Latest / Pod Save America / Why Democrats Must Oppose Trump's Iran War

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Why Democrats Must Oppose Trump's Iran War · Pod Save America

• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: On today's show, we're at war with Iran. Violence is
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: spreading all over the Middle East. American soldiers are losing
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: their lives. The administration is struggling to explain why it's happening.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: And Democrats are struggling to explain why it shouldn't be happening.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: We'll talk about what we know and don't know and
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: where we are on all of it. We'll also hear
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: from Senator Ruben Gallego on how Democrats are responding and
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: how he's thinking about the midterms. Also, beyond this show,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: we'll be covering all the developments around the war in
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Iran and the political fallout across the crooked network. So
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: please consider subscribing if you haven't already so that you
• 0:55
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• 0:58
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• 1:11
  Speaker 1: of all your favorite Crooked Pods like this one, and
• 1:14
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• 1:15
  Speaker 1: few media outlets left that Barry Weiss isn't in charge of.
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: It's a very real joke.
• 1:21
  Speaker 4: I know.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: So anyway. Is she interested?
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Head to cricket.com slash friends and subscribe today before it's
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: too late. All right. Let's start with what we know
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: as of Monday afternoon Pacific time about the latest war
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: that Trump and Netanyahu have started in the Middle East.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: The U.S. and Israel have been launching airstrikes in Iran
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: since Saturday aimed at destroying the regime's military capabilities and
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: killing its leaders, dozens of whom are now dead, including
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: the 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. Iran and its proxies
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: have retaliated with strikes against at least 10 other Middle
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Eastern countries, targeting U.S. military bases and assets, but also
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: hitting airports and hotels. The U.S. and Israel have killed
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: at least 550 Iranians so far, including at least 175 people,
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: mostly children, in an Israeli strike that hit a girls'
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: elementary school in southern Iran. Iranian retaliatory strikes have killed
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: at least 10 Israelis, six civilians across the Gulf, and
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: now six American troops, with at least 18 other Americans
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: seriously wounded. Trump's initial reaction to the first American deaths
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: of this war came in a pre-taped video message he
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: released from his golf club on Sunday. Let's listen.
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: We pray for the full recovery of the wounded and
• 2:44
  Speaker 4: send our immense love and eternal gratitude to the families
• 2:49
  Speaker 4: of the fallen, and sadly, there will likely be more.
• 2:54
  Speaker 5: Before it ends, that's the way it is.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: That's the way it is. It's the way the cookie crumbles.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Trump's first live remarks about the war came on Monday
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: morning during a Medal of Honor ceremony at the White House,
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: where he did not take any questions. Let's listen.
• 3:10
  Speaker 6: Today they said, oh, well, the president wants to do
• 3:12
  Speaker 6: it really quickly. After that, he'll get bored. I don't
• 3:14
  Speaker 6: get bored. There's nothing boring about this. Do you agree
• 3:18
  Speaker 6: with that, Pete? I don't think there's anything, Mr. General.
• 3:21
  Speaker 6: I think there's nothing boring about it. See that nice drape?
• 3:25
  Speaker 6: When that comes down right now, you see a very,
• 3:27
  Speaker 6: very deep hole. But in about a year and a
• 3:30
  Speaker 6: half from now, you're going to see a very, very
• 3:32
  Speaker 6: beautiful building. I picked those drapes in my first term.
• 3:37
  Speaker 6: I always liked gold, but I think we can save
• 3:40
  Speaker 6: a lot of money. I just saved curtains because I
• 3:43
  Speaker 6: built many a ballroom. I believe it's going to be
• 3:45
  Speaker 6: the most beautiful ballroom anywhere in the world. And when
• 3:48
  Speaker 6: you hear all that hammering out there, you know why
• 3:50
  Speaker 6: the first lady is not thrilled exactly. When I hear
• 3:53
  Speaker 6: that sound, that beautiful sound behind me, it means money.
• 3:57
  Speaker 6: So I like it. But my wife isn't thrilled.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: We are at war right now. He did say that
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: after the news that at that time four Americans were killed,
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: now six. So you guys have any initial thoughts on
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: the seriousness and sobriety of with which the commander-in-chief is
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: talking about a war that has now killed Americans?
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: How about it, pal? So we've gone to several stupid
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: wars in American history. A bunch of Republicans launched a
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: war preemptively in Iraq, and they tried to do it
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: in the most sophisticated way possible. They were all so smart,
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: and they had all no history, and they'd had all
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: the years of of expertise and research to explain how
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: that was going to be so easy and quick. And, uh,
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: we would be welcomed as liberators. These were the smart Republicans.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: We were told these were the people that had really
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: thought it out. They knew what they wanted. They knew
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: their objectives. They were willing to lie to get there
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: because they were so convinced, uh, of their, uh, of
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: their point of view. They, they were, they had an
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: ideology and they were going to pursue it to its end.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: And that turned into a, a disastrous quagmire that cost
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: thousands of American lives and, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: lives unleashed to chaos. We're still dealing with the consequences
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: of this group of fucking yahoos. So glib in virtually
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: every way they talk about this, barely offering a rationale.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: The rationales they do offer are completely in conflict with
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: one another from a golf club in Florida while he's
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: wearing a hat, not enough to stay back at the office.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: to launch the preemptive war in Iran. And we're expecting
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: this to go well with these fucking schmucks in charge.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: It's unbelievable. And the fact that we can watch these
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: sort of cavalier and second-rate people lead our country to war.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: And not only do they do that, but they have
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: the backing of Republicans in Congress. They have even Democrats
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: in Congress afraid to criticize them, afraid to put their
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: names out either yes or no in favor of this.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: Like the whole thing is such a kind of statement
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: of like rot and decline. It is disgusting. I was disgusted.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: And I like sort of watched it all happening over
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: the weekend and just sort of like, it was sort of,
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: it's not just how awful these people are. It's the
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: way in which it's treated. They're treated with a level
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: of seriousness in how they're approaching it. When we can
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: all see with our fucking eyeballs that they're so in
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: over their heads and unqualified and ridiculous in how they
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: handle it. That's where I'm at.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: Tommy, remember Obama responding to the death of American troops
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: by saying that's the way it is in a taped
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: message from Hawaii?
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: Remember that?
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: We weren't always perfect on the death of Americans, but yes,
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: I know what you're saying. I have a stylistic and
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: a substantive critique here. As a communications matter, the fact
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: that he launched a war on Saturday and then didn't
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: comment on it live in person until Monday morning at
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: an unrelated event about.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: Just a topper. A medal of honor.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: Need a Warren Iran topper for these remarks. It's baffling.
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: I mean, like after the Venezuela operation, Trump did a
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: press conference immediately. Rubio was on all the shows. Like
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: now we're just doing a video message from your country club.
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: It does not suggest like confidence in the policy. And
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: I think like big picture over the weekend, I was
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: consuming news and like doom scrolling. And then every once
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: in a while, I would just like get so angry
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: that I wanted to scream because this is a war
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: of choice. And the first choice was 2018 when Trump
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: pulled out of the Iran nuclear agreement. which Iran was
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: complying with and would have prevented them from getting a
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: nuclear weapon. And it led to a series of choices
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: that got you to Saturday when Trump launched a war
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: of choice that has now led to six U S
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: service members dying and apparently a school full of girls
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: in Iran getting bombed. And like Iraq, this is a
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: war of choice built off of a lie. Like we'll
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: get into the details in a minute, but there's no
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: imminent nuclear threat. There is no imminent threat of Iran
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: having a ballistic missile that could hit the United States. Um,
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: there is this new spin that they're on the cusp
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: of creating a, uh, uh, missile shield for their nuclear work.
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: That is totally bullshit. But this choice is going to
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: get a lot of innocent people killed. We are going
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: to spend tens of billions of dollars at a minimum
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: on weapons and it could play out for years. So like,
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: I think the neocons are back. Like we might as
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: well have Dick Cheney in charge, uh, given this policy.
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: I was worried that, that, um, that, that over at
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: the bulwark, uh, Bill Crystal would be like reactivated, like
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: a Manchurian candidate. And all of a sudden kind of
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: like his body moving in ways he doesn't totally understand.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: It is not a control of kind of like going
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: back to the old Dick Cheney controls.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: He's very upset.
• 8:35
  Speaker 4: Good.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: He's very upset about it.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: Must be a conflict in there.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: I will say that it is mostly stylistic, the communications,
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: you know, the communications critique here. But there's something substantive
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: about it, too, which is like.
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: No one knows what you're doing.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: You know, we could talk about Obama, but it's like,
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: I don't know, George Bush, Biden, anyone like you send
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: Americans to war. You talk to the American people about
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: it and you take questions from their representatives in the press.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: Like that's just what you do. And the fact that
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: they don't do that, the fact that he spent 300
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: words towards the end of a two-hour State of the
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: Union on Iran, not even bothering to make the case,
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: not bothering to make the case in the lead up,
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: not even bothering to try to make the case to
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: the rest of the world, not responding to any questions
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: from the press about this, doing a couple of tape
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: messages from Florida while this is happening. It just goes
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: to show like they don't give a fuck what we think.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: They don't give a fuck what anyone thinks. They think
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: that they're in charge, they make the rules, and everyone
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: else can go fuck themselves.
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: Well, and also, look, it goes to the lack of
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: any kind of real congressional debate, any sense that Congress
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: ought to weigh in as our representatives. Like, yes, it's
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: a process question. It's not about the substance of whether
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: or not this is right or wrong. But the way
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: those things connect is, in a democracy, we are supposed
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: to weigh in because we understand that the stakes of
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: an action like this are very high.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: Trump's not really a details guy, which is why he's
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: left the nitty gritty of explaining his government's rationale for
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: starting this war, as well as their objectives in Iran,
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: to the substitute weekend Fox host who now runs the
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: Pentagon in between a push-up contest with the Health and
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: Human Services Secretary. Pete Hegseth held a press conference on
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: Monday alongside the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Dan Raisin-Kane.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: Here are the highlights from Hegseth.
• 10:15
  Speaker 7: We didn't start this war. But under President Trump, we
• 10:19
  Speaker 7: are finishing it. Turns out the regime who chanted death
• 10:22
  Speaker 7: to America and death to Israel was gifted death from
• 10:27
  Speaker 7: America and death from Israel. This is not a so-called
• 10:33
  Speaker 7: regime change war. But the regime... sure did change. No
• 10:38
  Speaker 7: stupid rules of engagement, no nation-building quagmire, no democracy-building exercise.
• 10:44
  Speaker 7: To the media outlets and political left screaming, endless wars.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: Stop.
• 10:49
  Speaker 7: This is not Iraq. This is not endless.
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: What is our exit strategy here and when will it
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: be deployed?
• 10:55
  Speaker 7: I would never hang a timeframe from our perspective. The
• 10:58
  Speaker 7: commander-in-chief sets the op tempo and terms of this fight.
