4/8/26: Trump Fell For Bibi Lies Before War, Alex Jones Freaks On Trump, Ben Shapiro Meltdown, Professor Pape On Escalation

Summary

Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

Episode: April 8, 2026 – Trump Fell For Bibi Lies Before War, Alex Jones Freaks On Trump, Ben Shapiro Meltdown, Professor Pape On Escalation

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Brief Overview

In this episode, Krystal Ball and guest host Ryan Grim dive deep into the explosive New York Times report detailing former President Trump’s internal deliberations leading up to the Iran war, probing how Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu played a decisive role. The hosts dissect the chaotic decision-making in the Trump White House, examine intense political reactions—spanning the spectrum from Alex Jones to Ben Shapiro—and conduct a powerful interview with Professor Robert Pape, who explains why the region remains in an “escalation trap” with potentially global consequences.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The New York Times Exposé: Netanyahu's Push for War with Iran

[00:44–13:09]

• Inside the Situation Room:
  The Times report reconstructs the decision process, beginning with Netanyahu's visit on February 11, 2026, where he presented a high-stakes, in-person pitch to Trump for a major US attack on Iran.
• Verbatim Quotes and Notes:
  Krystal and Ryan speculate, based on the reporting's high level of detail, that someone must have provided comprehensive notes of the Oval Office meetings (not recordings).
• Netanyahu’s Four Promises:
  1. Decapitate the Iranian regime by killing its leadership.
  2. Degrade Iran’s ability to attack Gulf or Western allies.
  3. Overthrow the regime and replace it with a secular government.
  4. Block Iran’s control over the Strait of Hormuz.
• Skepticism from US Advisors:
  Several key US officials, like CIA chief Ratcliffe and Senator Marco Rubio, called Israeli assessments “bullshit” ([05:57]), with Ratcliffe stating regime change was improbable: "If we just mean killing the Supreme Leader, we can probably do that" ([04:20–04:45]).
• Tepid White House Response:
  Despite widespread internal doubts, only Pete Hegseth strongly supported intervention; others, like J.D. Vance, voiced concern but ultimately deferred to Trump ([08:22–10:45]).

"Rubio says if our goal is regime change or an uprising, we shouldn't do it. But if the goal is to destroy Iran's missile program, that's a goal we can achieve." — Krystal Ball ([09:09])

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2. Did the Attack Fulfill Its Objectives?

[11:18–13:09]

• Temporary Gain, No Lasting Impact:
  Ryan and Krystal question whether the US truly diminished Iran’s capabilities, noting the likely rapid replenishment of Iranian missiles, especially given access to Chinese supply lines ([11:46]).
• Eli Lake’s Assessment:
  Quoting Lake’s piece, they present a hawkish, optimistic take... and then wryly dismiss it:

  "In five weeks of war, the regime has lost its navy, most of its missile launchers, and a good chunk of..." — Eli Lake as quoted by Krystal ([12:13]) "Swallow that. Cope. And let’s end the war. Good win, good job." — Ryan Grim ([12:50])

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3. Political and Media Reactions: Gaslighting, Partisanship, and the 25th Amendment

[13:09–37:21]

• Refusing to Name Israel's Influence:
  Tim Miller interviews Rep. Josh Gottheimer, who refuses to admit Netanyahu urged the US into war, despite overwhelming evidence ([15:36–18:51]).

  “You can’t even say that Netanyahu urged the US to go to war. When Netanyahu went to the Situation Room and gave a 90-minute hard sell…” — Ryan Grim ([19:40])

• Existential Paranoia & Nuclear Rationality:
  Krystal frames Israeli behavior as rooted in existential paranoia driven by nuclear realities:

  “The existence of nuclear weapons puts countries in existential threats constantly. And that creates paranoia, and the paranoia creates irrationality.” ([21:00+])

• Partisan Twists and Dem/Republican Dissonance:
  Both parties are accused of playing politics at civilization’s expense; some Democrats attack Trump as “weak” for not escalating further, while figures like Alex Jones (!) call for Trump’s removal ([26:31–29:36]).
• Notable Meltdowns:
  • Alex Jones: Urges 25th Amendment action against Trump.
  • Ben Shapiro: Rages against antiwar voices (especially Ryan Grim), casting dissent as “anti-American.”
  • Marjorie Taylor Greene: (now former Rep.) calls for Trump’s removal, joining a chorus from both left and right.

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4. The Aftermath: Democrats, Republicans, and Media Coping

[29:36–37:42]

• Democrats Demand War Powers, Then Waffle:
  Hakeem Jeffries’ call for a War Powers Resolution is mocked as “satire” since Democrats failed to act before the escalation ([28:02]).
• Tim Miller v. Gottheimer, Part II:
  Miller presses Gottheimer on the futility and morality of backing Trump in war, with little clarity or contrition from the Congressman.

  “You are kind of for it in the abstract ... you wish it would work well, but you don’t know what the objectives are and you don’t want to do anything to constrain.” — Tim Miller ([36:21])

• Neoconservative and Bulwark Reactions:
  Krystal notes the irony of neocons so anti-Trump that “the war they’ve wanted forever is still not good enough.”

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5. Ben Shapiro & The ‘Anti-American’ Smear

[37:42–43:53]

• Ben Shapiro Meltdown:
  Shapiro singles out Ryan Grim (and others) for alleged “anti-American” sentiment, accusing antiwar critics of objectively supporting Iran and undermining the military. He denies the targeting of civilian sites, but Grim corrects the record:

  “If Ben is sure that it was an accident, I believe that it also completely shows a reckless disregard for human life to not have a person look at a satellite image of a place before you bomb it.” — Ryan Grim ([42:26])

• Grim & Dropsite Under Fire:
  Far-right figures (Aytan Fishberger) and establishment commentators push for investigations into Dropsite News, alleging foreign funding or propaganda operations—charges that Grim refutes point-by-point ([43:53–51:00]), disclosing finances and denouncing the broader climate of McCarthyist attacks.

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6. Escalation, Iran’s New Power, and the “Trap”: Professor Robert Pape Interview

[54:35–82:56]

• 3 Key Themes from Professor Pape:
  1. Escalation Trap Not Over:
     • The US, Israel, and Iran remain on a knife-edge. US forces are still poised for further conflict; real de-escalation would require a visible US pullback ([56:09]).
  2. Regional Balance Power Shift:
     • Iran has emerged as the dominant regional power—control over the Strait of Hormuz has shifted to Iran, and Gulf states must now seek Tehran’s favor for security ([66:05]).
  3. Genocidal Rhetoric and Consequences:
     • Trump’s threats ("a great civilization is going to die") represent genocidal intent, providing clear evidence per Geneva standards ([61:13]).
     • The threat, combined with attacks, will accelerate Iranian pursuit of nuclear weapons and drive the population—including erstwhile regime opponents—toward weaponization for survival ([58:28–60:58]).
     • This will have long-term consequences for American safety and credibility:

       “Now every American is marked here. And this will be wherever we travel in the world.” — Prof. Pape ([61:13])

• Myths of a Crushed Iran:
  Contrasting with victory-fantasists like Noah Rothman (National Review), Pape notes Iran can—and will—quickly rebuild:

  “They are building not just dozens, but something like 50 to 100 missiles every single month … within a year, this will be back fast and furious.” ([58:28])

• No More Isolated Iran:
  Iran does not need weapons from China or Russia—it's a top-tier power already, an exporter (e.g., drones), not an importer ([75:38]).
• Israel’s Growing Vulnerability:
  As Iran goes nuclear and draws in regional support, Israel’s strategic position weakens dramatically ([72:10–75:07]).
• No Solution Short of Massive Ground War:
  Only a “total ground conquest” (which is impossible for the US) could prevent Iran’s nuclear capability now ([69:19–70:38]).

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7. Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “The Israeli assessment was bullshit.” — Marco Rubio as relayed by Ryan Grim ([05:57])
• “If we just mean killing the Supreme Leader, we can probably do that.” — John Ratcliffe, via Krystal ([04:20])
• “If Ben is sure that it was an accident … it completely shows a reckless disregard for human life.” — Ryan Grim ([42:26])
• “No president in the history of the United States has made a statement threatening to erase, destroy, kill an entire civilization.” — Prof. Robert Pape ([61:13])
• “To tell people that you can’t say Netanyahu urged the US to go to war is just actually bizarre.” — Ryan Grim ([19:40])
• “Swallow that. Cope. And let’s end the war.” — Ryan Grim mocking the narrative of total victory ([12:50])
• “Iran is becoming the fourth center of world power.” — Prof. Pape ([66:05])
• “He threatened the genocidal destruction of an entire civilization and led to the rise of Iran as a fourth center of world power.” — Prof. Pape ([77:06])
• “We are now promising endless attacks on civilian infrastructure.” — Ryan Grim, paraphrased by Ben Shapiro ([38:28])
• “It does really matter to have independent media out in front covering this in the way that legacy media will not.” — Krystal Ball ([84:17])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Segment | Topic | Timestamps (MM:SS) | |---------|-------|------------------| | New York Times details on Trump/Netanyahu meetings | 00:44–13:09 | | Aftermath and what was achieved in Iran | 11:18–13:09 | | Tim Miller/Josh Gottheimer debate | 16:16–20:51 | | Existential paranoia & nuclear weapons | 21:00–23:33 | | 25th Amendment calls (including Alex Jones) | 26:31–29:36 | | Ben Shapiro meltdown on antiwar critics | 37:42–43:53 | | Threats against Dropsite News, media funding transparency | 43:53–53:25 | | Professor Pape interview (traps, nuclear escalation, regional balance) | 54:35–82:56 |

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Tone & Atmosphere

The episode is urgent, sometimes darkly sardonic, but rigorously fact-driven. Krystal and Ryan balance pointed critique with exasperation—at official hypocrisy, establishment denial, and media misdirection—while Professor Pape’s intervention is scholarly, sobering, and alarm-raising. The overarching mood: America and the world are at a fateful crossroads, and the time for wishful thinking is over.

