
Speaker 1: looking for exits. A coalition of the coerced is never
24:32
Speaker 1: a coalition of the willing. And right now that's the
24:36
Speaker 1: reality we're dealing with. He beats the crap out of
24:39
Speaker 1: our allies over the last year and a half. He
24:41
Speaker 1: pounds them with tariffs, he landbasts them from you know,
24:46
Speaker 1: every which way, and then when they don't show up
24:49
Speaker 1: when we really could use them at the moment.
24:53
Speaker 3: They're not there, and.
24:55
Speaker 1: Do you blame them? You know, think about any of
24:58
Speaker 1: your relationships in life, right, somebody needs your help, if
25:02
Speaker 1: they've been an asshole to you, how likely are you
25:06
Speaker 1: to pick up a hand to help. You may help
25:09
Speaker 1: because you think it helps the greater neighborhood, but you
25:13
Speaker 1: may be just as likely to say good luck. Right,
25:23
Speaker 1: that's a shame. I wish you all the best. And
25:28
Speaker 1: that's the situation that Donald Trump has put us in.
25:31
Speaker 1: We are isolated, we are alone, and we could use
25:37
Speaker 1: the help. Of course, if he had built you know, again,
25:42
Speaker 1: he did none of this spade work that you're supposed
25:44
Speaker 1: to do that you should have done before launching this excursion,
25:49
Speaker 1: which come on, we all know this. It's an incursion
25:52
Speaker 1: that he's trying to say, but instead he keeps saying excursion.
25:56
Speaker 1: I mean it's you know, Donald Trump's very sort of
26:02
Speaker 1: narrow vocabulary at times can be amusing.
26:06
Speaker 2: You know.
26:06
Speaker 1: His obsession with the idea that somehow all of these
26:10
Speaker 1: immigrants that have come into this country are in are
26:14
Speaker 1: coming from insane asylums is because he conflates the word asylum.
26:20
Speaker 1: He hears asylum and he thinks a a institution that
26:26
Speaker 1: holds mentally deranged people or mentally unhealthy people, when it
26:32
Speaker 1: is obviously an entirely different definition when you're dealing with immigration.
26:36
Speaker 1: So it is amusing with his excursion, this is not
26:39
Speaker 1: an excursion. If you want to call it an incursion.
26:43
Speaker 1: You might call it an incursion, but it is it
26:46
Speaker 1: is amusing. But this goes back that we just we
26:53
Speaker 1: just sort of dismiss and I you know, oh, it's
26:56
Speaker 1: just Trump and Trump, you know, Blue Tarski when the
26:59
Speaker 1: Germans bomb are Harbor Germans excursion, incursion. You know, he's
27:05
Speaker 1: on a roll, right that that that's what we end
27:07
Speaker 1: up doing. But we're in We're we're in it deep.
27:15
Speaker 1: We could use some help with the straight of horror
27:17
Speaker 1: moons and if he had put together a coalition and
27:20
Speaker 1: explained everything he was going to do. But now you
27:25
Speaker 1: understand why so many American presidents, Democrat and Republican have
27:30
Speaker 1: been very careful here on Iran. It's because they will
27:33
Speaker 1: fight back asymmetrically. This is this. I mean, look, this playbook, this,
27:41
Speaker 1: this asymmetrical playbook was written in Vietnam, was perfected in Afghanistan,
27:48
Speaker 1: and has essentially been used against great powers. Everywhere we've been,
27:55
Speaker 1: we've overcome it eventually. In Iraq we eventually would overcome it,
27:59
Speaker 1: but got drawn way out right what was initially an
28:03
Speaker 1: overwhelming victory. We were dealing with insurgent for years, and
28:08
Speaker 1: of course in Afghanistan we never really won, end up
28:13
Speaker 1: handing the country over to the group of people we
28:17
Speaker 1: were never intending to hand the country over to. The
28:20
Speaker 1: hope was to have a pluralistic society of some sort.
28:25
Speaker 1: That did not happen again asymmetric warfare. So how's Ukraine surviving?
28:32
Speaker 1: Asymmetric warfare?
28:34
Speaker 3: Here?
28:35
Speaker 1: We are so at least to something else, more intangible,
28:38
Speaker 1: but just as important, leadership, Because presidents and moments like
28:41
Speaker 1: this typically do something very specific specific they're supposed to
28:45
Speaker 1: project steadiness even when they don't feel it. And what's
28:48
Speaker 1: striking here it's not just the volatility. It's the absence
28:51
Speaker 1: of any effort.
28:51
Speaker 3: To mask it.
28:53
Speaker 1: It's not simply a messaging issue, but he literally vacillates
28:56
Speaker 1: from day to day. We don't need you, exp prefer
29:00
Speaker 1: help of our allies. You know, every day it's an Unpredictably,
29:04
Speaker 1: you have forty eight hours to open the straight of
29:06
Speaker 1: horn moves roon or We're going to blow up your
29:09
Speaker 1: largest energy structure.
29:10
Speaker 3: You know what Their largest energy structure is.
29:12
Speaker 1: A nuclear reactor. We're going to bomb a nuclear reactor
29:16
Speaker 1: the United States. By the way, I have my time
29:19
Speaker 1: machine in this episode. Nuclear reactors are a theme to
29:23
Speaker 1: this week's time machine. But I so there's a fun
29:26
Speaker 1: little teas for you. There are we going to do this?
29:31
Speaker 1: We just lectured Israel to stop bombing certain energy infrastructure
29:36
Speaker 1: so that these countries can get rebuilt within a reasonable
29:39
Speaker 1: amount of time and have an economy and not just
29:42
Speaker 1: tank the entire global economy. And now we've got mister
29:46
Speaker 1: hothead on truth Social saying, you've got forty eight hours
29:49
Speaker 1: and we know what's going on here. He is panicking
29:52
Speaker 1: about gas prices. It all goes to back his voter, right.
29:55
Speaker 1: You own an F one fifty, you own a specifically,
29:58
Speaker 1: if you own a Dodge Ram, which is probably the
30:00
Speaker 1: worst of the gas mileage, that is, you want to
30:04
Speaker 1: pick up truck in America, you're probably more likely to
30:07
Speaker 1: vote for Donald Trump. You're more likely to drive more
30:11
Speaker 1: miles than than than most people. You probably live in
30:17
Speaker 1: a larger geographic area that you conduct your day to
30:20
Speaker 1: day life. Rural and Exurban America. His voters. He is
30:28
Speaker 1: punishing them financially right now, and it's not going to
30:32
Speaker 1: get over. More could start stop tomorrow. We're still months
30:36
Speaker 1: before things get back to normal on the energy markets, therefore,
30:41
Speaker 1: months before you start to see relief in the prices.
30:47
Speaker 1: And again it's his voters that could hit first. So
30:52
Speaker 1: his panic is politically explainable. Here, it's completely explainable. But
31:02
Speaker 1: this is what happens when you don't think things through
31:05
Speaker 1: before you make a decision like this, and you just
31:08
Speaker 1: continue to get told everything's going to be easy. You're
31:11
Speaker 1: told what you want to hear, so you get the
31:14
Speaker 1: sickophants that have put us in danger. Lack of planning
31:17
Speaker 1: has put us in danger. Alienating our allies has put
31:21
Speaker 1: us in danger. Other than that things are going swimmingly
31:23
Speaker 1: with this war, something else happened this weekend that's sort
31:28
Speaker 1: of exposed something that is not surprising about this president,
31:32
Speaker 1: but continues to it continues to depress me. Right. It's
31:39
Speaker 1: the death of Robert Muller, former FBI director, just basically
31:43
Speaker 1: a model public servant, served in Vietnam, served as SBI
31:48
Speaker 1: director during nine to eleven. I mean, really sort of
31:53
Speaker 1: brought the FBI out of out of you know, sort
31:57
Speaker 1: of helped rebuild its reputation in a positive direct. Just
32:02
Speaker 1: a fine you know, he's got a fine, long resume
32:05
Speaker 1: of public service, and by all accounts, this is an
32:08
Speaker 1: honorable individual. You may disagree with what he did or
32:14
Speaker 1: how he conducted himself during the Special Council investigation of
32:18
Speaker 1: the twenty sixteen campaign, but I imagine most of you
32:24
Speaker 1: would have some respect for anybody that wore the uniform
32:27
Speaker 1: and served this country, anybody that helped rebuild this country
32:33
Speaker 1: and go find the bad guys after nine to eleven.
32:37
Speaker 1: These would be good things are And Donald Trump celebrates
32:48
Speaker 1: his death and you know, you know it's easy. I was,
32:55
Speaker 1: it's easy to dunk on him in moments like this, right,
32:58
Speaker 1: and you know, and I know that you know, duck
33:00
Speaker 1: on him. And hey, take a look at this video
33:02
Speaker 1: and look, Donald Trump's an asshole. See there's more proof
33:05
Speaker 1: of it, right, there's no doubt, Like I mean, it is.
33:10
Speaker 1: It's just, you know, I know, we're never it's never
33:15
Speaker 1: surprising anymore when he has no problem sort of just
33:22
Speaker 1: you know what to people who die, It's it's truly sad.
33:31
Speaker 1: I mean it was sort of my old friend Britt Hume,
33:36
Speaker 1: who's a political analyst for Fox. He said something very
33:41
Speaker 1: plainly on X that I'm going to repeat here because
33:43
Speaker 1: he's right, and I want to unpack it here for
33:49
Speaker 1: a minute. So you know Trump it was. He retweeted
33:53
Speaker 1: what Trump said about mull Arm. You know, he said
33:55
Speaker 1: he was basically good riddance. You know, he's glad to
33:57
Speaker 1: see you know that he can't hurt people anymore, or
33:59
Speaker 1: something that, and it's brit human notes he goes, this
34:03
Speaker 1: is the kind of stuff Trump does that makes people
34:06
Speaker 1: not just oppose him but hate him. There's no need
34:08
Speaker 1: to say anything.
34:10
Speaker 2: Right.
34:10
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, you have like George W. Bush and Barack Obama
34:13
Speaker 1: talking about Robert Muller's one of the finest public servants
34:16
Speaker 1: this country's ever had. And that's the question that we
34:23
Speaker 1: all should be asking ourselves. All of us have people
34:27
Speaker 1: that we have a rational hate about. If you're a
34:30
Speaker 1: human being, you have somebody in your life somewhere, at
34:34
Speaker 1: some point that you're irrationally angry at. You know, you
34:39
Speaker 1: might even say I'd piss on their grave, right, you know,
34:42
Speaker 1: something like that. But I'm going to guess ninety nine
34:49
Speaker 1: percent of you would know when to shut up, we
34:57
Speaker 1: know when to use some grace. His inability to ever
35:01
Speaker 1: have grace at any moment in time is what happened
35:10
Speaker 1: to him in his life that he feels this way.
35:13
Speaker 1: Like I said, the easy way to sort of deal
35:15
Speaker 1: with this here is to say, you know, and you
35:20
Speaker 1: know all these things are true. Right. It undermines his credibility,
35:23
Speaker 1: it undermines his leadership. It's half the country doesn't feel
35:26
Speaker 1: like like like Brihume said, it's not just worth opposing him.
35:31
Speaker 1: And so then when you hate somebody, you're never going
35:33
Speaker 1: to give him credit for anything because somebody with such
35:40
Speaker 1: terrible character like this. And this is why I am
35:44
Speaker 1: a huge I vote on character. I only vote on
35:47
Speaker 1: character because ultimately character counts more than a political position,
35:52
Speaker 1: because character matters, at the end of the day, more
35:54
Speaker 1: than anything else. If you have bad character, you're willing
35:57
Speaker 1: to change your position for unprincipled reason. So give me
36:01
Speaker 1: character any day of the week over I'll take somebody
36:04
Speaker 1: who I disagree with with ninety nine percent of the time,
36:08
Speaker 1: who I know has higher character than the person I agree.
36:11
Speaker 3: With, say sixty percent of the seventy percent of the time.
36:14
Speaker 1: A low character person will eventually tear you down with them.
36:20
Speaker 1: And when you hand low character people your credibility, they
36:25
Speaker 1: will piss it away. So I do. I vote very
36:31
Speaker 1: much on character. And it's moments like this that are
36:36
Speaker 1: a reminder that character matters here when our president can't ever,
36:41
Speaker 1: when this president can't ever rise above any sort of personal, partisan,
36:45
Speaker 1: personal grievance. You know, and it goes back to the
36:50
Speaker 1: investigation itself. You know, the great failure of the Mueller
36:52
Speaker 1: investigation is the fact that we did nothing about the
36:59
Speaker 1: crime that did have in plain sight. The Russians interfered
37:03
Speaker 1: with our presidential election. The Russians attempted to influence our elections.
37:09
Speaker 1: A foreign, hostile, foreign actor did this. Those facts are
37:14
Speaker 1: not in dispute, right well. The Mula report was about
37:18
Speaker 1: was whether the Trump campaign actively worked with the Russians
37:21
Speaker 1: to do this or simply was happy to be the beneficiary.
37:28
Speaker 1: I happened to think just simply being happy to being
37:30
Speaker 1: the beneficiary was a pretty unpatriotic thing to do, right.
37:34
Speaker 1: I'm old enough to remember when a guy like Marco
37:35
Speaker 1: Rubio said, no, no, no, I'm not quoting WikiLeaks because
37:39
Speaker 1: I know that's a Russian intelligence operation. I'm old enough
37:42
Speaker 1: to remember when a John McCain and Barack Obama, who
37:46
Speaker 1: both had their campaigns hacked, went to the FBI before
37:49
Speaker 1: making a public and somehow trying to turn it into
37:51
Speaker 1: a partisan wig issue. And I guess if we want
37:58
Speaker 1: to look back, but the the fact of the matter
38:02
Speaker 1: is the Mueller Report absolutely confirmed the suspicions that at
38:08
Speaker 1: the highest levels of the Russian government they were trying
38:11
Speaker 1: to do everything it took to elect Donald Trump president.
38:15
Speaker 1: Whether that meant Donald Trump committed a crime or not,
38:18
Speaker 1: that evidence was harder to prove. There was a lot
38:22
Speaker 1: of circumstantial evidence and if being if benefiting from the
38:27
Speaker 1: hack was a crime, then they committed a lot of them.
38:32
Speaker 1: You know, I've always thought there is one one culprit
38:35
Speaker 1: we've never found in the twenty sixteen elections, and that
38:39
Speaker 1: is who curated the emails for Julian asanj and WikiLeaks
38:47
Speaker 1: because they were not released randomly like the Epstein files.
38:51
Speaker 1: And now we know the situation. If you recall, Wiki
38:54
Speaker 1: leaks was well collated, right, was well curated, It was
38:58
Speaker 1: very well timed. There was an American who did this.
39:02
Speaker 1: The Russians were not good at sort of like you know,
39:05
Speaker 1: over time, right, we ended up discovering that they weren't
39:08
Speaker 1: good with our language, and so some of the ads
39:10
Speaker 1: that they bought were easily seen as attempts to be
39:14
Speaker 1: it was outsiders attempting to influenced. But over time they
39:17
Speaker 1: learned to, you know, start to use third parties, and
39:22
Speaker 1: Julian Assange was a was an easy target, and so
39:27
Speaker 1: he was the third party. They stole all these emails
39:31
Speaker 1: from using a phishing scam on John Podesta, pretty simple one.
39:38
Speaker 1: But the emails were curated and that's always you know,
39:42
Speaker 1: and they were curated really smartly, like somebody that understood
39:45
Speaker 1: the Washington media ecosystem, not just the American political ecosystem.
39:50
Speaker 1: So this was definitely an American consultant, an American, a
39:55
Speaker 1: knowledgeable American political human being of some sort. Because if
40:04
Speaker 1: you they were always very well timed, very specific, you know,
40:09
Speaker 1: it was all about and they and it had a
40:10
Speaker 1: strategic you know, the the you know, it's not like
40:14
Speaker 1: they were just randomly released. You know, we got the
40:16
Speaker 1: Bernie the Bernie Hillary controversial emails right when the start
40:21
Speaker 1: of the DNC convention, right, and you have these systemic
40:25
Speaker 1: ways of trying to cherry pick an email from a
40:30
Speaker 1: reporter to try to discredit a media outlet. Right, it was,
40:36
Speaker 1: so the whole thing was very well orchestrated. And you know,
40:40
Speaker 1: I've always been a little bit surprised that very little
40:44
Speaker 1: law enforcement had been focused on that. And perhaps if
40:46
Speaker 1: Julian A. Sansa had ever talked, had ever been been
40:51
Speaker 1: in the US system, we might have learned more from him.
40:57
Speaker 1: But in some ways they were. The focus was so
40:59
Speaker 1: much on and this is what Trump did. You know,
41:01
Speaker 1: Trump said, hey, look, no collusion, no collusion. Well, collusion,
41:04
Speaker 1: to me was not the crime that was committed in
41:05
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen. The crime that was committed was our hostile
41:08
Speaker 1: foreign actor hacked our elections and had and successfully pulled
41:11
Speaker 1: it off. Okay, that's it. And Donald Trump was just
41:16
Speaker 1: the first campaign that didn't put the country before himself, right,
41:21
Speaker 1: And so that's may not be illegal, but that's pretty
41:24
Speaker 1: unethical and arguably against the national interests in the United States.
41:28
Speaker 1: And what's really sad is what happened to one time, truly,
41:33
Speaker 1: you know, one time, you know American patriots like Lindsey
41:36
Speaker 1: Graham and Marco Rubio who cared a lot about what
41:38
Speaker 1: the Russians were doing and all of these hacks and
41:41
Speaker 1: knew full well what the Russians were up to. Now,
41:46
Speaker 1: there's no doubt there was zeal on the left, and
41:48
Speaker 1: I think that that, you know, Muller's reputation got harmed
41:51
Speaker 1: as much by the over promising of the left about
41:55
Speaker 1: what Muller was going to find, as much as what
41:57
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's character assassination tweets did to him as well.
42:05
Speaker 1: But the biggest failure of the Mueller investigation is the
42:09
Speaker 1: lack of follow up and the lack of essentially public
42:13
Speaker 1: conviction of the Russians for twenty sixteen. And you know,
42:18
Speaker 1: I get it right, Donald Trump didn't want his presidency
42:22
Speaker 1: delegitimized by admitting to that aspect of things. So there
42:27
Speaker 1: was an entire effort made that you cannot even even
42:32
Speaker 1: copping to the Russians hacked was a was going to
42:37
Speaker 1: delegitimize his presidency, and that was something that they wanted
42:44
Speaker 1: to fight very very hard, and over time, more Republicans
42:47
Speaker 1: put the party over the country as this thing dragged on. Look,
42:55
Speaker 1: I think I think the Mueller you know, I think,
42:58
Speaker 1: you know, like with everything, you know, Muller tried to
43:01
Speaker 1: play by a set of rules that Donald Trump was
43:03
Speaker 1: never going to play by, and he got played by him.
