5/11/26: Hantavirus Scares Erupt, AOC Vs MTG On Israel, Larry Wilkerson On Iran War

Summary

Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
Episode Date: May 11, 2026
Episode Title: Hantavirus Scares Erupt, AOC Vs MTG On Israel, Larry Wilkerson On Iran War

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Overview

This episode of Breaking Points delves into three major themes:

• Widespread anxiety and official responses to the new Hantavirus outbreak, especially aboard a cruise ship.
• A nuanced debate over left-right alliances in Congress regarding Israel and Gaza, focusing on AOC and Marjorie Taylor Greene.
• Retired Colonel Larry Wilkerson on the clandestine Iran war, U.S.-Israeli relations, and the regional fallout.

Hosts Krystal Ball, Ryan Grim, and guest Colonel Larry Wilkerson deliver their characteristic mix of skepticism, humor, and in-depth analysis.

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1. Hantavirus Scare: Outbreak, Response, and Political Ramifications

Key Developments and Outbreak Details

• Cruise ship outbreak: Passengers quarantined after potential exposure; 17 Americans aboard; 3 deaths confirmed. (02:37–03:31)
• Incubation period: Up to six weeks, creating uncertainty and challenges for tracking exposure. (04:31–04:54)
• Affected U.S. states: Georgia, Texas, Arizona, Virginia, California, New Jersey involved with monitoring and response. (07:10–08:57)

Official Reactions and Commentary

• President's Briefing: President's response noted for vagueness and repeated use of "hope."

  "It's very much, we hope, under control..." – Colonel Larry Wilkerson (as President) [03:36]

• NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya addresses protocols and differences from COVID:

  "The protocols that we have followed are more in line with the normal hantavirus protocols... This is not SARS-CoV-2." (04:31–05:54, 08:59)

• World Health Organization distinguishes Hantavirus from COVID, emphasizing limited human-to-human transmission, except for the Andes virus strain.

  "This is not coronavirus. This is a very different virus... most hantaviruses don't transmit between people at all." – WHO Outbreak Expert [08:59]

Host Reactions: Societal Trust and Pandemic Fears

• Krystal Ball expresses fear of a new pandemic in a context of eroded institutional trust:

  "No one is going to believe anything, and it is going to be a total and complete mess." [10:12–11:25]

• Ryan Grim on lack of resilience:

  "Prepare for a pandemic during an era of low institutional trust. [...] The institutional trust in 2026 is such a different ball game." [11:25]

• Both discuss the dangers of libertarian/go-it-alone pandemic approaches, and leadership (notably HHS Secretary RFK Jr.) with anti-vaccine tendencies posing additional risks. [10:04–13:16]

Notable Quotes

• "Cruise ships are gross. They're just like floating petri dishes. People. Do something else for your vacations, please." – Krystal Ball (15:08)
• "I just cannot wrap my head around what will happen to this country if we actually had another pandemic." – Krystal Ball (10:12)

Memorable Moments

• The debunking of the "landfill birdwatching" patient zero theory, showing how rumors and misreporting can color outbreak narrative. (13:35–15:05)

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2. AOC vs Marjorie Taylor Greene: The Israel Debate and Questions of Coalition

Context and Set-up

• AOC’s recent appearances and remarks about working with MTG, especially regarding Israel and Gaza:

  "I personally do not trust someone like Marjorie Taylor Greene, a proven bigot and anti-Semite, on the issues of what is good for Gazans and Israelis." – AOC [19:41]

MTG’s Response and Policy Votes

• MTG claps back:

  "AOC refused to vote for my amendment to strip funding for Israel. She can run her mouth all she wants, but votes are the only thing that matters, not a bunch of words and nasty name calling." – Marjorie Taylor Greene (read by Krystal Ball) [20:55]

• Krystal Ball critiques both AOC and MTG for inconsistencies and lack of full candor, urging for explanation and reflection on their public pivots and policies. [21:40–25:23]

The Left’s Quandary: Utility, Alliances, and Sincerity

• Krystal Ball’s Assessment:

  "There's a gulf between expectations of what that sort of ‘allyship’ would look like... There are a lot of reasons to be skeptical of Marjorie Taylor Greene." [21:53]

  • Points out ongoing Islamophobia and lack of direct reckoning with bigoted past statements from MTG. [28:09]

  "To be someone that's taken seriously as actually defending human rights... I think that would be very important." – Krystal Ball [28:47]

• Ryan Grim sees utility in the right’s shift:

  "I do think she put herself on the line and has been fairly brave in pushing back against some of this stuff." [32:45] "But the political utility is, I think, fairly obvious. It's just the personal questions that remain unresolved." [33:54]

Memorable Quotes and Clashes

• "God forbid, like, it will be such a mess. So many people will die unnecessarily." – Krystal Ball [13:16]
• "If you stack up the voting record between [MTG] and AOC... AOC comes out on top, head and shoulders. Right? It's not even close." – Krystal Ball [28:09]

Noteworthy Segments

• Comparison of the use—and misuse—of allegations of antisemitism in the shifting politics of Israel, the left, and the new right. (34:00–37:00)
• The suggestion to invite MTG for a direct interview about her views and evolution. [33:13–33:54]

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3. Colonel Larry Wilkerson: Iran War, U.S.-Israeli Covert Operations, and Geopolitical Risk

Israel’s Secret Operations and U.S. Complicity

• Wall Street Journal scoop: Israeli clandestine base in Iraq built to support airstrikes against Iran, with U.S. and British complicity.

  "I will guarantee you 99% certainty that the United States... had complicity in running these bases." – Col. Wilkerson [44:33] "The US told the Iraqis, hey, just stay away from that area. We're doing some things over there." – Krystal Ball [45:23]

War Prospects and Trump’s Calculations

• Wilkerson’s Forecast:

  "There's at least a 60/40 chance we're going back to bombing Iran again, disastrous as that will be. It won't produce anything but more resolution, more missiles coming out of Iran..." [46:08]

• Allegations that Donald Trump’s military timing is coordinated with stock market interests and donor enrichment. (45:53–48:20)

The Broader Geo-strategic Picture

• Netanyahu openly signaling intent to "wean" Israel off U.S. military aid, probing for new alliances as global power shifts east toward China, India, and Russia:

  "I want to draw down to zero the American financial support... I think it's time that we weaned ourselves from the remaining military support." – Benjamin Netanyahu (quoted by Ryan Grim) [53:46] "He's a very smart man. He's evil, he's genocidal, he's maniacal, but he's a very smart man. That's what makes the other traits so dangerous." – Col. Wilkerson [54:19]

• Upcoming BRICS meeting in India (September) viewed as pivotal for shifting world alliances and weakening U.S. hegemony. [54:30–56:23]

On Lebanon and Escalation

• Devastation in Lebanon:

  "Israel killed 51 people in Lebanon in 24 hours... Violence has been escalating really fast here in South Lebanon." – Courtney Bonneau (field recording), [58:45–60:49] "He wants southern Lebanon as part of the Greater Israel complex... we're setting up the prospect of a real clash between Turkish forces... and IDF forces. This is a disaster unfolding." – Col. Wilkerson [61:09]

Robert Kagan and the Prospect of American Defeat

• Kagan’s thesis: U.S. defeat in Iran is world-historic and irreversible; the postwar order ends and American power collapses.