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Final Takeaways

• The Iran conflict stemmed from a deeply flawed, externally influenced decision process, with Netanyahu’s lobbying at the center and widespread internal dissent ignored.
• Hopes that bombing “solved” Iran are misplaced; the region's power center has shifted, and war achieved none of its maximal aims.
• Political establishment figures are often more concerned with partisan wins or denialism than reckoning with the true consequences.
• Outspoken critics, especially in independent media, face character attacks, funding smears, and suspicion from the establishment.
• The world, and the US itself, remain in a dangerous escalation trap, with nuclear risk higher than at any point in recent history.

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For More Information

• Professor Robert Pape’s Substack: "The Escalation Trap"
• Dropsite News: Independent war reporting referenced by Ryan Grim
• Further debates: Tim Miller’s Bulwark interviews with Rep. Josh Gottheimer

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If you missed this episode, this summary captures both the depth and urgency of the discussions—and why, as the hosts repeatedly stress, independent media remains indispensable in times of crisis.

Transcript

[Krystal Ball]

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[Ryan Grim]

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[Ryan Grim]

can find honest perspectives from the left

[Krystal Ball]

and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else. So if that is something that's important to you, Please go to BreakingPoints.com, become a member today and you'll get access to our full shows unedited ad, free and all put together for you every morning in your inbox. We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see [e-mail] well, yesterday the New York Times dropped a massive story bylined by Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman going through the kind of TikTok account leading up to the war and how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, when he visited in mid February, February 11, is the date he here spoke to the president and laid out what he believed was a the. How would we describe this, Ryan? The likely case of scenarios should Trump launch another air campaign against Iran? This was a big, big story. And I've seen some people saying, well, now we all trust the New York Times again because it's got some huge details about what different members of Trump's cabinet, what different advisors were saying to him. If Jonathan Swan's byline is on a Trump story, I mean, Maggie Haberman has obviously a lot of access as well. But if Jonathan Swan byline is on anything, I'm taking it very, very seriously.

[Ryan Grim]

I think they're both tremendous reporters and they're very well sourced and they are the kinds of people that are going to get a story like this. And the way these are, these, I haven't done the inside the Situation Room ones really, but like these Oval Office or like top congressional leadership stories are, they're fun to do because once you get one person telling you what happened in the meeting, it's so fun from there because then you go to everybody else telephone and you're like, so this is what Vance says happened. And they're like, and once you've got it, then everyone else comes and they're like, oh, okay, you already have it, clearly. But you only have it from one perspective. Let me tell you my perspective. So that's clearly what happened here. Somebody came to them and was like, here's what happened in these couple meetings. And then they were able to go to everybody else and then they were obviously able to say, do you have any notes? Because they have some direct quotes in here.

[Krystal Ball]

Yes.

[Ryan Grim]

So let's roll through.

[Krystal Ball]

I was gonna say this is verbatim quotes and we'll start here with C2. This is what happened. So again, we're February 11th. The black SUV carrying Prime Minister Netanyahu arrived at the White house just before 11am The Israeli leader reports the Times, who had been pressing for months for the US to agree to a major assault on Iran, was whisked inside with little ceremony out of view of reporters primed for one of the most high stakes moments in his long career. U.S. and Israeli officials gathered first in the cabinet room. Then Mr. Netanyahu headed downstairs for the main event, a highly classified presentation on Iran for Trump and his team in the situation Room, which was rarely used for in person meetings with foreign leaders. I was really surprised by that detail, Ryan. Mr. Trump sat down, but not in his usual position at the head of the room's mahogany conference table. Instead, the President took a seat on one side, facing the large screens mounted along the wall. Mr. Netanyahu sat on the other side, directly opposing the President. All right, so the story then goes on to report verbatim quotes from people throughout Trump's Cabinet, which makes us wonder, I guess I can speak for both of us, Ryan, if somebody was operating off of a recording and it was impossible for people to deny these verbatim quotes.

[Ryan Grim]

I think it's probably notes.

[Krystal Ball]

Notes, possibly. Yeah, that would make sense too. So here's General, I don't think you're in there recording. I would think not.

[Ryan Grim]

I would bring your devices in. I mean, Trump can, but, but.

[Krystal Ball]

So this is a long quote, for example. So this is from Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Raisin Cain, who says, sir, this is, in my experience, standard operating procedure for the Israelis. They oversell and their plans are not always well develop. They know they need us and that's why they're hard selling. So this is Trump going around the room asking his advisors for their response to what they had heard the day before. So this is the day After Trump is in a meeting with these advisers. So you'll get a sense of who was in the room. But February 12th, you have CIA head John Ratcliffe there. Obviously, Dan Cain is in there. Let's keep going through these quotes. J.D. vance says, According to the time, according to the Times, you know, I think this is a bad idea, but if you want to do it, I'll support you. John Ratcliffe, head of the CIA, quote, offered no opinion on whether to proceed, but he discussed the stunning new intelligence that the Iranian leadership was about to gather in the Ayatollah's compound in Tehran. The CIA director told the President that regime change was possible, depending on how the term was defined. Quote, if we just mean killing the Supreme Leader, we can probably do that. And then we also go through Marco Rubio, who said, basically, according to the Times, the Israeli assessment was bullshit.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. So basically. Yeah. So the Israelis. So Netanyahu said. Netanyahu came in and made a hard. His hard pitch was February 11th. And he's. And he makes four points, right? So the first point he makes is, we can decapitate the regime. And there was this meeting where the Ayatollah is meeting above ground with a bunch of leadership, so we can take him out. He then says, we can degrade Iran's capacity to attack its allies. I mean, not its allies, our allies, the Gulf allies. And they'll be so weak, they won't be able to block the Strait of Hormuz. We will be able to overthrow the regime, and we will be able to replace them with a secular regime. So those were the four things that Netanyahu claimed were possible. So then they asked the CIA overnight, to go over this stuff. They come back the next day for this February 12th meeting, which you're talking about here. That's when Rubio says, no, this is bullshit.

[Krystal Ball]

And then there's a February 26th meeting, by the way, which is where. So there's February 11th, Netanyahu, February 12th, and then February 26th.

[Ryan Grim]

Let's linger on February 12th just a little bit, because that's where Ratcliffe also says he's the head of the CIA. He's like, what do you think about this assessment from the Israelis that these four things are possible? You know, CIA calls it farcical.

[Krystal Ball]

Yes.

[Ryan Grim]

Ratcliffe says they always do. Oh, no. Cain says they always do this. Ratcliffe's like, yeah, no, like, nobody. Like, they didn't really think that this was accurate. Now, CIA says, yes. Can we kill the Ayatollah and top leaders? Yeah, we can probably do that. Yep. And the CIA seems to have botched a little bit our ability to stop them from attacking the Gulf allies. So they were even wrong about that. But the CIA was very clear you can't do. You're not going to do regime change. It's very unlikely. I mean, you're not going to replace them with a secular leader.

[Krystal Ball]

Even though, again, Netanyahu was telling Trump.

[Ryan Grim]

Even though Netanyahu and Trump.

[Krystal Ball]

According to the story, Netanyahu lays all of this out and Trump says, basically some version of. Sounds good.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. And then CIA says, well, you can't actually accomplish that. And Trump says, well, that's their problem. And the Times writes, it's not clear if he even meant regime change was Israel's problem or the Iranian people's problem. But either way, Trump's like, all right, so actually, the thing you're saying you want to do, we can't actually do, but we can kill the Ayatollah. All right, so anyway, go ahead.

[Krystal Ball]

Well, no, let's Flash forward to February 26, where, again, according to the Times story, and we can speculate on the sourcing for it. Obviously, they're sourcing across the board because they have, again, direct quotes from multiple meetings. But it's clear, with the possible exception of Hagseth, utterly tepid reactions across the board from Trump's advisory, nobody really, other

[Ryan Grim]

than Hagseth wants to do this.

[Krystal Ball]

It seems like, yeah, nobody's excited about it. Everybody is supporting Trump and making it very clear that they support Trump, which is obviously cowardly if you oppose staunchly.

[Ryan Grim]

Turns out it was important and Trump wanted to have people that would push back against him.

[Krystal Ball]

Good point.

[Ryan Grim]

Get these clowns in there and who are against it but won't say it, plus hegseth, and we get a war.

[Krystal Ball]

Right. So this February 26th meeting is Ratcliffe Vance, Susie Wiles, White House counsel David Warrington, Steven Chung, Caroline Levitt, and Dan Cain, Hegseth Rubio. So, president opens up the meeting. They go around the room. This is where JD Says, you know, I think this is a bad idea, but if you want to do it, I support you. Susie Wiles says if Trump feels he needs to proceed for America's national security, then he should go ahead. Ratcliffe says, if we just mean killing the Supreme Leader, we can probably do that. So it depends on how you define regime change. White House counsel says it's, quote, a legally permissible option in terms of how the plan had been conceived by U.S. officials and presented to the President. That's how the Times describes it and did not offer a personal opinion. Stephen Chung apparently laid out the likely public relations fallout. Quote, Mr. Trump had run for office, opposed to further wars. People had not voted for conflict overseas. The plans ran contrary to everything the administration had said after the bombing campaign against Iran in June goes on to say, you know, that whatever decision Mr. Trump made would be the right one. Caroline Levitt said it was his decision and that the press team would manage it as best they could. Hagseth says they would have to take care of the Iranians eventually, so they might as well do it now. They could run the campaign in a certain amount of time with a given level of forces. Rubio says if our goal is regime change or an uprising, we shouldn't do it. But if the goal is to destroy Iran's missile program, that. That's a goal we can achieve. Everyone deferred to the president's instincts, and Trump ended basically by saying, I think

[Ryan Grim]

we need to do it, and so, good for them. We did actually diminish Iran's missile supply because Iran blew up all its missiles in Gulf countries and in Israel. Congratulations. But we got them to fire off their missiles, and they. And, yeah, the missiles blew up, but they. They blew up inside petrochemical plants, oil refineries at American military bases that are now uninhabitable and hit hundreds, maybe thousands of sites, targets in Israel.