43:07
Speaker 1: They dragged it out, and the longer they dragged it out,
43:10
Speaker 1: the easier it was, and the more sort of tactical
43:13
Speaker 1: Muller was. I think again, the north star got lost,
43:19
Speaker 1: and that's ultimately what happened. The north star of this
43:22
Speaker 1: investigation got lost. What was not in dispute was what
43:25
Speaker 1: the Russians did. What was in dispute and was not
43:29
Speaker 1: in dispute is that there were Americans that helped. And perhaps,
43:33
Speaker 1: you know, look, in some ways, Trump's behavior ended up
43:36
Speaker 1: being a distraction, right the firing of Komi. He was
43:40
Speaker 1: everything he did there he may have been doing simply
43:43
Speaker 1: because he wanted to clear the decks of the investigation.
43:49
Speaker 1: You know, if I'm I'm open to any angle being true,
43:55
Speaker 1: but you're gonna have to have evidence in the other
43:57
Speaker 1: angle on this one when it comes to you know,
44:00
Speaker 1: Trump collusion. But the fact is there's been there hasn't
44:03
Speaker 1: been strong enough evidence on that. What there is strong
44:06
Speaker 1: evidence on this. The Russians did this. They were hoping
44:09
Speaker 1: Trump would benefit. There were people within Trump's orbit who
44:14
Speaker 1: knew what the Russians were up to and wanted to
44:16
Speaker 1: find ways to exploit it to their benefit. The question
44:19
Speaker 1: was whether any of that rose to criminal activity. But
44:22
Speaker 1: it was certainly an American and it was certainly against
44:25
Speaker 1: America's national interests. And that is where, in particular, in
44:31
Speaker 1: some ways, both parties let us down on this right.
44:34
Speaker 1: The Democrats so obsessed with getting Trump that they took
44:38
Speaker 1: the eye off the larger picture here, the thing that
44:40
Speaker 1: everybody should have had seventy eighty percent sort of agreement on.
44:45
Speaker 1: And then of course the Republican Party not, you know,
44:47
Speaker 1: basically turning a blind eye to what the Russians did
44:50
Speaker 1: because fearing that if they didn't it.
44:52
Speaker 3: Was somehow going to help.
44:53
Speaker 1: So Look, the fact of the matter is Bob Muller
44:58
Speaker 1: was a terrific FBI direct brought a lot of credibility
45:01
Speaker 1: to the FBI, lived a life of public service, served
45:06
Speaker 1: this country in uniform. Could have done better on the
45:10
Speaker 1: Mlor investigation, There's no doubt about it. But he did
45:15
Speaker 1: not deserve the disgusting, horrible treatment by our sitting in
45:18
Speaker 1: president of the United States. And I would just ask all
45:21
Speaker 1: of you to ask.
45:22
Speaker 3: Yourself, how did.
45:25
Speaker 1: What is wrong with him? Right. Imagine not being able
45:30
Speaker 1: to show grace to somebody who dies after complications of Parkinson's,
45:36
Speaker 1: the lack of grace, his inability. This is not who
45:40
Speaker 1: we are, As John Jack Danforth said on my podcast,
45:46
Speaker 1: aren't we better than this.
45:50
Speaker 3: Hate?
45:50
Speaker 1: Fellow Republicans out there, are you comfortable with how he
45:55
Speaker 1: has just totally destroyed the image of the Republican Party
46:00
Speaker 1: that people assume that this is now callous. You be callous,
46:05
Speaker 1: You root for the death of people you politically disagree with.
46:12
Speaker 1: I'm old enough to remember when folks on the right
46:14
Speaker 1: were angry, when folks on the left weren't properly mourning.
46:19
Speaker 1: Charlie kirk As, the first Lady of the United States,
46:24
Speaker 1: likes to say, mister President one should be better. But
46:30
Speaker 1: more importantly, maybe he's incapable of being better. But I'm
46:35
Speaker 1: old enough to remember when they were members of the
46:36
Speaker 1: Republican Party who knew how to be better. And I know, yeah,
46:41
Speaker 1: I'll just ignore. It's just trumpy and Trump. No, he's
46:46
Speaker 1: taking you down with them, all right, We're sneaking a
46:50
Speaker 1: break when we come back. My conversation with Suzan can
46:53
Speaker 1: poor all things aroun what's going on with the diaspora
46:57
Speaker 1: at the point of view from the Iranian on the
47:01
Speaker 1: ground who simply wants free them. This episode of the
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48:44
Speaker 1: Joining me now is Suzan kan Poor. She is a
48:47
Speaker 1: veteran journalist co host of a podcast on global affairs.
48:52
Speaker 1: She's worked at NBC. Although we are paths only briefly,
48:57
Speaker 1: I think crossed back in her days in NBC. She's
49:02
Speaker 1: been around the world. I just recently spent a lot
49:04
Speaker 1: of time with her, and I think this context matters.
49:07
Speaker 1: In December, at a media conference, and I think I
49:09
Speaker 1: had told told you guys, some of you that may remember,
49:13
Speaker 1: it was an Abu Dhabi for a large media conference,
49:16
Speaker 1: really very industry focused as much of tactical parts of
49:21
Speaker 1: the of the media world as much as content parts
49:24
Speaker 1: of the media world. For instance, there was a big
49:27
Speaker 1: gamer section to this to this conference. But I had
49:33
Speaker 1: the pleasure of being of having dinner with Susan and
49:36
Speaker 1: her husband and a bunch of other journalists and we
49:38
Speaker 1: had a fascinating conversation about Iran and about And this
49:42
Speaker 1: was in December. Abu Dhabi's got a big diaspora of
49:46
Speaker 1: Avaranians and it was and you know, I had basically
49:51
Speaker 1: was peppering Susan with all these questions. So I hear this,
49:54
Speaker 1: and I hear this, and it was like, boy, is
49:56
Speaker 1: this regime gonna fall? I mean, how bad is things
49:58
Speaker 1: in Tehran? And there was this feeling it could be
50:01
Speaker 1: five months, but it may still be five years. All
50:03
Speaker 1: of this before any thought that we were going to
50:06
Speaker 1: see what we're seeing in the moment now, And so
50:10
Speaker 1: I couldn't think of a better time to try to
50:12
Speaker 1: catch up with Susan than right now. Suzan, welcome to
50:14
Speaker 1: the Toodcast.
50:16
Speaker 2: Thank you, thanks for having me. Todd. I mean, it
50:18
Speaker 2: kind of feels like yesterday.
50:19
Speaker 1: But well it does. We just sort of connect and
50:23
Speaker 1: somebody's connected and we've been staying in touch since. And yet,
50:27
Speaker 1: my god, that was like a whole lifetime ago too,
50:30
Speaker 1: and it's only been literally, I think, four months. So
50:35
Speaker 1: that's we met Dobby.
50:36
Speaker 2: That was December eighth, that day, So as my wedding,
50:40
Speaker 2: my first wedding anniversaries are dragged my husband too.
50:44
Speaker 1: Yes, she did well.
50:44
Speaker 2: He was at a conference. You know, when my company
50:48
Speaker 2: values IPOs at a billion dollars somewhere down the line,
50:51
Speaker 2: it'll be a good story to tell her.
50:53
Speaker 1: That's right. You know, our first anniversary, we were able
50:55
Speaker 1: to you know, kada YadA, YadA, right.
50:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. But a couple of weeks after that was
51:00
Speaker 2: when everything really kicked off over the holidays, and there
51:05
Speaker 2: wasn't a whole lot of media coverage on the protests
51:09
Speaker 2: that happened in Iran because of the currency tanked. So
51:15
Speaker 2: the currency tanked and people just it was like that
51:17
Speaker 2: was what made them snap, that was what made people snap.
51:19
Speaker 2: The poort into the streets. It'said, you know what this
51:21
Speaker 2: government's got to go down with. You can't even govern, correct,
51:26
Speaker 2: You can't even keep the lights on and can't keep
51:27
Speaker 2: the water going. And this is the oil rich country.
51:30
Speaker 2: And so that's why when we see things and I'm
51:32
Speaker 2: sure we'll get into all this, that's why we see
51:34
Speaker 2: reports about these leaders their real estate portfolios in Europe
51:39
Speaker 2: and London on billionaire's row being exposed. That's why it
51:42
Speaker 2: just hurts.
51:43
Speaker 1: That much more, right, because this is so personal and
51:47
Speaker 1: visceral and just sort of basics and survival for folks
51:50
Speaker 1: that actually live in Iran at the moment, Before we
51:53
Speaker 1: get into all the current events, you tell me your
51:56
Speaker 1: story of how you ended up in journalism, your your
52:00
Speaker 1: family history in Persian.
52:03
Speaker 2: So I am literally a child of this conflict. My
52:08
Speaker 2: mother and father met in Alabama during the Iran hostage
52:12
Speaker 2: crisis as students, and at the time, you know, on
52:17
Speaker 2: the evening newscast, there were images of American diplomats blindfolded
52:23
Speaker 2: and these insurgents holding Americans hostage. And so that was
52:27
Speaker 2: the image of Iranians at the time. And so when
52:31
Speaker 2: my father went to go and propose to my mother,
52:35
Speaker 2: my grandfather Sicilian American came to the US on Ellis
52:39
Speaker 2: Island chased him off the lawn with a firearm. Because
52:45
Speaker 2: Iranians were kind of seen as terrorists in many parts
52:48
Speaker 2: of the country, particularly at Alabama, and so, you know,
52:52
Speaker 2: years later when I was born, the Iran Iraq conflict
52:56
Speaker 2: was a war was raging, and I ultimately ended up
53:00
Speaker 2: raised by my Persian aunt, my dad's sister, and she
53:03
Speaker 2: taught me Farsi. But she was a war refugee, so
53:06
Speaker 2: she has a you know, she managed to make it
53:07
Speaker 2: to America through a pretty harrowing experience as a refugee
53:12
Speaker 2: through Europe to be able to make it here, you know.
53:15
Speaker 2: And then my first my first kind of memories of
53:19
Speaker 2: watching TV news was Desert Store. I grew up in Atlanta,
53:23
Speaker 2: and I grew up around lots of newspapers in the house,
53:27
Speaker 2: the Atlanta Journal Constitution. I remember reading about Kosovo in
53:32
Speaker 2: Time magazine for kids, and so I was always, for
53:35
Speaker 2: some reason, probably sort of epigetically drawn to conflict resolution,
53:41
Speaker 2: because I have literally made up of a conflict and
53:44
Speaker 2: it took years for you to really even kind of
53:46
Speaker 2: recognize that thread.
53:49
Speaker 1: And so then do you find yourself being a big
53:51
Speaker 1: media do you feel like you're always a mediator? I mean,
53:54
Speaker 1: I you know, you know, I I'm a child of
53:59
Speaker 1: a mixed religious marriage, and for many of my father's
54:02
Speaker 1: side of the family, my mother was the first Jew
54:04
Speaker 1: many of them had ever met. Yeah, they weren't thrilled
54:07
Speaker 1: about it, you know, they didn't. She wasn't being chased
54:09
Speaker 1: off with a shotgun, So I'm not gunning too uh that.
54:13
Speaker 1: But she was always reminded that she was Jewish every
54:16
Speaker 1: time she went to that side of the family. They
54:18
Speaker 1: was sort of like that's all they saw in her head,
54:20
Speaker 1: you know, type of thing. And so I know what
54:24
Speaker 1: it made me do. I'm always like, I just want
54:26
Speaker 1: everybody get along. Yeah, I'm just curious, is that does that?
54:29
Speaker 1: Does that feel like that be a description? You're always
54:31
Speaker 1: just trying to like, hey, no, no, no, let's have some peace,
54:34
Speaker 1: you know.
54:35
Speaker 2: And I think in a lot of ways, sort of
54:37
Speaker 2: being of a mixed background, you you can relate to
54:43
Speaker 2: different people, and so you end up automatically being that
54:47
Speaker 2: person and kind of being the convener and being the
54:49
Speaker 2: diplomatic kind of a chamelion.
54:51
Speaker 1: You can be a chameleon to people or a rorshack test,
54:53
Speaker 1: whatever you want to call it.
54:55
Speaker 2: Exactly I mean. So years later, after I left NBCi
55:00
Speaker 2: was at the BBC for most of my career for
55:01
Speaker 2: almost twelve years, and I was covering the state Department,
55:05
Speaker 2: so I would travel with the Secretary of State and
55:07
Speaker 2: the around nuclear negotiations sort was sort of my breakthrough story.
55:12
Speaker 2: And I remember when the nuclear deal was reached, which
55:16
Speaker 2: obviously it ended up being a controversial deal. Many people
55:20
Speaker 2: weren't happy about it. A lot of the elements of
55:22
Speaker 2: what people weren't happy about now is clear why. But
55:26
Speaker 2: I did a story on the women of the Iron Deal,
55:31
Speaker 2: which sort of ended up I didn't realize at the
55:34
Speaker 2: time becoming now the company that I'm building and running.
55:38
Speaker 2: But at the time I did a story about the
55:40
Speaker 2: women of the Around Deal, and I interviewed Frederica Mugerini,
55:43
Speaker 2: who was the Italian representative, and we were before we
55:48
Speaker 2: were before we did the interview. We were chatting about
55:50
Speaker 2: my background and she said, wow, you know, like you've
55:53
Speaker 2: got the Italian, you've got the Iranian, you've got the American.
55:56
Speaker 2: You were for the Brits, like you should have been
55:59
Speaker 2: in their negotiating.
56:00
Speaker 1: Right, you should have been part of the group, right, Yeah.
56:03
Speaker 2: And it's true, you know, you kind of There's a
56:05
Speaker 2: lot of cultural nuances in global affairs and diplosi and
56:11
Speaker 2: current events, which is why sometimes I worry what I'm
56:14
Speaker 2: looking at who is advising the Trump administration right now,
56:18
Speaker 2: because I think how the Iranians think and operate is
56:22
Speaker 2: they play the long game. I mean, it's an ancient
56:25
Speaker 2: civilization and it show.
56:26
Speaker 1: I mean, and you know the famous line from the Taliban,
56:30
Speaker 1: you've got the watches, We've got the time. I think
56:32
Speaker 1: there's a similar mindset perhaps with this regime, right.
56:36
Speaker 2: Yes, And you know, they there's been so much criticism
56:42
Speaker 2: of the media from the diaspora, the Iranian diaspora. People
56:47
Speaker 2: are particularly upset at Fred for the CNN reporter who
56:50
Speaker 2: red plate and CNN reporter who went in. Of course,
56:53
Speaker 2: it's I believe it's very important to be on the ground. Well,
56:58
Speaker 2: at some point you do kind of have to make
57:00
Speaker 2: a call of whether you're going to keep doing it,
57:02
Speaker 2: because whether you're going to keep sort of signing up
57:04
Speaker 2: to the rules.
57:05
Speaker 1: But look, it's a tough decision. Look as you know
57:09
Speaker 1: Ali Russi, you know, who's a dual citizen, our former
57:13
Speaker 1: colleague in NBC, the Tayran Bureauchi from you know, they
57:16
Speaker 1: were all sorts of you know, I mean, his mother
57:17
Speaker 1: lives in Tehran, you know, his mother, you know, and
57:20
Speaker 1: there was always concern that the regime could threaten her
57:23
Speaker 1: and whether we were always we had to be mindful,
57:26
Speaker 1: you know when we put them on air, because everybody's
57:28
Speaker 1: got a family.
57:30
Speaker 2: But they, the Iranians, use the democratic tools that we have,
57:36
Speaker 2: the freedoms that we have to their advantage. They're quite
57:40
Speaker 2: clever in that regards. And you know, even though I
57:43
Speaker 2: know better, you know, like I know better, when they're
57:47
Speaker 2: so good at their craft that it's almost like they
57:52
Speaker 2: put you under a spell and you have to count yourself.
57:57
Speaker 2: And an Iranian will recognize that at an American will,
58:02
Speaker 2: even no matter how experience you might be with them,
58:06
Speaker 2: because it's psychological manipulation.
58:09
Speaker 1: Let's talk about sort of this. I'm look, we're using
58:14
Speaker 1: an artificial timeline here. When we first started, we were
58:18
Speaker 1: having this conversation, and in fact, I think I even said,
58:21
Speaker 1: I said, you know, I want to have you on
58:22
Speaker 1: because I think people I think the underrated story of
58:25
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six could be the downfall of this regime.
58:30
Speaker 1: I look, there's a lot of things in the Bingo card.
58:33
Speaker 1: The United States aggressively pursuing a preemptive strike against Irum
58:39
Speaker 1: I just never foresaw, and I know that there's the
58:41
Speaker 1: unpredictability of Trump. But there there's always been a reason
58:46
Speaker 1: why previous American presidents have stopped Israel from doing this
58:50
Speaker 1: and have not done this for because of how unmanageable
58:55
Speaker 1: the potential fallout could be. But I think think what
59:00
Speaker 1: we were discussing is, hey, you know, can this regime
59:03
Speaker 1: hold If you can't even get hotable water, you know,
59:07
Speaker 1: drinking water in Tehran? If you can't you don't have water,
59:11
Speaker 1: how are they going to govern? And so then let's
59:16
Speaker 1: go to the it's the revolution, the currency draft, we
59:19
Speaker 1: have the protests, what happens, what's happening in country at
59:24
Speaker 1: the time, What are you hearing at the time, and
59:27
Speaker 1: what are you thinking at the time? Is this How
59:30
Speaker 1: vulnerable did the regime seem? And was there a lot
59:33
Speaker 1: of chatter, Hey, with a little bit of help maybe
59:36
Speaker 1: from the United States or others, maybe this can happen.
59:41
Speaker 2: So the June twelve Day war was a pivotal moment.
59:49
Speaker 2: And even people who had worked for the regime who
59:54
Speaker 2: had left and are now in the private sector and
59:56
Speaker 2: that kind of had started to make them think differently
59:59
Speaker 2: about the regime were messaging me and saying, why didn't
1:00:04
Speaker 2: Trump finish the job, and so which I frankly was surprised. Naturally,
1:00:10
Speaker 2: when you're being bombed, you're going through a whole range
1:00:12
Speaker 2: of emotions, and most of those emotions are I hate
1:00:15
Speaker 2: these people who are bombing me because obviously, and so
1:00:20
Speaker 2: when when the bomb stopped, the kind of why didn't
1:00:23
Speaker 2: he finish the job? Why isn't he finish the job
1:00:25
Speaker 2: was really stuck with me. And that being said, now
1:00:33
Speaker 2: that the scale of kind of destruction we're seeing has
1:00:37
Speaker 2: really settled in, we keep hearing that, oh, you know,
1:00:43
Speaker 2: if they just let it be, the regime would have
1:00:46
Speaker 2: fallen on its own.
