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Scott Horton
Imagine you are elected President of the United States of America two months after Benjamin Netanyahu comes back to power as Prime Minister Israel. In fact, the first time that Clinton met with Netanyahu, he came out of there breathless and said, who the F does this guy think he is? I think Obama was legitimately worried that Israel was going to do what they did last June and just go ahead and start the war. And he spent the entire rest of his presidency to get the Iran nuclear deal and he said, we're not going to do a two state solution and did nothing for the Palestinians. So Netanyahu, he's kicked the crap out of Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. They've been severely weakened in Gaza. Then Iran is the big one. So it's definitely increased risk that now they're making nukes. It was always a bluff. Trump can really escalate. The only real card he has to play is I couldn't bet against it either at this point. After all, it's only consistent with what I've been warning this whole time is.
Thief
That, hey guys, if you're not following me on Spotify, please hit that follow button and leave a five star review. They're both a huge, huge, huge help. Thank you. Are you happy that we, we, the, the founding fathers, I guess, declared war on Britain and fought a war there? Do you think that's a justified war, Matt?
Scott Horton
At this point I probably should go back and reread and learn a lot more about it. But yeah, no, overall I support republic over monarchy, thank you very much.
Thief
Okay, yes, fair answer there. So that kind of answers the second question here, but I guess more in a modern day scenario seeing as that war already happened and you know, we created this country as it is, what would it take? What would you need to see for an act, for any type of war, regardless of where it is or who it is to be justified?
Scott Horton
Oh, well, I mean there are clear cut invasions across borders where people got the right to defend themselves and things like that. You know, usually it's somewhat complicated. I mean my whole thing, I'm not a pacifist, I'm just, I'm a patriot. So I'm anti government. And I just. The thing is, is, and this goes back to your earlier question, your first question, I guess, about me and why I'm like this because I figured out what other people had pointed out that I agreed with, that American foreign policy is the most important determining factor in our government's relationship with us here. As long as we have a world empire, we have to have A domestic empire. Our Constitution doesn't describe that. Right. The general government in our Constitution barely knows we exist. This is supposed to be a union of 50 states. We're supposed to have extremely minimal foreign policy coordinated by the government way back east in Washington. But otherwise we are supposed to have a highly decentralized and limited republic. And so that, of course, is impossible if the goal of the government every day is to maintain its dominance in Europe, the Middle east and East Asia at all times, take control, rig elections, do coup d', etats, launch wars, take control of every last thing, spy on every government, put their fingers in every single thing. You can't do that with a limited government. You need inflationary money, you need income taxation, you need states that are essentially have. Has surrendered so much power to the national government already that they can't resist any of what's happening now, right? Like, you don't see coalitions of states saying, we're not going to stand for these wars anymore, right? Like this is all. They don't. They have way too much to lose in terms of the revenue that the national government can cut off to them, right. It's just impossible. Now the states are what, they're like oblasts in Ukraine, they're big counties. They're not states at all, right? Other than like, in a legendary sense, right? From the old days in a. In a mythical way. Like, it's like naming your lake after an Indian tribe or something, right? It's like some old thing, some kind of memory there. Yeah, yeah. So, but, so the thing is, though, is like, I'm not giving up on this Constitution, though. Like, we need the. The next one's going to be worse than this. It's going to have a lot greater powers, you know, rights and responsibilities delineated right there. And like, yeah, it. And it'd be worse, far worse. So I think, you know, I'm not any kind of revolutionary, as I've often said. Our current, the constitution we had. Now if we could figure out how to implement it, I don't mean go back to it, but implement it as the rule of law that it's supposed to be in the first place. It's the charter that created this national government. If we could do that, we'd be about 85, 90% of the way toward anarcho capitalist libertarianism anyway, right there compared to where we are now. We're spending, what, $7 trillion a year on all of this. It's insane. And so that's the thing of it is if, if we can get rid of the, the part of the most expensive part of our national government that people care the least about and, and want the least. You know, we could have even a continental defense for. Fine. All right. Is the. My, my weakest libertarian moment. I'm even willing to defend Canada and Mexico from invasion. Okay, but that ain't gonna happen.
Thief
Paul's like, lost them. Damn it.
Scott Horton
That isn't going to happen anyway. Right, but we could just completely cut all of that off. I mean, I saw in Tucker Carlson's show, Matt Walsh, who works for Ben Shapiro, say to Tucker, well, geez, if any country needs the United States of America to support them in order to exist, well, then forget them, man. Yeah, well, there you go.
Thief
I.
Scott Horton
Let's call that consensus. I think we're done, right? We even got a guy at the daily wires like, I don't know, man, maybe you should make a country somewhere where you can keep it your damn self and leave me out of it. Keep your hand out of my pocket.
Thief
And again, we're bankrupt for that one.