[Krystal Ball]

But did we actually destroy their ability to quickly reconstitute the missile supply? Because.

[Ryan Grim]

Right, because a bunch of people asked that, too. They're like, well, hey, boss, like, can't they just get more missiles?

[Krystal Ball]

Right. Well, especially if they're charging for people to come in and out of Hormuz

[Ryan Grim]

every ship, they can buy a couple missiles or buy a ton of little drones.

[Krystal Ball]

My understanding is that it's actually fairly. It's a relatively quick timeline for them to reconstitute their missiles.

[Ryan Grim]

There are trains that run from China to Iran. You just load the trains up, pay for it.

[Krystal Ball]

Well, this is Eli.

[Ryan Grim]

Exactly. With the money they're making from Hormuz.

[Krystal Ball]

This is Eli Lake writing in the Free Press this morning, arguing no fan of yours. Quote, in five weeks of war. Although Eli was very opposed to the way Trump was talking about wiping out a civilization. I do know this.

[Ryan Grim]

This is very, very cousin by marriage.

[Krystal Ball]

Yes. Quote, in five weeks of war, the regime has lost its navy, most of its missile launchers, and a good chunk of its defense industrial base, along with the top tier of its political and military leadership. Add to this the damage already done to its nuclear program. In last June's 12 day war, there are more than 900 of uranium buried under the rubble of what used to be underground enrichment facilities. A year ago, Iran was on the brink of obtaining a nuclear weapon and the ballistic missiles to deliver it. As far as Europe. Today, the regime's military has been reduced to a shell of itself. That is, as Eli puts it in the headline, Trump's Madman Act Delivering in Iran. What say you, Ryan Graham?

[Ryan Grim]

Excellent. Go ahead. Like, swallow that. Cope and let's end the war. Good. Whether Eli believes that or not, I have no idea. I doubt it. But let's just let him pretend to believe it and let all of his allies pretend to believe it and we'll just move on. You won. Good win. Good job.

[Krystal Ball]

The New York Times also had it also had this point from the reporting that Tucker had been coming to the Oval Office, Tucker Carlson, several times over the previous year to warn Trump that a war with Iran would destroy his presidency. And then a couple of weeks before the war began, according to Swan And Haberman, quote, Mr. Trump, who had known Mr. Carlson for years, tried to reassure him over the phone. I know you're worried about it, but it's going to be okay because it always is, is what he said when Tucker asked how Trump knew it would be okay. Always okay, because it always is.

[Ryan Grim]

25th amendment, man.

[Krystal Ball]

Ryan the so this was the Bulwark podcast with Tim Miller and Josh Gottheimer that you flagged, which is interesting because to your point about swallowing the cop, Chris Murphy was out, as you referred to it yesterday. He was on CNN playing a dangerous game is what you said. So let's get to the Democratic response a bit.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, we'll have Murphy in a second. Gottheimer. So watch this entire interview or debate, actually it turns into between Tim Miller and Gottheimer. But as the New York Times, as Marco Rubio already said, by the way, the timing of the war was driven by Israel. We now know that Marco Rubio thought the Israeli arguments for the war were bs. That's a direct quote from Rubio that gives color and context to Rubio then blaming Israel for why we launched the war when we did. Like that, you know, that helps us to understand that that was not a kind of accident or a Freudian slip or something. It was Rubio was not happy at that moment that the war had started and that we had launched it on Israeli terms. On Israeli terms that he considered to be bullshit.

[Krystal Ball]

Which gives new meaning to the quote that he said about the imminent Threat why we had to act because of the imminent threat that was, he said it was basically the imminent threat was that we were threatened by Israel making their attack. So Israel makes the attack and then it's going to blow back on the US So that's why we had to act preemptively because we knew. So he said it would have had to have happened at some point, but the immediate precipitating factor was that Israel was going to move, so we needed to move to, to prevent the blowback. That is interesting in light of Rubio calling Netanyahu's precipitating actor activity bullshit.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. And so, and now we know that Netanyahu made this 90 minute hard sell in the Situation Room on February 11th and that that precipitated the decision making to go in. So Miller asked Josh Gottheimer, who is compete, consistently competes for not just Democrats top Israel defender, but maybe all of Congress. So here he is, here's Tim Miller asking gottheimer if he's allowed to say that Netanyahu urged the US to go to war. Now, given all we know and Gottheimer will not give an inch.

[Tim Miller]

D6 One thing, like we both are, I'm concerned about the increasing anti Semitism in this country. I know you are. You've talked about it. And I just, and so it worries me, like I think that an average American, that's why I'm not on Piker's,

[Josh Gottheimer]

that's why I'm not on Piker's show

[Professor Robert Pape]

and on your show.

[Tim Miller]

Okay, we can talk about that next. I think that an average American would look at this war that we're in and say, I don't understand what our direct interest is. It's costing me more at the pump. And we were not responding to a recent terror attack on us from Iran. Obviously Iran's been attacking us for a long time through proxies. But if you're just an average American, you're like, I don't understand why we're doing this. I hear that Bibi Netanyahu was encouraging Trump to do it. I don't think that it's crazy for regular people to look at this in this country and say, okay, it seems like Israel was influencing us to get into this war. And I don't know why we can't just say that. I think it creates distrust when we can't just say what is true. Like that's just true.

[Josh Gottheimer]

Tim, how do you know? But you're just asserting to what you just did is exactly what I have a problem with. You are basing something on, like, we have no facts that you know that you, that you, you weren't in the room.

[Tim Miller]

You think the New York Times is wrong? There was a Feb. 11 meeting in the Situation Room. Bibi was in the Situation room. You don't think that's, you think that's fake news?

[Josh Gottheimer]

Do I think the president and the prime minister have met and talked about Iran many times over the years, like President Biden did with the Prime Minister, like President Obama did with the prime minister going back to the beginning of time. Do I think people have talked about these threats together, our allies? Absolutely. Do I know?

[Tim Miller]

He didn't talk to any other allies. He didn't talk to Japan. He didn't talk to Europe.

[Josh Gottheimer]

Do I know actually what caused the decision? No. And by the way, the New York Times doesn't know. And the only people who know were people who were like, in the decision inner circle about what actually made them make the decision.

[Tim Miller]

It seems like Bibi was in the decision inner circle. They planned it together.

[Josh Gottheimer]

When we have gone into other conflicts before, like Obama did, like Biden just did. Like, do you think that he didn't have consultation with our allies?

[Tim Miller]

Of course he did. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. I don't understand why people just, why we can't just say this, why we can't just say it's true.

[Josh Gottheimer]

There's a huge difference between saying somebody made us do it, they told, pushed us into it, versus saying, sure, we consulted with our allies and we thought it was what best for America's national security.

[Ryan Grim]

So I don't know, Emily. I think that, that this stuff is over. Like, that's just like psychedelic. Like, it's like the New York, like, you can't even say that Netanyahu urged the US to go to war. When Netanyahu went to the Situation Room and gave a 90 minute hard sell urging the US to go to war, Trump still has agency. Trump is to blame for taking the man's advice 100%. It is still a fact that Netanyahu in February spent 90 minutes in the Situation Room with Mossad and the military commanders behind him on the screens making the case to war. And Trump bought the case. Like, that is historical fact. To tell people that you can't say that is just actually bizarre.

[Krystal Ball]

Oh, it's completely bizarre. But they're still doing it. That's where we've heard it how many times over the last month. It's relentless. And Josh gottheimer A Democrat is still doing it how many days into the war. It's just absurd. After Marco Rubio himself made this point, after multiple Trump advisors, Mike Johnson came out and said, what happened? So, I mean, what are we doing? Obviously, people like Josh gottheimer know that public opinion is swinging in the wrong direction and they're tripling down on making that situation worse.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, there's also, I think there's gottheimers locked in, like, this is who he is. He's not changing, you know, but that was just insane. And we'll talk about some more of that interview in the next segment because the whole thing is just Tim just begging him to be reasonable and gottheimer

[Krystal Ball]

refusing and to level with him.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, just to just level what's wrong with saying that Netanyahu went to this, urged him.

[Krystal Ball]

Exactly.

[Ryan Grim]

Because he did.

[Krystal Ball]

Because again, for Israel, and I don't actually disagree with this, for Israel, it's an existential question. For Iran, in this case, when you have the American president, a nuclear power, saying that it's an entire civilization on the line to never come back again, that's existential. So nuclear war puts nuclear weapons put countries around the world in existential positions, which is one of the constantly in existential positions, which is one of the realities of the last, not even 100 years that we haven't quite reckoned with that has wreaked havoc around the world. That is just the existence of nuclear weapons puts countries in existential threats constantly. And that creates paranoia, and the paranoia creates irrationality. And that's where you have, I think, again, this tripling down over and over again on an irrational argument. It's stemming from a paranoia. And the paranormal itself might be irrational, but again, it's coming from the fact that there are countries armed with nuclear weapons and that's around the entire world. So it sounds like woo and silly, but it actually is really true. It creates complete irrationality and paranoia in geopolitics. And so for Netanyahu, it is. You're coming to the White House and making this case. And I can look at that as an American who is just offended by the way we are treated by Netanyahu and say from his perspective, it's not the most insane thing in the world to try to goad Americans into this war. He thinks he's acting in his own interest. Now, I don't think he's actually acting in his own interest, but he does.

[Ryan Grim]

And you know, the country that has nuclear weapons, of course, is Israel. And Israel spent the whole 1980s, arming Iran to get them to fight their other enemy, Iraq. And so my advice to Israel, if it wants to take it, because they've taken their own advice for a very long time, it doesn't seem to be going well for them. Take mine. Stop treating everybody around you as an existential threat and try coexistence.

[Krystal Ball]

Right?