1:00:48
Speaker 1: Do you believe that the problem?
1:00:50
Speaker 2: I don't, mainly because they are masters at holding on
1:00:57
Speaker 2: and will stop it not thing to hold on, and
1:01:02
Speaker 2: we are seeing that mm hmm in the fact that
1:01:05
Speaker 2: they are literally shooting themselves in the foot by bombarding Dubai.
1:01:10
Speaker 2: That's where all their money is. And so we were
1:01:13
Speaker 2: living in Dubai. We never thought not that, we never
1:01:17
Speaker 2: thought it was always a risk. I mean, you know, frankly,
1:01:20
Speaker 2: ultimately in the Middle East, like eventually it was going
1:01:25
Speaker 2: to blow up.
1:01:30
Speaker 4: And wait, sorry today, Lucy, no, we're here, okay, yeah,
1:01:38
Speaker 4: my photo rank oh right and interrupture.
1:01:41
Speaker 1: I know all of our devices have to be connected.
1:01:44
Speaker 1: You know that don't have to be connected Apple, Thank you.
1:01:47
Speaker 2: I know, so we let me just go back. No,
1:01:55
Speaker 2: I did not believe that they would be able to
1:01:58
Speaker 2: fall on their own because they've do anything to hang
1:02:01
Speaker 2: on to power, and we saw that in January, and
1:02:05
Speaker 2: we've seen that in other points in history before. You know,
1:02:08
Speaker 2: the massacre in January is not the first time. It's
1:02:11
Speaker 2: just we now live in an age where dictators can't hide.
1:02:17
Speaker 2: They can't hide. We watch everything very intimately on our
1:02:22
Speaker 2: phones on Instagram.
1:02:24
Speaker 1: Right, So, what's life right now? Like, what are you
1:02:34
Speaker 1: hearing right now? Are people just living, you know, just
1:02:37
Speaker 1: staying in shelter, staying in place. Are they trying to
1:02:40
Speaker 1: leave if you have means to do that, and if so,
1:02:43
Speaker 1: how are they leaving? Take me through some of the
1:02:46
Speaker 1: some of the stories you're hearing.
1:02:48
Speaker 2: I mean, to be frank, it's quite nerve wracking to
1:02:53
Speaker 2: have people trying to leave right now. I mean, I
1:02:56
Speaker 2: literally have a friend who I'm just ging up to
1:03:00
Speaker 2: see if they've crossed over. The people are crossing over
1:03:04
Speaker 2: the land borders when they can. But it's dangerous because
1:03:09
Speaker 2: not only is dangerous because of the bombs, but it's
1:03:12
Speaker 2: dangerous because there's checkpoints everywhere and the regime is extremely paranoid,
1:03:17
Speaker 2: and so they're just arresting people and pros they're not
1:03:22
Speaker 2: they kind of you know, it's a bit of a
1:03:24
Speaker 2: it's a tricky one because if you're if you're trying
1:03:27
Speaker 2: to leave, you know, you're well, why are you leaving now?
1:03:31
Speaker 2: And at the same time people are trying to find
1:03:36
Speaker 2: moles and spies. The regime is trying to find moles
1:03:39
Speaker 2: and spies, and so it's just it's just dangerous.
1:03:43
Speaker 1: Automatically as suspect as far as they're.
1:03:45
Speaker 2: Concerned, but even just being out in the streets of
1:03:48
Speaker 2: checking people's phones, like it's just a terrifying existence. And
1:03:52
Speaker 2: so you're just staying in your house and mind you
1:03:54
Speaker 2: remember it's Persian New Year, So Persian New Year starts
1:03:58
Speaker 2: on the first day of years on Friday. Last night,
1:04:02
Speaker 2: there's a tradition called Charsha Ambassudi which you jump over
1:04:05
Speaker 2: fire and sort of leave the ailments of the year
1:04:08
Speaker 2: in the past and you kind of take the vibrance
1:04:10
Speaker 2: of the.
1:04:11
Speaker 1: Fire just to timestamp this because this is going to
1:04:14
Speaker 1: happen after the New Year. We're going to air this
1:04:17
Speaker 1: literally Monday after the New Year, so we're speaking before Friday,
1:04:21
Speaker 1: but people will be hearing this after the New year ahead.
1:04:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, so New Year goes on for thirteen days of
1:04:26
Speaker 2: celebration and not going.
1:04:29
Speaker 1: To be a celebration this year.
1:04:30
Speaker 2: No, But interesting enough, we are seeing videos coming out
1:04:35
Speaker 2: of people who actually did go out and put little
1:04:38
Speaker 2: fires out and they were jumping out or jumping over
1:04:40
Speaker 2: the fires, which the security forces tried to shut down.
1:04:43
Speaker 2: But they do that every year because it's not an
1:04:45
Speaker 2: Islamic tradition, it's a pre Islami tradition. It's fund of
1:04:49
Speaker 2: their Astrian era, and it's just a Persian it's in
1:04:53
Speaker 2: a Runnian tradition, and so they don't like that, so
1:04:57
Speaker 2: they try to killer.
1:04:58
Speaker 1: Their joy, and they would they do that anytime a.
1:05:01
Speaker 2: Year, every time, every years, every year.
1:05:14
Speaker 1: You're pretty convinced this regime can hang on? Why?
1:05:19
Speaker 2: Oh no, I don't. I mean, like, I'm not convinced
1:05:22
Speaker 2: that they can that they will hang on. So they
1:05:25
Speaker 2: can hang on, I'm not convinced that they will hang
1:05:28
Speaker 2: on because ultimately, I mean, here's the thing, there's the
1:05:34
Speaker 2: Trump administration says that people need to rise up and
1:05:37
Speaker 2: take back their country, and yes they can, but you
1:05:42
Speaker 2: can't bring a knife to a gunfight. And the opposition
1:05:47
Speaker 2: is inside it be in prison. So I'm the executive
1:05:50
Speaker 2: producer of an animated short documentary, a film directed by
1:05:54
Speaker 2: a Hodda Soapani, an Iranian filmmaker, and this is the
1:05:57
Speaker 2: story of her friend Neda who who was a woman
1:06:01
Speaker 2: life freedom activist and she was thrown in prison. And
1:06:07
Speaker 2: the story is of a night where I be in
1:06:09
Speaker 2: prison was on fire and it was a strange evening
1:06:16
Speaker 2: because they could hear gunshots, they didn't really know what
1:06:19
Speaker 2: was going on, and it was a really harrowing evening.
1:06:24
Speaker 2: And then suddenly two days later they were all released
1:06:27
Speaker 2: and they were threatened to never talk about that night.
1:06:30
Speaker 2: So something happened, very likely a sort of attempted uprising
1:06:34
Speaker 2: from inside the prison. And so the way for the
1:06:39
Speaker 2: regime to not survive is quite frankly, for those people
1:06:44
Speaker 2: to be empowered. And in order for them to be empowered,
1:06:46
Speaker 2: they need to be busted out of prison in some
1:06:48
Speaker 2: sort of special operations and they need to be armed.
1:06:51
Speaker 2: I mean, remember, this regime didn't come out of nowhere.
1:06:55
Speaker 2: There was a revolution in nineteen seventy nine, and so
1:06:59
Speaker 2: a counter revolution is very much a possibility.
1:07:03
Speaker 1: So I spoke with John Bolton a couple of weeks ago,
1:07:06
Speaker 1: and his big criticism of what Trump's done is the
1:07:10
Speaker 1: lack of attempt even attempting to work with an opposition
1:07:16
Speaker 1: to organize, to help organize it. Frankly, you know a
1:07:19
Speaker 1: lot of this. You you have to plant these seeds
1:07:20
Speaker 1: before the military campaign begins and look for a variety
1:07:26
Speaker 1: of reasons, whether it's killing U. S. A, I, D
1:07:29
Speaker 1: neutering the US Information Agency, right, all of our soft
1:07:32
Speaker 1: power tools got gutted. So so that was a missing piece.
1:07:38
Speaker 1: But this issue with the opposition, because it's this is
1:07:41
Speaker 1: you know, the other version of events you here there
1:07:44
Speaker 1: they're in prison or they're in hiding, right because they've
1:07:47
Speaker 1: been dispersed, or they've been killed by by this regime.
1:07:53
Speaker 1: So it sounds like you think that, you know, if
1:07:56
Speaker 1: there was if there had been some pre war planning,
1:07:59
Speaker 1: Uh okay, you know are who are some of the
1:08:03
Speaker 1: key opposition leaders? Now it's look, I can give you
1:08:06
Speaker 1: my read from this. It's clear that after the experienced
1:08:09
Speaker 1: Trump had with Venezuela, he decided the easy way out is, Hey,
1:08:13
Speaker 1: the big criticism of Iraq was the debathification process, So
1:08:17
Speaker 1: why don't we just keep the regime in place and
1:08:20
Speaker 1: just find a more pliant leader. We did it in Venezuela.
1:08:25
Speaker 1: Why can't we do it here? So they you know,
1:08:28
Speaker 1: that appears to be how they sort of set aside
1:08:32
Speaker 1: the idea of working with an opposition, of developing an opposition,
1:08:36
Speaker 1: of essentially freeing the opposition from from prison. Now that
1:08:41
Speaker 1: they're stuck in this is this the only play?
1:08:48
Speaker 2: Not necessarily, I mean, the fact of the matter is
1:08:51
Speaker 2: there are no great love this options. So that's just
1:08:59
Speaker 2: better any other, much like many of our American elections. Yeah,
1:09:08
Speaker 2: because so the issue with John Bolton and some of
1:09:15
Speaker 2: his colleagues is that they have a particular opposition group
1:09:20
Speaker 2: in mind, and that is the Mujahad, the k and
1:09:27
Speaker 2: nobody in around wants them ak same with the diaspora.
1:09:31
Speaker 2: They are pretty much a radical group and they have
1:09:38
Speaker 2: deep pockets and pay lots of people to lobby for them.
1:09:43
Speaker 2: And so because there are the opposition groups that exist
1:09:48
Speaker 2: outside of the country, like MK and the monarchists have
1:09:53
Speaker 2: been have had these sort of aggressive, radical sort of
1:09:58
Speaker 2: fringe the orders. I can actually understand why the White
1:10:04
Speaker 2: House would be hesitant to put their weight behind any
1:10:08
Speaker 2: of these groups.
1:10:09
Speaker 1: Now, oh, it wasn't clearly any of them had any
1:10:12
Speaker 1: ties inside the country, right Hasn't that always been the
1:10:14
Speaker 1: big criticism of both the monarchists and the MKA.
1:10:17
Speaker 2: Exactly, and people I speak to inside so like you know,
1:10:21
Speaker 2: proper Iranians, born, bred, fought through on the ground. They
1:10:25
Speaker 2: always say, our leader needs to be somebody who has
1:10:28
Speaker 2: been here and suffered with us, suffered through this, bought
1:10:32
Speaker 2: the regime with us. Now, Paul Levy's name was being
1:10:38
Speaker 2: shouted in the streets in the sense that it was
1:10:42
Speaker 2: they were saying, Java Shaw, so long live the show.
1:10:44
Speaker 2: So it's like a invoking of this you know, pre
1:10:49
Speaker 2: Islamic Revolution era and nostalgia.
1:10:51
Speaker 1: What you're saying is it shouldn't be read as this
1:10:54
Speaker 1: guy who's claiming to be the Shaw, that somehow there's
1:10:57
Speaker 1: a popular support for him exactly.
1:11:00
Speaker 2: And to be fair to him, he has continuously said
1:11:04
Speaker 2: that I see myself as a transitional figure. I want
1:11:09
Speaker 2: to you know, go in and facilitate free and fair
1:11:13
Speaker 2: elections that you know, people insider on decide who they
1:11:17
Speaker 2: want to be their candidates, and they decide who they
1:11:19
Speaker 2: want to be their leaders. And now he has made
1:11:24
Speaker 2: quite a few big moves in the past couple of
1:11:26
Speaker 2: days actually, and one of them is Shirin Ebadhi is
1:11:32
Speaker 2: kind of leading the Justice Council, and so he has
1:11:37
Speaker 2: created this sort of coalition of people who have real
1:11:42
Speaker 2: kind of experience and support on the ground, like Shirin
1:11:44
Speaker 2: Ebadi does have support on the ground. And in fact,
1:11:48
Speaker 2: I have to say, the only reason we are here
1:11:52
Speaker 2: today that we are actually talking about the end of
1:11:56
Speaker 2: the Islamic Republic as a reality is because of the
1:11:59
Speaker 2: women of Iran who paved and paved the way and
1:12:04
Speaker 2: laid the ground work. They're the only ones who have
1:12:07
Speaker 2: actually brought real change and have defeated the Islamic Republican anyway,
1:12:12
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty two when Massa Amini was killed because
1:12:15
Speaker 2: of her stray hairs and mind you, you know, like
1:12:19
Speaker 2: in Iran as women, I mean, last time I was
1:12:21
Speaker 2: there was two thousand and seven. Your existence as a
1:12:25
Speaker 2: woman in Iran is rebellion and resistance. Every single woman,
1:12:31
Speaker 2: I mean, as long if you're not a husband a right.
1:12:35
Speaker 2: And what we were then finding is that when this
1:12:39
Speaker 2: uprising happened, when people poured into the streets, people were like,
1:12:45
Speaker 2: Hijabi women were walking with the women without their hit job.
1:12:50
Speaker 2: Because it's about choice. It's about freedom of choice. I
1:12:54
Speaker 2: want to wear my hit job, but if my sister
1:12:56
Speaker 2: doesn't want to wear her hit job, she shouldn't have to.
1:12:59
Speaker 2: And what ended up happening is women stopped wearing the hijab.
1:13:02
Speaker 2: If they didn't feel like it, they just stopped wearing it.
1:13:05
Speaker 2: They said, screw the law, shoot me, shoot me dead.
1:13:09
Speaker 2: And the Iranian regime ruled by fear, so once they
1:13:13
Speaker 2: lost control of the women, they lost power. They didn't
1:13:17
Speaker 2: have to change the law formally. The women changed it
1:13:20
Speaker 2: for them. And so you know, Pa Leve's made a
1:13:26
Speaker 2: really smart move by bringing shooting a body kind of
1:13:30
Speaker 2: in the fold. But in terms of any sort of
1:13:35
Speaker 2: regime change, it would either be Pa Leve or it
1:13:41
Speaker 2: would be Trump wanting to pull a Venezuela. And the
1:13:44
Speaker 2: only person that that could like the only This sounds weird,
1:13:48
Speaker 2: I've said it before on air and people have kind
1:13:50
Speaker 2: of come at me in the comments, but when you
1:13:53
Speaker 2: think about it, he is really the only option because
1:13:55
Speaker 2: he's sort of so sidelined and not taken seriously in
1:13:59
Speaker 2: sight right, that the sort of US intelligence apparatus could
1:14:03
Speaker 2: work him to their advantage. And that's mess suit positionion.
1:14:07
Speaker 1: Well, you had said this to me. You almost said
1:14:09
Speaker 1: he sees himself this way. You think, right, it's like
1:14:12
Speaker 1: he could be the gorbutt didn you. I think he
1:14:14
Speaker 1: used the line with me, and I quoted you to
1:14:16
Speaker 1: a lot of people like, Hey, this this this Iranian
1:14:18
Speaker 1: president sort of like is not is being treated like
1:14:23
Speaker 1: a figurehead right by the by the regime more so
1:14:26
Speaker 1: than than we've seen with previous Iranian presidents, and that
1:14:29
Speaker 1: he's fash. You thought he was fashioning himself almost as
1:14:32
Speaker 1: a as the Gorbatrov transitional figure.
1:14:36
Speaker 2: And the reason why I thought that was because in
1:14:39
Speaker 2: that sort of last week of December, when the protests
1:14:41
Speaker 2: were really kickoff and the media hadn't really picked up
1:14:44
Speaker 2: yet because it was all the days. Frankly, he did
1:14:47
Speaker 2: an interview but it was like posted on the Supreme
1:14:51
Speaker 2: Leader's website and he effectively kind of cited with the protesters.
1:14:58
Speaker 2: That was what I picked up on. That was what
1:15:01
Speaker 2: caught my eye. And what was it last week March
1:15:07
Speaker 2: the weekend of March eighth. He came out and said,
1:15:10
Speaker 2: you know, we shouldn't have hit our neighbors. And then
1:15:13
Speaker 2: the IOGC turned around and hit Dubai again and said, no,
1:15:16
Speaker 2: mussag Position is the one who made the mistakes. So
1:15:18
Speaker 2: you're seeing that split m So he's kind of trying
1:15:22
Speaker 2: to assert his he's trying to assert himself and the
1:15:26
Speaker 2: ERGS is like IOGC is like, yeah, no, that's not happening.
1:15:30
Speaker 1: So I mean you think that, you know, basically, you
1:15:33
Speaker 1: look around the room and if you you know, for
1:15:37
Speaker 1: some reason the regime does fall and you need a
1:15:41
Speaker 1: transitional figure, he might actually be the best candidate.
1:15:45
Speaker 2: He's the only one. I wouldn't say he's the best.
1:15:47
Speaker 2: I think he's the only one.
1:15:49
Speaker 1: Well that makes him the best exactly. It's a contest
1:15:53
Speaker 1: to one what.
1:15:55
Speaker 2: I'm surprised nobody's talking about him and I'm surprised about this.
1:15:59
Speaker 2: And where is he is? Javad Zariff, the former foreign minister,
1:16:04
Speaker 2: the regime's charmer in chief.
1:16:08
Speaker 1: Oh him and John Carey seemed like we're, you know,
1:16:10
Speaker 1: long lost buddies. Every time they got together. Is he
1:16:13
Speaker 1: dead or alive? He's we assume he's alive, right.
1:16:16
Speaker 2: I assume he's alive, but he was. He was very
1:16:19
Speaker 2: much sidelined when the kind of hardline government came back
1:16:23
Speaker 2: in and they're ahead of that. There were lots of
1:16:26
Speaker 2: talks with him having presidential ambitions. Now I've I've met
1:16:30
Speaker 2: Zarif many times, been in touch with him many times.
1:16:34
Speaker 1: And he's very charming. I've spent some time very charming dress.