  "Defeat in the present confrontation with Iran will be of an entirely different character... There will be no return to the status quo ante." – Robert Kagan (read by Krystal Ball) [63:19–65:21]

• Wilkerson’s response:

  "[Kagan] is trying to anger those decision makers... so that they'll go full monty against Iran... But I agree with you. He's right. And the reason it's happening is because we did this war of choice, which was stupid." [65:38–66:36]

---

Notable Quotes & Moments

• Krystal Ball (on pandemic): "Please, Emily, do some extra praying for us, because we just can't." [13:16]
• Ryan Grim (on trust): "Nobody knows actually where to turn for good information. And that situation has only gotten worse, believe it or not, since 2020." [12:51]
• Colonel Wilkerson (on Netanyahu): "He's evil, he's genocidal, he's maniacal, but he's a very smart man. That's what makes the other traits so dangerous." [54:19]
• Courtney Bonneau (on Lebanon): "Look at this, this mass destruction, this ethnic cleansing of south Lebanon, you know, this looks a lot like terrorism to me." [60:49]

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Timestamps for Important Sections

• Hantavirus Outbreak: 02:37–16:25
• AOC vs. MTG Debate: 18:43–41:12
• Colonel Larry Wilkerson Interview (Iran War): 43:49–66:36
  • Secret Israeli base in Iraq: 43:59–45:23
  • Trump’s war calculus: 45:53–48:20
  • Netanyahu’s shift away from US aid: 53:33–54:30
  • Lebanon bombardment: 58:00–63:19
  • Kagan on American defeat: 63:19–66:36

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This episode delivers incisive commentary, persistent skepticism about authority and policy, and an open confrontation with the complexities of domestic and foreign crises.

Transcript

[Krystal Ball]

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[Krystal Ball]

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[Ryan Grim]

This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else.

[Krystal Ball]

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.

[Ryan Grim]

We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see [e-mail]

[Krystal Ball]

should we get to the more good news? Hantavirus.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, yeah, Hantavirus. Crystal, let's start. We can play some of what it was looking like yesterday as people disembarked in Spain. That ship obviously, where people have been quarantined for a really long time. This is D1. You'll be able to see it off, see it on the screen. And if you're listening to it, what you're seeing is the ship coming into port in Spain's Canary Islands and people starting to disembark finally after I believe they actually got on the ship on March 29th. I think that was the first day of travel in this ship where the hantavirus was spreading. Three deceased already in connection with it. So how significant is the hantavirus? Is it another coronavirus? Let's dig into this a little bit and go to the President being asked recently if he was briefed on the hantavirus. This is going to be the next SAT. This is D2. Take a listen.

[Krystal Ball]

I'm also with ABC Newsman.

[Ryan Grim]

Thank you for the Hunter virus.

[Krystal Ball]

Have you been briefed on the virus?

[Colonel Larry Wilkerson]

Yes, I have.

[Krystal Ball]

Can you tell us what you've learned in these briefings?

[Colonel Larry Wilkerson]

Well, I think you're going to be told everything and you already have. It's very much, we hope, under control. There was the ship and I think we're going to make a full report about it tomorrow. We have a lot of people, a lot of great people are studying it. It should be fine. We hope. I hope not. I mean, I hope not. We'll do the best we can. Yeah.

[Ryan Grim]

All right. So what you heard there is the invocation of the word hope twice. I hope not. Hopefully under control. Let's take a listen to nih.

[Krystal Ball]

Very confidence inspiring.

[Ryan Grim]

Yes. How can you not take that and run with it, Crystal? NIH director Jay Bhattacharya, who comes out ofactually was appointed to this position because of some of what I would argue, his passionate work during the coronavirus pandemic. He is now the director of the nih. Here is him on State of the Union with Jake Tapper, cnn. Yesterday answering questions about the hantavirus.

[Jay Bhattacharya]

I'm told that it can take up to six weeks for somebody who was exposed to hantavirus to begin to show symptoms. So that is about four weeks ago. So they're not technically out of the woods yet. There's still two weeks left. When did you begin monitoring these seven? Do any of them have any symptoms? Well, I think it's, we first learned about CDC roughly the time they started to come home, I think maybe three weeks ago. I'd have to look the exact dates up, Jay, but it's, but I've been tracking the situation. The CDC teams have been tracking the situation for a while now. As I said, we're in close contact with the state and local public health agencies for protocols for managing these patients, including contact tracing, regular check ins, symptoms checks and if there's any symptoms that develop protocols for getting them to care rapidly and testing them. So it's been basically the whole time, I think it's been interesting. Again, a lot of the thinking around this is colored, I think by the COVID experience in the press. But the protocols that we have followed are more in line with the normal hantavirus protocols that again were followed in 2018 in the United States.

[Krystal Ball]

Well, unlike all the precautions we're seeing

[Jay Bhattacharya]

this morning, a few weeks ago when these seven people flew home, they flew

[Colonel Larry Wilkerson]

home with lots of other passengers.

[Jay Bhattacharya]

Has there been an effort to do contact tracing and let those other passengers know who interacted with those seven? So those passengers, those, those passengers on the ship that flew home were not symptomatic when they flew home. So the, because the virus doesn't spread unless somebody has active symptoms, those passengers on the planes are considered contacts of contacts. So again, there's not a reason to do that kind of like, you know, sort of recursive contact tracing. But you do want to make sure that you check them regularly so that they don't have, if they develop symptoms or if there's other considerations, give them advice, especially if they're to reduce their contacts with others when it's appropriate to do so.

[Ryan Grim]

Crystal reaction to Trump and Jay Bhattacharya there. They are going to get, I mean, so right now we just put this New York Times tear sheet up on the screen. The next element right now what we have is US passengers who were aboard the ship. They are beingthey're disembarking and as we just saw, they are now going to be quarantined at a center in Nebraska. So they're being transported to the center in Nebraska. These are the American citizens who had been aboard the ship. And the next element here, NBC News, seven states are preparing to receive Americans possibly exposed to the hantavirus. So the quote US has entered emergency response mode as a cruise ship hit by a deadly hantavirus outbreak sails toward one of Spain's Canary islands. Of the 150 passengers on board, 17 of them are Americans. And seven states are preparing their emergency response for people who are potentially exposed to this to return home and to also just tracking the spread where this could have already gone in the United States based on that incubation period Tapper was referring to, of apparently up to six weeks. Six weeks. And some American passengers disembarked along with others on April 24th. So states like Georgia, Texas, they're monitoring two residents who were on the ship. Arizona and Virginia each have one resident who disembarked that ship on the 24th. California as well. There's one California resident who is on board the ship. New Jersey has two residents who were not on the ship but could have been exposed to an infected person. Texas as well has residents who were on board that they are monitoring. So potentially rather dangerous situation. Crystal. But the World Health Organization just before. I'll toss it to you after we listen to a WHO outbreak expert here from the World Health Organization who says this is different from Coronavirus D4.