Scott Horton
I'm sure he did. Yeah, but look. And we are $37 trillion in debt already. We're going to have to just repudiate it at some point. Already interest on the debt every year is more than we pay for. Even the Empire, Medicare or Social Security. So. And this to me is just such an affront, like, I. I really hate the welfare state. I don't think it's fair that people are forced to pay other people's bills up or down or left or right or whatever. Old, young, it ain't right. But even worse than that is like helping the Israelis blow up some Palestinian kid. But to me, even worse than that, in a way, I'm sorry, I mean this in a sick, weird, disgusting way. You understand the irony part thing that I make that like, at least there's something's happening. I don't know when. When my money that they take straight out of my pocket is just going to pay interest on the debt to the Central bank of South Korea. I mean, that's real money to me, man. And to the. And look, I'm old and doing okay right now, but, I mean, there are a lot of people out in this country that make a hell of a lot less money than I do. And they got to pay these income taxes when that's the margin of whether their kids got orange juice or not. That's the margin of everything for them. And they got to pay all the. Everything they pay in those payroll taxes and everything they pay through Inflation and all of their lost standard of living just to pay interest on the debt to another national government central bank that bought that debt with money that they printed out of nothing too. You see how I'm going into a homicidal rage right now? It's not fair, it's not right. And so like, that's the deal. You got to abolish the empire, hang the central bankers so that they don't come back again.
Thief
I'm going to bring in Jerome Powell with the fucking bill's machine.
Scott Horton
Like, okay, I like this guy. Just make it rain over here and I might look the other way. I got a nonprofit institute, by the way, everyone.
Thief
We'll link it down in the description for your nonprofit.
Scott Horton
No, we're hard money guys. In fact, this is not my institute, but I love these guys and they're hard money guys too. This is the Mises M. Ludvig von Mises. It's named after him. They're@mises.org and they are the best of the hard money guys. Why the. Because the Austrian school, Ludwig von Mises and Frederick Hayek and Marianne Rothbard, and then of course the great Robert Murphy and Hans Herman Appa and other the Joe Salerno and Hans Senholz and all these other economists who've come since then are. They're basically the gold standard guys, no inflationary money. And so now they are also the particularly. Murray Rothbard and his heirs are the major theorists of anarcho capitalism, which says that we don't need a national go, we don't need a government for national security or for a court system or for anything like the last excuses for why you definitely need a monopoly state for at least one thing or another. Those. They argue that no, and I'm pretty much sold on that just because I got no use for these bastards. But these guys are real economists. Murray Rothbard, of course, is the greatest of them, and he was the founder of the Mises Institute with Lou Rockwell. Now my institute is called the Libertarian Institute, and it's also really great, but I'm just not wearing that sweatshirt right now.
Thief
Well, I like that you support multiple teams for the same.
Scott Horton
Oh, hell yeah. Yeah. These guys are all my friends.
Thief
That's great.
Scott Horton
And. And we also are hard money guys. And we also have Austrian school economists, even though I am not one. We have a handful over there and a bunch of great writers and podcasters and authors. We publish 17 books now, including five of my own, but wow, 12 others. And we got more coming all the time.
Thief
I think That's a piece of history most of us do not in any way properly appreciate. Because let's just. Whether it's tacky or not, it's true. Everything's downstream from money. And when you look at how money has been manipulated, particularly over the last 100 years.
Scott Horton
Oh, it's so evil, man.
Thief
Yeah, it's very evil.
Scott Horton
Yeah. Hey, you want to know some fun Murray Rothbard articles to read?
Thief
Of course.
Scott Horton
Left and right, the Prospects for Liberty. That's my favorite. Anatomy of the State, War, Peace in the State, the Case against the Fed. What Has Government Done to Our Money? Wall Street, Banks, and American Foreign Policy.
Thief
That's a rabbit hole.
Scott Horton
Yeah, that's a good list. If I went too fast, rewind it.
Thief
Oh no. Thief got them all down. We're good, we're loaded.
Scott Horton
And seriously, man, I. Left and right, the Prospects for Liberty is my favorite and I have blown a lot of minds with that one. That's the one. People read it and they go, wow, okay, now I understand things differently than before because. Okay, well, on the basic level on the left you got the socialists, on the right you got the conservatives, right? But Rothbard says, look, man, before the socialists, the left was the liberals, meaning the capitalists, the pro property rights capitalists. And the right was the conservatives, meaning the landed gentry and the old order and the church and the state who kept land, you know, intact in the largest parcels in a way from regular people. And so he's saying the revolution was the American Revolution, the property rights revolution, where now a nobody can own things and can own property and improve it and exchange it and improve his station in life and have a social mobility that had not existed before. It was private property that destroyed feudalism. And this was, you know, what has, you know, was dynamic as has improved the standard of living for everyone is everyone's ability to improve their own standard of living and to specialize in different things and trade on the open market and all of these great things. Then the idiot socialists come and they want all the rewards of liberalism without the work. They want government to just make it happen somehow and skip the hard part.
Thief
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Scott Horton
And so then what happens is the conservatives become less statistically than the left by comparison. Now that the left are the socialists instead of the free marketers, now the conservatives are more free market than them at least. And that leaves libertarian free market types as allies with conservatives against the left. But then always in this uneasy relationship because the conservatives never really were libertarians in the first place. They were still, they are and still are the conservatives who want to use the power of state to keep things the same way. But then it leaves libertarians in the uncomfortable position in that we're radicals. But as Brian Doherty put in his book, we're radicals for capitalism, we want private property rights and the wild and dynamic society that changes because of freedom, not because of government waging horrible social engineering campaigns against us all the time the way it is under the liberals. Right.