• 11:01
  Speaker 7: As I said, it's on his terms. What are our objectives?
• 11:04
  Speaker 7: And can you share more information on how the soldiers
• 11:07
  Speaker 7: who were killed were killed? To ensure that they can't
• 11:10
  Speaker 7: use that conventional umbrella to continue a pursuit of nuclear ambitions.
• 11:16
  Speaker 7: As it pertains to the U.S. casualties, every once in
• 11:18
  Speaker 7: a while you might have one, unfortunately we call it
• 11:20
  Speaker 7: a squirter, that makes its way through. And in that
• 11:24
  Speaker 7: particular case, it happened to hit.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: So, right before the squirter comment, which is, that's going
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: to be a hard one to forget. Hegseth did lay
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: out after a couple of contradictory statements like endless war.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: Come on, this is an endless war. So what's the
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: time frame? I would never put a time frame on
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: this war. But he did lay out what's maybe the
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: closest the administration has come to defining the military objective
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: in Iran. Tommy, what did you make of his answer there?
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: How many times do you think he practiced those lines
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: in the mirror in the morning as he was shaving?
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: Too many like sing-songy, like.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, just bad.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: Not a regime change war, but the regime sure did change.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: Death to America, but we gifted them death to that.
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, not a regime change war, but the Israelis killed
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: the supreme leader of Iran, who is in charge of
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: the country since 1989 and also seen as a religious
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: figure and the leader of the armed forces and the,
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: you know, final say in all political decisions. But, you know,
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: regime evolution, I guess, is what we're saying.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that the attack is surgical and not utopian. However, Iran,
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: take back your country. We're not just going to destroy
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: their missile capability or the nuclear capability, but their ability to, quote,
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: project power.
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: So whatever that means.
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: So, yeah, the new line is that they're on the
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: cusp of like seemingly making so many ballistic missiles that
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: they would have a, quote, conventional umbrella that would allow
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: them to pursue nuclear weapons. That's just that's not a thing.
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: The country's got a nuclear umbrella. That means you can
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: use a threat of nuclear retaliation to deter attacks. That's
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: what the North Koreans do. The idea that Iran could
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: have enough ballistic missiles to prevent the U.S., from intervening
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: to take out a nuclear program.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: It's just made up bullshit.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: And the reason, you know, force field.
• 12:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: And the reason, you know, it's made up bullshit is
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: because like the U S and Israel over the past
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: year have had their way with the Iranian military whenever
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: they want it. They bombed them repeatedly and, um, no,
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: you know, conventional deterrent has changed that. So I, I
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: don't know why they're trying these new lines. I don't
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: know why they're trotting this bullshit out. Um, the messaging
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: changes are so stark. Like you were saying, like on Saturday,
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: we're talking about a regime change and the people rising
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: up now that's gone. Trump's like, he clearly has no
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: plan for the future. He talked to like 10 reporters
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: and one of them, he was like, oh, I got
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: a list of three guys who should take over. And
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: then he called another reporter.
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: It's like, oh, those three guys are dead now. So
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: they're just winging it. Yeah.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: Why do you think there's all these shifting explanations for
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: the rationale for this war?
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: Who fucking knows? It's really, it is. Well, so Rubio
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: also kind of underscored what Hegseth said. He said in
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: Iran in about a year, where year and a half
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: would have crossed the line of immunity. I don't know
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: what the line of immunity is.
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: There's no such thing.
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: They would have so many missiles that they could hold
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: the whole world hostage, which is, of course, quite a
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: claim because I have, are we suggesting that the Iranian
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: conventional arsenal would have been unable to be defeated by
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: the United States of America? I don't think that's what
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: our military would say about it. But then, okay, that's
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: a year and a half. And so then he's asked,
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: Rubio's asked, is it imminent? And he says, yes. because
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: we were aware of Israeli intentions and understood what it
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: would mean for us and understood what it would mean
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: for us and had to be prepared to act as
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: a result of it. So he's saying it was imminent
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: because Israel was going to strike imminently. And if Israel
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: striked Iran imminently, Iran would strike back at us. But Cain,
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, says in that conference
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: with Hegseth that Israel acted on U.S. intelligence when it
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: did the strikes against Iran's leadership. We were not only
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: aware of it, we were instrumental to it. And so
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: the argument is now from directly from Rubio, We had
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: to strike because Iran was going to strike after we struck.
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: Like that's where they're at, which I feels like actually
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: the closest to the truth.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: Well, we talked about this in the last episode, but
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: that random administration source, or it was in and around
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: the administration source to Politico that basically said the hope
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: within the administration was that maybe Israel would go first
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: because then Iran would retaliate and we could retaliate against Iran.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: And it turns out they, thought that that was a
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: possible scenario and then said, yeah, instead of letting Israel
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: go first, let's just go with them because that's going
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: to happen anyway.
• 15:21
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: That political leak was that they thought it'd be better
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: politics for the Israelis to strike first.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: Which was also insane.
• 15:26
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: Completely insane. And then Rubio today, there was a leak
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: over the weekend that there was an imminent threat, right?
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: That the U.S.
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: Had to preemptively strike Iran because the Iranians were going
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: to hit us or hit our bases in the region
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: and lead to a mass casualty incident. And, um, She
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: was that idiot over at CNN, that fucking goober who's
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: always yelling on the panels. Scott Jennings tweeted this out credulously,
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: which was like not believable, not credible in any way.
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: And what Rubio did today to clarify it was to say,
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: we knew the Israelis were going to strike, which meant
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: the Iranians were going to strike back. So we had
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: to be involved on the front end to preempt that
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: or keep American forces safe, which I think kind of
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: like cuts out the step where maybe you could talk
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: Israel out of doing something that would put U.S. personnel
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: in the region at risk.
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: Well, also, traditionally, the United States doesn't publicly say we
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: are only going to full-scale bombing across a Middle Eastern
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: country because Israel dragged us into it.
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: Let's get that in a second. But on this missile point,
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: the Iranians have a lot of missiles, but they do
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: not have an ICBM. The Defense Intelligence Agency did an
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: assessment last year that found that if Iran decided to
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: have one, they could have an ICBM by 2035. So
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: that assessment has basically been the same since the 90s,
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: that they're a decade away from having this technology. So
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: the suggestion that Iran was on the cusp of having
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: a missile that could hit the United States is a lie,
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: and it is undercut by the US intelligence agencies, period.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: It seems like all of these lies have all been
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: undercut by now, too. It's always like they throw out
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: a bunch of lies at the beginning, and then they
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: stop trying to defend them. Because now where we are
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: is the Rubio rationale, which is not an ICBM, which
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: is not they were a week away from having a
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: nuclear bomb or nuclear material, whatever the fuck they were
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: trying to say. It was not any of this. It
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: was just, well, Israel was going to do it. And
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: so we decided to just go with Israel, which also,
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: by the way, if you read the long New York
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: Times piece, and we can get into how Trump got
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: to yes on war. it was Bibi Netanyahu who played
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: a huge role here. And the two of them were
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: talking about this since, I guess, December was the first
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: time Bibi brought it up to Trump. And then they
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: kept talking about it. And then Trump was going to
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: go after the regime started murdering all of the protesters.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: And then Bibi was like, no, no, we're not quite
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: ready yet. So just wait a little bit and then
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: we'll do it together. So this idea that like, oh,
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: and Israel just went, we had to, we were going to,
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: they were intent on going. And so we just had
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: to go with them. Like, Bibi and Trump were planning
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: it the whole time.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: Again, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs said that Israel acted,
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: that when Israel struck the leadership of Iran, they did
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: it with U.S. intelligence. So it was with our participation.
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: We are instrumental to this happening. We are aware that
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: it is happening. That is a joint effort. So I
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: don't understand how this is. We created, we had to,
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: the imminent threat was from the campaign we were starting.
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: That's what made it imminent. We are the imminent. We
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: did the imminence.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't think too hard about it. Yeah.
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: I think there's two... I think the conflicting rationales come from... Look,
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: I think the reasons we're at war with Iran are
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: Trump's ego and Netanyahu. The ego point is, I think, Graham,
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: Lindsey Graham, people like that, and the neocons are saying,
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: take out Maduro, take out the Iranian regime, and we'll
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: get the Cuban government next, and you'll be this grand
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: historic figure. And Trump, I think, has seen the capabilities
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: of the US military. There's one story that said he
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: thinks he has godlike powers, or they have godlike powers,
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: and he wants to use them. And then there's Netanyahu,
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: who has been pushing Trump really hard to act, like
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: you guys were saying, and put out a statement, I
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: think yesterday, saying, this coalition of forces allows us to
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: do what I've yearned to do for 40 years.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: And he just said it.
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: So last June, when I said, I feel like the
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: United States got dragged to war by Netanyahu, Jonathan Greenblatt
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: at the ADL said that was anti-Semitism. And now, this
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: is what Marco Rubio was saying. And this is what
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: Netanyahu was saying happened here, which is that he talked
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: the United States into joining him in this insane war
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: of choice that doesn't actually directly threaten the United States.
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: I realize there's a lot of folks, especially on the
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: right who say, uh, you know, the Israeli government controls
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: us foreign policy. And then people say that that's like
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: vaguely anti-Semitic and certainly anti-Zionist. But like in this case,
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: it seems pretty clear. The administration is saying that Israel, uh, helped.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: Now I do think Tommy, to your point about Trump's ego, um,
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: I'm sure that BB fed into that during hit like
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: was he's trying to make the case to trump right
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: because i'm sure bb's not just like i really want
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: this please do this for me you're gonna be like
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: sir you could be the greatest president of all time
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: i also think that the that obama and the nuclear
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: deal the uh is a big part too because they
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: probably told him that pussy obama is He did this
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: terrible deal and you can show him up by actually
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: showing that you did this the right way and it'll
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: be easy. So I'm sure that Obama was a part
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: of it too. And did you read, I'm sure you
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: read the New York Times story about this. Vance, of
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: all people, convinced Trump to do this because he was
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: leaning towards, remember he was thinking about doing a quick
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: strike and then maybe saving the big one for later
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: or he was going to do the big one. And
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: Vance was like, well, if you're going to do it,
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: go big and go right away. And then Trump apparently
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: after that meeting started thinking about what Vance said and
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: was like, okay, that was a good idea.
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: The other part of this too is- J.D.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: Vance, who wrote that op-ed. Yeah, all these fucking- Well,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: the best part, what was the best part about Donald
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: Trump is that he's not going to get us in
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: any more foreign wars.
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no new wars.
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and then I do think part of this too
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: is Trump, you have Rubio out there saying they were
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: a year away from having a hyper-advanced conventional umbrella that
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: would make them immune. But meanwhile, the lesson they took
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: from Operation Midnight Hammer is that actually Iran's capabilities are
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: not something we have to worry too much about. They're
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: actually in a weakened position. Now would be the time
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: right in the wake of these protests. Look, the idea
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: that like Benjamin Netanyahu with U.S. intelligence is not decapitating
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: the entire Iranian regime without U.S., if not, encouragement per mission, right?