1:16:39
Speaker 2: Yes, well, he's very good at public diplomacy. Right, he
1:16:43
Speaker 2: was really good at, you know, frankly using us to
1:16:46
Speaker 2: his advantage. I mean, they sold that nuclear deal. They
1:16:50
Speaker 2: sold it to the American public as a peace deal.
1:16:56
Speaker 2: It wasn't a piece deal. It said lots of money
1:17:00
Speaker 2: to the proxies in the region that we are now
1:17:03
Speaker 2: seeing reaping the benefits of that deal. Like that is
1:17:08
Speaker 2: that's that's what's happening here. But we haven't heard from him,
1:17:12
Speaker 2: and I'm surprised we haven't heard from him, and I
1:17:14
Speaker 2: feel like we should keep an eye out for him.
1:17:16
Speaker 2: But the thing about Posishkion is, I mean, mind you, so,
1:17:23
Speaker 2: Venezuela is a difficult one to kind of compare it to,
1:17:26
Speaker 2: because I mean, this is this is an Islamic republic
1:17:30
Speaker 2: that literally exists to be at war with the US.
1:17:34
Speaker 2: They exist as a revolutionary state to fight and be
1:17:39
Speaker 2: a resisting force for Western imperialism led by America, and
1:17:45
Speaker 2: without America as an enemy, the Islamic Republic is no
1:17:50
Speaker 2: longer relevant. So if the war ends, what is the
1:17:55
Speaker 2: Islamic Republic? So like, if they declare peace with the
1:17:58
Speaker 2: US and say we're no longer at war, what is
1:18:00
Speaker 2: the Islamic Republic? In order for there to be real regime.
1:18:03
Speaker 1: Change, you can't imagine there's no deal. So this is
1:18:07
Speaker 1: you know, I'm trying to you know, I'm trying to
1:18:10
Speaker 1: put myself as best I can in Trump's shoes and
1:18:15
Speaker 1: understanding how he thinks and how he works, and he's
1:18:20
Speaker 1: going to want he I know he wants this. I
1:18:23
Speaker 1: mean he's all but signaled this publicly barely. Like I
1:18:26
Speaker 1: joke that he's he'd be fun to play poker with
1:18:28
Speaker 1: because he tells you everything you need and he literally
1:18:31
Speaker 1: turns his cards the other way so you can see them.
1:18:36
Speaker 1: He wants to get out of this, He's desperate to
1:18:39
Speaker 1: get out of this. But it doesn't sound like there's
1:18:45
Speaker 1: a deal to be cut that can be trusted, right,
1:18:48
Speaker 1: because if the regime cuts a deal. What's that deal
1:18:51
Speaker 1: look like? Any deal that keeps the regime in place,
1:18:55
Speaker 1: that's a win for the regime and a loss for
1:18:58
Speaker 1: the United States, is it not?
1:19:01
Speaker 2: I mean you the key word here is trust. How
1:19:05
Speaker 2: can we trust? Obama made a deal in good faith
1:19:10
Speaker 2: with the Islamic Republic. I remember after.
1:19:12
Speaker 5: This deal was reached, I was speaking to an official
1:19:16
Speaker 5: who was par the negotiations, and he said, don't you
1:19:21
Speaker 5: think this will lead to reforms? Like they genuinely believed
1:19:26
Speaker 5: that this would lead to reforms. They genuinely believed they
1:19:28
Speaker 5: would release all of this sanctions money and it would
1:19:31
Speaker 5: go to the people, and you know that they.
1:19:33
Speaker 2: Would make life better. And you know, I find it sweet.
1:19:38
Speaker 1: I did.
1:19:39
Speaker 2: But it did though, to be fair, it did actually
1:19:42
Speaker 2: it did need to reform because it exposed the corruption
1:19:46
Speaker 2: of the government. Because they were like, hey, we can't
1:19:49
Speaker 2: blame the Americans anymore because they sent us all this money.
1:19:53
Speaker 1: Where is it now? I remember talking with somebody inside
1:19:57
Speaker 1: Obama world who was a bit more of a realistic
1:20:00
Speaker 1: about Iran wasn't as and and was trying to make
1:20:04
Speaker 1: the case that Obama wasn't a real He didn't this
1:20:07
Speaker 1: wasn't that It wasn't blind faith here. But the argument
1:20:13
Speaker 1: that was made to me of like, look, you know
1:20:15
Speaker 1: why we have to do this deal in order to
1:20:18
Speaker 1: then have a rationale if we have to go militarily,
1:20:21
Speaker 1: we have to prove demot diplomacy failed. We have to
1:20:25
Speaker 1: prove that they couldn't keep their work. We have to
1:20:28
Speaker 1: prove but we have to you have to give it,
1:20:31
Speaker 1: you know. That was the explanation, like why are you
1:20:33
Speaker 1: doing this bad deal? I'm sorry, I think for a
1:20:36
Speaker 1: lot of us thought it was like, huh, okay, this this,
1:20:41
Speaker 1: this seems like they're getting a lot for very you know,
1:20:44
Speaker 1: for very little reforms in return. And that was the
1:20:49
Speaker 1: That was the spin I got, which I would count
1:20:52
Speaker 1: as realistic spin because it was from somebody who themselves
1:20:55
Speaker 1: was a skeptic of the deal and yet was charged
1:20:58
Speaker 1: with having to with Havnue. But what believed that larger
1:21:03
Speaker 1: idea that hey, you have to you have to try this.
1:21:07
Speaker 1: You can't say you can't go to war and say
1:21:09
Speaker 1: we didn't because you almost have to prove that diplomacy
1:21:13
Speaker 1: isn't going to work. And yet here we are.
1:21:19
Speaker 2: So you know how Trump said that he spoke to
1:21:22
Speaker 2: a former president who said he wished he'd done it,
1:21:24
Speaker 2: Who wish he wish he'd he'd been able.
1:21:26
Speaker 1: Well, you know, the joke is that, remember he's technically
1:21:29
Speaker 1: a former president.
1:21:30
Speaker 2: Yes, he may exact.
1:21:31
Speaker 1: He may have just been having a conversation in the
1:21:33
Speaker 1: mirror with himself forty five, you know, the forty the
1:21:38
Speaker 1: forty fifth president was speaking with the forty seventh presidents.
1:21:43
Speaker 2: True, that's true. But Obama has said he wishes he'd
1:21:50
Speaker 2: done something when the two thousand and nine Green Movement
1:21:54
Speaker 2: uprising happened, and many believe that he didn't do it
1:22:00
Speaker 2: because he had an eye on a nuclear deal. So
1:22:03
Speaker 2: that was two thousand and nine. By twenty thirteen, the
1:22:07
Speaker 2: kind of secret talks were revealed that James Sullivan was doing,
1:22:14
Speaker 2: and then by twenty fifteen we had a nuclear deal.
1:22:17
Speaker 1: Look, I you know, I think you know that's you know,
1:22:22
Speaker 1: when you play these what if games, and I love
1:22:24
Speaker 1: to do them, it's sort of alternative histories and and
1:22:27
Speaker 1: you know, what if we had done this, and what
1:22:28
Speaker 1: if we had done that. I generally think though that
1:22:32
Speaker 1: the mindset of you better try to you better exhaust
1:22:35
Speaker 1: diplomacy in the United States, I've always argued has to
1:22:39
Speaker 1: get caught. Always exhausting diplomacy. When you were the biggest
1:22:42
Speaker 1: fish in the sea, or you're the big you know,
1:22:45
Speaker 1: then you should you do it. You actually have the
1:22:48
Speaker 1: luxury to exhaust the diplomacy. Not every entity, does you know,
1:22:52
Speaker 1: they don't happen. Do you think security?
1:22:54
Speaker 2: Do you think to be fair to Trump, then that
1:22:57
Speaker 2: he I mean he's basically stuck with what was eventually
1:23:06
Speaker 2: going to have to happen. Anyway.
1:23:08
Speaker 1: I have been I have been a believer. I used
1:23:10
Speaker 1: to I was half joking. I'm like, you know, I said,
1:23:15
Speaker 1: you know, I Kamala Harris gets elected president, you know
1:23:18
Speaker 1: her first crisis is going to be when she has
1:23:21
Speaker 1: to bomb around And I say has to, meaning like this,
1:23:24
Speaker 1: there's going to be a moment where Israel's going to
1:23:26
Speaker 1: test and it's like, well Jesus, you can't have Israel
1:23:28
Speaker 1: to do it by themselves. And it was like I
1:23:32
Speaker 1: think I always viewed it as inevitable that the next
1:23:34
Speaker 1: president was going to either voluntarily do this or get
1:23:39
Speaker 1: dragged into doing this. But either way, something was amiss.
1:23:42
Speaker 1: I think when we look back at mistakes Trump made,
1:23:46
Speaker 1: ripping up the nuclear deal was a mistake, proving that
1:23:50
Speaker 1: they were failing at the nuclear deal would have been
1:23:51
Speaker 1: a better way to go about this, right, like how
1:23:54
Speaker 1: they how they ended the deal. I'm not saying the
1:23:56
Speaker 1: deal was a good deal. How they how the deal
1:23:59
Speaker 1: was ended though, got lost America and the West some
1:24:07
Speaker 1: high ground.
1:24:09
Speaker 2: The problem now, though, is that there listen, there's a
1:24:14
Speaker 2: lot of room for improvement with President Trump, which is
1:24:19
Speaker 2: putting in politely. That being said, I worry, particularly from
1:24:28
Speaker 2: the perspective of the Iranian people, that the Western media,
1:24:34
Speaker 2: European media especially, it almost doesn't want Trump to succeed
1:24:42
Speaker 2: in this at the expense of the Iranian people, because
1:24:45
Speaker 2: there is there's.
1:24:46
Speaker 1: Some blind anti Trump. I know exactly what you mean.
1:24:49
Speaker 1: There's some of this blind that's almost like there's and
1:24:51
Speaker 1: you do you do wonder it's like, you know, I
1:24:55
Speaker 1: don't want Trump to fail. I think he's made some
1:24:58
Speaker 1: fatal mistakes, and you know, our job is to point
1:25:01
Speaker 1: out the mistakes he's made. But I I don't think
1:25:04
Speaker 1: you're wrong. There's this they're they're almost sometimes some of
1:25:07
Speaker 1: the coverage and you're right, particularly the European side comes
1:25:11
Speaker 1: across it like, you know, we got to prove you know,
1:25:13
Speaker 1: I hope he fails, so we can prove.
1:25:14
Speaker 2: We were right well in the As you know, warfare
1:25:18
Speaker 2: has many facets. Information warfare is a major part of that,
1:25:21
Speaker 2: and the Iranian regime is winning. I mean, I feel
1:25:25
Speaker 2: like I'm a one woman kind of fashion back checking
1:25:27
Speaker 2: machine at this point where I'm having sources inside around
1:25:30
Speaker 2: message me and say, I can't believe Trump said that
1:25:32
Speaker 2: Iranians are genetically inferior. I'm like, no, this is a
1:25:36
Speaker 2: clip that has been kind of cut off strategically at
1:25:40
Speaker 2: the end to make it sound like not that talking
1:25:43
Speaker 2: about people being genetically inferior is okay, but do you
1:25:46
Speaker 2: do you know what I mean? They sort of like
1:25:47
Speaker 2: take the they take the most problematic parts of things
1:25:51
Speaker 2: that Trump says and they work it to their advantage.
1:25:54
Speaker 2: And that is what's happening inside Iran right now, or
1:25:57
Speaker 2: the redrawing of the maps. And you know, he's not
1:26:00
Speaker 2: addressing the Iranian people directly. I mean, I've been trying
1:26:03
Speaker 2: to get an interview with him. I'm saying, you need
1:26:05
Speaker 2: to speak to somebody who is Iranian America, who they trust,
1:26:09
Speaker 2: the Iranian people trust. I mean, half the battle is
1:26:11
Speaker 2: winning the hearts and minds of the Iranian people inside.
1:26:15
Speaker 2: You want them to almost be fighting with you, alongside you.
1:26:18
Speaker 2: And at first, I mean I had somebody message me
1:26:20
Speaker 2: when the bomb started, saying, when this is over, they're
1:26:22
Speaker 2: going to be erecting a statue of Trump in Azadi
1:26:26
Speaker 2: Square in Tehran. And now that sentiment is starting to
1:26:29
Speaker 2: shift because he's saying things like, oh, the map of
1:26:31
Speaker 2: Iran is not going to look the same after this,
1:26:33
Speaker 2: and you know, stuff like that, and that's really not
1:26:37
Speaker 2: going down will.
1:26:46
Speaker 1: The other thing is, I don't think he is either
1:26:48
Speaker 1: getting the information or processing the information about the difficulty
1:26:54
Speaker 1: of this right and how you know, it does sound
1:26:57
Speaker 1: like he was I mean, look, General Kin went on
1:27:01
Speaker 1: a for him, was a pr blitz about a week
1:27:04
Speaker 1: before the bombing started, just making sure everybody understood how
1:27:11
Speaker 1: hard this was going to be and that this wasn't
1:27:13
Speaker 1: going to be Venezuela and that this wasn't going to
1:27:17
Speaker 1: And it sounds like, I mean, I can just picture Trump.
1:27:21
Speaker 1: It looks like the story being that he was warned
1:27:26
Speaker 1: about the straight of horn moves and he's now kind
1:27:28
Speaker 1: of admitting, sure, I was warned, but you know, he
1:27:30
Speaker 1: just assumed the regime would fold and I don't know
1:27:34
Speaker 1: whether that was people telling him what he wanted to
1:27:38
Speaker 1: hear in order to get him to the yes on
1:27:42
Speaker 1: launching the strikes, or whether we had intelligence to indicate
1:27:46
Speaker 1: that this was possible. What's your sense on this?
1:27:51
Speaker 2: I mean, so, from what I know about people who
1:27:54
Speaker 2: have negotiated difficult things like North Korea, on Trump's behalf
1:28:00
Speaker 2: as somebody who makes decisions intuitively, and we're hearing that
1:28:08
Speaker 2: kind of backed up by Caroline Levitt and himself Trump
1:28:12
Speaker 2: himself by they continuously say, you know, Trump had a
1:28:17
Speaker 2: feeling or I'll do this when I feel it, and so,
1:28:22
Speaker 2: or even.
1:28:22
Speaker 1: Like Telsea Gabbard's statement, you know, he determined Iran was
1:28:26
Speaker 1: an imminent threat.
1:28:28
Speaker 2: Although okay, so I got asked about Joe Kent on
1:28:32
Speaker 2: air yesterday, and so I'm a bit confused about him
1:28:39
Speaker 2: because previous statements have said Iran is a threat, Iran
1:28:43
Speaker 2: is an eminent threat, Iran needs to be neutralized. Mind you,
1:28:48
Speaker 2: you know his wife was killed in Iraq. I believe
1:28:52
Speaker 2: it was a rock, his first wife. And now once
1:28:57
Speaker 2: this resignation came out, and you know, the media calling
1:29:00
Speaker 2: it a wartime to defection, and that's kind of how
1:29:02
Speaker 2: it's being fun. People are saying that he's being influenced
1:29:08
Speaker 2: by his new wife, who works for a kind of
1:29:13
Speaker 2: outlet that's sympathetic to the Iranians, And so I think
1:29:17
Speaker 2: this all plays into the information warfare that the Iranians
1:29:24
Speaker 2: like that just that just a hand of them like
1:29:26
Speaker 2: yet another win, because it's like, oh, look, the Americans
1:29:30
Speaker 2: don't have it together, and we're starting to see wartime
1:29:33
Speaker 2: defections and the Runians are baiting Trump into putting boots
1:29:38
Speaker 2: on the ground, which is an absolutely horrible idea and
1:29:41
Speaker 2: should absolutely not happen. Special forces operations to bust out
1:29:45
Speaker 2: the prisoners from heavy sure, boots on the ground, no way,
1:29:49
Speaker 2: all right, but how.
1:29:50
Speaker 1: Do you secure the straight if how do you secure
1:29:53
Speaker 1: the straight without boots on the shoreline?
1:29:59
Speaker 2: I knew this.
1:30:00
Speaker 1: Wouldn't be here right now to right, No, I mean
1:30:01
Speaker 1: I think this is where I think he got himself
1:30:03
Speaker 1: into it. What I've been calling a you know, quicksand
1:30:07
Speaker 1: or a Chinese finger trap, because you know, we're in
1:30:11
Speaker 1: this situation now. The United States is is why we're here,
1:30:16
Speaker 1: and well ultimately it's the Iranian regime is why we're here.
1:30:20
Speaker 1: But let's in the current moment. Why is the Straight
1:30:23
Speaker 1: not navigable at the moment, It's because of actions by
1:30:26
Speaker 1: the United States. So in theory, it is our responsibility.
1:30:30
Speaker 1: And I don't know how you can't do it with
1:30:33
Speaker 1: their power and naval power alone. You know, you cannot
1:30:37
Speaker 1: guarantee one hundred percent safety with with without that. So
1:30:40
Speaker 1: it is one of those where tactically you're going to
1:30:42
Speaker 1: have to have some boots on the ground.
1:30:44
Speaker 2: Now do you mean get the Marines on harg Island.
1:30:47
Speaker 1: Well, I think this is where we're you know, this
1:30:49
Speaker 1: is you know, this is the mission creep fear right,
1:30:52
Speaker 1: But this is how these things happen. Nobody wants to
1:30:54
Speaker 1: put boots on the ground. You do it because you
1:30:56
Speaker 1: think there's no other choice. And I think now, so
1:31:00
Speaker 1: if you think there's no other choice to open the Straight,
1:31:03
Speaker 1: you say, that's a disaster. If it's to keep the
1:31:06
Speaker 1: Straight open, you know what do the Golf States want?
1:31:10
Speaker 1: What do you know do they? And this is where
1:31:13
Speaker 1: there's some confusion. In fact, I just I'm rambling here.
1:31:15
Speaker 1: So let me actually put a pin in this and
1:31:17
Speaker 1: let's move to the Golf States. Did MBS push Trump
1:31:22
Speaker 1: to do this or not? And I say, that because
1:31:24
Speaker 1: there was this high profile Washington Post story that indicated
1:31:27
Speaker 1: that was the case. Now you've got whether it's a
1:31:31
Speaker 1: billionaire and cutter or the UAE making it pretty clear
1:31:35
Speaker 1: that they did and this is not what they were
1:31:37
Speaker 1: looking for. Do we think the Golf States sent a
1:31:43
Speaker 1: mixed message to the administration. This is a case where yeah,
1:31:49
Speaker 1: they were all for it if they thought they could
1:31:51
Speaker 1: get it done, and now that this isn't working, they're like, well, geez,
1:31:54
Speaker 1: I don't want my fingerprints on this. Now, what's what's
1:31:58
Speaker 1: your understanding of? You know, essentially, what did the UA
1:32:02
Speaker 1: and Saudi's want here? And were they supportive until they
1:32:06
Speaker 1: weren't or were they always skeptical?