[Krystal Ball]

This is not coronavirus. This is a very different virus. We know this virus. Hantaviruses have been around for quite a while. There's a lot of detail that we know. I'm going to ask Nais to come in and say this, but I want to be unequivocal here. This is not SARS cov2.this is not the start of a COVID pandemic. This is an outbreak that we see on a ship. There's a confined area. We have five confirmed cases so far. We completely understand why these questions are coming and we are trying to provide all of the information that we can. That's why we're having a press conference here, to give accurate information. And we're grateful for all of those out there who are asking these types of questions, but this is not the same situation we were in six years ago. It doesn't spread the same way like coronaviruses do. It's very different. It's that close, intimate contact that we've seen. And most hantaviruses don't transmit between people at all. Most hantaviruses are transmitted from rodents or their feces or their saliva in their droppings to people. And only this one particular virus, the Andes virus, which has been identified here, we've seen some human to human transmission.

[Ryan Grim]

We'll get to that in just one second how this may have transmitted. But, Crystal, Virginia, you're in one of the states affected here.

[Krystal Ball]

Yay. I mean, I have to hope that lady is right, because we are so screwed as a country if we have another pandemic. Like, no one is going to believe anything. And like, a libertarian approach to a pandemic is a horrifying idea because we do all live together and have to do some community things. And if the science says you need to isolate and you need to take these precautions, then, you know, look, there are values that underpin that, and those values can be debated, but no one is going to believe anything, and it is going to be a total and complete mess. We have a Health and Human services Secretary and RFK Jr. Who is a total nut job crank, completely ideological. He staffed all of these agencies with fellow ideological travelers. I mean, Bhattacharya even, like, indulged his idea that autism is caused by vaccines and wanted to pull the MRNA vaccine off the market and all this kind of nonsense. So it will be such a disaster. I just have to assume that this is going to be fine and it's not going to spread further and we're all going to be okay. Because I can't wrap my head around. Well, with everything else that is going on, I just cannot wrap my head around what will happen to this country if we actually had another pandemic.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. So I remember saying this, like, right as things were starting to fall away, like, we have not. The original restrictions and such from COVID were starting to fall away. Like, we didn't earn a reprieve from a pandemic. Like, we didn't earn another century, like with the Spanish flu to. From 20, from. I'm sorry, from 1919 to 2020. It's not like that's guaranteed that you just, like, you went through a really tough time and thankfully it's behind us and we won't have to deal with it ever again. This can pop up at any time. And I think maybe the first piece I wrote during COVID was like, prepare for a pandemic during an era of low institutional trust, which Crystal now feels so quaint because the institutional trust in 2020, 20 versus institutional trust in 2026 is such a different ball game. Completely different ball game. Like, it has been where we are now. Our ability to actually go along with any collective measures if they were absolutely necessary. I mean, you and I do this for a living. And actually getting to the bottom of what's happening in these situations is difficult enough because the World Health Organization, the woman who's talking to you now from the World Health Organization, was also in charge of the COVID response. So it's like you're getting from her or from, I don't know, like RFK Jr. Who a lot of people don't have trust in. So good luck to us.

[Krystal Ball]

Nor should they, I guess. Nor should they.

[Ryan Grim]

Best of luck. Well, the reason that some people have trust in RFK Jr is because they also shouldn't have trust in his enemies. His enemies have proven themselves untrustworthy. And so then you get. It's like with Trump, right? Like, people put their trust in him because his enemies have proven untrustworthy. And it becomes a vicious cycle, and nobody knows actually where to turn for good information. And that situation has only gotten worse, believe it or not, since 2020. I mean, everybody believes it, but that's how bad it is.

[Krystal Ball]

It's going to, God forbid, like, it will be such a mess. It will be a disaster. So many people will die. Unnecessary. It's just. We just can't. Please God. We just please, Emily, do some extra praying for us, because we just can't.

[Ryan Grim]

I got you. I got you. Just don't ask the Etsy witches for help. I don't think that's going to work.

[Krystal Ball]

You don't think so? I don't think maybe it's worth a try. I have as much faith in that as anything else. There was one noteworthy update, though. I wanted to put D8 up on the screen. So part of this story was that the original notion was that the patient zero, in terms of this ship, that he and his wife had gone bird watching at a landfill, and that that was where they. I mean, this is logical, right? You've got birds like landfills. Apparently this is something that bird watchers do because there's a lot of birds at landfills because there's a reliable food source. But also rats like landfills, for obvious reasons. And so the thought was, okay, this is where they contracted this particular type of hantavirus, where you can spread it person to person. And that's what makes this, like, really scary. But apparently the timetable for that does not work out. And they had also visited this other area in Argentina where there is a known infection and spread and problem weeks earlier, unrelated to any landfill birdwatching. So apparently that bird watching sort of so did want to. Did want to make sure that people had that update.

[Ryan Grim]

Well, just like the pangolin, speaking of history rhyming, just like the vindication of the pangolin back in 2020. But actually, I mean, they aren't totally vindicated because as far as we know, they still did this. And in my book, that's not vindication. Going to look at birds in a landfill in remote South America. I just. Even if you didn't cause the virus outbreak, I refuse to vindicate you. Get better.

[Krystal Ball]

You don't want to encourage similar behavior from others.

[Ryan Grim]

Please, like.

[Krystal Ball]

Well, I don't want to. I don't want to encourage any behavior, risky behavior, of just people going on cruise ships in General. Let's put D7 up on the screen. Apparently there's a massive outbreak of norovirus, which is. Norovirus is hell. I'm sure everybody watching this has had it. Having kids. I've had it multiple times. It's horrendous. Anyway, you've got 115 people on this cruise ship who contracted norovirus, which again, absolute nightmare. Cruise ships are gross. They're just like floating petri dishes. People. Do something else for your vacations, please. Let's take off the potential vacation list. Cruise ships and landfill visits. How about that?

[Ryan Grim]

And then when you combine both of them, you do the landfill visit and then you get on a cruise ship.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah. And let's also go to a part of Argentina, remote part of Argentina, where there's a hantavirus outbreak, and then hop on the cruise ship. Let's do that too.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. No. Why not? What could go wrong? What could go wrong? I tried to get it so that our next Breaking Point staff retreat. Actually, our first breaking. We haven't done a staff retreat. But if we did, Crystal, I think it should be on a cruise ship. I think we should take a Viking river cruise.

[Krystal Ball]

I'm going to zoom into that one. Thank you. Just give me the meeting link. I'll be there.

[Ryan Grim]

The meeting link for it. But you can't log off. It's 24 7. It's just a live feed from the Viking river cruise ship. All right, well, we'll probably not do that.

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[Ryan Grim]

let's talk about a much more fun subject. I'm sure this will cause no controversy whatsoever.

[Krystal Ball]

Oh yeah, Alexandra, People love when I talk about aoc.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it. Crystal, what should we be thinking about right now when it comes to Marjorie Taylor Greene, AOC and Israel?

[Krystal Ball]

So AOC did do a few podcast appearances last week. Friendly spaces, but still, you know, she's getting out there a little bit more. And she did this talk at a university with David Axelrod and got asked a question about how she thinks about working in a bipartisan manner with figures like Marjorie Taylor Greene. Let's go ahead and take a listen to how AOC responded to that. I care about results. I care about results. Now there are certain places where certain areas where I don't think that we

[Ryan Grim]

should ignore Some folks record on some

[Krystal Ball]

of these issues, right? It's about where we trust intent, where we trust where those outcomes are going. I personally do not trust someone like Marjorie Taylor Greene, a proven bigot and anti Semite, on the issues of what is good for Gazans and Israelis. I don't, I don't think that it

[Ryan Grim]

benefits our movement in that instance, to align the left with white nationalists.