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: And so even Rubio going out there and saying, well,
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: Israel was going to do it, so we had no choice.
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: I don't think they needed encouragement.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: Well, I'm not saying they would need encouragement, but they're
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: not going to start the campaign unless they feel pretty confident.
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: You mean support? Yeah, support, encourage. Yeah, I mean, support.
• 21:35
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: And like, so Rubio going out there and saying, well,
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: the Israelis were going to do it and therefore that
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: was going to create some kind of imminent threat. I
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: don't understand why in this moment they feel the need
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: to act as though they were dragged into it. Maybe
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: that's in part because of their own politics about not
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: wanting to seem like they were just choosing a random
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: day to start a giant new conflict in the Middle East.
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: Maybe they are worried a bit about their own politics,
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: but that's the only way I can see to kind
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: of undercut the idea that we weren't dragged into this
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: in part because Benjamin Netanyahu has been gunning for war
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: with Iran for the entire time he's been in public life.
• 22:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: I thought another notable detail in that story was that, um,
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: Intel officials had predicted that, uh, a popular uprising against
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: the regime after a strike was a remote possibility, which is, uh,
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: interesting in that Trump, when he first announced this was like,
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: take your country back.
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's like a large unarmed population is just
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: going to rise up against, uh, rise up against the
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: security forces that are.
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: They have no plan. They're just winging it. Again, there's
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: all these people talk about what the options are. People
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: are like, well, maybe there's a Venezuela option where you
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: find the vice president. There's a Dulce Rodriguez of Iran.
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: I don't think that exists. Iran has stronger power centers.
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: There's the IRGC. There's the Basij militia. There's all these
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: groups that are armed. And to tell an unarmed population
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: to rise up and take those people on is laughable.
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: The people are going to get killed.
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: Also, like.
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: Iran, tens of millions of Iranians vote for the hardline government, right?
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: We see the videos of people in Tehran celebrating the
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: death of the Supreme leader, but like, that's, we don't
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: know what the whole country thinks.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: And so the suggestion that there's some uniformed opinion about
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: what happened here, that everyone will support what the U
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: S just did is, is just wrong. And then there
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: are also like ethnic and religious minorities who might see
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: this as their moment to rise up and take their
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: own space. There's the Kurds, there's the blue separatists or
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: Sunni minorities. And so I'm sure there's some listeners like
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: from who are Iranian listening to this, like yelling at
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: us through the phone, being like the regime was bad.
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: We needed regime change. And like, I hear what you're saying,
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: but like, I obviously hate this regime too, but like
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: it couldn't get worse from here. We've seen it happen before.
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: And like, that's the concern. And also ultimately you're trusting
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: Trump and Pete Hegseth to manage a war with Iran,
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: which seems bad idea to me.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: Taliban was a murderous, repressive regime. Saddam Hussein ran a murderous,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: repressive regime. Kim Jong-un. Kim Jong-un. Vladimir Putin. We don't
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: go to war with governments that aren't repressive and dangerous.
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: So far this year.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: Sorry, we used, yeah, used to. So looking forward, Trump's
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: been all over the map on, uh, what an exit
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: strategy might look like and has basically had a different
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: answer for every reporter who has randomly dialed his number,
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: which apparently happens quite frequently. Now there's the, as Tommy mentioned,
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: the Venezuela type outcome, um, where he gets his, his
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: Delcy Rodriguez of Iran, uh, who's willing to work with
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: the U S I guess, because I don't know what
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: they're promised.
• 24:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: Like oil money corruption gets them, gets to grease the
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: wheels there and then they just oppress their people. Um,
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: There's also, you know, telling the Iranian people to overthrow
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: the regime entirely, which, as we discussed, is pretty remote.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: And then it's like, well, maybe it's fine if we
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: just degrade their military capabilities to the point where they
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: can't cause any real trouble for at least a few years.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: Do you think, Tommy, that the administration is trying to
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: be strategically ambiguous? Is there any chance on the outcomes?
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: Or do they just have no fucking idea what they
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: actually want?
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: No, I mean, look, I sort of think I walked
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: through a second ago what I think. I don't think
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: they have a plan. I don't think they have a
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: plan for what comes next as Trump. You know, like
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: we were saying before, Trump called a reporter and said,
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: I have a short list. And then he said they're
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: all dead to the next reporter he talked to. So
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: even if they find a Delce Rodriguez type, I think
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: that person is likely to get killed by the IRGC
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: or other existing power structures unless we have boots on
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: the ground to support that person. Like just saying rise
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: up and, you know, take your country back. Like that's
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: not a plan. They're just winging it. They don't know
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: what will happen next. I think they're just letting rip.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: What are some of the different ways this whole thing
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: could go south really fast? And we want to walk
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: through some of those, aside from the fact that just,
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: you know, more Americans could die in the prosecution of
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: the war.
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: So what you feel from what Hegseth says there, when
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: he says like, you know, this is not Iraq and
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: what Trump is saying, like there's this idea that as
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: long as we don't claim ownership of the consequences, we're
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: not going to be responsible for the consequences, right? As
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: long as we don't, we're not, they're avoiding saying we
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: will not put troops, like boots on the ground. They
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: won't say that explicitly, but obviously they don't want to
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: put boots on the ground and all of their language
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: around like this wasn't regime change, but the regime changed,
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: whatever it is. It is around saying we're doing what
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: we're going to do for their military capacities, for their
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: capacity to deploy drones and do damage to our bases
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: and our allies in the region. Iranians are going to
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: own the consequences of that, right? Like that's what they're
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: kind of saying. And whatever chaos comes next, if there's
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: a civil war, there's violence in the streets, if a
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: new repressive regime emerges and puts down Anyone who tries
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: to fight it, whatever happens next, like not our problem,
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: not our problem. But of course, it will be our
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: problem one way or another. We will be dealing with
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: the ramifications of it. Our allies will be we will
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: Israel will be U.S. bases in the region will be
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: the the the the impact on on oil and gas prices.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: We will live with the consequences, even if you don't
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: claim them.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: Trump does not seem like he wants to live by
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: the Pottery Barn rule.
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: Opposite.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, opposite that.
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: If you break it, sue the pottery barn.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: For those of you who weren't alive during the Iraq war,
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: that was, who said it? Was it Colin Powell? Yeah,
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: the Powell Doctrine. Yeah, the Powell Doctrine. If you break it,
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: you bought it. Not so for Donald Trump. I mean, look,
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: there's this concern that, first of all, we've already seen
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: violence and chaos spill out, not just in the Middle East,
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: but all over the world. We've seen at our embassies
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: in Pakistan, I see Iraq, Jordan, right? There's protests outside
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: the embassies. there is this idea that like if Iran
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: becomes a failed state, it's not only a haven for
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: terrorism and civil war, but it precipitates another refugee crisis. This,
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: you know, the oil shocks all around the world. How
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: many fucking tens of billions of dollars will this war
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: cost the American taxpayers? There's also like the idea of
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: terrorist attacks against American interests, American troops abroad, and even
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: here inspired terrorist attacks here. We saw a shooting in
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: Austin over the weekend. Potentially the shooter was sort of
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: inspired by what happened in Iran. So, And this is just, what,
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: a couple days into this thing?
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it started on Saturday. I mean, Iran has decided
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: to attack everyone. They think there's been attacks on like
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: 11 countries or 12 countries. They're firing at all these
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: Gulf countries, the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait. Some of those
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: shots are fired at where we have U.S. bases, but
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: some are just at like civilian infrastructure. And the Iranians
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: use ballistic missiles and then they use these cheap drones
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: called Shahed drones. It costs like $ 20, 000, $ 50, 000 a pop.
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: They have tons of them. They could fly 2,000 kilometers
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: and they basically just like GPS to a point and
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: then detonate when they hit it. The interceptor missiles we
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: use to take them down are in short supply and
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: they're really expensive. So those things cost 20 to 50 grand.
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: The Shahed drones, our interceptors cost a million bucks, a
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: couple million bucks a pop. And so we're running low
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: on them. The UAE is running low. Qatar is running low.
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: And this whole thing is a big war of attrition,
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: which is to say, what's going to run out first,
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: the interceptor missiles or Iranian ballistic missiles and drones. So like,
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: that's a big thing we're all watching. Um, there's the
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: economic cost, which is the Iranians said they would close
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: the Strait of Hormuz. Um, they haven't mined it, but
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: they've been firing at ships. 80, you know, 20% of
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: the world's oil goes to the Strait of Hormuz. That
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: will have a huge economic cost. And then to their allies,
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: by the way, what's that?
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: Their allies also rely on.
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: The Chinese and everyone does.
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: And then, you know, the, the longer term, like the
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: longer this.
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: Goes on, the more likely there is to be civil war.
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: Sectarian conflict, some sort of failed state, some sort of
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: refugee flow. And again, we're talking about a country of
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: 90 million people.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: And the administration from Trump on down has repeatedly in
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: the last couple of days since this started refused to
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: rule out boots on the ground in any like significant capacity,
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: which is also pretty terrifying.
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: They won't rule it out. They won't rule it out.
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: Trump didn't just refuse to rule it out. His comments
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: were very weird. He said, I don't have the yips
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: with respect to boots on the ground. Like every president
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: says there will be no boots on the ground.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: I don't say it.
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: I say probably don't need them or if they were necessary.
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: So I don't know what he's trying to signal there.
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: Like I could imagine a commando raid that includes the
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: US and Israel that is designed to get the HEU
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: or the nuclear materials that they think are somehow buried somewhere.
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: Beyond that though, it's like, what are we talking about?
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: I really like, so much of what this is is
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: in response to the things they don't like about Democrats, right?
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: And they always felt like the date certans around Afghanistan
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: were kind of projecting what we were gonna do to
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: our enemies. And so I think they're incredibly reluctant to
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: put like troops on the ground not to like excluding
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: kind of short sort of like tactical, like deploying small
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: units to do small tasks, but boots on the ground,
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: Trump's clearly worried about it, but he kind of feels
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: as though in order to project strength, I'm not going
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: to tell you what I'm going to do. I need
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: to have, that is, I think him trying to be
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: kind of leave his options open to not sort of
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: forswear a, a, a scary option to the Iranians, but.
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: Or it means we have, or it means we have
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: boots on the ground right now. And we may also
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: have boots on the ground. And I think there's a
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: very good chance that they're like special forces contingents who
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: are on the ground. And then maybe they're not, Maybe
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: they're deployed under like title 50. So it's deniable. And
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: you know, that's kind of what he's getting at here.
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: I agree with you that like in Venezuela, there were
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: boots on the ground, right?