1:32:10
Speaker 2: So the story that isn't being talked about is that
1:32:14
Speaker 2: in the lead up to this, the Saudis and the Martis.
1:32:19
Speaker 1: Were beefing right there. They're in a proxy war in
1:32:24
Speaker 1: Africa right now, aren't they.
1:32:26
Speaker 2: Their relationship with starting to deteriorate, much like in the
1:32:30
Speaker 2: twenty seventeen GCC blockade era when Katar was in the doghouse,
1:32:35
Speaker 2: right And so now with the UA getting hit so hard,
1:32:41
Speaker 2: Saudi Arabia is not getting hit as hard as the UA.
1:32:48
Speaker 2: It's not. And my sources, my Marti sources, have noted
1:32:54
Speaker 2: that to me and have said, you know, I don't
1:32:58
Speaker 2: understand why Saudi is not getting hit like we are
1:33:01
Speaker 2: when they were for the strikes. So there is this,
1:33:06
Speaker 2: at least from the Amarazi side, there is this sense
1:33:10
Speaker 2: that the Saudis were pro the strikes.
1:33:14
Speaker 1: What are the the way the Iranians are behaving that's
1:33:17
Speaker 1: not the case. Or are the Iranians afraid to engage Saudi?
1:33:22
Speaker 2: Remember that China brokeer the deal between Iran and Saudi Arabias.
1:33:26
Speaker 2: I think that's playing a part. I think that's playing apart.
1:33:31
Speaker 2: I think China, we haven't really I mean, so Trump
1:33:35
Speaker 2: did end up postponing the summit, didn't he his trip
1:33:39
Speaker 2: to China?
1:33:40
Speaker 1: Right?
1:33:40
Speaker 2: So I think I think I think in the next
1:33:44
Speaker 2: week or so, we'll probably see. I would expect we
1:33:47
Speaker 2: would see. I think China's role might become a bit
1:33:52
Speaker 2: more clear.
1:33:54
Speaker 1: What do you expect them to play a sort of
1:33:56
Speaker 1: a diplomatic role with trying to the Iranians, you know,
1:34:04
Speaker 1: sort of almost being a proxy for the Iranians to
1:34:07
Speaker 1: bring them to the table to do a ceasefire. Is
1:34:09
Speaker 1: that what you expect I mean.
1:34:11
Speaker 2: I think that that I wouldn't be surprised if they
1:34:13
Speaker 2: try that. You know, they they brokeered the the kind
1:34:18
Speaker 2: of detente between Saudi Arabia and Iran, so I wouldn't
1:34:21
Speaker 2: be surprised if China tries that now. At the same time,
1:34:25
Speaker 2: like again, the regime can't stay in place. It just
1:34:29
Speaker 2: it can't stay unless it can't stay in place unless
1:34:32
Speaker 2: it's a complete you know, lay down our arms. We
1:34:37
Speaker 2: are at peace, like no more death to America, like
1:34:39
Speaker 2: we're friends.
1:34:40
Speaker 1: But as you just said, like they don't have an
1:34:42
Speaker 1: identity without fighting the West. I mean, and this, I
1:34:45
Speaker 1: think this has always been the hardest thing to explain
1:34:49
Speaker 1: to some some some parts of the American audience, where
1:34:55
Speaker 1: look this regime, you know, and you know they don't
1:34:59
Speaker 1: like to hear these we're in a battle for this,
1:35:01
Speaker 1: you know, for this is a cultural war as much
1:35:04
Speaker 1: as anything else. But it kind of is right, and.
1:35:10
Speaker 3: It's a.
1:35:13
Speaker 1: We we we we view everybody through the prism of
1:35:17
Speaker 1: how we see the world and our pluralism and our idealism,
1:35:22
Speaker 1: and we we can't fathom that that there are literally
1:35:27
Speaker 1: almost a suicidal theocracies out there, you know, that don't.
1:35:31
Speaker 1: And I think Trump has a hard time processing this.
1:35:33
Speaker 1: I think Trump assumes everybody's motivated by the thing he's
1:35:36
Speaker 1: motivated for money, fame, and power, and that ultimately.
1:35:40
Speaker 2: Americans in general, I think this is an American phenomenon.
1:35:44
Speaker 2: I think we have difficulty wrapping our head around the
1:35:48
Speaker 2: fact that people there are people out there who hate
1:35:52
Speaker 2: us just because we are like they exist.
1:35:54
Speaker 1: Because right we think we're decadent, you know, and that
1:35:58
Speaker 1: we we are two materialists. And this is why you know,
1:36:02
Speaker 1: civilization is on the downslope, et cetera. Right like, and look,
1:36:06
Speaker 1: whether there's a portion of that, there's actually a portion
1:36:10
Speaker 1: of that mindset that fuels the Mega movement ironically domestically.
1:36:14
Speaker 1: And so that's what actually makes me sometimes frustrated with
1:36:17
Speaker 1: Trump that he doesn't understand the Iranian theocracy when like, dude,
1:36:21
Speaker 1: you're part of your your your some of your followers
1:36:25
Speaker 1: view you as the head of a future theocracy, even
1:36:29
Speaker 1: if you don't actually believe the own your own messages
1:36:33
Speaker 1: that you're selling.
1:36:34
Speaker 2: But this is why I find it so ironic when
1:36:36
Speaker 2: you see people, you know, protesting or mourning the death
1:36:42
Speaker 2: of the Supreme leader. I mean, the Supreme Leader. His
1:36:45
Speaker 2: whole ethos was death to America, which means death to Americans.
1:36:52
Speaker 2: But of course it's so hypocritical because you know, these
1:36:55
Speaker 2: these people preach death to America and try to ban
1:36:59
Speaker 2: everything American and Western, and yet they partake in it themselves.
1:37:03
Speaker 2: I mean, one time I was texting with a source
1:37:06
Speaker 2: who is close to this now diseased Supreme Leader, I mean,
1:37:10
Speaker 2: like he's in the inner circle. Uh, And I mentioned
1:37:15
Speaker 2: I referenced something he had said, and he said, I
1:37:18
Speaker 2: didn't say that, and I'm like, yes, you did. And
1:37:21
Speaker 2: it comes back and he says, oh, I must have
1:37:23
Speaker 2: been drunk.
1:37:26
Speaker 1: Oh really, I didn't know we were drinking.
1:37:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh yeah, no, there's I mean, that's the thing.
1:37:30
Speaker 2: This is, like all of the things that are decadent
1:37:33
Speaker 2: and sinful about America and Western culture they partaken themselves.
1:37:40
Speaker 2: Like it's just complete hypocrisy, right, And you know we
1:37:46
Speaker 2: see in these sort of op hits about like Ali
1:37:49
Speaker 2: Lara Johnny saying, well, you know, he he hated Western ideals,
1:37:54
Speaker 2: but at the same time was fascinated by them. And
1:37:57
Speaker 2: so you know, one of the problems for the regime
1:38:02
Speaker 2: was social media. Like social media was kind of the
1:38:04
Speaker 2: beginning of the end for them, because they couldn't control
1:38:08
Speaker 2: the narrative anymore. So they could go in and raid
1:38:12
Speaker 2: people's houses and take their satellites and throw them in jail,
1:38:16
Speaker 2: but they couldn't. They couldn't monitor all of the different
1:38:20
Speaker 2: social media channels, like they just couldn't. People were too clever.
1:38:23
Speaker 2: They have VPNs, you know, even though they did sort
1:38:27
Speaker 2: of think they were being clever and create these VPNs
1:38:30
Speaker 2: that were actually IERGC links, So like people were downloading
1:38:32
Speaker 2: VPNs thinking they're getting around the Internet blackouts and then
1:38:35
Speaker 2: actually downloading ERGC link to VPNs, and that's how they
1:38:38
Speaker 2: were catching them. So it's like really diabolical. But still,
1:38:42
Speaker 2: you know, they they couldn't and so like that, the
1:38:46
Speaker 2: TikTok dances and all of the stuff that attracted the
1:38:50
Speaker 2: Gen Z generation, they lost control of that generation, and
1:38:57
Speaker 2: the kind of forcing of Islam younger population just completely backfired.
1:39:06
Speaker 1: Well trying to figure out you know, you know, all
1:39:09
Speaker 1: regimes come to an end quickly, but it takes a
1:39:11
Speaker 1: long time for them for the quick for the quick ending.
1:39:14
Speaker 1: You know. It's like, you know, it's like the joke
1:39:16
Speaker 1: about bankruptcy. First it happened slowly, then it happens quickly, right,
1:39:19
Speaker 1: And that's.
1:39:20
Speaker 2: But it's not it's just like unraveling. Right.
1:39:22
Speaker 1: It feels like it's unraveling, but it could still be years,
1:39:24
Speaker 1: not months, not weeks, right, or do you really think
1:39:27
Speaker 1: we're no longer counting in years. We're now finally counting
1:39:31
Speaker 1: in months.
1:39:33
Speaker 2: When you pull a thread, it kind of takes a
1:39:36
Speaker 2: while for it to start to relate unravel. But then
1:39:39
Speaker 2: when it unravels, it unravels quickly, right, like when it
1:39:42
Speaker 2: reaches a point where that just disintegrates. And twenty twenty two, so,
1:39:50
Speaker 2: like I said, women had been quietly kind of pulling
1:39:53
Speaker 2: at the very thread of the fabric of the regime,
1:39:56
Speaker 2: which was hijab. It's a pillar of the Islamic Republic.
1:40:00
Speaker 2: Hijab was a pillar of the Islamic Republic because it
1:40:02
Speaker 2: was its most obvious, in your face way of exercising
1:40:06
Speaker 2: control and ruling with fear and the politics of sadness
1:40:11
Speaker 2: by like stripping color of our clothes. I mean, there's
1:40:14
Speaker 2: there's so much psychological processing and manipulation that goes into this.
1:40:19
Speaker 2: But once that started to unravel quickly after a woman
1:40:26
Speaker 2: life freedom, that's how we reached this point and so
1:40:30
Speaker 2: like the fabric, the literal fabric of the regime is
1:40:35
Speaker 2: now falling apart. It's just falling apart.
1:40:38
Speaker 1: We've been speaking for almost an hour and we've barely
1:40:42
Speaker 1: mentioned Israel. Yeah, yeah, in this country, it is the
1:40:49
Speaker 1: driving narrative of this war. Is Israel's role, Israel's you know,
1:40:55
Speaker 1: just you know, and for Israel, we know, look, they
1:40:59
Speaker 1: just decision was made after October seventh, you know, no
1:41:03
Speaker 1: more uneasy piece right that they wanted to try to,
1:41:07
Speaker 1: you know, permanently eliminate Iran's ability to wage proxy war
1:41:11
Speaker 1: against the Israelis, right, whether that was destroying Hesbelad, destroying
1:41:14
Speaker 1: a mass and doing what they're doing. I understand the mindset.
1:41:17
Speaker 1: We'll see if I think, we'll see if this is
1:41:20
Speaker 1: a workable strategy for them, But what is that long
1:41:24
Speaker 1: term impact and what if what is Iran's relations what
1:41:30
Speaker 1: is a future Iran's relationship? But what are Iranians relationship
1:41:34
Speaker 1: with Israel? If indeed the regime falls and you know,
1:41:40
Speaker 1: history is going to I think correctly noteed you know
1:41:42
Speaker 1: as much. The Israelis pushed the United States to do this, so.
1:41:49
Speaker 2: Early September twenty twenty two, a few weeks before Massa
1:41:52
Speaker 2: Amoni was killed in the Woman Life Freedom Uprising piped off.
1:41:55
Speaker 2: I was in Tel Aviv and I was reporting for
1:41:59
Speaker 2: a doc coumentary that I was hosting on the BBC.
1:42:03
Speaker 2: Got out of the shadows about the covert war between
1:42:07
Speaker 2: Iran and Israel. And before I had just moved to
1:42:11
Speaker 2: Dubai and I took the flight, the direct flight from
1:42:15
Speaker 2: Dubai to Tel Aviv. This was a historic flight because
1:42:18
Speaker 2: the Abraham Accords had just been reached, and you know,
1:42:24
Speaker 2: it was a very big deal. And I think that
1:42:27
Speaker 2: again to Trump's credit, he doesn't get credit, He does
1:42:30
Speaker 2: not get enough credit for what a big deal the
1:42:33
Speaker 2: Abraham Accords was. You know, it did also happen in
1:42:36
Speaker 2: twenty twenty, it was during COVID, like quite a lot
1:42:39
Speaker 2: overshadowed it. But again I think like because of this
1:42:45
Speaker 2: animosity towards Trump, which is often very valid, there's a
1:42:50
Speaker 2: hesitance to give credit.
1:42:51
Speaker 1: Records blind it can blind, right. Trump Trump arrangement syndrome
1:42:56
Speaker 1: is a thing, instant, there is some.
1:42:59
Speaker 2: Truth to it is a thing and so and so.
1:43:01
Speaker 2: But before I took that fight game, source of my
1:43:05
Speaker 2: kind of insider source of mine called me and he
1:43:08
Speaker 2: said worried about a called it a miscalculation. He said
1:43:14
Speaker 2: he was really worried about a miscalculation in the Iran
1:43:17
Speaker 2: Israel covert conflict, and that he worried it was going
1:43:20
Speaker 2: to spill out into the open and be a full
1:43:23
Speaker 2: on kinetic war, like bombs dropping out in the open.
1:43:28
Speaker 2: And I and you know, like the thing is like
1:43:30
Speaker 2: it kind of felt that way, like it felt like
1:43:33
Speaker 2: I was in a bit of a tinderbox being in Dubai,
1:43:36
Speaker 2: like there was tension. I didn't expect it to be
1:43:39
Speaker 2: woman life freedom truly, and I actually think woman life
1:43:43
Speaker 2: freedom maybe delayed what inevitably ended up being the twelve
1:43:46
Speaker 2: Day war last year. We kind of distracted. But when
1:43:53
Speaker 2: I went to Tel Aviv, I sat down with Amir Pardo,
1:43:57
Speaker 2: former Masade chief, and got basically what was the closest
1:44:02
Speaker 2: to an admission on the targeted assassinations program. He was
1:44:08
Speaker 2: the architect of the targeted assassinations program in Iran, where
1:44:13
Speaker 2: you know, they they started to just assassinate nuclear scientists.
1:44:18
Speaker 2: The Israeli started to assassinate nuclear scientists in around And
1:44:24
Speaker 2: when I was there, I was posting on Instagram which
1:44:28
Speaker 2: actually got me kind of blacklisted among the influencer circles
1:44:32
Speaker 2: in Dubai. So even though the UAE had just signed
1:44:36
Speaker 2: a deal with Israel and you know, you know peace,
1:44:39
Speaker 2: we're going to be friends and we're going to do deals,
1:44:43
Speaker 2: people in Dubai were not happy about it. And largely
1:44:45
Speaker 2: the Arab population is not happy about their governments doing
1:44:49
Speaker 2: business with Israel and recognizing Israel. They are not democracies.
1:44:56
Speaker 1: Yes, the leaders are want to do business with Israel
1:44:59
Speaker 1: more than the people do right.
1:45:01
Speaker 2: Yes, very much, and with their leaders no complete opposite.
1:45:06
Speaker 2: I had people in Iran messaging me on Instagram, dming
1:45:10
Speaker 2: me on Instagram and saying, please tell the Israelis that
1:45:13
Speaker 2: we love them. These are not people that I know.
1:45:14
Speaker 2: I don't know them. These are random people who follow
1:45:16
Speaker 2: me on Instagram and saw I was in Israel and
1:45:19
Speaker 2: DMed me and were like sending me messages in Farsi
1:45:21
Speaker 2: and voice notes and saying, please tell the Israelis that
1:45:24
Speaker 2: we have no problem with them, We love them like
1:45:26
Speaker 2: we want our countries to be friends. You know, our
1:45:29
Speaker 2: governments are keeping us apart. So I'm saying that because
1:45:35
Speaker 2: if and when this regime is finished, you know whatever
1:45:40
Speaker 2: that whatever the regime turns into. If and when an
1:45:43
Speaker 2: Islamic republic that lives and breathes death to America, death
1:45:46
Speaker 2: to Israel and no longer exists, yeah, there will be
1:45:52
Speaker 2: a friendship that goes back to what used to exist,
1:45:56
Speaker 2: and it'll.
1:45:56
Speaker 1: Be TI and it could be you know you're describing.
1:45:59
Speaker 1: It's sort of like if I told Americans in nineteen forty,
1:46:02
Speaker 1: if I went back into a time machine, I said,
1:46:04
Speaker 1: you know, two of America's closest allies for a good
1:46:06
Speaker 1: forty years in the future is going to be Germany
1:46:08
Speaker 1: and Japan. Well, Americans would have been, what are you
1:46:12
Speaker 1: talking about? And this could be. That's my assumption too,
1:46:16
Speaker 1: that fifty years from now the relationship between Israel and
1:46:20
Speaker 1: Iran is going to be this incredibly important and tight
1:46:23
Speaker 1: relationship and in many ways, instead of being competitors, they
1:46:26
Speaker 1: might be the co leaders of a thriving Middle East.
1:46:30
Speaker 1: And it's the golf states that are left out in
1:46:32
Speaker 1: the sidelines.
1:46:34
Speaker 2: But I think that's why the golf leaders recognize that.
1:46:37
Speaker 2: I think like NBS is smart, whatever people might want
1:46:40
Speaker 2: to say about him, you know, and his team rights record,
1:46:44
Speaker 2: he is smart. But also like if these countries were democracies,
1:46:51
Speaker 2: they would have problems with, you know, controlling the population
1:46:56
Speaker 2: and there.
1:46:58
Speaker 1: By the way we have a taste of it. Just
1:46:59
Speaker 1: look at Turk or the brief period we had Egypt
1:47:03
Speaker 1: as a democracy who got elected.
1:47:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's like it's it's an uncomfortable part of
1:47:08
Speaker 2: the conversation, right, but but it has to be said.
1:47:12
Speaker 2: And I was actually, it's funny you mentioned Japan because
1:47:14
Speaker 2: I was just in Japan. I hit my I was
1:47:16
Speaker 2: celebrating my end of my hundred country challenge, and I
1:47:21
Speaker 2: was thinking, thank you, and I was just thinking about that.