[Krystal Ball]

I don't think it serves us. And so I think it's about looking at the context, the place, the results, the outcomes intentions, and where we think that train would go.

[Ryan Grim]

But as far as what someone says

[Krystal Ball]

about me, I could care less. And, you know, I think it's really

[Ryan Grim]

about what our outcomes are.

[Krystal Ball]

And to be honest, there are some areas where things will not get done if they're partisan because they are anti establishment. There is bipartisan consensus on keeping and protecting stock trading in Congress. And so it's going to require a

[Ryan Grim]

massive bipartisan consensus of people willing to come together across those differences to get it done.

[Krystal Ball]

So we got a response from former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. We can put this up on the screen. She says AOC refused to vote for my amendment to strip funding for Israel. She can run her mouth all she wants, but votes are the only thing that matters, not a bunch of words and nasty name calling. And that is true. And in fact, I recall, if I recall correctly, the reason AOC said she did not vote for that amendment is because she run into protect funding for Iron Dome, quote, unquote, defensive funding, which of course is not a position that I agree with or really find acceptable as something that I pushed Alyssa Slotkin on when we had her on last year to talk about this as well. I have so many thoughts on this, Emily. So I think, first of all, one of the ways that this conversation has kind of fallen apart online is when people talk about Marjorie Taylor Greene or talk about Tucker Carlson and what the left's relationship to them should be. I feel like there's a lot of. There's a gulf between expectations of what that sort of quote, unquote allyship would look like. It's one thing I agree with aoc. I think there's a lot of reasons to continue to be skeptical of Marjorie Taylor Greene. I'll get into some of the things she's said and done that there has not been an explanation for. Hey, how did you completely Change your views 180 degrees? Have you changed your views 180 degrees? Or do you still hold these incredibly bigoted Islamophobic views? That you espoused in the past. Like, I think there is a lot of explaining to do still. I think there are a lot of amends to be made still from Marjorie Taylor Greene before people are just gonna go, oh, yeah, welcome to the cause. You're our ally. But do I think it's incredibly useful to be able to show someone like her, someone like Tucker Carlson, someone like Thomas Massie, others who are on the right who have been strident Trump supporters, who now have this very aggressive criticism of Trump and specifically on the issue of Israel, and specifically on the issue of Israel and the US Committing a genocide, do I think it's important to say thank you for agreeing with us on this. This is very important. And uplifting those voices in the context of opposing Trump? Yeah, I think that's very useful. I think it's something the right does all the time. By the way, I mean, if you look at the last election, Emily, part of how Trump was able to succeed was by taking people who were former Democrats or former liberals or seen as being in the center, independent or whatever, and finding the places where they agreed with him or supported him, and really uplifting that. And that was part of how he built a coalition together. Now, again, do I think that means you should, like, trust Marjorie Taylor Greene, even from the perspective of how do you change your view so wholly and completely in one year? Is there just like a petty motivation here? And what would keep you from then switching your views again completely to the other side? That's a really good question. But the other thing I would say is, you know, MTG has more sort of explaining and amends to make, but AOC also has some amends to make here. And in particular, something Jasper Nathaniel pointed out, and it's not an original thought, but look, she went on the stage at the DNC and said, kama's working tirelessly for a ceasefire. That was really. It was not true. First of all, I think that's important, that that was just a lie. And second of all, it came at a time where they were trying very hard to maintain a position of support for genocide, but get progressives and leftists and people of good conscience who were worried about being complicit in that genocide to get them on board. Aoc, being a person who has a lot of credibility with the left going out there and carrying water and propagating that lie at the very DNC where they would not even allow a Palestinian American on stage to speak, yeah, that was very harmful. People aren't just going to let that go. Nor should they. So I would like to also see her. That's not to say she's, you know, like, she can never be forgiven for that or any. But I would like to hear from her why she said that. I would like to hear from her that that was a mistake. I would like to hear from her that that was damaging. And so I think that she also has some amends to make. I think she also has some, you know, explaining to do on how her position has shifted and if her position has completely shifted, because you do have recent votes where she still was. She still was doing this. Oh, defensive weapon, offensive weapons, et cetera.

[Ryan Grim]

Right. And we have that thought, right. Of her at the dnc. We should roll it because it's. I had actually forgotten how. I don't even know what the right. How aggressively pro Harris that speech was. So we should just roll this here. It's going to be E3.

[Krystal Ball]

She understands the urgency of rent checks and groceries and prescriptions. She is as committed to our reproductive and civil rights as she is to taking on corporate green. And she is working tirelessly to secure a ceasefire in Gaza and bringing hostages home.

[Ryan Grim]

Aggressive. I mean, that is. Yeah, that is an eager message in support of Kamala Harris.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah. And I'm not sure I bought by that corporate greed aspect either, given the way she walked back from some of the originally very powerful proposals she had with regard to corporate greed as she moved more into the arms of Mark Cuban and some of the other advisors who pushed her in a more corporate direction and to de. Emphasize some of those positions she had. Had held originally. But, yeah, I mean, the. The other piece here that, you know, just to back up aoc. And also, we should keep in mind here, these are human beings. And Marjorie Taylor Greene has been viciously nasty and harassing of aoc. And those are very hard things to get past because you look at someone, you're like, oh, this. This is your true character. Whatever you're doing now, to try to position yourself as some moral actor is an act, because I've seen your own vindictiveness to my face. But in any case, by the way,

[Ryan Grim]

that's the argument MTG makes about Trump, just to keep those two things in the same space for a moment.

[Krystal Ball]

That's true.

[Ryan Grim]

It's exactly the argument she's made. Her break with Trump at one point is she texted him saying her son was getting threats and if he could dial down some of his attacks on her. And he basically went and said, no, it's your fault.

[Krystal Ball]

Blah, Blah, blah.

[Ryan Grim]

And she tells that story a lot about how it kind of showed his character in a moment of test after she had gone on the line for him for so many years, which is all true. And so that character argument does, of course, go both ways. To your point, Kristen.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Colonel Larry Wilkerson]

Well.

[Krystal Ball]

And so we can put E4 up on the screen. Marjorie Taylor Greene really pushed this condemnation of Rashida Tlaib. She said that this one proud to stand with Israel along my Republican colleagues, AOC Ilhan Omar, Rashida Felipe, Ayanna Pressley and Cori Bush. The jihad squad openly support Hamas terrorists attacking Israel. Okay. That's what she said. Again, there should have been no apology for this.

[Ryan Grim]

And that was 2021 for that. And if you see the press conference, she's behind a giant Israeli flag.

[Krystal Ball]

Yes, Correct.

[Ryan Grim]

So this pre October 7th. Yep.