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: It was very short term.
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: And I think what JD Vance focuses on, what Trump
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: tries to focus on is we're not doing long-term occupation
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: and nation building. But I think the response to that
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: is it's not necessarily up to you. If Iran remains
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: a threat, if they keep firing drones and missiles, if
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: this regime in some form or fashion stays in place
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: and the threat is not gone, the threat is not gone.
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: The Israelis won't see the threat is gone.
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: So what then?
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, Also, you know, George W. Bush kept saying
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: that they were going to get troops out of Iraq
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: by the spring and summer of 2003. Sometimes like these,
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: the intentions to not have boots, like one thing leads
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: to another. And then suddenly you feel like, okay, well
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: now I got to stay in there and now they're
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: firing on us here. And now we got to put
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: in more. I mean, it's, it's, it's fucking slippery slope.
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: It was just like, so the arrogance of believing you're in,
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: you're in control of events. You've launched a war. It's destabilizing.
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: The world is a dangerous place. You're not in charge
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: of all the consequences you've, unleashed. And, you know, there's
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: this sort of like kind of macho thing that Hegseth
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: does is the way Trump gets kind of puffed up
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: by the people around him. Like, but yeah, man, like
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: managing delicate relationships with regimes that are despicable and murderous
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: to try to get deals to protect your interests while
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: without destabilizing, like it's, it's, it is unsatisfying on some level.
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: It is hard to live in the real world and
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: accept constant compromise and and like long-term strategic thinking where
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: the outcomes aren't certain. But you choose that over instability
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: because you have respect for how dangerous the world can be,
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: how much worse things can get, even against your best intentions.
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: And there's just, that is to me, like, that is
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: the connection from the way they talk to the substance,
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: which is like, these people are cavalier about American lives
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: because they are just not thoughtful or careful. They are
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: like decadent about history. And it is dangerous to have
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: people like that and just charge in moments like this,
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: incredibly dangerous.
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: All right, let's talk about how the politics of this
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: war are playing out so far. One joke I saw
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: going around on Twitter this weekend was, good thing Congress
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: isn't alive to see this.
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: That was a good joke.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: Sure enough, with a few exceptions, the Republicans who run
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: Congress are all on board with whatever Trump wants to
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: do in Iran. Democrats being Democrats have split into a
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: few camps. You've got your very pro-Israel hawkish types like
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: your Josh Gottheimers and your John Fettermans who are so
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: far fully supportive of the war. though that's definitely a
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: minority position in the party. You've got progressive Democrats and
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: even a lot of mainstream Democrats like Ruben Gallego, who
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: is going to talk to later, John Ossoff, Tim Kaine,
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: who've come out strongly opposed to the war. And then
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: you've got the most Democrat response of all from a
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: group of Democrats who start their statements with a lot
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: of throat clearing about how the Iranian regime is bad.
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: You must prove that you are not grieving the Ayatollah.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: With your first couple sentences, because someone out there, apparently
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: there's a bunch of liberals out there grieving the Ayatollah
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: that we I haven't seen them, but they're out there.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: We've got to condemn them and we've got to make
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: sure that we're not grieving for the Ayatollah.
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: Every statement has to start with Iran is brat. And
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: that's where it goes.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: And then after you you do the throat clearing about
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: how awful and terrible and oppressive and murderous the regime is.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: then you've got to mainly criticize Trump for not consulting
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: with Congress first. And then you kind of just do
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: a bunch of mealy mouth shit from there. You think
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: some of these Democrats are scared of the politics here?
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: And if so, why?
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: I don't know why they would be scared of the politics.
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: This is not a popular war. There's not a close
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: to a majority of people who want this war. Not Democrats,
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: not independents. I think what I want from Democrats is
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: go after the war on the merits, not on the process.
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: The process ship has sailed. focus on what's happening here
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: which is trump lied about the threat trump iran was
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: nowhere near close to getting a nuclear weapon he's lying
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: about the threat from iranian ballistic missiles they are nowhere
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: close to hitting the united states hammer him on that
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: he lied and then talk about the cost now six
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: service members are dead more gravely wounded it's going to
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: cost us tens of billions of dollars no one wants
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: to be spending money this way it's not a popular
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: thing to be doing and then i think we should
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: just highlight the chaos around the world like since this
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: action uh The war is not happening in Iran. It
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: is terrorizing populations in Israel and Lebanon, in the Gulf.
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: American diplomats are less safe. Embassies are getting overrun. Americans,
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: the gunman in Texas might have been inspired by what
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: happened in Iran. Trump is making us less safe. Just
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: hammer him on that. Talk about the substance.
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I asked Keigo about this, and he said the same.
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: We should be focusing on why are we at war
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: with Iran?
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: What was the goals? What is the objective? Why is
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: it worth risking American lives in this moment for this conflict?
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: And all these people that are defending this, if you
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: would have asked them a year ago, would you like
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: to see the U.S. in a regime change war with
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: Iran in the next year, they'd all have said no.
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: They'd all have said, of course not. And no one
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: wants that. And no one saying that Republicans want that
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: should be believed. We never would want that. Of course not.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: But now that it's here and it's happening... All these
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: people feel obligated on the Republican side to support it.
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: And then Democrats, who I think there are some that
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: I think genuinely feel there are, I think, reluctant both
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: because of the politics and because on some level they
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: support the policy. And they know that those politics aren't
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: good either.
• 36:27
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: Like they don't want to support the policy.
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: I think on some level, they're like, you know what?
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't have done it this way, but I hope
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: it works. And I don't want to go out there
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: and say, I think this is a bad idea if
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: they can remove the Ayatollah. There's two flavors of that.
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: There are some who just quietly do actually want to
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: see the Iranian regime toppled. And a lot of them
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: are kind of the closest individuals to AIPAC, for example.
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: And then there's the other group, the old folks of
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: which there are many. who think about like Gulf War
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: I in 1991 and the people who were against the
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: first Gulf War and felt like they looked stupid afterwards
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: when it was popular and successful and had 90% support.
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: It's just like, have we not lived through enough of
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: these wars that we're still thinking and responding in the
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: binary here, which is like, oh, well, so then if
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: you're opposed to this, you must love that Iran is
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: the number one state sponsor of terrorism around the world
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: and has killed Americans and has... destabilize the region because
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: if you, if you're against that, then you'd be for
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: this war. There's no, like, oh yeah, I want to
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: see the Iranian regime topple too. I don't want to
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: see the fucking Ayatollah there. I don't want to see
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: a murderous regime in Iran. I hope that like, you know,
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: the hamburger from heaven falls from the sky and takes
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: out the whole regime and then democracy flourishes in Iran. Yeah,
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: of course. That is something to hope for.
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: Some stone cold moron at the free press tweeted, if
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: you call yourself a progressive and you're not even a
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: little excited by the prospect of a woman-hating, gay-hating, Jew-hating,
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: Neanderthal regime that in no way represents the will of
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: its people being crushed, You're not actually a progressive.
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: I like that. No one ever saw the Ayatollah pride.
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: So put it on your progressive checklist. Medicare for all,
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: death to the Ayatollah. What are you talking about?
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: No, it's okay to talk about the downside risk of
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: a regime change war of choice, even against.
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: A bad guy.
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Look, sometimes when you're trying to murder an 86-year-old Ayatollah,
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: you have to also kill uh, over a hundred, uh,
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: young school girls. And that's just the way to, and
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: I guess if you're a progressive who likes women's rights,
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: don't you?
• 38:27
  Speaker 6: What?
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: Oh, I guess that doesn't work there. Huh?
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: It's just like, we have to ignore all the other
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: fucking ridiculous.
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: Well, they, it's just this thought that like, that after
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: a couple strikes, that democracy is going to flourish in
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: Iran and there's going to be no cost to do that. Like,
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: what the fuck are we talking about here? We just
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: did this in Iraq.
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: And, and like, it starts out, less popular than any
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: previous conflicts, in part because there was no debate. The
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: country's waking up. It's Friday night. People are like, what?
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: We're at war with Iran, but it's the weekend. There's
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: just no debate about it whatsoever. We learn about it
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: from the press over the weekend. The president doesn't give
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: a big speech, as you said. And if it starts
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: out in this way, And then you look at what
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: people say and they say, well, there is ambivalence in
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: the polling, for sure. That's always there because people don't
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: like the Iranian government. But you say, oh, is it
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: worth American lives? No, the support starts to drop. Would
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: you be okay with continuing the conflict if gas prices
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: are rising? No, they wouldn't. People are People weren't in
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: the market for sacrificing American lives and our tax dollars
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: and having the economy be hurt for a war with Iran,
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: in part because no one ever made the case for that.
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: No one ever signed up to make that sacrifice as
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: a nation. That just didn't happen.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: I'll just read off some of the polling. There's been
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: a bunch of polling so far. What stood out to me,
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: Washington Post did a poll. They did a 1,000-person poll.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: They also did that thing where they text them as well.
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: 39% strongly or somewhat support. That was it. 52% strongly
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: or somewhat oppose. In fact, strongly oppose was 39%. So
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: the number that strongly oppose is the same as total
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: strongly and somewhat support. Why are we there? They asked
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: people why are we there. To take control wins at 14%.
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: Unsure is in second at 13%. Regime change at 12%.
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: Stop them from getting nuclear weapon at 9%. Getting their
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: money and oil at 9%. Distract from the Epstein files
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: at 8%. And then at the very bottom, protect the
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: United States at 7%. Coming in after distract from the
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: Epstein files.
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: They have not really sold people in a clear vision
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: for what we're doing here.
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: There's also, they ask, are you concerned about a full-scale war?
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: 74% concerned, 25% no. We're having a full-scale war. What
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: is that question?
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: I know.
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: I think maybe when the strike started, they were like,
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: maybe it's a few strikes. Who knows?
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: But I know I had the same thought about that.
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: What is full-scale? I do think if you want the
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: generous interpretation or whatever to give it meaning would be
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: soldiers on the ground fighting on the ground in Iran.
• 41:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: And then Reuters did a poll. They found only a
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: quarter of Americans approved of the strikes. Among Republicans, the
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: total was 55%. Still not that high. And 42% of
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: Republican voters said that they will be less likely to
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: support the Iran campaign if it leads to U.S. troops
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: in the Middle East being killed or injured. Well, that
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: has happened now. So that is the polling. Here's the thing.
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: If you're a Democrat and you're... I mean, Chami, you
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: brought up the first Iraq war with George Bush, right?
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: So let's say, for principled reasons, you come out against
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: the war strongly right now.
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: And then.
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: I don't know, Trump somehow gets the scenario where the
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: regime falls or they get some other Iranian leader who's
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: in the regime to actually start working with the United
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: States and be more pragmatic. And it's not full democracy
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: in Iran, but it looks more like, I don't know,
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia, one of these Gulf monarchies or something. And
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: it's not great, but it also doesn't like threaten the
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: rest of the world. And you were opposed to the war.