[Ryan Grim]

And also, if you can arm Iran in the 1980s, why can't you just reach a peace deal with them now and, and just end the occupation? Like, stop expanding your territory. Like, become a real state. States have borders. Like if you're Israel has a right to exist. Okay, well then Israel is a state. Like, if you think you have a right to exist, then as a state, be a state. Stop being this weird thing that has no borders. It just keeps moving its borders wherever it feels like that's not a state. I don't know what that is. Not a state in the way we understand it.

[Krystal Ball]

Speaking of irrational behavior, Ryan, let's move to the 25th Amendment because there are plenty of people on the right, interestingly enough, who were calling yesterday on the brink of potential total war, potential nuclear war, for Trump to be 25th amendment amendment. Ed, if we convert that into a verb, 25th. Now, Julian, your guy at dropsite. Julian's great. Worth a follow. Julian Andreon has been collecting responses, responses from members of Congress, mostly Democrats, perhaps entirely Democrats here in this thread that he had on x Democratic members of Congress calling for Donald Trump to be pushed out via the 25th Amendment. That saying, for example, he is unfit for office. That's common language. Ilhan Omar said, quote, this is not okay. Invoke the 25th Amendment. Impeach, remove this unhinged lunatic must be removed from office. This is in response to the quote, unquote, open the fucking straight, you crazy bastards post reasonable Ed Markey said Donald Trump must be removed from office. Not only is he waging a legal war, he's threatening war crimes. Goes on and on. One person captured here in the thread is former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is former congresswoman, partially because she was starting to break with Trump on foreign policy issues in the summer and in the fall. Now Marjorie Taylor Greene knows Trump, it's worth mentioning, would venture to say knows Trump well, was on the campaign trail with Trump, was meeting with Trump and has has been fairly close to him for a long time. She said 25th amendment, all caps. Not a single bomb has dropped on America. We cannot kill an entire civilization. This is evil and madness. This was in response to a post that this was yesterday, Trump said a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. That we have referenced several times here. Meanwhile, as that was happening, let's move on to D2 Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, both basketball posting basketball maxing yesterday. Ryan, congratulations to coach Dusty May. Barack Obama posts this team dominated the tournament from start to finish. Well deserved. Go blue. Bill Clinton. Once again, the best college hoops teams proved there's nothing like March Madness to get our jaws dropping, our hearts raising and our brackets busting. Surely this was written by Bill Clinton, who could not even remember the last time he sent an email in the Epstein deposition. Speaking of our hearts racing, there's a potential nuclear war.

[Ryan Grim]

So if you got your bracket busted by two number one seeds in the finals, that's kind of funny.

[Krystal Ball]

Let's go on to. Yeah, that's kind of funny. Let's go on here to Alex Jones, though. Meanwhile, you have Barack Obama and Bill Clinton basketball posting Alex Jones calling for the 25th amendment. This is some video of him saying that.

[Tim Miller]

How do we 25th amendment is asked.

[Ryan Grim]

The problem is to get the 25th

[Alex Jones]

amendment harder than impeachment.

[Tim Miller]

You have to get 2/3 of the

[Ryan Grim]

house and 2/3 of the.

[Professor Robert Pape]

So what do we do?

[Ryan Grim]

Tackle Trump and pretend. Let him pretend he's president and publicly

[Tim Miller]

report that he's going through a health

[Ryan Grim]

issue in Vance takeover.

[Tim Miller]

It literally needs to be something like that.

[Ryan Grim]

It's that bad. I am in the twilight zone right now.

[Professor Robert Pape]

I am officially in the twilight zone right now.

[Tim Miller]

And I'm sitting there watching Trump wreck maga, wreck the Republicans, wreck the world

[Professor Robert Pape]

economy, maybe wreck the planet physically.

[Ryan Grim]

And then I'm just looking over at

[Tim Miller]

the Democrats smiling and giggling and everything else when they did nothing in Congress to block this. Playing with fire, gambling again.

[Professor Robert Pape]

There should be a coalition of Republicans

[Tim Miller]

and Democrats and they should vote in on the war powers and say you don't have it and they should cut the damn funding of this. My God, what's it gonna take?

[Professor Robert Pape]

Trump ending the world.

[Krystal Ball]

So Alex Jones, I also saw Candace Owens, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Ryan, obviously Tucker Carlson. I don't know if he said anything about the 25th amendment. I don't think he did. Actually. I have his reaction that he sent in his email newsletter right in front of me. Basically, he's saying this is what happened after Midnight Hammer. He feels like we're back in the holding pattern post Midnight Hammer holding pattern, which is not at all an insane position to have at this moment, but brutal reaction from these Trump. I mean, these are people who've talked to Trump, it's worth mentioning people who

[Ryan Grim]

know him, longtime allies who are blowing up their relationship with him over this. That's done non trivial things when you're talking about the President of the United States. Hakeem Jeffries was on CNN yesterday and he said, you know what we need to do? We need to bring up the War Powers resolution immediately. Said Mike Johnson needs to call Congress back into session. We need to bring up the war powers. Are you this satire, right? Are you joking? Like Jeffries and Greg Meeks had, a top Democrat on foreign affairs refused to bring up the War Powers resolution before going into recess. With Trump threatening this massive escalation, they said they didn't have enough votes. Does not appear to be the case. They hadn't made sure that they even had full attendance to have the vote. And now that we have a ceasefire now Jeffries says he's going to bring the War Powers resolution to the floor. It's insane now. So good for a bunch of these Democrats who are saying like, this is. This is a madman. It used to be 25th amendment. Good for Alex Jones. This is a good coalition. Some other Democrats, though, have I think, taken the, taken the kind of easy political way forward, which at its heart is psychopathic. Trump threatened to annihilate an entire civilization and then didn't do it. And some Democrats are responding by saying, ah, you wimp. I have to say, grow.

[Professor Robert Pape]

No, no.

[Ryan Grim]

What are you trying to do?

[Krystal Ball]

Before we roll this clip of Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat from Connecticut. I was last night as this news was breaking, I had CNN on the TV and trying to figure out what's happening. I had it on mute.

[Ryan Grim]

Oh, that's not helping.

[Krystal Ball]

No.

[Ryan Grim]

If you try to figure out what happened.

[Krystal Ball]

Well, no, I wanted to specifically see how CNN would react.

[Ryan Grim]

That's basically all you're gonna learn from cnn.

[Krystal Ball]

And I see this come up on the screen with the chiron and everything. And my thought was, we are about to go back to war in an even worse and more brutal, destructive way. As soon as I saw this. And because it's like they're trying, it's almost like they were trying to humiliate Trump and humiliate him back into war. That's what it looked like. Oh, my gosh.

[Ryan Grim]

Trump, who clearly must watch this show. Think about this, Donald. If Democrats desperately want you to get back into this war, okay, they are. That's immoral, it's gross, it's despicable. But think about why they want you to get into the war. Because it's so damaging for you. So don't do the thing that Democrats want you to do. Come on, man. All right, let's roll. D4. Senator Chris Murphy, Donald Trump has agreed to give Iran control of the Strait of Hormuz. That is extraordinary. If you go deeper into the statement from the Iranian National Security Council, they claim that Trump has also agreed to

[Tim Miller]

Iran's right to enrichment, to suspend all

[Ryan Grim]

sanctions against Iran, and to allow Iran to keep their missile program, their drone program, and their nuclear program. Now, who knows if any of that is true? But if at the very least, this agreement gives Iran the right to control the Strait, that is cataclysmic for the world. And it is just stunning that that's where we have gotten to. Okay, so then, okay, it's cataclysmic for the world. What is Chris Murphy saying there? That we should keep doing more war? Like, is he thinking, like, clearly, like, they think that there's some political advantage in making Trump look like the obvious idiot he is for getting into a war he shouldn't have gotten into. And there is, and now we're worse off. Yeah, but everybody gets that, right.

[Krystal Ball]

There's obviously a political advantage. But to make it in that particular way, it's like putting. It seems to me, and I think you're right about this, putting partisanship ahead of the substance of actually keeping the peace.

[Ryan Grim]

It's true. Trump got us into a war. Now we're worse off. But when you talk like that, it sounds like you should keep. Like your argument is like, well, let's keep going.

[Krystal Ball]

Unless.

[Ryan Grim]

Unless you start. Start it with. I'm glad that he ended this and he. He best not start it again.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah. And I'm just. Griffin just sent this. Producer Griffin just sent this post. This was just to underscore how ridiculous it is to see a Democrat talking like this. From Megyn Kelly, obviously, my boss, who said yesterday on her show, I am sick of this shit. Can't he just behave like a normal human?

[Ryan Grim]

Who, Trump? Yep.

[Krystal Ball]

In reference to Trump.

[Ryan Grim]

We can add it in post, but

[Krystal Ball]

this is again, why.

[Ryan Grim]

And we'd been talking Twitter post.

[Krystal Ball]

This was a video, but it was on yesterday's show. But we had been talking on Monday about how you have to. When the President of the United States is talking about wiping out entire civilizations and total destruction, it doesn't matter if it's a taco negotiation. You have to take it seriously. It very obviously seemed like a taco negotiation. But you don't have the luxury of saying this is Just a taco. I'll take Trump seriously. When I decide to take Trump seriously, I'll take Trump seriously. And I'll just take the L if I'm wrong, that he's not serious. You can't do that with nuclear powers. We don't have the luxury. I'm sorry, we don't have the luxury of doing that. And then to have Democrats continuing to act as though this is normal partisan politics, Obviously Republicans are doing it too, and even worse because they're supporting Trump. So it's not good all around. But then to have even the political opposition taking partisan dubs when you have total destruction of a civilization on the table, as unlikely as that may have seemed, it doesn't matter what the odds are. Any talk of that takes away the luxury of just saying it's possibly a taco. And here you have the Dem victory lap like, oh, Trump is so weak.

[Ryan Grim]

Right. It's as bad as the CNBC clip that's been going viral. Sirota posted it. It's like Trump has threatened to end civilization. What should investors do?