Thief
What an interesting concept.
Scott Horton
And there's just so much more to it than that. But it's just, it's really great stuff. And he talks about how this is one thing I love about Murray Rothbard too is the progressive era of 100 years ago says this was a right wing plot. A right wing corporate progressive era was, yeah, because as well, first of all, the liberals had stopped being liberals at all and had become socialists and Marxists. Right Already. So from big businesses point of view, how do you neutralize the Marxists? And the answer is you don't. Just Crush them, you buy them off. Right. You bribe them and you make them good. Center left Hillary Clintonites. Right, so, so right, so that you move them to the right from socialist to progressive. And then meanwhile, because big business doesn't want free market economics either anyway, so they say to the progressives, oh, you guys want to cartelize the economy? You want to centralize all economic power in Washington D.C. that makes sense to us too. You've got a deal.
Thief
Trojan horse.
Scott Horton
That's right. Yeah. Because they don't want a free market because that's a risk to their power. A wild dynamic economy. Once you're a billionaire, you want to go ahead and get you some congressmen and some regulators and make sure that you can stay one if you can. And so that's the deal. And so their progressivism is a right wing plot by these evil corporate chieftains. So says the greatest champion of capitalism in world history, Murray Rothbard. Right. No greater champion of free market, private property rights and capitalism than him. Natural rights theory. This is the, the point on the, on the shiniest part of the diamond here. This is the guy and he's saying, ah, see how it's all corrupt. And that's always what's wrong with capitalism is the state is there for the capitalists to bribe and that ruins the game.
Thief
Yeah, that's the thing. There's no perfect system because there's going to be some sort of loopholes that powerful, power hungry people, I should say, use.
Scott Horton
And this is why people become anarcho capitalists. Right. It's because they go, we got to repeal the Federal Reserve Act. And then somebody finally, you know, pipes up and says we should just repeal Article 1. Then there's no Congress to create a Federal Reserve in the first place. And then we can be free, turn it down. Let's just not have a national government. Then we won't have a national bank.
Thief
Yeah, it's like that meme where the.
Scott Horton
Guy'S like, yeah, exactly, you're catching on to me now. That's right.
Thief
So what made Ron Paul such a, you know, even in the modern day, like a hero to the movement. You know, he seems to be the guy that when you talk to a pure libertarian is the most cited and the most in many ways I would say, on some stances, seemingly vindicated on, on things years ago.
Scott Horton
Oh yeah. Well, first of all, everybody can go and read his archives@antiwar.com Paul. We've been publishing them there since 1999. And he went back to the Congress. He had been in the Congress in the 70s and 80s and then went back to medicine and then went back to the Congress in 1997. And so Antiwar.com has all of his foreign policy archives. Anyway, during that time. You can also find. He's runs the Ron Paul Institute for Foreign Policy and Freedom. No, no, the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity. I'm such an idiot. That's my thing, the Scott Horton Academy for Foreign Policy and Freedom that I'm working on. He has a book which my. The title of my academy is a homage to his first book, which is a collection of speeches which is called A Foreign Policy of Freedom. It's not his first book, it's one of his books, A Foreign Policy of Freedom. So my thing is called the Scott Horton Academy of Foreign Policy and Freedom because I love Ron so much. His thing is called the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity and it's run by him and Daniel McAdams, who is his longtime foreign policy advisor and co host of the Liberty Report together. And they still do the Liberty Report every day. And Ron is 90 years old. We just went and celebrated his birthday down in Houston in August. It was really fantastic. Everybody from the Ron Paul revolution, only now we're all old and wrinkly and stuff. And it was really great. But anyway, so look, the reason, I mean, first of all, the reason why everybody loves him so much is just because of his character. Like, he really is a doctor, not a lawyer, and he's just a really sweet guy. And, and there's it. It matters a lot when you actually mean what you say and not just say the right thing.
Thief
Absolutely.
Scott Horton
So, you know, he's a baby doctor. He delivered 4, 000 babies. He's been with his wife since they started dating at her sweet sixteen party. And then, you know, he's been married to her this whole time. He's got 99 grandchildren. Great, great, great, great grandchildren or whatever, you know what I mean? He's one of those guys, captain of the baseball team, right? You know, great guy, just, yeah, hero. It's just libertarianism. Right? He's a Rothbardian. He's a Ludo von Mises guy on economics, so he's hardcore for gold. He came from kind of a conservative background, so he was like, you know, fiercely anti communist and all that, but he knew about gold money. He was really smart about gold money. And so he knew that the Austrian school was right, that the Bretton woods agreement was flawed and was going to lead to. It was going to break, essentially. And they'd have to throw it out, redo it, and which is exactly what happened when Nixon broke the gold standard, took us off the gold standard in 1971. Right? Yeah. And so Dr. Paul was one of the ones who like, oh, my God, there's like a seminal moment in his life that like, oh my God, see what they're doing. Because he really understood what that meant for the. Taking the limit off of government money creation means taking the limit off of government spending and government's ability to stick their nose into every damn thing, you know. So that was when he ran for Congress. You read his early speeches. You can tell he's much more wary of the Soviet Union and China because they are commies and they were powerful, especially the Soviet Union. But you can tell he. He kind of like gets over it. Where he could tell, like, not that he's any less anti communist, but he's less concerned about their power as he, like, gets, you know, better and better on, more and more informed, I think.