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: What do you think is going to happen? You think
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: you're going to lose your next election? You think that
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: when someone says that, you weren't for the war that
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: was like, that left sort of an okay middling situation
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: that we don't know about. You think that you'd be like, yeah, well,
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: I didn't want to go to war and risk American
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: lives in the war. You think that's going to be
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: a problem for you in politics? Like, I don't think
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: that's going to be a fucking political problem. Just say
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: what you believe.
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: If the United States were attacked and Donald Trump responded
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: to some kind of an attack by taking the country
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: into war, and then there was a congressional vote and
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: it got behind it, I would be terrified. to have
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump in charge of our military during a time
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: in which we were dragged into a war, truly, if
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: that were the situation, actually brought into a war that
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: we didn't choose. Donald Trump should be impeached and removed
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: from office for his various crimes. He's the most corrupt
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: president in American history. He's profiteering off the office. He
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: is destroying and lawlessly dismantling government agencies. He's unleashing ICE.
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: He's spending money without congressional approval. He is a menace
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: who is abusing his office every day. Of course, you
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: should not support Donald Trump choosing to take our country
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: to war because he should not be in charge of
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: our military. He should be nowhere near any of these authorities.
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: It is a great crime. It is a shame of
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: history that he is in this job and that we
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: have not been able to keep him from returning to it.
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: And the fact that even when Donald Trump is president,
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: you can't muster the ability to say, no, I'm not
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: in favor of going to war with Iran. I will
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: vote no if there's a war powers resolution. I will
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: vote no if there's an authorization for the use of force.
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: We are certainly not, it is not necessary for us
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: to go to a war with Iran right now. And
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: certainly I would never support giving this president even more
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: authority than he's already had in abuse. Like the fact
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: that we can't make that, it's ridiculous what we're talking about.
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump is prosecuting a war that we did not
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: have to fight. And Democrats, a lot of them are
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: afraid of their own shadow to come out and just say,
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: this is fucking stupid and dangerous. Like that is ridiculous, ridiculous.
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: Putting everyone down for a no.
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: It's really unbelievable. And then he's fucking like, all these
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: guys like obtusely saying, I don't see how anybody can,
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: like how anybody can watch what's happening and not be
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: just proud and not just be proud.
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: Fetterman's like, why can't we, no, Fetterman's like, why can't
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: we just be celebrating what happened today? He is just insufferable.
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: Kind of like, well, why don't you answer your own question?
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: What do you do to this performative, performative idiocy, this
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: sort of like fake obtuseness where you pretend to not
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: understand that there's a very legitimate argument against what you're
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: saying from colleagues you see every day and presumably have
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: some respect for.
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: I mentioned that Republicans in Congress support the war with
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: a few exceptions. Rand Paul, Thomas Massey, basically. Beyond Congress,
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: at least so far, beyond Congress, there are plenty of
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: MAGA influencers who aren't happy about this war and have
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: already criticized Trump. The Daily Wire's Matt Walsh, the Federalist's
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: Sean Davis. There's just some new ones there. Steve Bannon.
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: There were also reports that Tucker Carlson had been personally
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: lobbying Trump not to attack. Do you think these guys
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: eventually get on board or at least just sort of
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: quiet down? Or do you think this could be a
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: problem for Trump and further down the road, Vance? I
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: think Bannon tends to get on board. Matt Walsh and
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: Sean Davis probably will too. I don't think Tucker will
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: ever get on board. He's been consistent about opposing the
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: war in Iran since last June and did not come
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: around when others came around and started praising Trump for
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: Midnight Hammer. I also think, look, Tucker knows his audience
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: and he knows there's a big mega audience out there
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: for folks who want to hear criticism of regime change wars.
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: And some of it has to do with U.S. support
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: for Israel, and he will be making the case that
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: Netanyahu pushed Trump into going to war, and he's going
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: to have a big, I told you so. Seems like
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: he's got a good case. He's going to play that
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: Rubio quote over and over again today and have a big,
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: I told you so.
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: But I think the J.D.
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: Vance element of him not only no longer opposing regime
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: change wars, but pushing for the biggest, boldest version of them,
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: I do think will harm him in the long term
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: if you know, NAGA's isolationist streak continues to grow.
• 45:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't, like, I don't, even if some of
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: these people get back in line, I just, I actually
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: think the comments from Rubio today will be really important.
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: There's just, there is a big overlap between the America
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: first anti-interventionalist mindset and the conspiratorial anti-Israel mindset. The fact
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: that now we have the secretary of state basically saying
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: we had to do this because Israel is was going
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: to bring us into this will like have a life
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: of its own in those spaces. And there'll be people
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: that will go back to trying, like nothing, nothing anti-Semitic
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: is true. And if it's true, it's not anti-Semitic. And
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: so like, if this is what, what Rubio is saying, like,
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: it's going to give a lot of purchase to that
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: argument on that, that, and, and like, that is going
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: to have a lot of, of power. And I don't
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: care what the Republicans in Congress or the powerful influencers say.
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: I think from the bottom up, people are going to
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: be enraged by this.
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: Two other related stories before we get to Levitt's interview
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: with Gallego. First, we talked last week about Pete Hegseth
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: threatening Anthropic because the AI company won't let the government
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: use Claude, their AI model, for mass surveillance on Americans
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: or fully autonomous weapons. Turns out Anthropic held firm and
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: Hegseth carried through on his threat, except he didn't decide
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: that the government just wouldn't do business with Anthropic anymore.
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: He designated the company as a risk to national security
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: and essentially blacklisted them, saying that, quote, No contractor, supplier,
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: or partner that does business with the United States military
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic. This decision is final. Unsurprisingly,
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: Elon Musk's XAI, which makes Grok, and then Sam Altman's OpenAI,
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: which makes ChatGPT, agreed to Hegseth's demands. Anthropic has pledged
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: to fight the government in court over Hegseth's decision. Anyone
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: want to go off on how insane this is?
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, just like, again, Anthropix had two asks.
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: One was, don't use our software to do bulk mass
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: surveillance of American citizens. And then it was, don't use
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: it in autonomous killer robots yet.
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: Because it's not good enough yet.
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they can't do it.
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: It wasn't even like that clear of a moral stand.
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: You just said the AI wasn't ready. And so it's
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: not- Oh, I'm sorry, you're right.
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: That was France.
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: Right. And so we learned over the weekend that- Honestly,
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: don't beat yourself up over it.
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: Claude was- Claude, you're fine.
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: Just kill away. You felt something strongly and you went
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: for it. And you went for it.
• 48:34
  Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah.
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: The drone wasn't going to fly itself.
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: It turns out it was.
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: So they used Claude against in the Iranian operation over
• 48:41
  Speaker 3: the weekend.
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: We learned.
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: Somebody reported that. But in response, like you said, two
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: things happened. One, the Trump administration, they didn't just like
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: pull Claude out of their classified systems. They're trying to
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: destroy the company. Like designating them a supply chain risk
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: is crazy. That is what the United States has done
• 48:56
  Speaker 3: to Huawei, a Chinese state-backed telecommunications system that could provide
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: a backdoor for the Chinese spies to get into all
• 49:03
  Speaker 3: of our communications, and Kaspersky Labs, which is a Russian
• 49:07
  Speaker 3: antivirus company, which you probably don't want to put Russian
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: antivirus software on your computer.
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: And then also.
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: That craven, craven fucking dork, Sam Altman, and OpenAI just
• 49:19
  Speaker 3: superimposed in to gobble up the contract afterwards, just to
• 49:23
  Speaker 3: show that he is the most amoral money focused, like
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: deplorable little schmuck.
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: So the, the position of the Pentagon is that, uh,
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: anthropic is so essential to our national security that the,
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: Government can dictate how its product is used and it
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: can't be stopped by Anthropic, but also it's a national
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: security threat at the same time that can be banned
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: from every company. It doesn't really make sense. Don't know
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: that that'll hold up. And the great thing about a
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: democracy is the secretaries of defense don't get to decide
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: when decisions are final. So good luck with that. The
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: issue here is like, okay, Anthropic in this case is
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: at least publicly, as far as we know, like what
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: they're demanding is pretty reasonable. It is more ethical than
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: what the Pentagon says. is suggesting that the Pentagon argument
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: is all we ask of our contractors is that, you know,
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: we're going to, we use your product. We will follow
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: the law, but the law right now is not caught
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: up to what AI is going to be capable of.
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: It's not caught up to what AI can do right now.
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: There are not laws that really govern this. Certainly not
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: at the national level that said like, no, I don't
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: think anthropic should be making decisions about when and how
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: our military can use AI. I'm pretty uncomfortable with this
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: administration making those decisions. Like the, the, These are novel issues.
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: I've seen people saying, well, if Raytheon makes a missile,
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: Raytheon doesn't get to decide how the Pentagon uses the missile.
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: It's like, okay, that's an analogy you can use for
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: AI if you want. AI is like a missile now.
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: These are genuinely difficult and new and very scary questions
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: about how AI is going to be deployed inside of
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: our military. They're meant to be taken seriously and carefully
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: and debated over time. Instead, we have a dunce Fox
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: News host making domineering, kind of sneering threats at the company.
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: You have kind of opportunistic, valueless people like Altman and
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: Musk trying to come in and kind of take their
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: market share and kind of punish their adversaries. Meanwhile, it
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: seems we're sort of like kind of sleepwalking into employing
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: a new and incredibly powerful technology that we don't fully
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: understand in charge of life and death decisions inside of
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: our military. So Like it's the same response to this
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: as to the fucking war on the whole. Like these
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: are people that are not responsible enough to be helping
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: us figuring out how to make these difficult decisions over
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: the long term.
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's also what this says is if you
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: start a company and you create a product or technology
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: that the government decides it wants to use and you
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: don't want it to use it the way that they
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: want to use it because it will create or could
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: lead to great harm, potentially catastrophic harm. civilizational collapse.
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this turning into Judgment Day kind of stuff. That's
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: on the table, I suppose.
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: The government can just come and destroy your company. That's
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: what it is. So here's one reaction. Quote, this is
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: simply attempted corporate murder. I could not possibly recommend investing
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: in American AI to any investor. I could not possibly
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: recommend starting an AI company in the United States. That
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: is from Dean Ball, who wrote the Trump administration's AI
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: action plan.
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 52:23
  Speaker 3: So these guys just have to go to like DEF
• 52:26
  Speaker 3: CON 5 on everything. Everything has to be all out war.
• 52:30
  Speaker 3: They can't just have a difference of agreement, a lack
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: of alignment with Anthropic and say, okay, well, we're just
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: going to part ways on the use of this software.
• 52:38
  Speaker 3: They have to destroy the company.