[Krystal Ball]

What does this mean for the Dow?

[Ryan Grim]

So Tim Miller over at the Bulwark, who's been on fire. I'll probably get him in trouble by even saying that. So he had Democrat Josh Gottheimer on. Gottheimer wouldn't even say he's against the war. He's sort of processing it's going through the ceasefire. Let's roll some of Biller's interview with

[Josh Gottheimer]

Gottheimer back to the other thing we were talking about. No, obviously not. And I said that.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, obviously not. So why would we trust him to do something if we know he isn't gonna handle it? Well, this is a very high stakes situation. I don't think anybody, you know, the Strait of Hormuz has now been closed

[Josh Gottheimer]

at the best general because it's not just Donald Trump that runs this. We've got the best generals in the world and the best military in intelligence in the world is community.

[Tim Miller]

I mean, but our, our generals are not the ones that are bleeding out. A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. That's the President. That's their boss.

[Josh Gottheimer]

Yes, but okay, but fine.

[Tim Miller]

So why would you. So, yeah, it's absurd. Why would you let a guy that would tweet that be in charge of a war where American lives are at risk?

[Josh Gottheimer]

Well, because who's going to be? We have a commander in chief. That's his job. What do you want?

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, to oppose him, I think to oppose to say that as a Democratic representative, you do not think that an unhinged commander in chief should be getting us into a war where he is promising genocide.

[Josh Gottheimer]

There's a reason why I opposed it, why I supported the War Powers Resolution a couple weeks ago, because I opposed him. I made it very clear. But, like, that doesn't mean that I'm not going to support our service men and women. It doesn't mean I'm not going to back the great work of our military and intelligence community. It doesn't mean that I'm not going to say the government of Iran needs to be crushed.

[Tim Miller]

Okay?

[Josh Gottheimer]

That's what I think, you know, so

[Tim Miller]

you're kind of for it in the abstract. Like you. You wish it would work well, but you don't know what the objectives are and you don't want to do anything to constrain.

[Josh Gottheimer]

I have a huge problem with how this thing's being executed. From how it's being executed, the goal of crushing Iran, I think all the crushing Iran is the right thing. I think not giving us hearings is a problem. I think not giving us more information, the country and the Congress is a huge problem. I think firing the Army Chief of staff, huge problem. Right. So if you asked me, like, do I think the goal of massively diminishing Iran is a good thing? Totally. Do I think the way this is being executed is going well? No. So that's.

[Tim Miller]

So do you think we're stronger? Do you think we're in a better place now than we were six weeks ago? Economically, geopolitically, from a safety standpoint, do you think we're in a better or worse place than we were six weeks ago?

[Josh Gottheimer]

I think we've diminished their military. I think we're stronger if we've diminished them.

[Ryan Grim]

Really. What's nice about Gotthammer, I think, is, like, I think he's speaking openly in ways that a lot of Democrats feel privately. And that is. I don't think that's gonna be the case maybe a couple cycles from now. I think there's a real reckoning coming inside the Democratic Party, whether they like it or not, whether they cancel Hasan Piker or not. But, yeah, that'll do it. But, yeah, that's that from Gottheimer. I don't like the president, but I like that he's going to war with Iran is gross, and he's in the deep minority of being willing to say that publicly. But, yeah, my understanding is that that's a pretty pervasive view kind of privately

[Krystal Ball]

and on the Other hand, should add that it's also, since we're talking about the Bulwark, wildly amusing to see neoconservatives coping by being so anti Trump that the war they've wanted forever is still not good enough in one way or the other. I mean, just banana stuff all around.

[Ryan Grim]

Although Tim was never a neo.

[Krystal Ball]

No, not Tim, no.

[Ryan Grim]

But speaking of the Bulwark, Other bull worker.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. There's interesting times. Speaking of people crashing out, should we talk about Ben Shapiro?

[Krystal Ball]

Yes, let's do it. Well, Ryan and his colleagues over at Dropsite News have found themselves in the crosshairs of people who are in support of or were in support of the Iran war, including Ben Shapiro, who, you know, I think Ryan, I'm catching a stray in this clip as well, because he talks about how you're part of the Horseshoe, which would involve your right wing allies.

[Ryan Grim]

There you go. Are you the woke? Right?

[Krystal Ball]

Let's not open up that can of worms. Let's first, let's just roll the clip. People can make up their own minds.

[Alex Jones]

Ryan Grimm, who's become a favorite on the Horseshoe, right. And the grievance party, right, suddenly quoted by all of these people who have decided that isolationism is the way he put out an actual tweet saying this. So Sean McGuire, who's an investor, put out a tweet saying, how did we get to the point where so many Americans are rooting against America? And Ryan Grim over at Drop Site News, which is a left wing misinformation propaganda site, put out the statement, quote, if this is an honest question, I'd say Americans are rooting against America because we facilitated a genocide. Presumably this would be Israel's action against Hamas, which was not in fact even remotely close to a genocide, and followed it with a surprise attack on a girls elementary school, followed by attacks on universities, medical centers, more schools, a world famous pharmaceutical research center, a volleyball team, an unfinished bridge we claimed was transporting weapons, and then a nuclear power plant. We are now promising endless attacks on civilian infrastructure. Okay, so again, every single thing he is saying there is a lie. And the reason I say it's a lie is because we have hit those sites because they are dual use sites, except for the ones that we hit by accident. If you, if you truly believe that the American military is so evil that we target girls schools for the fun of it, that there's no military usefulness, no mistakes made, that we just decided to get up one morning and murder a bunch of schoolgirls, get the hell out of the country. Seriously. You hate the country and you hate the military. There is no other way to explain what you are saying. There's no other way to explain it. You think Pete Hegseth and President Trump are sitting around drawing up a target list, and they say, you know what? Just for good measure, let's kill a bunch of Iranian schoolgirls? Is that what you think? If you think that you despise America again, you can oppose the war. You can oppose the way that the war is being fought. You can have problems with the general overall strategy. You can have honest questions about the war. That's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about people openly hoping that America loses because they do not like America, because they think a more powerful America in the world is a bad thing. And Iran is counting on these people to undermine support. Again, this is nothing new. This happened throughout American history. If you go back to the Vietnam War, the Viet Cong were counting on moron university students to claim that the real bad guys versus, you know, the communists who are murdering hundreds of thousands of people, that the real bad guys were were actually the United States. And that's why you had them literally chanting in solidarity with Ho Chi Minh. Same sorts of people now, and they span a large swath of the left and a large part of the right now, or at least a significant part of the online right. I shouldn't say a large part of the right because again, it's not true. But Ryan Grimm and Tucker Carlson are holding hands, walking off into their common isolationist, anti American future together.

[Krystal Ball]

That's sweet.

[Ryan Grim]

It is very sweet, isn't it?

[Krystal Ball]

It does often occur to me that one of the biggest problems I have with you is you're not sufficiently supportive of the Vietnam War.

[Ryan Grim]

Well, I mean, you cocked on Vietnam. You know what's funny is that just yesterday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted a tweet that was laudatory of the Vietnamese communist government. So, like, hey, if Rubio can recognize the virtues of Ho Chi Minh, why can't university students in the 60s, 70s, also the Vietnamese were fighting off an occupying power in their own country. Well, they liberated their country from two occupying powers, French and the United States, obviously. Like, on what planet is that appropriate for us to even be in there? It wasn't. Yeah.

[Krystal Ball]

Anyway, we need not. I was gonna say, when I saw this clip, I flashed back to this discussion that we had right before Christmas where we interviewed each other. One of the questions I asked you, I was like, ryan, you love the 4th of July, do you love America? And you responded, I can't imagine loving a country.

[Ryan Grim]

That's right.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah.

[Ryan Grim]

How do you love a country?

[Krystal Ball]

So Ben should go watch that clip if he wants the full download on Grim Ism.

[Ryan Grim]

Ben, even though he read it, seems to have a reading comprehension problem. I didn't say we targeted a girls school. I hope we didn't. I said we attacked a girls school. We did. With multiple strikes. There was purple chalk on the sidewalk outside of it. Like. Okay. If Ben is sure that it was an accident, I believe that it also is completely. It completely shows a reckless disregard for human life to not have a person look at a satellite image of a place before you bomb it. There are thousands of people in the Department of Defense. We sent, you know, we hit 1,000 plus targets.

[Krystal Ball]

It had been updated on Google Maps, hadn't it?

[Ryan Grim]

On Google Earth, if you scrolled in, it was called an elementary school.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah.

[Ryan Grim]

So we are. We have such a reckless disregard for human life that we didn't even check. So that's the point. We attacked the school and he didn't address all the other things. The point is a country who does that is going to be hated by a lot of people. We did all. We. We did all of those things. I didn't. I was like, should we even like, talk about this? But then, you know, this like IDF guy. Yeah. You know, came at us too. And so I do think it's becoming like, like an actual kind of political news event that is bubbling up in our discourse.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah. Let's put the next element up on the screen because it actually is, I think, drop site. It's something that you all have to think about. This is Aytan Fishberger, former idf. Pretty big. If you're not on X, you probably never heard of him, but pretty big viral X account that shares constant pro Israel propaganda. It's long past time. He wrote yesterday for congressional and DOJ investigations into the foreign ties of drop site news. Here's what we know. It has at least two reporters, quote, reporters on the ground in Iran who feed the site regime approved disinformation and propaganda. Ryan, why don't we just respond point by point to this? That's what Fishberger says is enough to get you investigated because you're being fed propaganda from, quote, reporters on the ground in Iran.

[Ryan Grim]

We have at least one reporter.