Thief
What made him less concerned about their power?
Scott Horton
Well, I mean, the Soviet Union was just falling apart, but I think. I think he just saw, you know, especially, you know, in the late Clinton years and into the W. Bush years, when he came back to Congress is, you know, when I'm most familiar with him during that time, it's just so obvious America is the world's superpower, not anyone else. And so there's kind of a. It's more popular now and more justifiable now. But there's always been kind of a very, kind of afraid of China sentiment on the right, that he could have been like one of those guys, but he wasn't. He was more like, nah, we should celebrate them getting rich. He was not for bringing them into the wto. He wasn't for like a bunch of government programs to help influence offshore, you know, increase offshoring to China and like all these crazy things that Congress is up to. But I don't think, you know, certainly by the time the Soviet Union was gone, he. He would have been. And I don't think he was much of a supporter of the Cold War, even in the Reagan years, quite frankly. I think he was just more wary of them, like in spirit. But like by the 90s, you know, China's flag is still red, but they'd abandoned communism and they were trying to be our friends. And he's just a realistic guy, you know what I mean? And he was never a demagogue. So I think he was rightfully concerned about the Soviet Union at the height of their power and then less so as it waned. You know what I mean? He's just always. Yeah, he's very realistic about that. But then. So in the Clinton years, when I first started. Well, I first saw him on TV in the spring of 97, and he was holding up some papers. It's like I'm watching C Span in the middle of the night. I'm the only guy in Austin. He's the only guy in the House chamber.
Thief
Except you're like 20 years old watching C Span.
Scott Horton
Tough girlfriend. But. So there's Mr. Speaker, whoever was filling in for the speaker, and Ron Paul, and he holds up a piece of some papers and he says, it's in the British press today that George H.W. bush, or they didn't call me them, but President Bush was selling chemical weapons to Iraq right up until the invasion of Kuwait. What the hell is that? And. And then I look at the bottom of the screen, it says, ron Paul are Texas. I'm from Texas and I'm. I know that the Bushes, you know, they're from Connecticut and whatever, but they lived in Texas and they're very influential in Texas politics. The son was the governor at the time. Yeah. The father had been very influential.
Thief
Isn't that funny how the Bushes went from Connecticut to Texas and the Clintons went from Arkansas to New York?
Scott Horton
Funny how the follow the money. Yeah.
Thief
Lines work there.
Scott Horton
Yeah. But so for Ron Paul to say that about Texas Republicans and the most powerful ones, the former president and the next president, was pretty courageous to me. It was shocking. And then I started paying more attention to him. Through what? All avenues. I don't really remember. I know the New American magazine covered him a lot. My friend Will Greg was the editor of the New American, and so they would cover him. And then when I started doing radio, he had his weekly update. I Bet it still works. 888-322-1414. And on my part radio show, I would call up and then play that over the air. And he would do like, read his weekly essay into his voicemail machine. That's funny. And then. So I would call that, put that on the air. I would print out copies of his speeches and give them to people in my cab. Hey, do you know there's one good congressman. Yeah. No, the rest of them are all absolute devils, but this guy. Yeah. And he had a couple of great speeches. A republic if you can keep it. And sorry, Mr. Franklin, we're all Democrats now and they're really good. So I would give those to People in my cab.
Thief
And this is before they had five star this season.
Scott Horton
Yeah. And they didn't have social media. Wasn't. We didn't have MySpace like all you kids now. So. Yeah. And then look. And he's just good on everything. Like I said. He's why I knew there was a dot com bubble. He's why I knew that there was a common war on terrorism. He was absolutely fantastic on opposing Iraq War two. He introduced a declaration of war against Iraq and the Foreign Affairs Committee and then gave a speech said, I'm voting against it. But those of you who want to support this war and are going to vote for the authorization, I demand that you go ahead and vote for this declaration. Declaration of war and send it to the House floor and go ahead and take responsibility and stand for your. Oh, I see. Right. And they wouldn't do poison pill. Yep. And then. Well, no, not poison pill. Just challenge to them. Right. No, that like. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Thief
You have to take responsibility.
Scott Horton
Yeah, yeah. And then. So Henry Hyde was the chair of the committee and he's more famous for being one of the impeachment managers during Clinton's impeachment in 98. But he was the head of the committee. And I don't know if you could find this video anymore. I couldn't find it actually, the last time I looked. But Henry Hyde said to Ron Paul, he goes, we don't go by that part of the Constitution anymore. It's an anachronism. And so just pipe down.
Thief
Imagine you God damn.
Scott Horton
And that was, you know, and that would have been in October of 2002.