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: Well, the other, like the, and then the long-term issue, right,
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: is what, if they're worried, they're worried about mass surveillance,
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: they're worried about these tools autonomously deciding, like on targets
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: and things like that, you know, One protection we have
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: had against mass surveillance is just the amount of data,
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: just the amount of data that's been, encryption and the
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: amount of data, right? Like just there's vast, vast amounts
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: of encrypted data that's hard to get at. And there's
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: just too much that's collected for human beings to parse.
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: Like that's a protection. And AI says there's actually a
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: world in which you don't have to worry about that
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: anymore because it can process vast amounts of data far
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: beyond anything we can imagine today. And the fact that
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: they are not willing to make, so even a temporary
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: kind of willingness to say, These will not be used
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: in that manner. And if they are, we under control
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: of Congress, anything to that effect. They just want to
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: kind of dominate and say, no, you don't get to
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: tell us. We will do whatever we want. Like it
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: just tells you what kind of people these are. And
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: like we are going to have to have this debate.
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: We will have to do it when they're gone, I suppose.
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: But like this is a frightening moment given how like
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: how much like just it doesn't take much imagination to
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: see where this goes. And we just don't have the
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: right people to have that debate.
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: In other authoritarian news, Trump's billionaire political allies just expanded
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: their regime-friendly media empire to include, among other properties, CNN.
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: The Ellisons finally won their bid to acquire Warner Brothers
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: Discovery by overpaying for it in an offer that Netflix
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: couldn't and wouldn't beat. The result is that Paramount Skydance,
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: under the leadership of the Ellisons, and Barry Weiss, their
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: favorite conservative journalists, will now control both CBS News and CNN.
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: Over the weekend, Weiss responded to a tweet criticizing Zoran
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: Mamdani's opposition to the war in Iran with a fire emoji.
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: She's a straight shooter respected on both sides.
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there was also a tweet from CBS referring to
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: like Iran's nuclear weapons, which they don't have and they've
• 54:29
  Speaker 3: never had. I think CBS this weekend, the Sunday show
• 54:34
  Speaker 3: had like all pro-war voices on its panels. So good stuff.
• 54:38
  Speaker 3: I don't watch a lot of cable news anymore. I
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: imagine you guys don't really either. We have it on
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: the office, but like when I'm home, except for times
• 54:44
  Speaker 3: like this, like when there is a war, when there
• 54:46
  Speaker 3: is a crisis, I'm putting on CNN or I'm putting
• 54:48
  Speaker 3: on MS now because they're doing real time reporting. They
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: have people like in Tel Aviv, you can see the
• 54:53
  Speaker 3: missiles falling. They have people in Lebanon.
• 54:54
  Speaker 4: They like, right.
• 54:55
  Speaker 3: Like that, that is invaluable in a time of crisis.
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: And like the idea of Barry Weiss kind of thumbing
• 55:00
  Speaker 3: the scales at all times on all the news gathering is,
• 55:03
  Speaker 3: is really unnerving, like bigger picture. I'm more worried about
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: the TikTok U.S. operations now being majority owned by Oracle,
• 55:12
  Speaker 3: another Ellison thing, the Silver Lake Capital, they're like conservative
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: backed investor group, and then MGX, an Abu Dhabi based
• 55:22
  Speaker 3: investment company, right? Like, I think that's going to be
• 55:24
  Speaker 3: more impactful in terms of their ability to impact sentiment
• 55:28
  Speaker 3: about politics in this country and do it secretly.
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: But yeah, it sucks.
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: Well, they're hitting every demo, every age group, that's for sure.
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: What a move by Netflix. You're just going to get
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: a couple of billion dollars for having just kind of
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: negotiated up this deal to a crazy degree and kind
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: of thirsty fucking Paramount paying just a huge, huge premium
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: to take on this asset. CNN, whatever its ideology, I
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: don't know what the future looks like, but they have
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: a lot of threats at CNN that aren't the Free
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: Press and Barry Weiss. I worry too about My bigger
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: worry is the same as Tommy's, which is like, okay,
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: there's a, like whatever the specific like kind of ideological
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: tilt of CNN over time. I hope the independent journalists
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: and anchors there get to continue to do what they do.
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: I hope that like the places that have a strong
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: culture like HBO don't suddenly have to run like anti-woke
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: versions of their shows to go along with like whatever industry.
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: More than that, I just, here's just a sort of
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: a drip, drip, drip of like, okay, now you get
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: TikTok is gonna be controlled by right-wing media. allies cnn
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: is controlled in that way fox news of course always
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: was and like bit by bit you kind of lose
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: these access access points and the noise and all the
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: kind of churn in the algorithm even if you are
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: independent you're kind of like kind of stuck in that
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: uh to reach people as well so it's just a
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: sort of bad sign bad sign it is bad sign
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: it's bad sign yeah well and you.
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: Know authoritarian takeovers of uh the media aren't always neat
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: and tidy and just coming in and shutting them all
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: down and having state media and stuff like that you
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: get you know it happened in Orban's hungry as well, right?
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: They start, you get a few that there's direct state TV,
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: and then you get some that are the billion, the,
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: you know, leaders, billionaire friends that own the media stations.
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: And it's just, you know, so that's what they're trying
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: to do. They're trying to cobble together a regime-friendly media
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: empire here. It's a little TikTok, a little CBS, a
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: little CNN.
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: I do think they'll fail. Ultimately, I do. Like, I just,
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: this is not Hungary, and we're a big, fractious country
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: with a lot of different ways of getting information.
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: One of them is Crooked Media, crooked.com slash friends. Please subscribe.
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like, well, I mean, you're not, if you're, but
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: if you are, but like, seriously, if people are subscribed
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: to what we're doing, right, the algorithm matters less. They're
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: going to get this. They can share this with other people. Like,
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: it will be incumbent on people to build an alternative
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: that we want to be a part of. Like, that's real.
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: All right. When we come back from the break, you'll
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: hear Lovett's conversation with Senator Ruben Gallego about Iran and
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: how Democrats are doing, including today's Senate primary in Texas,
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: where Jasmine Crockett and James Tallarico are facing off. We'll
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: be right back.
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: Joining me now to discuss this weekend's airstrikes is Arizona
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: Senator Ruben Gallego. Senator, welcome back to the pod.
• 58:11
  Speaker 5: Thanks for having me.
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: So let's just start. What are your initial reactions to
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: the strikes in Iran that began over the weekend and
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: the deaths as of this recording of six U.S. service
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: members in the campaign? Just what your overall response is
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: to it?
• 58:25
  Speaker 5: Well, before coming on here, I was just reading a
• 58:28
  Speaker 5: statement that Rubio said that we had to attack because
• 58:30
  Speaker 5: Iran was going to attack because they were about to
• 58:33
  Speaker 5: be attacked. So basically what Rubio is saying is that
• 58:37
  Speaker 5: Israel was attacking– going to attack Iran. And because Israel
• 58:41
  Speaker 5: was going to attack Iran, it was the assumption of
• 58:44
  Speaker 5: this country that we had to also join on the attack.
• 58:48
  Speaker 5: So we're essentially giving up our war-making decisions to another country.
• 58:54
  Speaker 5: I mean did everyone– did anyone even try to say, hey,
• 58:57
  Speaker 5: don't do that? Did someone try to tell Netanyahu like
• 59:00
  Speaker 5: you're going to start a regional war that we don't
• 59:03
  Speaker 5: want to be a part of right now? Or are
• 59:07
  Speaker 5: we just now allowing Netanyahu to make these decisions for us?
• 59:10
  Speaker 5: What is going on here? Whatever happened in America first?
• 59:14
  Speaker 5: And I'm the kind of guy that understands– I actually
• 59:17
  Speaker 5: do believe Israel is an ally. I do believe we
• 59:19
  Speaker 5: should help protect Israel and our allies. But this is
• 59:23
  Speaker 5: not– this is ridiculous. We lost six men and women
• 59:26
  Speaker 5: so far. And I'm not sure there was– what kind
• 59:29
  Speaker 5: of pre-planning and planning was actually created in enough time
• 59:34
  Speaker 5: to actually be able to even execute this correctly. Like
• 59:37
  Speaker 5: right now, I'm hearing that our stockpiles are running low.
• 59:40
  Speaker 5: And it takes forever for us to redo and rearm ourselves,
• 59:43
  Speaker 5: all because Israel wanted to take a chance at the
• 59:46
  Speaker 5: fact that, you know, Iran was weak and we just
• 59:50
  Speaker 5: had to follow them through. If this is actually what happened,
• 59:52
  Speaker 5: this is what Mark Reed would just said to everybody,
• 59:55
  Speaker 5: that is an absolute abdication of leadership by Trump. And
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 5: by everybody in his cabinet, the fact that we were
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 5: basically pushed into the war by Israel, that is not
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 5: what should be happening at all. That is not our
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 5: national interest. And now there are six men and women dead.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 5: I don't know how many of them are injured. Who
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 5: knows how much of our– depleted stock is now gone,
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 5: or how much of our stock has been depleted, how
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 5: much is going to be drawn away from Europe and
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 5: from Asia where it's needed, all because we decided that
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 5: we need to hand over our foreign policy to Netanyahu.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 5: It's just disturbing and disgusting.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I was actually going to play you the clip,
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: but you just sort of got into it before I could.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: It's sort of a shock. No, no, no. It's a
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: shocking thing to hear. in part because there've been so
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: many different rationales for doing this. So, uh, uh, you
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: have Rubio basically saying the reason we had to do
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: this is we were preemptively preventing further damage because Israel
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: was doing this. But, uh, certainly, uh, Donald Trump would
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: not say he's being, uh, led into this by Benjamin Netanyahu.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: He said that on, that they were trying to, it's
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: at times they were regime change operations at time. It's
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: not a regime change operation at times. It's about the
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: nuclear program.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 5: It's, at times it's not. What do you make of
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 5: these shifting rationales? Well, the rationale is probably Rubio's actual
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 5: rationale was a real reason. And now they're coming up
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 5: with the actual other reasons because they know that That
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 5: is not good reasoning. They know that even people that
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 5: are pro-Israel, that they want to see Israel continue as
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 5: a sovereign state, know that that is not what Americans
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 5: want to hear. And that we just got involved in
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 5: another Middle East war because Netanyahu decided that this is
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 5: the best opportunity for Israel. What does that have to
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 5: do with our national interests? How is this worth the
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 5: blood of our men and women? And that is the rationale.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 5: And now they're going to come up with all these
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 5: other rationales because they're going to try to basically make
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 5: it easier because it's not the Democrats are going to
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 5: have problems with, now it's their America first base that
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 5: are going to have problems with. I've never heard of
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 5: any other country essentially having to react in that manner
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 5: and use their national prestige, their weapons, the whole war
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 5: making capability Because another country is starting a war and
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 5: therefore we are going to have to react. Did someone
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 5: even try calling Iran saying like, hey, this is not us.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 5: We're going to be staying out of this. Like, no,
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 5: we just decided that we're going to let Netanyahu choose
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 5: our wars. This is very disturbing to me. It's very disturbing.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 5: Everyone should be really mad about this. And I don't
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 5: even think this is not a like a left right issue.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 5: This is not this is not like are you a
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 5: pro-Israel person or are you, you know, whatever these other
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 5: people are.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 5: This is like the fact that our country gave up
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 5: its war making, started inflicting damage on another country because
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 5: of another country's decision. That is not leadership. That is
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 5: not what you want to see leadership doing. And it's
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 5: absolutely horrendous.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: So– There is a debate, and you're right, there is
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: a divide that isn't strictly Democrat versus Republican. That's playing
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: out in Congress. These strikes were carried out without congressional authorization.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: You've said the Senate should not hold any votes until
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: it votes on a war powers resolution. But as of
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: this moment, a war powers resolution wouldn't have the votes
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 2: to pass. So what would be the value of having
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 2: a war powers resolution when the outcome would be Rubio
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: and Trump and all these people holding it up and saying, see,
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 2: they couldn't disapprove it and therefore they approve it.