1:47:24
Speaker 2: I said, you know, like we don't talk about the
1:47:28
Speaker 2: concept of forgiveness in geopolitics, and that's why I I,
1:47:34
Speaker 2: you know, the diaspora is very opinionated. And so when
1:47:37
Speaker 2: I have mentioned, like, okay, what do the options look
1:47:40
Speaker 2: like for how Iran becomes just a republic and not
1:47:44
Speaker 2: an Islamic republic? Does that mean there are kind of
1:47:47
Speaker 2: people who were in the regime who kind of come
1:47:51
Speaker 2: to the other side. You know, there has to be
1:47:54
Speaker 2: an element of forgiveness because you know, there was a
1:47:58
Speaker 2: there was a massacre that everybody who was in the
1:48:01
Speaker 2: regime is accounted for right is accountable for rather But
1:48:08
Speaker 2: at the same time, you know, like you said, we're
1:48:13
Speaker 2: friends with Germany and we're friends Japan. We dropped a
1:48:15
Speaker 2: nuclear bomb on Japan, right, you know they attacked us.
1:48:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a lot to learn ends with them, probably
1:48:25
Speaker 1: a lot to learn from the Japanese about forgiveness. It
1:48:29
Speaker 1: could be the ones really bitter to this day.
1:48:33
Speaker 2: And it's not that long ago. I mean, it's still
1:48:35
Speaker 2: in our it's still in our.
1:48:37
Speaker 1: Lifetime and other people alive today exactly exactly. Well, there's
1:48:41
Speaker 1: no good place to end this conversation because we're in
1:48:44
Speaker 1: the middle of something. But you know, meaning you know,
1:48:48
Speaker 1: I know we're not We're not in any resolution mode here,
1:48:52
Speaker 1: so it's hard to So I know we're going to
1:48:54
Speaker 1: be doing it to be continued, because I think we
1:48:56
Speaker 1: I'd love to, you know, I think you know, do
1:48:59
Speaker 1: you look at this war in two week chunks, in
1:49:02
Speaker 1: one week chunks and three week chunks, what's your sense
1:49:05
Speaker 1: of of how you view this. I assume we're running
1:49:08
Speaker 1: out of targets that are reasonable at this point.
1:49:12
Speaker 2: So what I've noticed now in the kind of it's
1:49:16
Speaker 2: moving into the intelligence, it's maybe kind of it started
1:49:20
Speaker 2: on the intelligence front, right, it started as an intelligence war,
1:49:24
Speaker 2: then it became started as a covert war, that's what
1:49:26
Speaker 2: my whole scumentary is about. And then it moved into
1:49:29
Speaker 2: a kinetic war. And now I'm starting to see that
1:49:32
Speaker 2: it's moving sort of back into the cloak and diagres
1:49:35
Speaker 2: bycraft side of things that's going to be necessary to
1:49:41
Speaker 2: hit the scale. And I'm saying that because we're starting
1:49:44
Speaker 2: to see a reporting, you know, the Wall Street Journal
1:49:46
Speaker 2: how to report of how Mossad is kind of calling
1:49:51
Speaker 2: individual higher GC members and basically telling them that they
1:49:58
Speaker 2: are target And there's one a quote from one. It's
1:50:02
Speaker 2: a recording, I guess, and what one has said, You know,
1:50:07
Speaker 2: I'm not your enemy, like I'm a walking dead man.
1:50:10
Speaker 2: On I'm a walking dead man as it is. And
1:50:14
Speaker 2: I think it's important for your audience to remember who
1:50:18
Speaker 2: are the people inside, Like who is the IRGC? What
1:50:21
Speaker 2: is the IRGC? So you have every young man has
1:50:28
Speaker 2: to do their military service, much like Israel, and you
1:50:31
Speaker 2: have to do a couple of years and you have
1:50:34
Speaker 2: either the art is the army or the aria GC.
1:50:37
Speaker 2: You don't get to choose, you get you get put
1:50:39
Speaker 2: into either the or the Army, so like you could
1:50:43
Speaker 2: be a gay, tatted up like rock and roll loving
1:50:49
Speaker 2: guy and end up having to fight for the IRGC,
1:50:54
Speaker 2: like you could not believe in any of their Islamic.
1:50:58
Speaker 1: What you're saying is you think there is an opportunity
1:51:00
Speaker 1: here where where there's dissension in the ranks.
1:51:07
Speaker 2: The problem here is again goes back to information. Hearing
1:51:12
Speaker 2: about the dissension of the ranks is going to be
1:51:13
Speaker 2: the bigger problem. So I was told that, I was
1:51:17
Speaker 2: told by one of my sources in Iran that, I mean,
1:51:20
Speaker 2: it's a civilian source that basically everybody thinks much Double
1:51:24
Speaker 2: is dead. Much Double comedy is the new so called Supremely.
1:51:28
Speaker 1: There's no proof of life. I mean, I'm sorry, so
1:51:31
Speaker 1: do I you know everyone? Yeah, I don't think he
1:51:34
Speaker 1: ever was alive or maybe he was on life support.
1:51:37
Speaker 2: The statement that he put out, like when you read
1:51:40
Speaker 2: when you read it, it's very clearly more than one
1:51:43
Speaker 2: person wrote this statement. There's lots of different there's lots
1:51:47
Speaker 2: of input. Right now it turns out he's dead. That
1:51:53
Speaker 2: is a huge blow for the IRGC because they couldn't
1:51:56
Speaker 2: protect him. You know, Yes, Ali Laira Johnny is a
1:51:59
Speaker 2: big is a big one that they've lost. But they
1:52:04
Speaker 2: couldn't protect mush Tabba. They couldn't protect the Supreme Leader.
1:52:07
Speaker 2: And the thing is, you know, mush Tabba was always
1:52:12
Speaker 2: kind of rumored to be the favorite to take over
1:52:15
Speaker 2: and be the next Supreme Leader, killing his dad basically
1:52:21
Speaker 2: good at the eventual inevitable process, right, And so I think,
1:52:28
Speaker 2: like that's why the PR part of this is so important,
1:52:34
Speaker 2: and the White House really needs to up its game
1:52:37
Speaker 2: on it. They are not doing a good job. Like
1:52:40
Speaker 2: it's Persian New Year. What's their plan?
1:52:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, what's their plan?
1:52:44
Speaker 2: You know, like this is prime opportunity. You know, if
1:52:46
Speaker 2: if I was White House communications director, I'd be like,
1:52:49
Speaker 2: all right, we've got thirteen days, you know, like we
1:52:52
Speaker 2: have like a blast, we have a like who are
1:52:55
Speaker 2: we talking to, who are we reaching? What's our messaging?
1:52:59
Speaker 2: You know, like now is the time.
1:53:01
Speaker 1: There's an opportunity here yet.
1:53:03
Speaker 2: So that's why, I mean, the intelligence side of this
1:53:05
Speaker 2: is really important for the next two weeks.
1:53:09
Speaker 1: Knowing my listeners is on, They're going to want more
1:53:11
Speaker 1: from you before I get you on on here again,
1:53:13
Speaker 1: where can they find your work? Right?
1:53:16
Speaker 2: Yes, so we are on substack helmet to Heels dot com.
1:53:19
Speaker 2: And then my podcast is Global Powershifts on YouTube. I
1:53:23
Speaker 2: co host that with Jim Stenman, a former CNN correspondent.
1:53:28
Speaker 2: And then I'm on Instagram on Poor World and Helmet
1:53:31
Speaker 2: to Heels also on Twitter X poor World.
1:53:35
Speaker 1: Well, and you're a thriving and independent journalist, and thank
1:53:40
Speaker 1: goodness for it. It's not easy being independent. You've got
1:53:44
Speaker 1: to especially what you're trying to do, travel the world, security,
1:53:47
Speaker 1: all sorts of stuff. So encourage my my listeners and
1:53:51
Speaker 1: my wife and viewers to support the work that you're doing.
1:53:54
Speaker 2: Thank you, Thank you much.
1:53:56
Speaker 1: This is exactly how I expected. What I expected from
1:54:00
Speaker 1: this conversation, which was to learn a lot in undert.
1:54:04
Speaker 2: To make a pack. Yes, ma'am, do an episode having
1:54:09
Speaker 2: tea in Tehran.
1:54:11
Speaker 1: I'd love to do that. I'd love to do that.
1:54:13
Speaker 1: I'd love to get to Trent. All right, Well we're
1:54:15
Speaker 1: going to get there, all right, Suzan, this was great.
1:54:18
Speaker 1: Thanks for the time.
1:54:19
Speaker 2: Thank you.
1:54:29
Speaker 1: Well, it is Monday, which means we're going to step
1:54:32
Speaker 1: into the time machine. And as I gave you in
1:54:41
Speaker 1: the hint in the monologue, nuclear energy was your clue.
1:54:48
Speaker 1: March twenty eighth, nineteen seventy nine is where we're going
1:54:52
Speaker 1: in the time machine. So if you drive about two
1:54:55
Speaker 1: hours west of Philadelphia, in about two and a half
1:54:58
Speaker 1: maybe three hours east of Pittsburgh, you're going to come
1:55:01
Speaker 1: to the Susquehanna River just south of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania's the
1:55:06
Speaker 1: state capitol, Harrisburg, and there's a small island there, three
1:55:09
Speaker 1: Mile Island. That's where this story takes place. And if
1:55:13
Speaker 1: you were alive in nineteen seventy nine, you probably remember
1:55:16
Speaker 1: it the way I do. It was fragments, a news bulletin,
1:55:21
Speaker 1: the word radiation. You'd hear that sound, a sense that
1:55:24
Speaker 1: something serious was happening, but no one could quite explain
1:55:27
Speaker 1: what I was seven. I remember the anxiety more than
1:55:31
Speaker 1: the facts. Right, three Mile Island, ooh right? Just say
1:55:34
Speaker 1: that three words, right, and it immediately triggers something in me.
1:55:38
Speaker 1: Yet you have to look up the details, right, And
1:55:43
Speaker 1: in a way, that's the story. Though it's the fear,
1:55:46
Speaker 1: not the details, that makes this time machine an important.
1:55:52
Speaker 3: Lesson for us.
1:55:53
Speaker 1: So in March twenty eight, nineteen seventy nine, a nuclear
1:55:55
Speaker 1: reactor and three Mile Island partially melted down. There was
1:56:00
Speaker 1: no explosion, there were no mass casualties. But something else
1:56:05
Speaker 1: broke confidence. To understand the shock, you have to understand
1:56:11
Speaker 1: the expectations. What we thought nuclear power was going to
1:56:14
Speaker 1: be in the sixties and seventies, right, you know, so
1:56:17
Speaker 1: we get the nuclear bomb and we use it, and
1:56:21
Speaker 1: we have you know, Oppenheimer, and we have all this,
1:56:23
Speaker 1: you know, we have all these handering about nuclear weapons.
1:56:26
Speaker 1: But there was excitement about nuclear energy, and in the
1:56:28
Speaker 1: sixties and seventies, the United States was building nuclear power
1:56:31
Speaker 1: plants rapidly. By the late seventies, there were roughly one
1:56:34
Speaker 1: hundred reactors operating or under construction. Dozens more were in
1:56:41
Speaker 1: the planning stages. The promise was extraordinary massive energy output,
1:56:47
Speaker 1: no air pollution, less dependence on foreign oil. Something going
1:56:52
Speaker 1: on in the Middle East at the moment. Sorry, but
1:56:53
Speaker 1: I digress. Nuclear power was supposed to be the future. Basically,
1:56:57
Speaker 1: the only thing we were debating is where to put
1:56:59
Speaker 1: the waste. But that early morning on March twenty eighth,
1:57:06
Speaker 1: a pump failed. Pressure rose a really valve opened to
1:57:11
Speaker 1: release it. That part worked, but then the valve got
1:57:15
Speaker 1: stuck open. And here's the critical failure. The control room
1:57:19
Speaker 1: indicator said the valve had closed well it hadn't closed.
1:57:25
Speaker 1: Cooling water was escaping, but the operators didn't know that
1:57:29
Speaker 1: at the moment. What the operator saw was falling pressure
1:57:33
Speaker 1: and assumed the system had too much water, so they
1:57:37
Speaker 1: reduced the cooling flow, so in reality, the reactor was
1:57:42
Speaker 1: losing cooling. They were acting logically based on the warning
1:57:47
Speaker 1: system they were staring at, but it was incorrect information.
1:57:51
Speaker 1: It wasn't a single failure, but it turned into a
1:57:54
Speaker 1: cascade yet a mechanical failure, misleading instrumentation and then of
1:57:59
Speaker 1: course incorrect human interpretation. So without cooling, without that cooling water,
1:58:07
Speaker 1: the core overheated, the fuel rods were damaged. A partial
1:58:12
Speaker 1: meltdown did occur. Hydrogen gas formed inside the reactor vessel.
1:58:18
Speaker 1: In fact, a bubble of hydrogen built up, and for
1:58:21
Speaker 1: several days, experts feared that bubble of hydrogen could explode,
1:58:27
Speaker 1: and that was the fear that drove the national headlines.
1:58:30
Speaker 1: This became a feeding frenzy. Later scientists would determine that
1:58:35
Speaker 1: the bubble actually never could have ignited in that environment
1:58:38
Speaker 1: because there was never enough oxygen, but they didn't know
1:58:41
Speaker 1: that at the moment, and there was a lot of fear,
1:58:44
Speaker 1: and this is the key we never figured out the
1:58:47
Speaker 1: facts of everything that was happening and understood the science
1:58:50
Speaker 1: even until after the fact, and most disconcerting in the moments,
1:58:56
Speaker 1: and this, of course is why public confidence just on
1:59:00
Speaker 1: nuke's The experts at the time weren't sure. So what
1:59:06
Speaker 1: the public saw was the following. Harrisburg was just a
1:59:10
Speaker 1: few miles away. That's a large city, state capital, Philadelphia
1:59:14
Speaker 1: one hundred miles east, Pittsburgh two hundred miles west. This
1:59:18
Speaker 1: wasn't going to have if this explosion wasn't going to
1:59:20
Speaker 1: happen in a remote area. This was happening near state capitol,
1:59:24
Speaker 1: in a populated corridor in this country. So what people
1:59:28
Speaker 1: experienced was mass confusion. The plant operator, Metropolitan Medicine they
1:59:33
Speaker 1: would say one thing, The Nuclear Regulatory Commission they would
1:59:36
Speaker 1: say another. Information was changing hour to hour. Even the
1:59:42
Speaker 1: institutions responsible for explaining the situation weren't aligned. And then
1:59:48
Speaker 1: there was something else. Pop culture had kind of already
1:59:52
Speaker 1: primed the public for a catastrophe. Twelve days earlier, a
1:59:58
Speaker 1: movie called The China Syndrome had opened in theaters. That
2:00:03
Speaker 1: movie depicted a nuclear accident and then a cover up.
2:00:07
Speaker 1: So now suddenly people were watching the news and wondering
2:00:12
Speaker 1: if fiction had become reality. And remember movies in the
2:00:14
Speaker 1: late seventies, there were big events. Okay, millions, everybody was
2:00:22
Speaker 1: staying movies. We had no streaming, right, we just had
2:00:25
Speaker 1: our three channels. Maybe a handful of people had this
2:00:28
Speaker 1: weird thing called home box office, with this little weird
2:00:30
Speaker 1: thing that they could access on weekends only. But the
2:00:35
Speaker 1: movies were a big deal. And I remember my parents
2:00:38
Speaker 1: saw that movie. Jane Fonda was in it. You're going
2:00:42
Speaker 1: to see those movies. President Jimmy Carter visited the site
2:00:46
Speaker 1: on April first, And remember he wasn't just a politician,
2:00:50
Speaker 1: he was a trained nuclear engineer under Admiral Ricover. So
2:00:54
Speaker 1: in theory, we had the right president to deal with
2:00:57
Speaker 1: the situation like this. He understood the technology. But images
2:01:03
Speaker 1: of Carter walking through the plant in protective gear were
2:01:07
Speaker 1: broadcast nationwide. The American president wasn't safe in America. He
2:01:13
Speaker 1: actually was doing this to try to reassure the public,
2:01:16
Speaker 1: but the images did the exact opposite. Does it reinforced
2:01:21
Speaker 1: how serious the situation had become. And this is where
2:01:25
Speaker 1: the psychology shifted. Radiation is invisible, you can't see it.
2:01:30
Speaker 1: You can't smell it, and you can't feel it. The
2:01:32
Speaker 1: only way to detect it is with instruments Geiger counters
2:01:35
Speaker 1: clicking in the background. That creates distance. The public has
2:01:39
Speaker 1: to rely on experts to tell them whether they're safe.
2:01:42
Speaker 1: They don't get to tell themselves. That's an uncomfortable feeling, right.
2:01:45
Speaker 1: We would learn this during COVID. How much the public
2:01:48
Speaker 1: would push back on that feeling, and when those experts
2:01:51
Speaker 1: appear uncertain, that trust begins to erode again, something we
2:01:55
Speaker 1: all experienced during COVID, right when the specifics of what
2:01:58
Speaker 1: the expert says doesn't quite play out the way they
2:02:01
Speaker 1: say it does. And ironically, and here's the single most
2:02:06
Speaker 1: important fact you should take away from this episode. There
2:02:09
Speaker 1: were no immediate deaths and no officially confirmed fatalities from
2:02:12
Speaker 1: this accident, but for the people living nearby, the uncertainty
2:02:15
Speaker 1: never did end. The question what if has never fully
2:02:18
Speaker 1: gone away. To this day. There are various entities still
2:02:25
Speaker 1: testing for radiation poisoning, seeing what's happened, things like that,
2:02:30
Speaker 1: And this is where this became a real break. It's
2:02:34
Speaker 1: not just is nuclear power safe. If it becomes will
2:02:37
Speaker 1: we understand it when it fails? And More importantly, will
2:02:41
Speaker 1: we believe the explanation? Now, this ended up having a huge,
2:02:45
Speaker 1: huge consequences that we're still feeling today. We're at war
2:02:48
Speaker 1: in the Middle East, arguably because of Three Mile Hole.
2:02:50
Speaker 1: Let me explain, before nineteen seventy nine, nuclear expansion was steady.
2:02:54
Speaker 1: After nineteen seventy nine, new plant orders stopped, projects were canceled,
2:02:59
Speaker 1: costs or regulations tightened. The United States didn't ban nuclear energy,
2:03:04
Speaker 1: but it stopped building towards.
2:03:06
Speaker 3: A nuclear future.
2:03:08
Speaker 1: We basically, I mean, look at it now, we're just
2:03:11
Speaker 1: maintaining the power plants that are because I think we're
2:03:16
Speaker 1: afraid of shutting them down.