[Krystal Ball]

Right. So you know when mtg says, well, votes are all that matter. Well, if you stack up the voting record between her and AOC over any length of period of time outside of that one vote, AOC comes out on top, head and shoulders. It's not even close. Right? It's not even close. And then we could put E5 up on the screen. This is after Zoran Mamdani is elected mayor of New York and she posts this. I guess this is on Instagram. It's the Statue of Liberty cloaked in a burqa. So this is the sort of Islamophobic content that she was posting. This was quite recent, right? Zorin was not.

[Ryan Grim]

That was June of last year.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, it was not that long ago. I guess this was after the primary victory, but still. Yeah, this was not like ancient history. And again, we have it. We have seen Marjorie Taylor Greene grapple with some of her positions, talk about, for example, how she got sucked into QAnon. I have not personally heard, maybe she said it, and I haven't followed all of her content, but I've not personally heard her grapple with her own hateful bigotry when it comes to Muslims. And I think that would be very important. And that doesn't mean either that would be sufficient to completely trust this individual. But, you know, I do think that would be an important thing to hear if you want to be someone that's taken seriously as actually defending human rights at this point in a universal way and not just picking a new racial scapegoat that you find to be more evil than the previous racial scapegoat that you were pushing. So, you know, from that perspective, I understand where AOC is coming from. I would just say I think this is all. If you're just looking at, like, my ideological lens and trying to elect progressives and trying to have a better place with regard to our relationship to Israel and opposing genocide and supporting human rights. I think Marjorie Taylor Greene is very useful. I think that, you know, the things she said have been important. I have appreciated the things that she has said with regard to genocide in particular. I feel very similarly about Tucker Carlson, who I also do not trust, who I also think has a Christian nationalist view overall. So it's not like I'm gonna make common cause with him, but do I find him politically useful in this moment when I think we need to rethink our approach to the world and certainly our relationship with Israel and need to get back to a place where universal human rights are something that we can talk about and something we aspire to? Yes, I find them useful in that regard.

[Ryan Grim]

Well, this is a really interesting. Just the quandary that the left has found itself in over MTG is, I think, really useful in the way that it blends the personal and the political. And that's kind of what you're getting at, is like, there's so many people who have personal skepticism of AOC's character as opposed to, like, her utility as a leftist in Congress. And that's where you saw them kind of comparing AOC's votes on Israel, some people comparing AOC's votes on Israel to MTG's, and the way that MTG, actually, as soon as she changed her mind, went out and started voting on this stuff. And I actually think there are a lot of people on the right who changed their minds about this. It's quickly in the scope of kind of the history of the conservative movement and positions on Israel. But it happened over the course of a couple years, and it was a buildup for me. It started before October 7th, and you guys gave me a lot of. A lot of grace on that. We've talked about it extensively, but for a lot of people, it started in the last couple years of that war, and it was because people on the right became really skeptical, obviously even more skeptical, as they had already been, of what was coming out of the media. And when people started to see the rug get pulled out from under them with these narratives, people started questioning everything, basically. And so I don't necessarily. I think she's had a pretty normal transition from point A to point B that a lot of conservatives, especially conservatives who are like kind of America first, people who were motivated by MAGA to get involved in politics exactly like her, to start paying attention to politics. I think it's pretty normal and consistent with what a lot of people experience. And I do think she put herself on the line and has been fairly brave in pushing back against some of this stuff. But just as she was brave to be as pro Trump as she was in Washington, even when I disagreed with her and many people disagreed with her, it was uncommon to be like that, pro, just as the sort of rally going MAGA voter. It takes some bravery to do that in Congress because even the ones who act like it for the cameras don't do that behind the scenes. They don't believe any of it behind the scenes, many of them. So I have some respect for her. I wish she hadn't quit. I genuinely wish that she hadn't quit because then we would get to see where some of these votes and pieces of legislation that she was introducing would go going forward. But, Krystal, this actually makes me think we should perhaps invite her to talk about what she thinks on some of these questions. Now. It would be interesting.

[Krystal Ball]

I would be down for that. I would absolutely be down for that.

[Ryan Grim]

She had a really interesting interview on the View where she actually apologized for her rhetoric and for her actions, and she stepped back from some of it and said she felt like she contributed to a lot of the tensions that had escalated in Washington. I do think it would be interesting to hear some of that from her because her tactics and rhetoric actually is kind of an interesting part of the picture here. So we'll see. I mean, but it's a very. It is a quandary for the left, and I think. I don't blame anybody for being skeptical, but the political utility is. I think it was fairly obvious. It's just the personal questions that remain unresolved.

[Krystal Ball]

Absolutely. And the point you raise about I wish she hadn't quit is a really important one, because if she was in Congress right now, there are. There's a lot she could be doing. She could be a, you know, an ally for Thomas Massie. She could be an ally for Ro Khanna. She could be taking votes that actually matter and in a very closely divided House, that could be making a difference. So, you know, one place where I slightly disagree with our beloved Ryan Grim is, you know, he said she, she paid a political price. Well, there's no doubt that it was gonna make it more difficult for her and her district. She also quit before she really paid a political price. You know, she didn't. She didn't find out if she could withstand the, the onslaught. Whereas Thomas Massie is still in there in his seat. He's up against a very well funded primary opponent. He has got Trump backing, you know, strongly backing his primary opponent, attacking him all the time. And he's in there fighting the good fight and taking it and doing his best. So I, I do think that that is very unfortunate that she decided to quit rather than try to hold on to these newfound principles in a body where it really makes a difference. The other thing that I would say is, you know, AOC called her an anti Semite. And I think at this point because of the way that term has been so used and abused, that you really need to offer concrete examples of what you mean by that, you know, when you say that, why, how did you come to that conclusion? But I also will say that some significant chunk of the Republican newfound Republican antipathy towards Israel is about anti Semitism, is about Griperism and Nick Fuentes and noticing and just direct anti Semitic. It doesn't come from a place, place of we believe in universal human rights. It comes from a place of, oh, we decided the Jews are actually worse than the Muslims. We decided that the Jews are the real problem in this country, not Israel, not our policy towards a foreign country, but quote unquote, the Jews. And Marjorie Taylor Greene, who trafficked in some anti Semitic conspiracies in the past, that your space laser thing or whatever that was. It's, it's a reasonable question to say, is this where you're coming from? Are you coming from a place of we're all God's children and participating in this barbarism is horrifying? Or are you coming from a place of I have a new ranking of racial superiority and I have a new racial scapegoat? I don't think it's out of the question. Given her previously stated views, her previous, her very clear Islamophobia from the past, I don't think that it is out of the question to push with her where these views come from. And so I think that skepticism is fair and is warranted. With regards to her, with regards to Tucker Carlson, with regards to others on the right who have made a very quick pivot towards being anti Israel and who have flirted or overtly embraced bigoted narratives, racially charged narratives in the past,

[Ryan Grim]

I wouldn't say it's out of the question. I do think her Tucker, I mean, Tucker has sort of started to his, I mean, he is getting slammed by the right for this now to, for even saying that he thinks he was suckered in by some propaganda campaigns on Islam. And I don't know where mtg. It would actually be interesting to see MTG get on the record about some of this stuff. But from him, from mtg, from, like, Carrie Prejean, some of them are leading very heavily with this. Exactly. This religious argument saying that nobody, like, nobody should be treated like the people of Gaza were treated for the last several years. And Tucker said last week he thinks that actually Israelis are less safe. Jewish Israelis are less safe now than ever before. I feel like they've definitely led in with that aspect of this, that it's just destruction of human life that's really enraged them. And so I feel like. I feel pretty comfortable again, I don't think you're wrong. That's out of the question. I feel pretty comfortable, at least personally, that they're coming from a place of horror and disgust at what transpired over the last several years and not attributing that to anybody for purposes of immutable characteristics and the like. But it's. I mean, we'll see where this goes from here. I mean, obviously, Netanyahu was on Netanyahu.