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 5: Well, we have, so we do know that there's one
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 5: coming up, I think, tomorrow or the day after. So
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 5: at least we know that there is. I do think
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 5: we also need to have a very different approach to this.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 5: This is not a very popular.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 7: War.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 5: Like, let's just put it very plainly. It's only supported
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 5: by about 30% of the population of this country. It's
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 5: deeply unpopular with kind of the MAGA base of The
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 5: value in this would be that there is men and
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 5: women put on record that will have to go forward
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 5: and defend this when they go home during recess. And
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 5: I think there's going to be a lot of people
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 5: that are going to have a very tough time doing this,
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 5: especially now that we understand the rationale, the real rationale
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 5: behind this, right? There was no imminent threat to our country.
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 5: Imminent threat means that it was going to happen. What
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 5: we just heard from Marco Rubio was essentially that we
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 5: were going to get attacked because someone else was going
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 5: to attack. They were going to eventually attack us. Therefore,
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 5: we decided to preempt the attack. In what world does
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 5: that word salad actually justify us going to war and
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 5: risking our men and women? And that's what we have
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 5: to put on the record when it comes to Republicans
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 5: and some Democrats coming up pretty soon.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 2: So one argument, and it's an argument that Senator Chris
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 2: Murphy has been making, is a war powers resolution gets
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 2: it a little bit backwards. It suggests that somehow the
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 2: vote would kind of retroactively suggest support from Congress when
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 2: what's actually needed is an authorization for the use of
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 2: military force. A failed war powers resolution, the absence of
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 2: disapproval is certainly not approval in that really what we
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: ought to be doing is having a Congress that asserts
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 2: the president cannot conduct war without a vote in Congress
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 2: that authorizes the use of force as we did in
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 2: Afghanistan and as we did in Iraq.
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 5: What do you make of that argument? He's right. But
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 5: if we're in the majority, we have that. But that's
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 5: like an AUMF is not a privileged resolution. I'm sorry
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 5: I'm getting all dorky with you guys.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 2: No, no, it's fine.
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 5: That's the reason why we're doing a war's power because
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 5: that's the only option we have that will actually bring
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 5: a vote to the floor. Because if we try to
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 5: introduce AMF, then it has to go through the process,
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 5: and they're just going to kill it in committee, right?
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 5: But if you do a war prize resolution, it gets
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 5: to skip all the bullshit that the Republicans can use
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 5: to actually slow it down. And yes, you're right. It
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 5: doesn't immediately end it, but it does put certain timetables...
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 5: that actually restrict at least some of that executive power.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 5: So no, this is not the best solution at all.
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 5: But it's the only solution that we have when the
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 5: Democrats are in the minority. In the majority, there's actually
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 5: a lot more power we have. But we have to
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 5: do what we can with what we can right now.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 5: And this is actually the best kind. You force the debate,
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 5: by the way. You take up time on the schedule.
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 5: It actually forces the conversation, the national conversation to focus
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 5: on this. But Senator Murphy is not wrong. It's just
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 5: that that's not an option that we have immediately.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 2: So Politico reported over the weekend that some Republicans in
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 2: Congress are hoping to use the conflict as a way
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 2: to pressure Democrats around the Department of Homeland Security, claiming
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 2: that the military action in Iran increases threats and therefore
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: it ought to increase pressure on Democrats to fund DHS.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 2: That's been held up because of what ICE has been doing.
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 2: Are you buying that? Is there any truth to that argument?
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 2: How do you respond to that?
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 5: When all the FBI agents that are now looking for
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 5: immigrants at Home Depot go back to their desks, when
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 5: the HSI goes back to looking for money launderers, and
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 5: especially international drug cartel money launderers and potential terrorists, go
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 5: back to actually doing their jobs and actually doing money
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 5: laundering instead of looking for women and children at bus stops,
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 5: when they actually start deploying as all these ICE 45-day
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 5: trainees to the border to help make sure that no
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 5: terrorists are crossing over the border, then we could be
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 5: serious about this. But right now, DHS has $ 175 billion,
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 5: more money than the Marine Corps. They have enough money.
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 5: As a matter of fact, they have enough money. They
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 5: could be using a lot of these guys to doing
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 5: a lot of other things. For example, backfilling the ATF
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 5: right now. The ATF right now doesn't have enough money
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 5: even to do a lot of the background checks that
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 5: you need The guy that shot up, potentially the terrorists
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 5: that shot up people in Austin, bought a weapon legally,
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 5: by the way. If there was a fully staffed FBI ATF,
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 5: they may have been able to flag that this guy
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 5: was potentially dangerous. But where's ATF right now? Either they've
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 5: been fired because of political reasons. And by the way,
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 5: also a lot of FBI agents that specialize in terrorism
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 5: have been fired. Or they've all been put as provisional
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 5: ICE agents. And instead of them doing the things they're
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 5: really good at, like background checks, investigations, trying to track
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 5: down you know, bombs, you know, weapons, things of that nature.
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 5: They're chasing, you know, migrant workers through the fields and
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 5: trying to hit the Stephen Miller quota. So these guys
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 5: aren't serious, right? They're not serious about national security. If
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 5: they were serious about it, then these people would all
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 5: go back to the work where they're supposed to, to
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 5: actually keep our country safe. They just want to act
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 5: put public pressure so they could get their way and
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 5: they could get an extra $ 30 billion on top of
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 5: the $ 175 billion they already have to go and do
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 5: these mass deportations and hit the Miller quota they want
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 5: every day.
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 2: So I saw you endorsed Maine Senate candidate Graham Plattner
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 2: this morning.
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 6: Why?
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 2: What led you to jump on the Plattner train?
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 5: There's the Plattner plane or something like that.
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the Plattner plane, sure.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 5: Right now, we're in war, right? As a matter of fact,
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 5: Graham and I actually were in Iraq at the same time.
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 5: He was down closer to Fallujah. I was up closer
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 5: to the Syrian border. We need veterans that actually understand that.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 5: Number two, Janet Mills can't win. It's just that simple.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 5: There's no way that we are going to get Janet
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 5: Mills to actually win in a year when people want authenticity,
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 5: want some level of populism. It's a change election. And
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 5: to think that we're going to send an 80-year-old nominee
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 5: versus– I don't even know how old Senator Collins is.
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 5: appropriations chair and that's going to have a good outcome,
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 5: I think it's fanciful. And the elections in two months
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 5: right now, sorry, early ballots drop in two months. We
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 5: need to consolidate around Graham. Graham has lived real experience.
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 5: He was a young Marine. He was dumb. He did
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 5: dumb things and he has actually apologized for them. He's
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 5: learned from that. Right now, we have so many people
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 5: that are expecting this perfect candidate And we end up
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 5: looking for these perfect candidates that don't know how to
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 5: connect with everyday voters. And we figure out, oh my God,
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 5: I can't believe we lost. Well, we need to win.
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 5: Democrats can't just win in North Carolina, which I think
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 5: we're going to win. We can't just defend in Georgia.
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 5: We need to pick up seats or else we're in
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 5: the minority. It doesn't help us if Susan Collins is
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 5: a little more moderate. She still gives power to John
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 5: Thune to have the power to appoint Supreme Court justices,
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 5: to have the power to actually do another reconciliation so
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 5: they can supercharge ICE. And so Graham's the only one
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 5: that can win. That's it. It's very simple. And everyone else,
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 5: you could have your excuses, everything else like that. There's
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 5: only two candidates on the ballot right now. There's only
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 5: one that could win. And we need to win the seats.
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 5: And that's the pathway we do it. And the man
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 5: has lived a real life. He's a lobster man. He's
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 5: a working class man. He knows how to communicate. Not
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 5: everyone's perfect. Welcome to politics. But we will get him there.
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 5: And he certainly will be better than Susan Collins.
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 2: So he's under fire today. He had done, and sorry
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 2: to belabor the details, but I think they matter. He
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 2: went on a YouTube channel, did a live stream with
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 2: a guy named, He's a pretty big channel. He mostly
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 2: talks about guns, military culture, military life. He also does
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 2: delve into some conspiracy theories, including anti-Semitic conspiracy theories around
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 2: the killing of Charlie Kirk, for example, among others. He
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 2: also is somebody that went on another channel that is
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 2: virulently anti-Semitic, okay? Platner goes on the first channel and
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 2: has an hour-long conversation, talks about the values of immigrants
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 2: and his friends in the immigrant community in Maine. It's
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 2: a completely fine conversation, represents his message, but people who
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 2: are already suspicious of Plattner because of the tattoo, because
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 2: some of those previous comments, as you mentioned, are saying, oh,
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 2: this is just too much. There's too many signs here.
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 2: There's a person that's comfortable in these anti-Semitic environments. At
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 2: the same time, they exist. They exist, and he goes.
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 5: And speaks on those platforms. Let's back up. Who's gone
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 5: on Joe Rogan's show? I don't have to mention names,
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 5: but there's a lot of Democrats have gone on Joe
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 5: Rogan's show. Joe Rogan has said anti-Semitic, anti-Jewish conspiracy and tropes.
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 5: But because there's been these very sophisticated Democratic politicians, no
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 5: one has a problem with those guys going on there, right?
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 2: Some people do, but yeah, I take your point, but
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 2: I think some people do.
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 5: Some people do, but like not to the outcry that's
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 5: happening here, right? So like, you know, A working class
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 5: man goes and has a conversation on a platform that
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 5: is very similar to what Joe Rogan talks about, not
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 5: necessarily guns and stuff like that, but everyone freaks out
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 5: on this guy.
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 6: Why?
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 5: Because the establishment doesn't want him. I mean, this is
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 5: very simple. The establishment does not want him. So they're
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 5: going to make sure that he looks bad. No one
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 5: actually talks about the fact that he got that tattoo
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 5: as a young man and then re-enlisted twice. And every
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 5: time you re-enlist, you have to go through a physical.