Thief
That's the quiet part. Out loud.
Scott Horton
Voting for the authorization to launch that war. So. And he was just fantastic. You could find, and I quote him in my book in 1997. And in 1998, he wrote a letter to Bill Clinton, said, you've got to stop bombing Iraq from bases in Saudi. You're going to cause terrorism against this country. This bin Laden guy is dangerous and we got to stop bombing Iraq from bases in Saudi. He said that 97 and 98.
Thief
Nailed it, dude.
Scott Horton
He also, he's the reason I used to tell people in my cab because I'm from Austin that this dot com thing is a giant inflationary bubble and it's going to pop. So get your cash, your stock options out now, pal. And then of course, I was right about that. Not because I'm an Austrian economist, just because I listened to Ron does it. And then Dr. Paul and. And then same thing, of course, for the housing Bubble, which he said, then he goes, now all you're going to do is inflate the housing bubble. The substitute for the dot com bubble you just inflated. You guys suck at. He was much more polite at that, but absolutely right. And so that was why when he ran for president in 07, and it was unfortunate the crash happened In September of 08, right before the election. Yeah, but if the crash had happened September of oh, seven, he wins. He'd have been the president. No, Barack Obama can stand there and smile, but Ron Paul can explain to you the boom in the bust business cycle, Austrian business cycle theory. He's the only one who's right about that. And it would have been a whole different world. And look, he had kids and he didn't date. They did it. Kids were burning dollar bills, chanting. And the Fed in 2007, starting at the University of Michigan there now was during the inflationary bubble. Still, that was before the crash, but it was still prices rising. Not anything like what we're dealing with now, but prices were rising. And these kids understood, he had taught them well enough by the time of that speech that they knew that, yeah, it's inflationary times now, which just means the coming bust is going to really hit hard, which is of course exactly what happened in the fall of 08. And then everybody said, well now what exactly did Ron Paul say about the economy? And then they go back and look what he said. And he didn't just say, well, I think the economy is on like shaky fundamentals or whatever. No, he explained exactly what the hell was going on and why and whose fault it was. The Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke. Yeah, dude, for real.
Thief
There's some of them that are like, whoa.
Scott Horton
And so look, he's, he's the anti war Republican. Way before it was cool. Making it, you know, making them crazy, but doing the right thing. I mean, he quoted Jesus Christ and the Golden Rule and they booed him off this. Well, they booed him at a Republican debate. This is W. Bush days. And he's just saying, listen, guys, we should not be doing this. We should not be doing this. That could be, you know, his overall, the, his theme and his, he's just so right about all of it. And it's famous. If you're not familiar. You may be familiar, but your audience should be familiar with the, what's called the Giuliani moment from May 2007, when Ron Paul got in a big argument with Rudy Giuliani at the Republican debate. And Ron Paul says It's American intervention in the Middle east that caused September 11th. And Rudy Giuliani tries to bully him and say, I demand you retract that and take that back. I can't believe that you said that America deserves September 11, which is not what he said. And then Wendell Goler from Fox news is, huh, Dr. Paul, you saying we invited the attack and he sticks to his guns and he says, yes, I'm saying the CIA is right when they teach, they coined the phrase and teach about blowback. And that means the consequences of our foreign policies. So when we did the coup in Iran in 53 that resulted in our hostage crisis in 79, that's how this kind of thing works. We, when we look at on September 11, 2001, we'd been bombing Iraq for 10 years before that, and that was what did it. And the whole place goes, oh, rabble, rabble, rabble, and gets all upset. And then the next day, oh, wait, immediately after the show, the poll, the phone poll says that Ron Paul wins. Nobody wants to hear from Rudy Giuliani, the mayor of 911 up there demagoguing everybody. He, he won by a huge margin because people like, hey, that old man respects me enough to tell me the truth, which, by the way, is feeding people a pretty bitter pill.
Thief
Oh, very.
Scott Horton
September 11th didn't happen because you're so good to your mama and evil can't stand that. No, it was Bill Clinton killing people with your money. And let's get real, your blessing that got those towers knocked down and people went, you know what? That sounds true to me. I remember Bill Clinton mass murdering people every chance he got from the moment he was sworn in. Now that I think about it so sounds right. And, and so he won over 20 million people overnight with that. That was. There's a great documentary about it called. It's a somewhat redundant title, but you can find it. It's called For Liberty How Ron Paul Watered the Withered Tree of Liberty.
Thief
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Scott Horton
Whatever. But it's like there's a director's cut that's like three hours long or something and it's so good it just gets better and better and better and better the whole time. And it's all of these Americans who are like anti war Republicans, man. They were just waiting for someone who is not a commie. Not Michael Moore, the big fat millionaire communist hypocrite whose movies don't make any sense. Like what is even the point of Fahrenheit 911 anyway? He couldn't tell you. Nobody knows. And people had just not wanted to have to be like Michael Moore here. Ron Paul goes.
Thief
Reasonable.