[Krystal Ball]

You got that in Gaza sometimes as well.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, yeah. We have at least one reporter in Iran who is registered with the government as you have to do if you're doing official. If you're doing a journalism above board. We have other journalists who are not registered, who publish anonymously. And they're not doing regime. None of them are doing regime propaganda. When CNN goes into Iran, they have to register with the government. Like, that's, that's, that's what you do now. You know, they don't have the First Amendment and the press freedoms that we do. That's. That's for sure. But the idea that like, because you have a reporter or reporters on the ground in Iran, you are foreign funded, that's. That's absurd.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, yeah. Well, they also. And they mentioned the point about Gaza or he. What are his other 250k from Source's Open Society 2024.

[Ryan Grim]

We got that grant.

[Krystal Ball]

Yep.

[Ryan Grim]

It's true.

[Krystal Ball]

And you've talked about it on the show again, by the way. We talked about this a couple of weeks ago. You were like, no strings attached. That's the condition.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. And I remember at the time being like, if we take this, people are gonna like make it a thing, make fun of us for it. It's like, but there's no strings attached. And we can then fund another. An enormous amount of reporting in Gaza, which is what it was for. Okay, let's do it. Yeah.

[Krystal Ball]

Also, you're published by communist billionaire communist Nepo baby. Nika Soon Shung.

[Ryan Grim]

She's. Her title is publisher. Yeah, yeah. She doesn't give us money. Her dad doesn't give us money.

[Krystal Ball]

And they are billionaires, right?

[Ryan Grim]

He's a billionaire. Yeah. He owns the LA Times and he owns like several. He created several cancer drugs that have become blockbusters. And so he's a multi billionaire for having done that. But he doesn't give money to us and we've never asked him.

[Krystal Ball]

And we're not gonna drop site. Frequently flies to the Middle east to interview the leaders of US designated terrorist organizations. I can't even read that sentence. It's so ridiculous.

[Ryan Grim]

Do we interview people that the US has designated as terrorists?

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, we do that as journalists. 1,000 million percent should.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah.

[Krystal Ball]

They're complaining about Sharif filed a sympathetic dispatch from the funeral of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah after he was killed by Israel.

[Ryan Grim]

You can, you can read. You can read. Go read the piece.

[Krystal Ball]

Go see how sympathetic it was. Dropsite is fiscally sponsored by the Social Security Works Education Fund while it pursues its own 501C3 status, an arrangement that reduces transparency and allows the outlet to obscure who its funders are.

[Ryan Grim]

Fiscal sponsorship is a normal thing for a new nonprofit. All nonprofits, nonprofits are not required, even whether they're fiscally sponsored or not, to disclose, like, all of the names of all of their donors. That's just not a. That's just not a thing.

[Krystal Ball]

This is. That was the last point. Well, he added a bonus that you've tweeted. The US Is a rogue terrorist state and a cancer on the world.

[Ryan Grim]

I mean. I mean, come on. We're objectively telling the truth in that one.

[Krystal Ball]

There's. I mean, you and I could talk.

[Ryan Grim]

Trump's just to annihilate an entire civilization.

[Krystal Ball]

He sure did. He sure did.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. We don't.

[Krystal Ball]

He's not making my side of that argument any easier by the day.

[Ryan Grim]

But, yeah, as I tell everybody who comes at us about our funding, like, you don't have to subpoena us. Like, here, I'll look it up. I'll look it up right now. So we have.

[Krystal Ball]

You have a 990.

[Ryan Grim]

We have two. There. There's this 990 should be public. We have two. Two primary streams of revenue. One is subscript subscriptions, and the other is just small donations. And then the third is bigger donors who give more than, like, 2,000 bucks or so. That makes up maybe, like, 10%. The big donors make up about 10%, and we're grateful for them, but it's the small donors that make up the bulk of it. Interestingly, there's not a lot of overlap. We have about 25,000 people who've made small contributions, and we have, looking at it now, 18,594 paid subscribers.

[Krystal Ball]

That's incredible. I mean, you're not even two years old.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, and a subscription is 100 bucks, so you can do the math pretty easily on that. But there's not actually a whole lot of overlap between the subscribers and the donors. So that means we actually have about 40 to 45,000 people who have given money at some point or another. Total subscribers paid and unpaid. Right now, we're at 792,236. And so the bulk of our revenue is from people who read the site and then give money to it, ironically, in the first, like, hour. Oh, I just asked our. I just asked our fundraising guy. So since Eitan put this tweet up, we got 178 donations.

[Krystal Ball]

Damn. It's been, like, what, not even a day?

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, less than a day. On an average of $37 each. None. More than $250. Totaling $6,700. So Eitan, he's like, who funds these guys? You do, you moron. His penchant for lying has produced in the public a real demand for people who don't lie. And so the more lies he tells and the more wars he encourages Israel to fight and encourages the US to support, then the more people are going to want to support us. And I've told him and others, if you want to gut us, you want to take the legs out from under us, stop with the wars. Like we would. I think our, I think people would be spending less money on our reporting if there were fewer wars for us to report on.

[Krystal Ball]

Definitely.

[Ryan Grim]

I would happily take that trade off, definitely try peace for a while and then we'll go cover other things, corporate abuses, whatever. And frankly, there's probably less interest in that. Yeah, that's true, but that's, I would, I would love nothing more than to make less money and have fewer wars to cover.

[Krystal Ball]

And by the way, the reason you mentioned this in your response to him, like, you don't have to snitch, tag Ways and Means, right?

[Ryan Grim]

He's trying to get Ways and Means Committee to like subpoena us.

[Krystal Ball]

I will say I don't think that's ridiculous from his perspective because they are opening investigations and sometimes there are some because of the way Farah works and the like that are, I think, somewhat legitimate. Now they're going to be done on a totally partisan basis. And you can bet your ass that any Israeli potential nonprofit schemes aren't going to be folded into these investigations. They're mostly looking at places, China and the like, that may have had like nonprofits like Code Pink for example, but. Or ones that have direct antifa ties and are getting funding from different places, like China. And there's some interesting stuff actually on the table. I don't think dropsite will be on the table because there's so many people on the right that are following your reporting closely and see the value, the value in it.

[Ryan Grim]

And also they could just look and be like, oh, this is where the money comes from.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, exactly.

[Ryan Grim]

It's like straight up clean American money, 100%.

[Krystal Ball]

But this is a strategy that is being intentionally deployed by Republicans right now who are under immense pressure from their base to get scalps and stop just chit chatting about we're gonna go after this person and this person. They're trying to actually go deep and do these investigations. They are into groups like Code Pink. So it's not. That's why I thought it was important to talk about because it's not nothing.

[Ryan Grim]

And I think some of it is earnest on their part, like I think this guy in his addled mind is incapable of conceiving of a news organization that is supported by its readers and people who want it to exist, rather than a foreign government that is doing it for propaganda purposes. Like he can't, he genuinely can't understand that that's possible because that's not how he or they operate. Their approach is we're going to get together some very rich people and we're going to buy meat. We're going to produce this media property and we're going to run it. And if it makes some money, great. If not, like the purpose is ideological, like that. The idea that you would just do honest reporting and that people would support it, I think is, is a foreign concept, but it's actually a domestic concept. It's an American concept.

[Krystal Ball]

Well, we'll see what happens. But you should be, you should feel pretty good. Ryan. Dropsite's fine. Go subscribe to Dropsite also does that. By that definition, is the studio a dual use property, by the way? Because here is, this is a civilian studio. It's where all kinds of civilian work gets done. But also it's where the Iranian regime does its propaganda via you.

[Ryan Grim]

Yes, according to Ben Shapiro, those things I listed, universities, medical centers are dual use.

[Krystal Ball]

I'm afraid right now we're in a dual use location.

[Ryan Grim]

It is true that schools do produce people who go on, some of them to become soldiers, others become scientists, others work in the nuclear field. So it is true. And in fact, something like 60% of engineers in Iran are women. So the girls, the 165 plus girls and then elementary school, you know, a lot of them would have grown up to be engineers. So according to, I guess their logic, it's all dual use and it's all clean. Yeah, sick.

[Krystal Ball]

Let's move on to Professor Pape. Great day to have him on the show to react to all the events of the last 12 hours. So we'll bring him in now.

[Ryan Grim]

University of Chicago Professor Robert Pape has been warning that the United States, Israel and Iran are trapped in an escalation trap. That's also the name of his substack. He'll be having a live briefing over at his substack at 7pm tomorrow. Now, with a tenuous ceasefire taking hold, Professor Pape joins us to walk through, you know, how trapped they still are and what the way out of this is. Professor Pape, thank you so much for joining us here again.

[Professor Robert Pape]

Thank you very much for having me. And I really think we need to understand that, yes, this is all fragile, but big things are here in front of us. There's really three issues to discuss. Number one, the trap, why the trap is not over, in fact, maybe even tightening. Number two, the change in the world balance of power right in front of us, as evidenced by the nature of, of the ceasefire agreement itself. And then, number three, the statement by Donald Trump, the President of the United States, to end the civilization in Iran, those that will endure, that's not going to be forgotten. So the trap. Maybe I could just.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, let's start. Let's start with the trap. Yeah, let's start with the trap. So are they out of the trap or they. Is the trap not over yet?

[Professor Robert Pape]

No, the trap is not over. In fact, we may be coming to an extremely dangerous phase of the trap. And the reason is this. Number one, US Military forces are poised on a razor's edge in the region to strike. So the trap will start to unwind when President Trump literally removes, removes that all the carrier battle groups, removes all the fighters, removes the Marines, just literally pulls it back geographically. Number two, Pete Hegseth, Secretary Hegseth, just before we came on vocally and publicly said, we're going to get that enriched uranium. We're going to get it. Well, we know that that has been a big part of this whole issue. Iran has enough enriched uranium for between 10 and 16 nuclear weapons. They are now maximally incentivized to have those nuclear weapons. They know if they just did go into those caves where the drones are and the missiles are, we can get, we can't stop them from building that nuclear, those nuclear weapons. And so you can expect over the next six months or the next year, nuclear test, not just simply now weapons in secret. But this is going to be incredibly dangerous for this trap because of course, Iran is going to show, I think, very little sign they're going to just give up the nuclear weapons. Now that Donald Trump has threatened to kill 92 million Iranians and probably all 92 million will help build those nuclear weapons, all of them, including the pro democracy movement.