[Krystal Ball]

I don't feel comfortable just simply because, again, to stick with the case of Marjorie Taylor Greene, it would mean that she's not only broken with Trump and she not only changed her view on Israel, but truly some of her foundational views of the world have changed. Right. Because she was obviously in the past not coming from a place of we are all equal and everyone deserves equal rights. So is she in a different place on that? I'm open to that. I'm open to it, but I don't know. And so, you know, that's. That's where I am. Again, do I find her politically useful? Absolutely. Do I think we should. Do I think we should embrace and encourage the things that she said in opposition to genocide and in favor and, you know, in opposition to this horrible barbarism? Yes, 100%. Do I think we should also embrace, you know, the genuine outreach that she has made? For sure. But, you know, do I still have some deep concerns about what her underlying ideology is and what sort of things she could easily push in the future? Yes, those concerns certainly remain totally fair.

[Ryan Grim]

I actually think that's one of the big fault lines in the, like, left, right, foreign policy coalition right now, or emergent coalition. I think one of the fault lines is even probably some things that, like, you and I would disagree on, or Sager and Ryan, all of us would potentially disagree on. About things down the line that might come up on foreign policy questions might not be that much, probably more between Marjorie Taylor Greene and all four of us, to be honest. But I think it is actually one of the fault lines. So we'll have to see. But Netanyahu was just talking about on 60 Minutes. We'll probably play the clip tomorrow. How support for Israel, he says, is directly declining in course or in correlation to, I don't know if he uses that exact word, but to the rise

[Krystal Ball]

of socialism, geometric relation to which I don't know if that's really the right language. I don't know, imagining triangles.

[Ryan Grim]

But the point he's really making is that people have more access to information and more access to information people have is making them less favorable towards Israel. And so I feel like, you know, there's for a lot of people, it's very real. I don't know, I don't personally know mtg, so I can't speak for her. But I think some of the good news is that there has been a very real and sincere questioning of some of these first principles that conservatives always bought into and believed by people on the right, certainly young people on the right who are saying we can't, we can't just automatically support a country that is going to be willing to engage in some of what we saw in Gaza over the last few years. And Krystal, at least that is something to be optimistic about in the future when it comes to. Yeah, hopefully. Hopefully the rupture and this unquestioned and reflexive alliance between the United States and Israel.

[Krystal Ball]

Yep. All right, well, we've got Colonel Larry Wilkerson standing by to talk to us more about the Iran war. So let's get to that.

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[Ryan Grim]

That's innerbalance.com we're joined now by retired U.S. army Colonel Larry Wilkerson. Thank you so much for joining us, sir. It's a pleasure to have you on.

[Colonel Larry Wilkerson]

Good to be with you.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, thanks for having. Thanks for joining us. Let's put this first terror sheet up on the screen. This is from the Wall Street Journal. Headline Israel built and defended a secret Iran war base in Iraq. So details from the Journal quote, Israel set up a clandestine military outpost in the Iraqi desert to support its air campaign against Iran and launched airstrikes against Iraqi troops who almost discovered it early in the war. People familiar with the matter, including US Officials, said, sir, just wanted to get your response right off the top here to revelations in the Journal, how significant is this?

[Colonel Larry Wilkerson]

It's odd that the Journal would come out with this since it is so pro Israeli. It's revelation, if you will, but it's nothing new. They have had major operations in what is called Kurdistan, northern Iraq, for some time. In fact, the Iranians know about most of them and in their first volley of missiles some weeks ago struck them. That they have things in the Western Desert, which is vast and virtually empty, is no surprise. And I will guarantee you 99% certainty that the United States, probably Great Britain and perhaps others like the Jordanians, had complicity in running these bases, as it were, from western Iraq.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, Actually, Haaretz reported that the US Told the Iraqis, hey, just stay away from that area. We're doing some things over there. So you are spot on with your. With your instinct that there was some US Complicity here as well. I wanted to just get your reaction to where we are currently with the, quote, unquote, negotiations with the war. We discussed earlier that Trump has outright rejected the Iranian proposal. Trump also met with Netanyahu yesterday by phone. Netanyahu is insisting that the war is not over. And we've seen some indications, certainly from the hawks and from the fact that Israel continues to bomb in Lebanon, that they would like to undercut any possible negotiated settlement and head back to war. So what is your sense of where things are right now?

[Colonel Larry Wilkerson]

Well, the last thing you said is absolutely a certainty. I think backing up a little bit. I don't think it's a certainty that negotiations are going to produce something that Donald Trump will ultimately accept. I think it is at least a 50, 50 chance that we will resume bombing Iran mercilessly just as soon as the stock markets are right for it to happen. And I don't mean that cavalierly. Donald Trump is coordinating through Hegseth, of course, and Kaine, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. These strikes based on his desire for his friends and ultimately his family to make money off the stock market. So that's part of it. And then the other part of it is I don't think there's a chance he's going to get what he really wants, which is none of the things that we've been talking about other than a nuclear deal. And certainly Israel is not going to buy that. So that's going to be a real stopgap measure, if you will, in trying to make that the only thing we do. So there's at least a 60, 40 chance we're going back to bombing Iran again, disastrous as that will be. It won't produce anything but more resolution, more missiles coming out of Iran, this time aimed at everything in the region to include Saudi Arabia, oil facilities, Bahrain again, Kuwait. All the countries that depend on that, that black gold for a lot of their wealth will find it all pretty much drying up because Iran is going to target it all with the help of Russian and Chinese satellites, which we know are helping them now, just as we helped Zelensky strike Russia with our satellites. So this is a very complicated game we're playing now. And Donald Trump is, I think, somewhat desperate to get out of it, but he is unable to fashion away with all the pressures and powers that are around him that don't want it to happen.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, that's a great point. And he's heading obviously to China in the next couple of days, supposed to be there on Thursday for a major state visit. And what is your sense of when the bombing could resume, based on, I know you just mentioned the stock market. What might we expect to see in terms of the timeline going forward?

[Colonel Larry Wilkerson]

Well, generally speaking, he does it on a Friday, but I don't know if that will be a telltale sign of anything this time because it could all be a feint just to put more pressure on Iran at the moment that they think they're going to come to some kind of deal. But I don't think so. As I said, I think the odds are 60, 40 that we're going to resume this conflict and it's going to be with a vengeance with everything in terms of our air power we can pour at them. And before people say, well, the carriers are in position and all that, that's not what I'm talking about. The carrier air power is really insignificant when you start talking about what we're planning to do. This is marshaling almost the entire United States Air Force and ancillary forces to drop bombs from B2s, B52s, all the way down the line on Iran to further pulverize it, create war crimes and kill a lot of innocent civilians. So this is not something I look forward to. And I hope I'm wrong. I hope I'm wrong. I hope we come to some kind of nuclear deal. But then what are we going to do about Netanyahu who has said, I'm going to keep the war up?