Scott Horton
Yeah, Ron Paul goes I'm a Texas Republican and I'm telling you, you don't have to believe in this. You have to go along with W. Bush and people are like, great, it's just passing out hall passes, right? He's just giving you permission. If you like your identity, you can keep it. I'm not asking you to move left. I'm just telling you that you don't have to believe in this stupid crap anymore. You felt all this pressure to go along with this stuff. Forget that it's a bunch of crap. And then like that was it blinders off and people, just tens of millions of people. And then it was great because it was leading with peace and then also with the pure free market capitalist doctrine and economic theory and whatever like that and revisionist history and all the great stuff that comes with libertarianism. It was just the best way to do it.
Thief
Yeah, it's been interesting watching him like kind of have his legacy formed after the fact, though he was kind of a victim of being around. It's. It's weird he was around at simultaneously the perfect time and also the wrong time because he was on the wrong side, you know, just by party when an administration went totally south, but was righteously not standing with them and was actually pointing out all the problems from a place of like kind of standing above everyone because all the Democrats and Republicans voted for the Iraq war and everything, obviously. So people all had. All had fault in it. And he was like the one guy going, what the here and now people are kind of waking up to that. Like, oh, and you do wonder, it's a great point you make, if that crash happens in September 07, which if you look at the charts now in hindsight, it absolutely could have. Oh, yeah, right. If that had happened. It's an enormous trajectory change in history because he, he is the one guy, like I always say, Jesus couldn't beat Barack Obama in 08 because of everything that happened right there. But like, he's the one guy that if he had had enough time to be able to say, look at all the tapes of me talking about how this was going to happen, he could have ran to the, you know, center of Bush and totally away from him and, and won that election.
Scott Horton
And with eight months before the convention.
Thief
Yep. Right.
Scott Horton
He'd have been unstoppable.
Thief
Yeah, I think you're right.
Scott Horton
And then. I'm sorry, there was one thing I was going to say about Dr. Paul. Oh, yes. About just, I guess the fact that W. Bush was still in the chair when he ran against what was going on in 08. So it just made it so hard to do that, to separate from the current president that. That hard at that time. And it was so ironic that the American people at that time were like really rebelling against all the W. Bushism. And I think there's quite a few indications at the time that one of the reasons that people wanted to nominate and vote for Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton was because on the surface he was so much different than Bush. And it was in a way it was like an attempt to apologize to the world for re electing Bush.
Thief
Right.
Scott Horton
That like, hey, innocent mistake in 2000, anyone could have made it. But after he lied us into war, then we reelected him. Come on, man. And then by 08 and after Katrina had drowned in 2000, drowned New Orleans in 2005. And all of that, people are so over it. And so Barack Obama comes in and on the surface, like if we're just talking about action figures on the rack or whatever, like this one is tall, dark and handsome and from the other party and the other part of the country. Right. A thousand miles away from north of the thing. So like, yeah, where Ron Paul is, he's like, yeah, he's like literally a six foot tall, German stock, Texas Methodist. Right. He looks like he, he came out of the claim, same cloning booth as W. Bush. Now, pardon me, we all know that W. Bush is the cousin of the Queen of England and has all this blue blood and all of this stuff. And Dr. Paul is the son of a dairy farmer. So that's very different. Right, but that's, but I'm saying on the surface, right, on the surface, the average goofball couldn't tell these two apart. When this is the real opposite of that, that you're looking for, where Barack Obama is just W. Bush in blackface and brings the exact same priorities and agenda, you know, into practice when he gets sworn in.
Thief
Yeah, that's a whole rabbit hole right there if we go down that.
Scott Horton
But it's a tragedy.
Thief
Yeah, I, I do, I do want to get to the Iran thing. Maybe another time we can talk about the Obama Bush overlaps. But I had, I had said the first, the first time I'd seen you was you talking about this on, on Piers Morgan as it was going down. And like this is an active situation. Like right now there hasn't been this enormous boots on the ground war that's happened in Iran yet. But effectively in June, when you see these attacks coming from Israel into Iran that, you know, were backed by the United States, it's effectively creating a, in my opinion, a totally unnecessary risk of starting another one of these Middle Eastern conflicts. And it's the exact kind of thing that Donald Trump specifically promised on the campaign trail that he wouldn't do. So what the fuck, Scott Horton.
Scott Horton
I'm with you, man. All right, here's the deal. America started helping Iran develop their nuclear program in the 70s when it was still the Shah's regime, Right? Yeah. Then it was mothballed more or less through the Iran, Iraq war, I think they started developing it. I need to go back and re research because I forget exactly when they started construction on Boucher. I know that Bill Clinton had the opportunity to stay out of the way when China was trying to sell Iran light water reactors in the 1990s. Now light water reactor produces waste that can't be refined into weapons fuel. So unlike a heavy water reactor produces plutonium waste that with some effort can be refined, get the impurities out and you can use that as plutonium 239 for fissile material for a nuclear bomb. And so Clinton could have just let the Chinese sell them the light water reactors and we probably wouldn't even be having any of this conversation right now. But he intervened there. And so they went to the black market and they bought nuclear materials and designs or nuclear equipment materials and designs from AQ Khan, the Pakistani nuclear scientist and arms dealer who had stolen all of his stuff from Urenko, which was a Dutch company that the CIA by the way, let him steal all this stuff because they want to see where he went with it all.