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 5: When you go through a physical, the Marines and the Army,
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 5: which he went and joined later, They check for tattoos
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 5: and they check it against a database of, you know,
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 5: anti-Semitic and gang tattoos. Never, ever was hailed there. Then
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 5: he actually went and got a security, a very clear
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 5: top security clearance to protect the ambassador of Afghanistan. Also,
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 5: you have to get checked for that. So clearly, you know,
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 5: him and his mates, when they were young and stupid Marines,
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 5: like I was a young stupid Marines. got a tattoo
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 5: that looked like a cross and skull bones, which we
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 5: have a lot of those in the Marine Corps, like pirates.
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 5: But what happens is years later, when he finally gets
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 5: into politics, someone points it out. And what does he do?
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 5: He gets rid of it. But now, because he's running
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 5: against the establishment, he's tainted, right? Because he was a young,
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 5: dumb Marine. He wasn't perfect when he was young. Now
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 5: that he's in his late 30s, early 40s, it's always
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 5: going to hold against him. But he's the type of
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 5: person that actually understands how young, stupid people are, and
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 5: how people change. And he's the one that actually connects with,
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 5: not this governor who's 80 years old. But you don't
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 5: hear about that. You don't hear about the fact that
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 5: for all these times, he went through all these vets
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 5: and he kept on passing the vet, right? All you
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 5: hear is just the fact that, oh, it's an SS mark. No,
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 5: if you look at it, it looks like skull and crossbones.
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 5: And if you're a Marine, you know, we get stupid tattoos.
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 5: We get tattoos in different languages, don't even make sense.
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 5: And we get tattoos of things that look cool, especially
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 5: when you're young and dumb. And the man has actually
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 5: made amends for it. But there's already a movement. There's
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 5: a movement of people that want to continue helping these
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 5: elite people win, even though they can't win the election,
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 5: and hoping that it will, instead of looking at the
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 5: fact that the US government basically said that there was
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 5: nothing wrong with the tattoo for years. So why would
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 5: this young man think there was anything wrong until finally
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 5: politics pointed out to him? And good thing they pointed
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 5: out to him. And what did he do? He got
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 5: rid of it as soon as he could.
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 6: Yeah, look, I.
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 2: People want to be suspicious of Graham Platner. They don't
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 2: like these associations. I'll just say I watched the whole
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 2: conversation and it was a great conversation where it was
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 2: good to see a Democrat in that space being able
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 2: to kind of have that conversation. And after he gets
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 2: off the live stream, which nobody watched, all these people
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 2: telling Graham Platner, nobody watched. After he gets off the
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 2: live stream, he's on this conservative libertarian pro-gun channel that
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 2: does engage in conspiracy theories that I do not like,
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 2: which is why I don't consume them, don't like them.
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 2: he polled his audience and they liked him 90-10. They
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 2: liked him 90-10. And so if you have a problem
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 2: with him, fine. If you don't think he should be
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 2: a senator, fine. But boy, I wish you had a
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 2: better answer for what we do about not having people
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 2: who can speak to these audiences.
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 5: Also, by the way, you can question. Like, you know,
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 5: I'm not the kind of person like, oh, you shouldn't
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 5: question this. Like, Absolutely questioned, right? I think it's legitimate
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 5: people have some concerns, right? Like, why wouldn't you, right?
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 5: But also don't– let's not also like lie ourselves into
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 5: this situation where somehow this guy is some evil being
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 5: because number one, he's going to win. He's going to
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 5: win that primary. Number two, once we realize the full
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 5: scope of what people are talking about, once people look
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 5: at the old tattoo, once people understand that the US
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 5: government– gave this guy very, very, very, very high security clearance,
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 5: knowing that he had that tattoo and also assuming that
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 5: it was also not anti-Semitic. It all kind of starts
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 5: making sense. Yes, maybe he was a stupid young man,
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 5: but now he wants to serve his country and he's
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 5: learned and he's grown. And guess what? The majority of
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 5: Americans are not a bunch of student council presidents just
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 5: being perfectly distilled people waiting to run for governor, president, Senate,
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 5: whatever someday, right?
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 7: People live real life.
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 2: Hey, you're going to get in trouble with some of
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 2: your colleagues. Some of your college student council presidents have
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 2: been running for president since they were five years old.
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 5: I was a dorky student council president. So I'm one
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 5: of those people too, right? But I'm saying in general,
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 5: there's a problem in this country where we want authenticity,
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 5: but we only want the authenticity that's not that authentic.
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 5: We want someone that could cross over and talk to
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 5: these Republicans and conservatives and bring in these young men,
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 5: but we want to do it in a nice, clean,
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 5: neat way. We want this perfect candidate to be able
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 5: to bring all these people that aren't perfect into our coalition.
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 5: That doesn't exist. You have to accept a lot. You
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 5: have to accept that some people are going to be
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 5: at fault, that they've made mistakes, that they said stupid things.
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 5: Have they grown? Have they learned from it? then that's
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 5: what matters. But if you want that person that can
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 5: figure out how to get those bros in, how to
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 5: get that disaffected voter back, how to get that Republican
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 5: to cross over, we have to have people that are
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 5: authentic first, number two, and have some real lived experience
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 5: to be able to go talk to that person and connect.
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 5: Because if not, you're going to find ourselves in a
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 5: situation where we run these cookie cutter candidates in these
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 5: tough races. I'm not saying you shouldn't, you know, there's
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 5: some definite races where you could, you know, have a
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 5: cookie cutter candidate, the perfect candidate. But some of these races,
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 5: you're going to have to have someone that could actually
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 5: reach across the way and actually touch somebody because that
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 5: person has, you know, lived your life, understands your struggles,
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 5: understands you've made mistakes and is willing to accept you
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 5: into this coalition, provided that we all understand that we're
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 5: here to make sure that Democrats win, that we have
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 5: control of the agenda and that we're not going to
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 5: have another, you know, two years potentially of Donald Trump
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 5: in control of the Senate and the House.
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 2: Last question, because you're on such a roll on these
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 2: Democratic primaries. Where are you in the Texas Senate? Democratic primary?
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 2: When this comes out, people will be voting in Texas.
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 2: Have you weighed in on Tallarico versus Crockett? Where's your
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 2: head at?
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 5: I mean, I think they're both great candidates. I think
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 5: they both have a chance to win. I'm going to
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 5: help out whoever wants to be helped come Tuesday. And
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 5: I'm going to be very excited. Texas is the Arizona
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 5: of this year. I feel like what's happening in Texas
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 5: is what happened in 2018 in Arizona, where we just
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 5: had a huge surge and got people elected to office
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 5: up and down the ticket. I think you're going to
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 5: see that also in Texas. And look, you know, My
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 5: endorsements are all over the place. If you want to
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 5: do one through line is I'm helping people get elected
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 5: that can make sure we win. We need to have
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 5: control of the House. We need to have control of
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 5: the Senate. And sometimes that's going to be people that
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 5: I think are on what people consider on the left, right,
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 5: that are populist on the left. Some people, it's going
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 5: to be people that are kind of your middle of
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 5: the road. Some of them may be a little on
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 5: the conservative side. I don't understand. People don't see the
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 5: world we live in right now. We're in a very
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 5: dangerous situation. We need to make sure we have control.
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 5: We need to take anybody into our coalition that can
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 5: help us win control of the House and the Senate.
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 5: And then once we actually get out of this craziness,
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 5: then let's have a little purity battles, right? But this
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 5: guy is the guy that nearly killed a lot of
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 5: us on January 6th. I was there on the House floor, right?
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 5: This is the guy that just got us into a
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 5: fucking war with Iran, right? This is the guy that
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 5: is already taking ballot boxes and stuff out of Atlanta, Georgia.
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 5: And we're here trying to have this purity battles when
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 5: we should be looking to see who's going to help
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 5: us win these elections and by big margins for us
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 5: to actually reset the agenda, push the Democratic agenda forward.
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 5: And that will be, you know, in the NDA, if
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 5: you have never noticed, it ends up being a fairly
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 5: progressive agenda. And then hopefully in 2028, we could deliver
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 5: that Democratic president, Democratic House and a Democratic Senate. But
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 5: you don't get a Democratic Senate for that president if
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 5: you don't win some seats, by the way, in 2026.
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 5: Because 2028 gets harder and then after that gets harder, right?
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 5: So people need to understand that. We need to win first.
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 5: And people, there's some candidates right now that just aren't
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 5: going to make it through. Time is running out for them.
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 5: And I want to win. I want to win so
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 5: we can protect this country. We can protect them from Republicans.
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 5: And you have to make some tough choices. And that's
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 5: just how life is.
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 2: Last question. I just want to end because this is
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 2: obviously on Iran. You know, there's Democrats that have been
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 2: saying this didn't go through Congress. There's Democrats who oppose
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 2: a war powers vote at all, which I think is
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 2: strange because even if you believe Iran, the Iranian regime
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 2: is a terrible government, shouldn't Congress have authority? But do
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 2: you think Democrats on the whole are doing enough talking
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 2: about why preemptive wars are dangerous in and of themselves?
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 5: No, I don't think they are. I actually think we
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 5: need to get off this process question. You know, I
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 5: think voters are really smart and, and, you know, I'm
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 5: not saying that they wouldn't understand this process question, but
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 5: I think before they even get to the process question,
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 5: they want to have a values conversation and they want
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 5: to know, like, what do you, what do you think
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 5: about this?
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 5: And, you know, maybe, you know, and I didn't poll,
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 5: but I knew exactly what I felt because of my
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 5: horrible experience with the first Iraq war or second Iraq war.
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 5: Can't remember anymore. But like that makes a difference. Like
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 5: people right now want to see like strong leadership. They
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 5: want to see like, oh, you know what? This guy
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 5: knows what he's talking about or this gal knows what
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 5: he's talking about. They know that the war is bad
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 5: for this country. And then the process question kind of
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 5: will take care of itself, right? But we really need
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 5: to show strong values when it comes to whether or
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 5: not we're willing to commit our men and women to war,
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 5: to potentially death. And not just for us, but also
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 5: for Iranians or for other civilians in the world, whether
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 5: it is Israelis in Israel or Jordanians or Saudis, Saudi
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 5: civilians that we've all kind of exposed to this regional breakout, right?
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 5: These are the things that we need to be considering
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 5: before we get into these big process questions.
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 2: Well, Senator Ruben Gallego, thanks for your time. Thanks for
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 2: talking to us. And we'll talk to you again soon.
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 2: Appreciate it.
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 7: Adios.
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 1: That's our show for today. Thanks to Senator Gallego for
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: coming on. If you live in Texas, hope you get
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: out and vote today. Last chance. Dan and I will
• 1:23:14
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• 1:23:17
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