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, no, that's absolutely right. I also took note that President Trump has been posting clips from neocon Mark Levin, this one in particular is very noteworthy to me. A lot of historical revisionism. I think one could say that, or at least Noteworthy historical take here from Mark Levin that I wanted to get your reaction to. Guys, let's go ahead and play.

[Colonel Larry Wilkerson]

F5 don't have to create opposition. There is opposition. We need to seize the opportunity and we need to see the opportunity. And by that I mean that our CIA, along with the Israeli Mossad, make determinations about the best way to determine who to train and arm, while at the same time we continue the economic stranglehold. And our military, along with our allies, the Israelis, provide coordinated support with targeted and supportive attacks on the IRGC and the Basij paramilitary police. That's, in my view, how you do it. Well, Mark, you never served in the military. I know history. I know history. Nobody alive ever served in the Civil War either. Nobody alive ever served in the Revolutionary War either. That's not the point. You do leave it to the experts to figure this out. But the President of the United States, the commander in chief, he makes the decisions. And I look at history, I look at success. Success in destroying the Soviet Union, success in pushing communism out of Central and South America. And we did this. Success in pushing communism out of parts of Africa, African success in pushing the Russians, the Soviets out of Afghanistan. We didn't send in troops. We armed the freedom fighters, the mujahideen in Afghanistan and others throughout the world. He was reading a script prepared for him by either Mossad, the idf, or both. That's all I can guess. I would be willing to bet, spent a lot of money on that. He was reading from that script. And we've already seen how false that narrative is. What happened earlier, that is being touted by certain people like the Wall Street Journal and others, that was so effective in terms of almost overthrowing the regime, was a joke. It was worse than 53 and Kermit Roosevelt's attempts to overthrow Mossadegh. Worse, because it did not succeed. And yet it killed a lot of Iranians. And the people killing the Iranians, either directly or indirectly, were MI6, Mossad and CIA, not the Iranian security forces. The Iranian security forces were stunned at first, then figured out what was happening and went after those mechanisms that were allowing them to operate so freely within their country, eliminated them, and then began to eliminate those people. In fact, so much so that Mossad has very few people on the ground in Iran right now. But the point is, it wasn't the Iranian people that were fomenting revolution. And it won't be in the future either. It was Mossad, CIA and MI6 in combination, making it look like they were doing it. And the Iranians, they're not stupid. They figured that out. They've had it been done to them a number of times before. And they eliminated most of the operatives inside the country, which is bothering Israel big time right now because they have no eyes and ears on the ground in Iran like they've had for so many years. So these are all lies that Levin's telling.

[Ryan Grim]

Well, I want to go also to F4 because this was from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's interview on 60 Minutes last night. He said that he is hoping that Israel can, quote, wean itself off remaining military support from the United States. Let's go ahead and roll F4 here.

[Krystal Ball]

Do you believe it's time for the

[Jay Bhattacharya]

state of Israel to re examine and

[Krystal Ball]

possibly reset its financial relationship to the United States, meaning what the United States

[Colonel Larry Wilkerson]

provides to Israel on an annual basis?

[Ryan Grim]

Absolutely. And I've said this to President Trump, I've said it to our own people. Their jaws dropped. But I said, look, what do you mean? What are you saying? I want to draw down to zero the American financial support, the financial component of the military cooperation that we have because we receive $3.8 billion a year. And I, I think that it's time that we weaned ourselves from the remaining military support.

[Colonel Larry Wilkerson]

Can you give me a timetable?

[Ryan Grim]

I said, let's start now and do it over the next decade, over the next 10 years. But I want to start now. I don't want to wait. Do you buy it?

[Colonel Larry Wilkerson]

That's interesting. I had heard rumors to that effect. I hadn't heard that particular film clip or seen that interview. But I think what he's talking about are several things, one of which he's demonstrated by his travels over the last several years. He understands what I've been telling everyone I can speak to about is this inexorable shift of power that's moving to the east, with the magnet being China, but now increasingly China, India and Russia. Brics is going to meet in India in September and Modi is going to preside and we're going to see a very different BRICs, I think, after that, because they've all pretty much decided to pitch in. So Netanyahu is no idiot. He's a very smart man. He's been prospecting all across these other countries to find potential US Replacements because he realizes that the Big Daddy is not going to be the Big Daddy much longer with the colossal debt that we have and what Xi Jinping is going to do to deepen and exacerbate that debt and is already Doing so, that's one thing. The second thing is he's sending a signal to the United States, a rather subtle signal, but nonetheless. I've known Bibi for a long time, and before him, I knew Eric Sharon. They do this sort of thing to signal their disdain for the Americans, for the United States, so that we suddenly come begging back to be their benefactor again. And then the next reason is he's trying to needle Trump in order to keep him from ending this war, insinuating that there are actually other people, the world that we could use to back us even if we wanted to continue this war and you stopped it and you know who they are, etc. Etc. So he's a very smart man. He's evil, he's genocidal, he's maniacal, but he's a very smart man. That's what makes the other traits so dangerous.

[Krystal Ball]

Talk a little bit more about the upcoming meeting in China. You know, what sort of a position is Trump coming into this meeting with? At least as far as it looks. What sort of things will you be looking for? As you observe from the outside, 50.

[Colonel Larry Wilkerson]

50 that he doesn't go. That's the first thing.

[Krystal Ball]

Oh, wow.

[Colonel Larry Wilkerson]

Second, he is going to be embarrassed severely when he meets Xi Jinping because there's going to be no warmth, no friendship, no cooperation in his mind. He's going to be there to lecture Donald Trump. And Donald Trump doesn't take lecturing too well. So we could see the meeting start and then abruptly end. Nobody knows, but Xi Jinping is in the catbird seat now in terms of global power, in terms of ascending power, we're in the dark seat. We're in the seat of the empire, with Darth Vader and the Sith Lord having been exposed to the world. And that's a very difficult position from which to operate. What scares me about that position is that no empire descending into the depths, if you will, in human history that we know of 5,000 years has had the technological means to at least temporarily arrest that development. And what I mean by that is nuclear weapons. As long as we have nuclear weapons and we have a leadership that is going to fight this dissent majorly, then we have the prospect of using nuclear weapons. We have to remember the only country in the world that has used nuclear weapons against human beings is us.

[Ryan Grim]

Let's talk about Lebanon as well. I want to roll some of this clip and you can. People will be able to see and hear. This is going to be F2, courtesy of Dropsite News. They write Israel killed 51 people in Lebanon in 24 hours on Saturday as the Israeli army continued its attacks despite the so called ceasefire. The toll since the beginning of March has surged past 2,846 killed and 8,693 injured, according to the Ministry of Public Health just yesterday. Now the sound and video here is courtesy of Courtney Bonneau, who is a journalist over there and recorded this video from southern Lebanon that I also want to get your reaction to. This is going to be F3.