Thief
They let him steal it?
Scott Horton
Yeah. And then, oh, I didn't know that. And then he was the father, one of the fathers of the Pakistani bomb. And then he proliferated the the equipment to North Korea, Libya and Iran as well.
Thief
I think he also literally like had a meeting with Osama Bin Laden at one point. If I'm thinking of the same guy.
Scott Horton
I don't know about that. I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm not saying you're on. There's a lot I have not read but. So in 2002. Well, I don't know. I'll go back in 1990, in 1979, there was a popular revolution there that overthrew the Shah. The American supported dictator since 1953 and the coup 53 now he was dying of cancer anyway and his regime was falling apart. The Americans knew he was dying. So he fled and went to South America first. And they're trying to figure out what to do. And the CIA and State Department recommended to Jimmy Carter that he send the Ayatollah Khomeini home from France. He had been in exile in Iraq and then in France. And they said we should send him back and let him inherit the revolution. He has major factions of the revolutionaries support him. And we know this guy. He was part of a group of conservative clerics that helped agitate against Mosaddegh back in 1953, who by the way, they had also supported Mosaddegh's rise to power before they decided to betray him.
Thief
Wasn't that like Kermit Roosevelt?
Scott Horton
Kermit Roosevelt that did the coup in 53. And so. But Khomeini had been part of a group that had helped agitate against Mosaddegh then. So they said, we, we know this guy, we think we can work with him him. So the CIA encouraged Carter to let the French put the Ayatollah back on a plane and send him home to inherit the revolution. Ten months later, the hostage crisis breaks out when David Rockefeller convinced Jimmy Carter to let the shot into the United States for cancer treatment. And that caused the riot to break out and the seizure of the hostages at the embassy and all that. So that was not all one thing. The original revolution was in February. The hostage crisis was in November.
Thief
Right.
Scott Horton
Anyway, I don't want to get too bogged down, but. So the Ayatollah is America supports Saddam Hussein in the Iran Iraq War, then H.W. bush bombs the crap out of Iraq in Iraq War one. And then the Israelis insist that America stay in Saudi Arabia to balance against Iraq and Iran since Iraq isn't powerful enough to balance against Iran anymore. So at this time, the Clinton administration was considering proposals by Zbigniew Brzezinski, who had been the National Security Advisor under Jimmy Carter, who had egg all over his face from the revolution and the failed rescue mission Eagle Claw and all this, and Ronald Reagan's Secretary of State, Alexander Haig, who had been a Kissinger protege and Kissinger meaning Rockefeller guy and, and even Dick Cheney from Halliburton. Dale wanted to. Who had been the Secretary of Defense under Bush Senior, of course, and then was the CEO of Halliburton. Dale wanted to build pipelines out of the Caspian Basin across Iran to the Persian Gulf as a way to one, make money, but also find a way to begin to integrate Iran back into the system, let bygones be bygones and figure out a way to get along. Dick Cheney said famously at the time that God did not see fit to put all the oil under friendly Western democracies. We're just going to have to do business with these people. And after all, we're the usa. We can deal with the Ayatollah. And so they were all overruled by the Israel lobby who said absolutely not and insisted that instead America, which they did, build what's called the BTC pipeline that goes from Baku, Azerbaijan through Tbilisi, Georgia to Cheyenne, Turkey on the Mediterranean, and then ship the oil to Europe that way. That way we cut out the Russians and the Iranians and get that oil out of there. That was also why they supported the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan in 1996, was because they wanted to build a pipeline across Tajik from Tajikistan. From. Yeah, from Tajikistan or Turkmenistan, sorry, across Afghanistan to the port of Karachi in. On the Indian Ocean in Pakistan, which was abandoned by 98. But that was why they supported the rise of the Taliban in 96. Anyway, so point being, despite everything, all other things being equal, from all the aftermath of the ugly Iranian revolution and failed rescue mission in 1979 and the Iran Iraq War and all of that, even see my confirmation bias, even Zbigniew Brzezinski and Alexander Haig and Dick Cheney said, we can go ahead and get along with the Ayatollah. Now, everybody but they were told do business, but they were told no by Israel, said, no, we're not doing that.
Thief
Why'd they say, yes, sir?
Scott Horton
Clinton went along. Well, Clinton had hired a guy named Martin Indick who had worked for Yitzhak Shamir. As a PR agent.
Thief
As a PR agent, yeah.
Scott Horton
And he was. Yitzchak Shamir was a hardcore Likud Party terrorist, murderer, and. And prime minister. And Indic was an Australian dash Israeli and had worked as a PR advisor for Yitzhak Shamir. Then he comes to work for Bill Clinton and ended up becoming Bill Clinton's ambassador to Israel. Although was he Israel's ambassador to the United States or the other way around?
Thief
Or what happened? Like, how do you let that happen?