[Krystal Ball]

And you've obviously studied this for a long time. How viable is it that Iran would be able to reconstitute its missile supply, launchers and even nuclear, potentially nuclear weapons just in the next. I mean, we had Midnight Hammer last June and found ourselves back in the same place February 28th. So what does the immediate future look like of Iran's ability to rebuild its military?

[Professor Robert Pape]

Yes, they are building not just dozens, but something like 50 to 100 missiles every single month. That is what happened After Midnight Hammer, they went back to rebuilding, reconstituting, or you could say reloading their guns. And that has been happening on a steady basis and also producing the drones on a steady basis. In fact, they were still shipping drones to Russia for Ukraine last fall. So they're producing them, they're shipping them, they're developing them. And so this is, we will have weakened this some, but the, without the bombs continuing to fall, even that weakness will disappear. And Iran is making 75 to $100 billion a year in RMB in Chinese banks that they will be able to use to, for all of these purposes. So they will have the money, they will have the space, they will have the materials. And this is, this is why all this destruction of these launchers, this was just not meaningful. It was always at most a temporary stopgap. And we will see within a year, this will be back fast and furious. Because now, keep in mind, before the bombing started on February 28, you had something like 16 or 20% of the population supporting the regime. Now, I'm not saying they like the regime's ideology, but you now have 92 million people. Where is their best security coming from? Not from Donald Trump. He just threatened to murder each and every one of them. So what are they going to do? They're going to, the vast majority of them are going to help in these programs because they don't want to die. So this is really quite an extraordinary set of events that have been triggered and the effects of this are going forward. And we will see it. Secretary Hegseth, he sees right away that there's been no disincentive here. And he's saying we're going to take the material. Well, Iran, I think, is not just gonna hand it over. This is how are they gonna stop the next nuclear threat by Donald Trump? There's only one way now, which is nuclear weapons with a nuclear test and probably several nuclear tests to just rub it into America's face. You nuke us, we're coming back.

[Ryan Grim]

And so you mentioned that Trump saying that, you know, tonight a great civilization is going to die, that that is going to leave a permanent or at least a very long term mark on our geopolitics. Can you explain how you mean that?

[Professor Robert Pape]

Yeah. So we need to understand that no president in the history of the United States has made a statement threatening to erase, destroy, kill an entire civilization. Point number one, that is the evidence of genocidal incentives intent that's required in the Geneva Accords to convict for genocide. We need to understand that the genocide accords that we have, they're about the intent to commit genocide. Usually, that's the hardest thing to find. It's not the killing of people, it's the intent. Well, President Trump, I don't think there could be a clearer evidence of genocidal intent than you just saw. Number two, President Trump is one of only a handful of people on the planet with enough nuclear weapons that he would be able to actually execute that threat. So with, we have 500 Minutemen missiles, and they have warheads with 300,000 kilotons on them. Hiroshima, Nagasaki was only 12 to 22 kilotons. So these are much, much more powerful than Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And we have 500 of them. And within 45 minutes, their gyroscopes can be reoriented to Iran. 20 minutes after that, those. All of those 500 can land on Iran. So I'm sorry to be so blunt, but we need to really understand that what Donald Trump has done here is. It's immoral. It is very likely. I'm not a lawyer. Very likely contradict the Geneva Accords, but it's also dangerous because now every American is marked here. And this will be wherever we travel in the world. About to maybe get on a plane to go to London here. This is not trivial. And so what you're seeing is now 92 million Iranians, not just these tiny number of supreme leaders. They're pretty maximally incentivized to show that there's some payback that can come. So this is really an enormously consequential move by President Trump, and it will do no good that he will somehow maybe take it back, or his reporters will say, it's just Trump being Trump. No, I'm sorry. Not everybody who's a drunk at a bar has their finger on thousands of nuclear weapons that can be delivered within a matter of an hour or less. As I'm explaining in detail, this is way too consequential, and this will have tremendous ripple effects across the world. Our allies, the idea our allies will in Europe will let us even run NATO. NATO, we need to understand it is a military organization where when the American general runs the operation of a NATO military operation, it. It's the American general who controls the nuclear weapons of Britain. Do you think Britain is going to go for that at this? I mean, Mike. Yeah, you can see right away. So the consequences here are way beyond what's. And then in the Strait of Hormonz, the consequences are there's a new hierarchy of power. Donald Trump just kowtowed to Iran. Essentially there's a new hierarchy and everybody in the Middle east will see that. MBS will know there's no Donald Trump cavalry coming to save him. So that's Saudi Arabia. So you're seeing these gigantic consequences of what's happened are consequences for all Americans. They're consequences for the world balance of power. Iran is becoming the fourth center of world power.

[Krystal Ball]

And I want to steel man this analysis a bit by bringing in the perspective of people who think this is a massive loss for Iran. This is Noah Rothman writing in National Review this morning saying Iran's central nervous system has been severed, as indicated by the Islamic Republic's field commander's attacks on Gulf targets long after the ceasefire was announced. Its command and control, intelligence and domestic security apparatuses have been severely degraded. Its navy and air force are gone. Its air defense network and nuclear weapons programs systems are in ruins. Its petrochemical and steel industries have been badly damaged, truncating two major sources of foreign revenue that sustain the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Keep going here. The Gulf states are now ensconced in Washington's orbit. America's adversaries in Beijing and Moscow did not much alter the balance in Iran's favor. Tehran's defense industrial base is a smoldering wreck. And it goes on to say its stores of long and short range missiles, drones and the launchers to use them are dramatically delayed, depleted. What's your response to that, Professor?

[Professor Robert Pape]

My response is this is just not on planet Earth. So this is not even just victory rhetoric and so forth. But we need to understand that what has just happened is Donald Trump has just agreed that yes, ships can pass through the Strait of Hormuz, but only if the Iranian military gives that permission. And that is enormously consequential here. And if it was the case that all of this was going in the other direction, you would not need any ceasefire from Iran, you would not need any deal from Pakistan. The United States would just simply be the power in the region. What's happening is the complete opposite of that. And people can just say whatever they want, of course, but nobody's gonna pay that any meaningful attention. Meaning they won't actually act, act on that assumption. They're going to act on the realities that have just been demonstrated by war. War is often clarifying for the realities of power before war. We have a lot of talk, we have a lot of bolster, we have basically talking smack, okay? But once you get into war, the realities start to actually take shape. And what you're seeing here is that the reality is, is that before the war, President Trump, the United States was guaranteeing safe passage through the Straits of Hormuz, effectively. It had military bases in the region to protect the Gulf states from being attacked and smashed during the war itself. None of that was protecting the Gulf states. None of it was moving their oil. And the only thing that is actually now protecting the Gulf states is Iran deciding not to attack. So if you want your country protected, who are you going to go to? The United States or are you going to go to Iran? Right now it's pretty clear you've got to go to Iran. And yes, maybe you got to hope Iran will not attack you, because if Iran decides to attack you, there's nothing the United States going to do to protect you. This is power politics of the first order. The first. The balance of power in the world and in the region is changing. In the region, it is now Iran at the top of the hierarchy, not the United States in the world. Iran is becoming the fourth center of world power. It's not yet as powerful as the United States. I'm not trying to. And it's emerging as the fourth center as well, the new one. Once they, they actually acquire the nuclear weapons and do the test, which I'm saying is likely, and six months or a year, how would you stop it at this point without ground conquering all of Iran, it will become unmistakably the fourth power center in the world. So I'm not quite saying they're there yet, but they are emerging in all of the ways that we will credit this here going forward. This debate on what's happening will become clarified because the war is clarifying power.

[Krystal Ball]

And to be clear, your point is that the only way to stop them from within six months to a year, acquiring the nuclear weapons reconstituting is boots on the ground.

[Professor Robert Pape]

Yes, but it's not just a few boots on the ground. This isn't going to stop with 10 or 20,000Americans. And even if we devoted all 1.2 million troops here, this would not be enough. So this is why this was a dilemma. This is why it was an escalation trap. We don't have these hidden secret options. If only we would use them. And then you saw what was the hidden secret option. Nuclear destruction of every living person in Iran. That's where Donald Trump had to go because he doesn't have all these other weapons that his all these other success strategies here. And you see what that has brought. So what you are facing, we're facing here is a true escalation trap. And the off ramp to stage three, which is the ground war, is Iran's world power. That's what I've been explaining on my, on my substack is there is a branch here and either it's Iran as a new emerging world power or it's the ground war. And you can see these are the real tensions. Literally the ceasefires has clarified what I've been saying on my sub stack, just literally in the last week, in the, in the briefings, et cetera.

[Ryan Grim]

And so how does Israel's strategic calculus factor in here? When, as they went into the war, this, you know, the strait was open, Iran was isolated and sanctioned. If you listen to Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu privately, he was saying they're many years away from a nuclear weapon now, they're not isolated, as you said, they're regional and growing power. Sanctions are currently off basically and are likely to come off as a result of these negotiations permanently. And I think it's debatable whether or not they can secretly race for a bomb. But let's, I think, stipulate that they're more likely, they're in a better position and people inside Iran are now. And this is the thing people don't understand. Before the war, the people in power in the Iranian government were opposed to seeking a nuclear weapon for both ideological and political reasons. Those people were killed. And people who support seeking a nuclear weapon are empowered. Not that they are in power completely, but. But they have been empowered. Their faction has been empowered. So how did Israel respond to this? Because the US Is its own power center, but Israel has its own interests that sometimes are aligned with the United States and sometimes are distinct. So how do you see them moving forward in this new arrangement?