2:03:17
Speaker 3: And we need the power.
2:03:21
Speaker 1: But all of this had consequences. By stopping the nuclear clock,
2:03:24
Speaker 1: we didn't just stop building plants, we started building dependency.
2:03:28
Speaker 1: Every megawatt not generated by nuclear had to come from
2:03:31
Speaker 1: somewhere else. Usually that meant burning something coal, gas, or oil,
2:03:35
Speaker 1: and that continued reliance has tied the United States to
2:03:38
Speaker 1: the global energy markets, including the Middle East. Now, Three
2:03:46
Speaker 1: Mile Island alone has not stopped us from having a
2:03:51
Speaker 1: nuclear ambition, But every time confidence is about to return
2:03:57
Speaker 1: into the nuclear energy space, something else happens in the
2:04:01
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties, the industry tried to recover. Then came Chernobyl
2:04:05
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty six. Reactor explodes, massive radiation release, global shock.
2:04:10
Speaker 1: Confidence collapses in nuclear energy again. And yes it was
2:04:14
Speaker 1: a different plant. It was bad Soviet maintenance. There's all
2:04:19
Speaker 1: sorts of explanations and rationales. This couldn't happen here, and
2:04:21
Speaker 1: this hasn't happened here, right, we haven't had radiation leaks.
2:04:24
Speaker 1: We didn't. We don't have a we don't have a
2:04:26
Speaker 1: no go zone anywhere, right like they do with Chernobyl.
2:04:32
Speaker 1: Decades later, climate concerns seemed to change the conversation. Nuclear
2:04:36
Speaker 1: energy was coming back because people saw nuclear as cleaner,
2:04:41
Speaker 1: more necessary. In twenty ten the Obama administration, so it
2:04:45
Speaker 1: was an important moment. Right Democrats was mostly the left
2:04:48
Speaker 1: that was pushing the anti New movement more so than
2:04:50
Speaker 1: the right, though nim Not in my backyard was sort
2:04:54
Speaker 1: of prevalent left and right. But it was a big
2:04:56
Speaker 1: step because, you know, the environmental community to this day
2:04:59
Speaker 1: has always been divided on nuclear energy about half or
2:05:03
Speaker 1: or four because it's the cleanest, cheapest energy that's realistic,
2:05:09
Speaker 1: and others fear that you know, have embedded in them
2:05:12
Speaker 1: the fear of what could go wrong. So in twenty ten,
2:05:16
Speaker 1: the Obama administration approved support for new nuclear plants, first
2:05:20
Speaker 1: ones we'd seen in decades. Momentum returned briefly because then
2:05:26
Speaker 1: came Fukushima twenty eleven earthquake, tsunami, cooling failure, mouthdowns again,
2:05:30
Speaker 1: totally different cause. Right, three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima
2:05:34
Speaker 1: all failed for different reasons. One was the weather event,
2:05:39
Speaker 1: one was probably bad maintenance and bad facility management, and
2:05:44
Speaker 1: one was a mechanical failure. But we had the same result.
2:05:51
Speaker 1: After Fukushima, fear returned and momentum stalled. So Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima.
2:05:56
Speaker 1: Each time a complex system fails and explanation is different.
2:06:00
Speaker 1: Call the risk feels existential, public confidence collapses, and policy follows.
2:06:07
Speaker 1: And this is the moment to linger on because Three
2:06:09
Speaker 1: Mile Island didn't end nuclear power, but it changed the trajectory.
2:06:13
Speaker 1: If the US had continued building plants through the eighties
2:06:15
Speaker 1: and nineties, our energy system today might look very different.
2:06:20
Speaker 1: It's not a certainty, but it was a real fork
2:06:23
Speaker 1: on the road. And I'm serious. Would we be in
2:06:27
Speaker 1: the Middle East today? Where would we be in the
2:06:30
Speaker 1: climate conversation. Would our earth cleaned up a lot sooner?
2:06:35
Speaker 1: Would the temperature of the planet not be as high
2:06:37
Speaker 1: as it is. This isn't just about trust, it's about
2:06:45
Speaker 1: understanding and so when people and this is a real
2:06:47
Speaker 1: lesson that we need to figure out how to do better.
2:06:49
Speaker 1: Our public policy leaders need to figure out how communicate better.
2:06:54
Speaker 1: Scientists need to figure out how to speak American, not
2:06:56
Speaker 1: just technical English textbook English, because when people don't understand
2:07:01
Speaker 1: a risk, especially one that can kill you invisibly, they'll
2:07:05
Speaker 1: always choose caution, always, always, always, and that caution will
2:07:08
Speaker 1: get passed down to other generations. It's survival, it's human nature,
2:07:14
Speaker 1: and that's what's happened here. We're multiple generations now where
2:07:17
Speaker 1: we have this reticence on nuclear energy, and we also
2:07:23
Speaker 1: have a new technology out there that has got a
2:07:26
Speaker 1: lot of skepticism about it, artificial intelligence, and it's very
2:07:31
Speaker 1: similar nuclear. Right, the experts can't quite explain how it works. Oh,
2:07:34
Speaker 1: it hallucinates, What the hell does that mean? Right, it's
2:07:39
Speaker 1: not great. I think one of the reasons AI has
2:07:41
Speaker 1: a negative. Right, But when the designers themselves struggle to
2:07:44
Speaker 1: explain the outcome, right, so the question doesn't become is
2:07:50
Speaker 1: this safe? The question is if it fails, will we
2:07:53
Speaker 1: understand why it failed?
2:07:54
Speaker 3: And will we believe the explanation.
2:07:57
Speaker 1: So if you go back to three Mile Island today,
2:07:59
Speaker 1: it's quiet. Unit two never operated again. Unit one has
2:08:02
Speaker 1: continued for decades, but they shut it down in twenty nineteen.
2:08:05
Speaker 1: What was one supposed to represent the future of energy
2:08:08
Speaker 1: became something else, a symbol of doubt. March twenty eighth,
2:08:10
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy nine, a reactor partially melted, But what really
2:08:14
Speaker 1: changed was something harder to measure, confidence in nuclear energy.
2:08:20
Speaker 1: And once confidence in a system breaks or in an
2:08:22
Speaker 1: idea breaks, especially when people don't fully understand, the consequences
2:08:26
Speaker 1: don't last for years, they last for generations. And what
2:08:30
Speaker 1: are the unattended consequences? I mean, I you know, is
2:08:38
Speaker 1: it three more wars in the Middle East? Or if
2:08:41
Speaker 1: we go down, if we expand nuclear reactors at the
2:08:44
Speaker 1: same rate we were building them in the sixties and seventies,
2:08:48
Speaker 1: are there no more wars in the Middle East, or
2:08:51
Speaker 1: at least no more than inbolve the United States? As
2:08:55
Speaker 1: they used to say it my old employer, that might
2:09:00
Speaker 1: be one to grow on. Ask chuck. Let's do a
2:09:12
Speaker 1: little last chuck. This question comes from Chris Mooresville, North Carolina,
2:09:16
Speaker 1: and he writes Trump frequently uses phrases like radical left
2:09:19
Speaker 1: lunatics to describe Democrats, and his consistent vilification the opposition
2:09:23
Speaker 1: party feels more extreme than what I remember from past
2:09:25
Speaker 1: presidents or the same age. I'm curious about your perspective.
2:09:28
Speaker 1: Both parties have used unflattering language like liberal and conservative
2:09:32
Speaker 1: for years. By the way, isn't it weird that we've
2:09:35
Speaker 1: turned liberal and conservative into unflattering language. They're just simply
2:09:38
Speaker 1: descriptors that I think still we should not waste. But
2:09:43
Speaker 1: you are correct, we do weaponize those two words. But
2:09:46
Speaker 1: his rhetoric referring to Trump seems different in tone and intensity.
2:09:49
Speaker 1: Is his language actually more extreme historically? Or have other
2:09:52
Speaker 1: presidents used similarly harsh rhetoric to frame their political opponents?
2:09:55
Speaker 1: Love the podcast and really have enjoyed following your move
2:09:57
Speaker 1: into independent journalism. So you know, if I want to
2:10:04
Speaker 1: defend Trump's use of rhetoric, I can go back to
2:10:06
Speaker 1: the nineteenth century and find a lot of crappy stuff
2:10:09
Speaker 1: and a lot of nasty stuff. Right, I can go
2:10:13
Speaker 1: into the Nixon tapes. Right, you can hear some things
2:10:16
Speaker 1: you can't believe a president but uttered, but they were
2:10:18
Speaker 1: never meant to be uttered in public.
2:10:19
Speaker 2: Right.
2:10:22
Speaker 1: I think that where I would draw the line in
2:10:25
Speaker 1: where you're trying to go here. So, look, there's no
2:10:27
Speaker 1: doubt our politics were really personal and sometimes not just
2:10:34
Speaker 1: you know, both rhetorically violent and sometimes physically violent in
2:10:37
Speaker 1: the nineteenth century, and considering that we fought an actual
2:10:41
Speaker 1: civil war? Is that really surprising? Considering that it did
2:10:45
Speaker 1: lead to a civil war? But I think by me
2:10:50
Speaker 1: going back to the nineteenth century to say, you know,
2:10:52
Speaker 1: do we have examples of harsh rhetoric like this, you
2:10:55
Speaker 1: have to go back to the nineteenth century. You know
2:10:58
Speaker 1: that shouldn't make you feel better this. In fact, it
2:11:02
Speaker 1: probably I may have may be making you feel even
2:11:05
Speaker 1: more concerned about this. Look, I do think you know,
2:11:07
Speaker 1: Trump's words matter. A president's words matter. They leave an impression,
2:11:12
Speaker 1: They can serve as a permission slip. Right, If the
2:11:16
Speaker 1: president of the United States thinks it's okay to be
2:11:19
Speaker 1: little somebody, then why isn't it okay to be little somebody? Right?
2:11:22
Speaker 1: If the president of the United States thinks it's okay
2:11:24
Speaker 1: to say this then it must be okay to say this.
2:11:27
Speaker 2: Right.
2:11:30
Speaker 1: That's and it is different. And in the modern era
2:11:33
Speaker 1: it's been different.
2:11:34
Speaker 3: You know.
2:11:34
Speaker 1: Ever since when presidential words have been put on tape
2:11:38
Speaker 1: or have been heard or seen or heard rather than
2:11:42
Speaker 1: read right, there were plenty of harsh I mean, that's
2:11:46
Speaker 1: the thing. All the nineteenth century. Harsh rhetoric is sort
2:11:48
Speaker 1: of quotes in print, right, you don't but when you
2:11:54
Speaker 1: hear it, see it, it's you know, it's instantaneous, and
2:12:01
Speaker 1: it stems from a belief. You know. I've been through
2:12:05
Speaker 1: this with him. I've had these conversations with him about
2:12:08
Speaker 1: the use of his harsh rhetoric, and I said, you know,
2:12:12
Speaker 1: and he goes, oh, it's just he thinks it's just hyperbole,
2:12:17
Speaker 1: and that's how he defends it. I'm just, you know,
2:12:19
Speaker 1: it's over the top. It's I think I've used this
2:12:22
Speaker 1: compared you know. I think in his head he thinks
2:12:25
Speaker 1: it's no different than than the rhetoric professional wrestlers use
2:12:30
Speaker 1: at each other. You know, they don't really hate each other,
2:12:32
Speaker 1: but they use all this crazy rhetoric. It's it's a script.
2:12:35
Speaker 1: It's a soap opera, right, which is what professional wrestling is. Scripted,
2:12:40
Speaker 1: and I think in Trump's head this is this is
2:12:42
Speaker 1: political rhetoric. Is I can't tell you how often. I mean,
2:12:46
Speaker 1: I had a direct confrontation with him in a room
2:12:48
Speaker 1: full with other media executives who just sat there silently
2:12:51
Speaker 1: in the fricking cowards. But this is before. This is
2:12:55
Speaker 1: in the run up to the first term, where nobody
2:12:59
Speaker 1: else was gonna And I said, look, when you name drop,
2:13:02
Speaker 1: I just simply said, when you name drop. And it
2:13:04
Speaker 1: was one of our correspondents that whenever he would utter
2:13:06
Speaker 1: her name, literally instantaneous hate and threats would come at
2:13:11
Speaker 1: her all over the place. And I said, you know, look,
2:13:19
Speaker 1: nobody's telling you you want to bash the press, bash
2:13:21
Speaker 1: the press, but do it generally. I said, when you
2:13:25
Speaker 1: name somebody individually, you think it's all in good fun
2:13:28
Speaker 1: because he has said, oh, that's good for your ratings.
2:13:30
Speaker 1: When he would you know, he called me a son
2:13:32
Speaker 1: of a bitch. And what's always bothered me about that
2:13:35
Speaker 1: moment when he called me a son of a bitch
2:13:37
Speaker 1: at a rally. Was the first person to tell me
2:13:40
Speaker 1: about it was my then fifteen year old daughter who
2:13:44
Speaker 1: saw it on Instagram. So I've always you know, it
2:13:47
Speaker 1: was like, I'm fine, you know, I don't. I don't,
2:13:51
Speaker 1: you know, I it's funny. In my thirties and forties,
2:13:55
Speaker 1: I cared sort of in my late forties and fifties.
2:13:58
Speaker 1: I just, you know, I know it's meaningless rhetoric. But
2:14:04
Speaker 1: it is sad when you see people assume and what
2:14:07
Speaker 1: happens is they project all sorts of things on me, right,
2:14:10
Speaker 1: you know, they hear his rhetoric and then assume that, well,
2:14:14
Speaker 1: we must hate him if he's saying this about us,
2:14:17
Speaker 1: so we must be unfair to him, right, And that's
2:14:19
Speaker 1: really what this is designed to do. Right, It's just
2:14:21
Speaker 1: design to other eyes, anybody who's potentially a credible critic
2:14:27
Speaker 1: of his, and so he's trying to delegitimize and in
2:14:31
Speaker 1: some cases dehumanize. But there is a part of his
2:14:36
Speaker 1: brain that thinks it's just this is all part of
2:14:38
Speaker 1: a show, and he's got to play his part, and
2:14:42
Speaker 1: he expects to get as good as he gives, Right,
2:14:45
Speaker 1: that's what he would say. Now, of course he doesn't
2:14:47
Speaker 1: handle it when he actually when people do fire back
2:14:49
Speaker 1: at him. But look, it's why, I just, you know,
2:14:55
Speaker 1: I don't it's easy to fire back on him. I'm
2:14:57
Speaker 1: a Muller. It's easy to fire and this stuff, I
2:15:00
Speaker 1: do think it desensitizes people. I think it What it
2:15:04
Speaker 1: really does is that it for those that are for
2:15:10
Speaker 1: the meant for the less stable partisan, it gives them
2:15:15
Speaker 1: a permission slip to not treat somebody like a human
2:15:20
Speaker 1: fellow human being, but somebody below that, meaning they're willing
2:15:23
Speaker 1: to commit violence, willing.
2:15:24
Speaker 3: To do things.
2:15:25
Speaker 1: And so look, I think it's terrible. And you know,
2:15:28
Speaker 1: the first term there would be people that would denounce
2:15:30
Speaker 1: when he would do this stuff. The biggest difference between
2:15:33
Speaker 1: term one and term two is everybody just ignores it
2:15:35
Speaker 1: and looks the other way. The question is, well, how
2:15:38
Speaker 1: is it conditioning this right? And how it means we're
2:15:41
Speaker 1: normalizing this and we should never normalize this right. And
2:15:47
Speaker 1: it is disconcerting to me that the Democrats that are
2:15:49
Speaker 1: doing that are getting the most traction, are the ones
2:15:52
Speaker 1: that are willing to sort of engage in the same rhetoric.
2:15:55
Speaker 1: And I understand the emotional relief it may give you
2:16:02
Speaker 1: in a moment, that doesn't build a more perfect union.
2:16:06
Speaker 1: We know it does not. So look I struggle with
2:16:10
Speaker 1: you know, It's like I could you could spend every
2:16:13
Speaker 1: hour of every day calling out his unethical, immoral, and
2:16:18
Speaker 1: unpresidential and unpatriotic behavior. There's a point where you come
2:16:25
Speaker 1: across as Charlie Brown's, as the adults in a Charlie
2:16:28
Speaker 1: Brown cartoon wan wah wah wah wah wah, and then
2:16:31
Speaker 1: fewer and fewer people listen. But I do want to
2:16:36
Speaker 1: encourage people who I think, you know, don't have a
2:16:38
Speaker 1: lot of trust right now in either party. Maybe he
2:16:41
Speaker 1: did vote for Trump once or twice because they didn't
2:16:44
Speaker 1: like what the Democrats were offering, or they didn't you know,
2:16:46
Speaker 1: they thought, you know what, maybe yes, he's a bore.
2:16:49
Speaker 1: But his disruption hopefully will sober everybody up. Here's what
2:16:52
Speaker 1: I would tell you if your hope was it would
2:16:54
Speaker 1: sober everybody up.
2:16:55
Speaker 3: It didn't work.
2:16:56
Speaker 1: People want to get drunk or on rhetoric now, and
2:16:59
Speaker 1: people want to you know, seem to. It is what
2:17:01
Speaker 1: we have done, right what you hoped you were going
2:17:04
Speaker 1: to get out of him shaking up the system. What
2:17:06
Speaker 1: it has done is chase the good people away and
2:17:08
Speaker 1: has invited some real dirt bags to show up into
2:17:13
Speaker 1: the political space. And these people are going to be
2:17:17
Speaker 1: more grifty than ever more exploitive of the system than ever,
2:17:22
Speaker 1: and they're going to be voted in when they win,
2:17:25
Speaker 1: they're going to believe they have a mandate essentially to
2:17:28
Speaker 1: do and behave this way because hey, he did it
2:17:31
Speaker 1: and they won by basically fighting fire with fire. So
2:17:37
Speaker 1: I think what the intent of what the disruption would
2:17:40
Speaker 1: do and what has actually happened. I understand the need
2:17:43
Speaker 1: for disruption. I think the better way to disrupt this
2:17:47
Speaker 1: system now is to go find an independent because I
2:17:49
Speaker 1: think both parties are afraid. Both parties want power more than.
2:17:56
Speaker 3: They want the country to move on. That's my concern.