[Courtney Bonneau]

Hi, I'm reporting to you from the town of Tora. I don't know if you can hear the armed drone buzzing above our heads in the air force. We just heard a bombing in the distance. We're at the site now of a massacre that took place yesterday. Five members of the same family, mostly women, were killed in an Israeli airstrike. Violence has been escalating really fast here in South Lebanon. Yesterday the Israeli army targeted 39 towns and villages, killing more than 30 people, all civilians. Multiple force displacement orders have been issued, including in the town where I live. Since yesterday, since midnight last night until now, I've been listening to shelling, bombing and machine gun combing in the hills across from where I'm staying. And like the Almansuri and Al Bayada area, this morning came a fresh wave of displacement orders and death threats. And with that came a fresh wave of bombing and killings. Multiple people have been killed already today. And I just received a heartbreaking report of a Syrian laborer traveling by scooter with his 12 year old daughter in Nabatiya. They were targeted on the scooter. The father was killed instantly and the little girl, who again 12 years old, managed to run away. And when she started to run, even though she was injured, the Israeli drone targeted her again. And she's alive for now. She's critically wounded. She's currently in surgery. I will keep you updated about that as I can. To my Western followers. I really want you to think critically about the definition of terrorism. To whom it gets applied and who does it benefit. Because where I've been sitting for the last 18 months, you know, this mass murder and mass, you know, look at this, this mass destruction, this ethnic cleansing of south Lebanon, you know, this looks a lot like terrorism to me.

[Ryan Grim]

And so Courtney was, if you're just listening to this, standing in front of just heaps of rubble in southern Lebanon, where do you think this goes for? As Netanyahu looks at the prospects for taking some of that land, some more of that land, I should say, what do you think his next moves could look like?

[Colonel Larry Wilkerson]

First, let me say that I agree with every word she uttered and much more than that, because I know people there and I know what's happening and I know what Israel has done in the past. Even in 1982, when Eric Sharon was the defense minister and they went into Lebanon wholesale, the and only Ronald Reagan was able to tell them stop and get out. And they did. After they were told to stop and they did, they created massacres and camps. This is Israel. I'm sorry to say it, I'm sad to say it, but this is Israel and it's gotten far worse. They did Gaza in accordance with what you just heard her say times 10. They still haven't defeated Hamas in Gaza. Naftali Bennett is angry with Netanyahu because he the IDF into those tunnels to go after Hamas for good reason because Hamas will tear them up if they go into those tunnels. And he's frustrated and he's angry and he gets mean when he's frustrated and angry. And he is the world's greatest state sponsor, individual sponsor of terrorism, period. And he's doing that now in Lebanon. He is not honored, and I used to say a day he's not honored an hour of the so called ceasefire in Lebanon. He's using it now to do what he used it to do earlier with less results, but now sweeping results. He's destroying Lebanon's ability to recover. He's killing Lebanese citizens, not Hezbollah, not even remotely Hezbollah. He's killing Lebanese civilians. He's destroying their homes, home by home, bulldog, bulldozer by bulldozer, bomb by bomb. He wants southern Lebanon as part of the Greater Israel complex. Give him that and he'll go on like Hitler did and take all of Lebanon. And Erdogan. And Turkey knows that. So we're setting up the prospect of a real clash between Turkish forces which are superior to the IDF and IDF forces. So this is a disaster unfolding.

[Krystal Ball]

Yeah, absolutely. I wanted to get your reaction also too. I don't know if you saw this opinion piece in the Atlantic, but I found it quite noteworthy. From Robert Kagan, who's co founder of the Project for a New American Century, very noteworthy neocon. He's a senior fellow at Brookings and his headline was Checkmate in Iran. Washington can't reverse or control the consequences of losing this war. I'm going to read you the opening two paragraphs here. He says it's hard to think of a time when the US suffered a total defeat, defeat in a conflict, a setback so decisive that the strategic loss could be neither repaired nor ignored. The calamitous losses suffered at Pearl harbor, the Philippines, and throughout the western Pacific in the first months of World War II were eventually reversed. The defeats in Vietnam and Afghanistan were costly but did not do lasting damage to America's overall position in the world because they were far from the main theaters of global competition. The initial failure in Iraq was mitigated by a shift in strategy that ultimately left Iraq relatively stable and unique, unthreatening to its neighbors, kept the US Dominant in the region. Defeat in the present confrontation with Iran will be of an entirely different character. It can neither be repaired nor ignored. There will be no return to the status quo ante, no ultimate American triumph that will undo or overcome the harm done. The Strait of Hormuz will not be open as it once was. With control of the strait, Iran emerges as the key player in the region, one of the key players in the world. The roles of China and Russia as Iran's allies are strengthened, the role of the US Substantially diminished. Far from demonstrating American prowess, as supporters of the war have repeatedly claimed, the conflict has revealed an America that is unreliable and incapable of finishing what it started. That is going to set off a chain reaction around the world as friends and foes adjust to America's failure. I get a little nervous when I start agreeing with people like Bob Kagan, but I wonder what you make of his analysis and also the significance of. Of someone with his worldview saying that Iran has checkmated us and that this will be a defeat like none other in history.

[Colonel Larry Wilkerson]

Well, I detest Robert Kagan. I've detested him ever since I learned of his complicity in the clean Break strategy and other things like that that we got so embroiled in in the George W. Bush administration first term. But in this case, I know why he's doing it.

[Krystal Ball]

It.

[Colonel Larry Wilkerson]

He's trying to anger those decision makers and advisors to decision makers who are thinking about ending this conflict. That's what he's trying to do. He's trying to anger them so that they'll go full monty against Iran with everything the empire has. And everything is interesting, but I agree with you. He's right. And the reason it's happening is because we did this war of choice, which was stupid. And it's going to. It's going to rebound pretty much in the way that he described. I think we could even be, if the Iranians are resolute, if we bomb them again, as I said, there's a good chance we'll do. And they hit their second tier of targets. We will have undoubtedly recession by June, global recession by June. And by September, October, we'll have global depression. And you know what happened after the last global depression? World War II.

[Krystal Ball]

Well, very frightening prospect. Thank you so much, sir, for joining us today. We always really appreciate your analysis and your time.

[Colonel Larry Wilkerson]

Surely.

[Ryan Grim]

Well, that does it for us. On today's edition of Blue Blazer points. Crystal, it was great to be here in the country club.

[Krystal Ball]

Dark navy blue blazer. Yeah, we both got the, the dress code.

[Courtney Bonneau]

Little.

[Krystal Ball]

I guess. I guess tastefully small necklaces there.

[Ryan Grim]

Wow.

[Krystal Ball]

I just got to bring my glasses next time and.

[Ryan Grim]

Do you have glasses? Do you wear glasses? No. I was gonna say I've never. Are you contacts?

[Krystal Ball]

My eyesight is just naturally perfect. Emily, I don't know what to tell you.

[Ryan Grim]

I was gonna say we're going golfing after this, but I'm driving the cart. That's. That's what the place is for.

[Krystal Ball]

Please. I agree with that. All right, guys, tomorrow we're gonna have a nice little fascist points. Emily and Sagar will be in and then we'll be back to actually me and Emily on Wednesday. So mixing things up this week. I will see you Wednesday and they will see you tomorrow.

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[Krystal Ball]

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