[Professor Robert Pape]

So we need to understand that before the war, 40 days ago, there was a balance of power in the region. And if anything, Israel was the emerging hegemon with the hierarchy, with the Abraham Accords counterbalancing against Iran. Iran, as you said, the supreme leader, but the one we killed didn't really want the nuclear weapons. He had fought was against it. But now you're seeing this shift where even Israel, So Israel was the only country in the region with nuclear weapons. Well, now what you're going to get is you're getting this shift and as I'm saying, you've maximally incentivized not just the regime, but all 92 million Iranians for nuclear weapons here. And so it's extremely likely, maybe over 90% likely, maybe not 100, that they will have that nuclear capability. And what that's going to do is it's going to put Israel down on the hierarchy. Now, Israel remains 7 million Jews. It is surrounded by 500 million Muslims. As that hierarchy shifts, this is going to be a dramatic shift against Israel in the region. And so you're going to, you are going to end up with Israel, you know, has often said, well, they all hate us anyway. Yes, but only a few hundred thousand at most were ever mobilized to attack Israel. You could now have a much larger pool mobilized. And it's because, again, go back to President Trump's nuclear threat. These, these, these threats are clearly explaining that for the west and possibly Israel, they're glad to kill them all. This is not going to work to Israel's security. It's going to go in the opposite direction. And their nuclear weapons here will not provide that much security because what it's going to do is even if they used a nuclear weapon, it will only further incentivize not just Iran, but every state in the region to want a nuclear weapon here. We're moving to a world that is going to be dramatically worse for Israel's security. This is one of the things I've been trying to explain to the Israelis. This strategy is not just about, well, we just have to do this for our security. No, it's their own. This is self defeating for their security. And I think this will also start to become manifest within just a year or two. Not, I don't think you'll have to wait five or 10 years. This will come pretty quickly because of the change in the balance of power. And there are only 7 million Jews, unless there are going to be a rush of another 10 million Jews to go live in Israel. Now imagine that you're probably going to lose seven of the Jews in Israel. You're going to lose more than you're going to gain in the next year. And it's precisely because of the growing insecurity of Israel.

[Krystal Ball]

And can you respond to the claim that the response from, the response from Moscow and Beijing proves that Iran, Tehran is increasingly isolated and didn't have its allies rallying around it. What do you, I mean, Donald Trump posted this morning that anybody who supplies weapons to Iran is going to be sanctioned. So potentially, I suppose that could include China. Can he sanction China to the extent where Iran can't rebuild? What do you make of the international response from.

[Professor Robert Pape]

Well, first of all, Iran is building its own weapons. So Iran was an exporter of drones to Russia. Not the other way around. So we need to really understand here, Iran is not Grenada. Iran is not a small state. It's not even Venezuela. I mean, Iran is already a major country here. This is already. It was over 1% of world GDP. It may be growing that Russia is only 2% of world GDP. We need to put this in some perspective here. So Iran doesn't really need the weapons. It will make the weapons themselves. What it will benefit from is probably the trade and the oil and all the money there. And also, so there may be growing technology transfers here, say, between China, which has a lot of AI, and Iran. And this will be one of the things that I would imagine could easily happen in the future. So, as I explained in the New York Times piece, there are. If with. With Iran as the fourth center of world power, you have the United States, but Russia and China and Iran are not at each other's odds. They're against the United States. You don't need a formal NATO among Russia, China and Iran. They've just structurally incentivized to cooperate in a myriad number of ways, all of which lowering America's power in the world. And this Trump is just trying to, you know, do a magician's trick, sleight of hand. Nothing to see here. We're all good. Well, no, the realities here are coming for all to see. And this will just simply be powerful over time. And it will also work to President Trump's domestic political detriment here and probably in the very near future. I mean, this is. You're now asking all those congresspeople who are running for office to hook their wagon in the midterms to somebody who's threatened the genocidal destruction of an entire civilization led to the rise of Iran as a fourth center of world power. So, yes, there may be, you know, 20% here that will. Or 25 that will stick and ride and die with Trump. But the bottom line is there's not gonna be very. Every politician will know this is a really, really bad horse to be hooked to. And I think you're gonna see the GOP itself is gonna have some real questions. It's not the Democrat. The Democrats are gonna wanna keep Trump around for political reasons, maybe not for security reasons. So that's where I would draw the line. But politically, Trump is like the perfect thing to keep around for the Democrats. It's the GOP who's gonna have the biggest problems here.

[Ryan Grim]

I wanted to get your reaction to this new quote from Donald Trump, which I think you're gonna appreciate. It's Jonathan Karl. He says, I asked President Trump if he's okay with the Iranians charging a toll for all ships that go through the Strait of Hormuzzi. He told me there may be a joint U. S. Iran venture to charge tolls. Quote, we're thinking of doing it as a joint venture. It's a way of securing it, also securing it from lots of other people. It's a beautiful thing. What do you make of that?

[Professor Robert Pape]

Well, again, another statement not on planet Earth and by the way, there is some jointness to the tolls. It's just emerged Iran has agreed to share some of it with, with Oman. Why would they do that? Iran is becoming the, the high, the, the dominant power in the region. They can dole out some goodies here to get everybody in line with the new hierarchy. I don't see everybody cottoning up to Donald Trump to do it that way. So, so again, this is just more evidence that it's just not on planet Earth. So you will get statements and they can say what they want, but this, the countries are going to go for their security. The idea that they are going to give up their, their security and their wealth to somehow, you know, give Donald Trump a photo op. I think this is not happening. I think this is just way too consequential. What has occurred and will occur. It's not over what and will occur.

[Ryan Grim]

Also, I was just curious. So if people haven't read it yet, they gotta go, go read your piece that you had in the New York Times. It was about Iran emerging as a new power. That was a point that you made here last week on the show. I was curious, when did the Times reach out to you and say, hey, saw you on Breaking Points or how

[Krystal Ball]

did that come about?

[Professor Robert Pape]

You guys have been the best in terms of allowing me to come on and also space to really explain. And we're doing it regularly. You got it first. I actually started that piece several weeks ago. People kept asking me what was the longer term future and I wouldn't really, I didn't want to let it tell them yet because we're still going through the middle parts of the stage one, stage two, stage three. But then when I came on with you, I had the piece ready to go and before I sent it to the New York Times I decided I'm going to do. And also I didn't announce all that on your show and say, oh, you know, there's no point. Still just Professor Pape. Right. Frankly, with our audience, give you the first exclusives Scoop. Okay. And I didn't. And it was really quite a pleasure. It was like an inside pleasure for me because I really appreciate the relationship here and how much this has really. I think I get so many emails, by the way, the Breaking Point, the things for Breaking Point, they're just the dominant thing in my inbox. And so it's really just been a pleasure. And. And so, no, I. I'm the one who's pushed it forward here, but they could see right away that that was. And it's got, like, an enormous number of reactions and comments here and so forth and so on. And this is. And now you're seeing that just in a few days after I published the piece. Clear evidence that Iran is in the catbird seat, as I was saying. And we need to understand they don't just have money and they're not just talking about ships. This is power politics of the first order. That is changing. And you're seeing evidence of it right now, which is Donald Trump is essentially having to give, you know, sort of fantasy posts here that nobody. I'm not even sure he does he even believe, who knows? But this is that far removed from reality on his side.

[Ryan Grim]

And I think with our audience, for most people, it actually undermines their credibility if they appear in the New York Times. But I think in your case, we're gonna allow an exception.

[Professor Robert Pape]

So I am just pleased and honored to be able to do this. And I definitely take your point. I'll be careful in the future and I don't get sucked into the legacy back.

[Krystal Ball]

Speaking of the shifting balance of power,

[Professor Robert Pape]

the escalation trap of the legacy media.

[Krystal Ball]

Yes. Well, Robert Babies is a professor at the University of Chicago. He is doing more live streams. Go check out his substack, the escalation Trap. Follow him on social media. Thank you so much for your time, Professor Pave.

[Professor Robert Pape]

Absolutely. We'll see you soon. Okay, bye.

[Krystal Ball]

Bye.

[Alex Jones]

All right.

[Ryan Grim]

Well, Emily, that was a much happier show than the one I did yesterday with sager.

[Krystal Ball]

Amazing what 24 hours can do.

[Ryan Grim]

Civilization stands for now. We live for another day.

[Krystal Ball]

For another day. But when you hear Professor Pape outlining

[Ryan Grim]

potential for the future, it's gonna be ugly.

[Krystal Ball]

Which we appreciate, by the way. Everyone can also see this with their own. You don't have to be a professor at the University of Chicago to see with your own eyes what happened. Midnight Hammer. And what are we calling this? Epic Fury.

[Ryan Grim]

Epstein. Fury.

[Krystal Ball]

Epstein.

[Ryan Grim]

Oh, and yes, to answer your question, the Epstein files reporting will resume now that we're moving on from this Trump thinks he put an end to it. No, no, no. It's just on hold.

[Krystal Ball]

Well, we'll obviously be here throughout the day in case there are any major updates, so obviously stay tuned. And Ryan and I will be back Friday. If you want to get the second half of the Friday show premiere, it's free now.

[Ryan Grim]

I talked to Sager.

[Krystal Ball]

Oh well, there you go.

[Ryan Grim]

Friday show free.

[Krystal Ball]

Please do still support the show.

[Ryan Grim]

Support the show.

[Krystal Ball]

Just because we shouldpoints.com help us bring this independent journalism to you. If you can't, no problem. Just like subscribe comment. It helps us so much. We appreciate all of you for making this possible. As we just discussed with Professor Pape, it does really matter to have independent media out in front covering this in the way that legacy media will not

[Ryan Grim]

not Yes, I think if you followed all this through us, you had were better informed than anywhere else.

[Krystal Ball]

I I agree with that and I think the record is pretty defensible on that point. So appreciate you all. I hope you have a great rest of your day. We'll see you back here with more soon.

[Ryan Grim]

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[Professor Robert Pape]

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[Ryan Grim]

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[Professor Robert Pape]

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[Professor Robert Pape]

team always gets the win.

[Ryan Grim]

Call 1-800-granger. Visit granger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done.

[Krystal Ball]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Alex Jones]

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