2:18:05
Speaker 1: All right. Next question comes from Jim Wade. He says, Hey,
2:18:07
Speaker 1: I enjoy your podcast immensely, thank you, and I have
2:18:09
Speaker 1: a brief question. I've heard you mentioned President Garfield several
2:18:12
Speaker 1: times and almost what might have been tone you made
2:18:15
Speaker 1: me curious to learn more about the man and how
2:18:16
Speaker 1: things might have gone differently had he lived. Can you
2:18:18
Speaker 1: recommend some books I might read? Thanks in advance. Yes,
2:18:21
Speaker 1: Destiny of the Republic is the one that the Netflix
2:18:25
Speaker 1: series was based on. There's three that I'm going to recommend.
2:18:30
Speaker 1: Destiny of the Republic is the one I was just
2:18:32
Speaker 1: telling about. That's Candice Millards. That book was the basis
2:18:37
Speaker 1: of Death by Lightning, the Netflix series. There's another one
2:18:41
Speaker 1: called dark Horse that was written by an old Senate staffer.
2:18:46
Speaker 1: It is it's called The Surprise Election and Political Murder
2:18:49
Speaker 1: of President James A. Garfield by Kenneth Ackerman. He wrote
2:18:52
Speaker 1: that nearly twenty three years ago. It is fantastic, spends
2:18:55
Speaker 1: a lot of time in the convention. I love the
2:18:57
Speaker 1: political side of things. You could tell. It's very much
2:18:59
Speaker 1: written by a Washington insider, and I say that with love.
2:19:03
Speaker 1: And then there's a newish book out by a historian
2:19:07
Speaker 1: named C. W. Goodyear that is more more about Garfield
2:19:13
Speaker 1: the person in general and his upbringing. Look, he is
2:19:18
Speaker 1: the every every sort of mythology about you know, anybody
2:19:24
Speaker 1: can become president, you know, and the nominating comment, all
2:19:27
Speaker 1: these things. Garfield is the origin story. So those three books,
2:19:34
Speaker 1: like I said, Goodyear, Garfield Expansively, Destiny of the Republic
2:19:38
Speaker 1: and dark Horse are both about more about just the
2:19:41
Speaker 1: incidents themselves. And there's some tremendous books about the Getteau
2:19:47
Speaker 1: trial itself that in alone, like the trial of Gatoau.
2:19:51
Speaker 1: Because he was alive, Garfield was still alive when the
2:19:53
Speaker 1: trial started. I mean, it's just so, but those are
2:19:57
Speaker 1: those would be the big three that I'd recommend there.
2:20:00
Speaker 1: Thanks Jim. Next question comes from mattin Connecticut and he says, Hey,
2:20:03
Speaker 1: I enjoy the podcast and the way you present all
2:20:05
Speaker 1: sides of an issue. The Lifelong Democrat have a question
2:20:07
Speaker 1: about something you discussed on a recent episode. You mentioned
2:20:09
Speaker 1: how many independents would like to see more moderate policies
2:20:12
Speaker 1: from Democratic leaders. I have a liberal leaning view of
2:20:14
Speaker 1: social issues, but a more moderate view of fiscal issues.
2:20:16
Speaker 1: So I'm curious do you think independence would like to
2:20:19
Speaker 1: see more Democrats moderate their views on social issues or
2:20:21
Speaker 1: fiscal issues?
2:20:22
Speaker 3: Any specific examples?
2:20:23
Speaker 1: Thanks? And go yukon basketball. What's fun about ukon basketball
2:20:27
Speaker 1: is you guys. You guys get two shots with both tournaments,
2:20:30
Speaker 1: right with the men and the women. One goes down,
2:20:33
Speaker 1: we got the other squad. You know, not all basketball
2:20:37
Speaker 1: programs have it as good as you talk, So kudos.
2:20:42
Speaker 1: So I want to go back to something I did
2:20:46
Speaker 1: a few months ago when I was talking about the
2:20:48
Speaker 1: old FDR coalition and right, the biggest critique of the
2:20:52
Speaker 1: FDR coalition comes from the left, and it comes from
2:20:55
Speaker 1: the social justice left because he would prioritize that can
2:21:00
Speaker 1: you know, sort of the economic populism over and in
2:21:03
Speaker 1: some ways. You know, if FDR is criticized on the
2:21:06
Speaker 1: left for anything, it's his lack of follow through on desegregation,
2:21:11
Speaker 1: it's his lack of follow through on certain social justice issues.
2:21:15
Speaker 1: And you know, yes, he appointed the first woman cabinet secretary,
2:21:20
Speaker 1: so it's not like he didn't move.
2:21:22
Speaker 3: The ball forward.
2:21:24
Speaker 1: But you know, you had a culturally diverse country, of
2:21:29
Speaker 1: religiously diverse country, and yet he got them all united
2:21:34
Speaker 1: behind behind his economic policies. So I would just say, generally,
2:21:42
Speaker 1: economic security and that's the phrase I would use here, Matt.
2:21:48
Speaker 1: Economic security is how you can win the broadest swath
2:21:55
Speaker 1: of independence. Doesn't mean you're moderate, right, I think it's
2:22:00
Speaker 1: more you know, I think this is where we need
2:22:02
Speaker 1: better language. Right, there's liberal, it's really what are your focus?
2:22:06
Speaker 1: What's your focus? And the reason Bill Clinton and Barack
2:22:10
Speaker 1: Obama did so well with the middle is that that
2:22:13
Speaker 1: they were always leaning more into economic security. Right, whether
2:22:18
Speaker 1: it's healthcare, that's part of your economic security. And so
2:22:23
Speaker 1: I think you know, you can you can get more
2:22:27
Speaker 1: devoted supporters. This is why primaries are usually more involved
2:22:34
Speaker 1: more of the social issues because your core rank and
2:22:38
Speaker 1: file voters are more and they've chosen a party based
2:22:41
Speaker 1: on those issues. They've not necessarily chosen a party based
2:22:43
Speaker 1: on economic issues. That's where we vacillate the most. So
2:22:47
Speaker 1: it's just in general, I just think it's it's it's
2:22:50
Speaker 1: I think, you know what you just describe about your
2:22:53
Speaker 1: your cut between social and fiscal issue and economic issues.
2:22:57
Speaker 1: Pretty much everybody in the right would express it the
2:22:59
Speaker 1: same way. I'm pretty conservative on this, but you know,
2:23:02
Speaker 1: I ultimately, you know, you'll take a And that's why
2:23:06
Speaker 1: with Bill Clinton, you know, he got the harshest political
2:23:12
Speaker 1: beatdowns when he touched things like guns, right, but he
2:23:16
Speaker 1: got but he was able to sort of keep his
2:23:19
Speaker 1: coalition and if anything, expand when he was focused solely.
2:23:23
Speaker 3: On the economy in some form or another.
2:23:26
Speaker 1: So I just think in general, and look, and that
2:23:29
Speaker 1: I go back to something else I brought up recently.
2:23:33
Speaker 1: The base of the Democratic Party is smaller than the
2:23:35
Speaker 1: base of the Republican Party, which means Democrats have to
2:23:39
Speaker 1: win more of the sort of the less aligned voter right,
2:23:43
Speaker 1: which means you're you're moderate. You know, you're moderate or
2:23:46
Speaker 1: your independent voter. And then the Republicans do right. They
2:23:51
Speaker 1: may may seventy percent of their voters are core voters,
2:23:56
Speaker 1: are base voters, and sixty percent of Democratic voters are
2:23:58
Speaker 1: base voters. Right, So to get to the fifty percent,
2:24:01
Speaker 1: Democrats need more of the so called middle than the
2:24:04
Speaker 1: Republicans do. And because of that, I think that's why
2:24:07
Speaker 1: they almost have to lean harder on the economic security issues.
2:24:11
Speaker 1: But that's the phrase I'd be using. It's economic security. Right.
2:24:14
Speaker 1: The fear of AI is not what it's doing, it's
2:24:18
Speaker 1: fear of losing a secure economic future.
2:24:20
Speaker 2: Right.
2:24:21
Speaker 3: Economic security. That is the phrase that pays in my opinion.
2:24:27
Speaker 1: Next question comes from Brad. Hey love the pods and
2:24:29
Speaker 1: the election night live streams. Feel like I learned something
2:24:31
Speaker 1: new every time? That is that is my chief goal,
2:24:34
Speaker 1: My goal when I listen to something, did I learn
2:24:37
Speaker 1: one thing? Right? And if I do, I go back
2:24:39
Speaker 1: and keep listening.
2:24:40
Speaker 3: So I appreciate you saying that, Brad.
2:24:44
Speaker 1: Question is why are Republicans so much better than Democrats
2:24:46
Speaker 1: at messaging? Is it simply because they have a news
2:24:48
Speaker 1: channel watched by millions that does their bidding? Thanks? Ps.
2:24:51
Speaker 1: Assuming you're doing a livestream for the midterms. Is there
2:24:53
Speaker 1: a place I can send pizza's next to help you
2:24:55
Speaker 1: with the team get through the night? Oh, Brad, that's awesome.
2:24:59
Speaker 1: Probably to my friends at the d d HQ boiler room.
2:25:03
Speaker 1: They have an expansive place at the on campus at
2:25:06
Speaker 1: Georgetown's Public Policy School, So I think I'll be directing
2:25:11
Speaker 1: all pizza. So enjoy, miss Kelley. If you've gone this
2:25:17
Speaker 1: long on the pod and you're hearing you now see
2:25:19
Speaker 1: that my my, my viewers want to feed you and
2:25:23
Speaker 1: Scott and the boys anyway, So thank you for.
2:25:27
Speaker 3: That, Brad. We will we will probably take you up
2:25:29
Speaker 3: on that.
2:25:33
Speaker 1: I think on messaging for what it's worth, I think
2:25:36
Speaker 1: each I you know, people on the right complain to
2:25:40
Speaker 1: me that the left's better at messaging. People on the
2:25:43
Speaker 1: left complain to me that the right's better at messaging.
2:25:46
Speaker 1: I think some of this is confirmation bias, right do
2:25:51
Speaker 1: I think? I think Democrats fear offending a certain There's
2:25:59
Speaker 1: always this extra fear of offending an interest group that
2:26:03
Speaker 1: waters down language, which is why they sometimes don't always
2:26:07
Speaker 1: speak American. I always say, don't speak English, speak American.
2:26:11
Speaker 1: I think the Republicans are better at talking to people
2:26:13
Speaker 1: that live between I five and nine ninety five than
2:26:21
Speaker 1: Democrats do. I think Democrats worry too much about talking
2:26:24
Speaker 1: to people east of I ninety five and west of
2:26:28
Speaker 1: I five if you get where I'm going right ninety five,
2:26:33
Speaker 1: the East coast interstate, High five, the West coast interstate,
2:26:37
Speaker 1: I mean, and a lot of their voters live it live,
2:26:41
Speaker 1: you know, between the ocean and that and those two interstates,
2:26:47
Speaker 1: and I think Democrats don't want to offend voters in
2:26:49
Speaker 1: those areas. And I think Republicans do a better job
2:26:52
Speaker 1: of talking everybody in between, and they don't have the
2:26:55
Speaker 1: same interest groups holding them accountable.
2:26:57
Speaker 3: In language that the left does.
2:27:00
Speaker 1: The language police on the left is a much more aggressive,
2:27:08
Speaker 1: is much more aggressive at hitting their leaders on word
2:27:14
Speaker 1: choices than the right is. So I think when you
2:27:17
Speaker 1: factor all that in, I think it just it feels.
2:27:20
Speaker 1: I will tell you this. It always feels like both
2:27:24
Speaker 1: everybody focus groups, it feels, but it feels more noticeable
2:27:28
Speaker 1: with them with Democrats at times. But I will say this,
2:27:32
Speaker 1: I think some of this is the assumption that the
2:27:35
Speaker 1: other side is always better at it right, grass is
2:27:37
Speaker 1: always greener. Mindset mark for ann arbor rights Hey, it
2:27:43
Speaker 1: seems the authorities that run airports would benefit from implementing
2:27:48
Speaker 1: programs that would provide payday loans to TSA agents based
2:27:50
Speaker 1: at their airports. Given the benefit, seems the credit risk
2:27:53
Speaker 1: would be acceptable. Participants good pledge their paycheck proceeds as security.
2:27:56
Speaker 1: The airlines may also be interested in participating. Are you
2:27:59
Speaker 1: aware of any organization considering such a program. By the way,
2:28:01
Speaker 1: I watched the film Perfect Neighbor you discussed on one
2:28:04
Speaker 1: of your recent podcasts. It was very well done, and
2:28:06
Speaker 1: I was particularly impressed with how the police officers conducted themselves,
2:28:09
Speaker 1: very professional and competent in contrast with some of the
2:28:11
Speaker 1: ICE agents that have been showing on selected videos.
2:28:14
Speaker 3: Markro Man Arbor.
2:28:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I'm by the way, I'm so glad you
2:28:18
Speaker 1: point that out in Perfect Neighbor. I think I think
2:28:20
Speaker 1: that to me, it is an endorsement of body cameras, right.
2:28:24
Speaker 1: I mean, if you can't tell me that doesn't change
2:28:26
Speaker 1: behavior or incentivize de escalation, I think it's pretty clear
2:28:32
Speaker 1: that it does. I mean that to me, and I
2:28:34
Speaker 1: know that wasn't that's not the intended message of that movie,
2:28:36
Speaker 1: but it's certainly one that I think for me it
2:28:39
Speaker 1: just right, couldn't make the movie without the body camera footage.
2:28:42
Speaker 1: And body camera footage didn't embarrass the police officers, and
2:28:46
Speaker 1: in some cases it may have. It certainly was an
2:28:49
Speaker 1: MRI on some you know, sort of historical thing stereotypes,
2:28:53
Speaker 1: things like that, but it also served as a good
2:28:57
Speaker 1: reminder that it works. Right, you know, what you're presenting
2:29:03
Speaker 1: is interesting. Can I just go another place? We probably
2:29:07
Speaker 1: ought to privatize this. You know, look, I think the
2:29:12
Speaker 1: fact that the government can just stop, we know they're
2:29:17
Speaker 1: going to pay this, and the fact that they just
2:29:19
Speaker 1: it just automatically stops, right, it is the system is
2:29:25
Speaker 1: you know, this is let me put it in another way.
2:29:29
Speaker 1: We wouldn't have these standoffs if the system said that
2:29:34
Speaker 1: the standoff could happen.
2:29:37
Speaker 2: Right.
2:29:37
Speaker 1: In some ways, the fact that you can stop funds
2:29:40
Speaker 1: is the feature, not the bug, and it should be
2:29:42
Speaker 1: a bug. I go back to I don't understand how
2:29:46
Speaker 1: the shutdowns are legal, Like we just we're in the United
2:29:49
Speaker 1: States government. The idea that we can just suddenly hold
2:29:52
Speaker 1: up spending money out of nowhere when we're you know,
2:29:55
Speaker 1: helping the entire global economy function, I mean that just
2:29:59
Speaker 1: seems da injurious and sort of a terrible idea. But
2:30:03
Speaker 1: if we're going to continue to sort of govern this
2:30:06
Speaker 1: way and allow this dysfunctional method to budgeting that Congress does,
2:30:12
Speaker 1: then with something as essential as our air travel, privatize
2:30:17
Speaker 1: tsa right. You know, government pays for it, but the funds,
2:30:23
Speaker 1: but basically they got to get reimbursed by the federal government.
2:30:27
Speaker 1: So that way then you would basically still have the
2:30:30
Speaker 1: same thing that you're describing. Right, the private entity continues
2:30:33
Speaker 1: to pay, They're not going to get reimbursed for a while,
2:30:35
Speaker 1: but they'd have a better They can withstand this better
2:30:38
Speaker 1: and they certainly you know, it would create it. So
2:30:42
Speaker 1: you would have functioning security agents getting paid without having
2:30:48
Speaker 1: for them to figure this out. Reliable security. You still
2:30:53
Speaker 1: have the same standards and everything, but if each you know,
2:30:56
Speaker 1: airport authority ought to run its own or privatize it
2:30:59
Speaker 1: in some way. Again, privatize it with the strict with
2:31:02
Speaker 1: the standards that we have. But there's no reason why
2:31:04
Speaker 1: you couldn't do that. If you wanted to make sure
2:31:06
Speaker 1: that they had to be labor union jobs, you can
2:31:10
Speaker 1: privatize and and make sure and mandate, you know, opportunity
2:31:14
Speaker 1: for labor unions or something like. So I think there,
2:31:17
Speaker 1: I know the political debate that would take place to
2:31:20
Speaker 1: do this and all this. I think you can accommodate
2:31:22
Speaker 1: that and not disrupt the public intentionally the way lawmakers
2:31:26
Speaker 1: are disrupting the public intentionally here. So we shall see.
2:31:32
Speaker 1: All right, I'm gonna call this an episode. I'm going
2:31:38
Speaker 1: to hold myself back from lamenting, you know, because it's
2:31:46
Speaker 1: it's baseball time, right, We've got baseball season, that's what's coming.
2:31:51
Speaker 1: First of all, I've got two fantasy drafts that I
2:31:53
Speaker 1: couldn't be less I couldn't be less prepared for. And
2:31:58
Speaker 1: the Nats just sent down dealing Cruise to triple A.
2:32:02
Speaker 1: Dylan Cruz, I hope will become more famous then right
2:32:07
Speaker 1: now for what he's famous for. What he's famous for us.
2:32:09
Speaker 1: He's the next guy picked after Paul Skins. Right the
2:32:13
Speaker 1: LSU tim meets went one two, and there was supposedly
2:32:18
Speaker 1: the pirates were debating between Cruise and Schemes. That's had
2:32:22
Speaker 1: the second pick. What if we could have had Schemes
2:32:28
Speaker 1: and not pitched him for two years.
2:32:29
Speaker 3: The way we did with Strausburg. No, but I digress.
2:32:33
Speaker 1: But I'm a little bummed out of that. But come on, Dylan,
2:32:36
Speaker 1: use this as motivation. I hope this is a temporary deal,
2:32:40
Speaker 1: but man, this never ending rebuild. This is going to
2:32:46
Speaker 1: be a rough year, and it's already feeling rougher thanks
2:32:52
Speaker 1: to the Dylan Cruiz news. But I said, I'm not
2:32:53
Speaker 1: going to go down that rabbit hole for now. He
2:32:55
Speaker 1: will be going down some baseball rabbit holes for you
2:32:58
Speaker 1: very very soon. But with that, we'll call it an
2:33:00
Speaker 1: episode and I'll see in forty eight hours and do
2:33:03
Speaker 1: in twenty four hours. Be on the lookout for a
2:33:06
Speaker 1: brand new podcast series that I'm going to be a
2:33:10
Speaker 1: part of with one of one of the great sports
2:33:13
Speaker 1: journalists out there. I look forward to sharing it all
2:33:17
Speaker 1: with you Tuesday and then Wednesday right here on this podcast.