Scott Horton
And so. Well, here's how they let this happen. Remember when we were talking about the neoconservatives earlier? I mentioned the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, winep. Well, that's literally a spin off of apac. They put up the money. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee. That's not true of every neocon think tank. That is the case with Win Up. That is literally a spin off of apac, and he's the founder of it. And he had been pressuring Clinton to adopt what they called the Israeli, The Rabin government called the dual containment policy. And Clinton was resisting until the Kuwaitis cooked up a fake assassination attempt against Bush Senior. Remember the lie that Saddam Hussein tried to assassinate Bush Senior with a truck bomb in Kuwait in 1993. Based on that lie, Bill Clinton launched a massive cruise missile attack against Baghdad and told Martin Indic, okay, go ahead. We'll do the. We'll do the dual containment policy. And Martin Indic gave a speech at Winnep announcing the inauguration of the policy. And it was the Kuwaitis. I don't think the Israelis were involved in that, as far as I know. But it was just a whiskey smuggling ring that they just embellished into this plot against Bush because Clinton had idiotically announced, I'm considering bringing Saddam Hussein in from the cold. When like, no, dude, you should have played those cards way closer to your chest, right? And made that, guess what, everybody, we're friends with Mao now kind of moment like Nixon did, right? And so. And so instead, the Kuwaitis. And guess what from. Everybody knows the story from Iraq War One in 1990 during Desert Shield, it was the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador who testified to Congress that she had seen Iraqi soldiers take babies and premature babies and throw them out of their incubators and leave of the Kuwaiti hospital, Kuwait City Hospital, and leave them on the cold floor to die just to steal their incubators. And this was a major propaganda point that they used to get us into Iraq War one as this crying young girl. Oh, they took the incubators and threw the babies on the floor. Not only was it not true, she was never even a nurse and wasn't even in Kuwait at the time of the invasion. It was 100% and, you know, fake. There was not even a kernel of truth to it. Didn't stop Amnesty International from saying that it was true too, though. And it became a major piece of the propaganda to launch the war and to get people's acquiescence to build up for the war in 1990. Well, it was her father was the one who put her up to that. He was the same guy who told the story of the fake truck bomb assassination plot against bush Senior in 1993.
Thief
Oh, they don't even hide it.
Scott Horton
They don't even know. It's all in Case Not Closed by Seymour Hersch in the New Yorker. And which, by the way, I was paying attention for us. I was still a high school kid, but I was paying a lot of attention at that time. And I have to tell you, that story that the assassination attempt had been debunked did not get around. And in fact, I think Bill Hicks knew about it, because Bill Hicks did emphasize in his joke, he says the alleged assassination attempt against Bush Sr. You know, and he did refer to the Iraqgate scandal and stuff. I think. I think he may very well have known, you know, how fake that was. By the way, they murdered a famous Iraqi artist named Layla Alatar in the striking. Oh, that that was an accident. But People wondered about that because she had decorated the floor of a hotel lobby with a tile mosaic of George Bush so that you could walk all over his face when he walked into the lobby. And then.
Thief
Probably wasn't her brightest moment.
Scott Horton
Yeah. And then they accidentally killed her with a Tomahawk missile for it.
Thief
Yeah. Those accidents tend to happen.
Scott Horton
Yeah.
Thief
When you do things like that.
Scott Horton
Yeah. This is like a month after Waco. And Bill's like, man, I haven't had any blood to drink in a while. Kill me some woman for doing a mosaic I don't like. Pull that number up. Anyway, so. So then that was how the Israelis did their. Their coup over American policy, enforced the dual containment policy, which was again, number one on the list of motive for turning America's own terrorist mercenaries against the American people. And then prevented, of course, the warming up of relations with Iran this whole time. Then when W. Bush comes to power, the bin Ladenites hit us. Right. The absolute inverse anti matter of the Iranian Shiite regime. And they hit us. And the Ayatollah says, great, now's our chance to get along with America better than before. You hate the Taliban, you hate Saddam Hussein, you hate Osama bin Laden. Let's do business. And I knew.
Thief
Said that.
Scott Horton
Yes. I mean, this is not an exact quote, but that was the posture of the Iranian government. They held a million man vigil on September 12 in Tehran, which was. Yes, orchestrated by the regime. Hey, everybody, come out. This is our chance to suck up to the usa. Brand new president, horrible crisis. Our enemies are their enemies. Let's do this, huh?
Thief
Can we Google that?
Scott Horton
I didn't know. Yeah, pull that up.
Thief
A million man vigil on September 12, 2001, in Iran, in Tehran.
Scott Horton
Yep. And see, there's.
Thief
That'll make you think.
Scott Horton
There's former State, National Security Council and State Department officials named Flint Leverett and Hillary Mann, who ended up becoming his wife, Hillary Man Leverett. And they both worked for W. Bush. And they told me this story themselves, so I know that this stuff is true. That after September 11, they wanted to suck up to the United States and do whatever they could to give us intelligence to help us fight in Afghanistan, to turn over bin Ladenites that they captured and to negotiate at least to trade intelligence about them and. And possibly trade custody with members of the Mujahideen. E. Kalk. And then in 2003, right after we. No, don't, don't, don't look at Google. AI. It does not know anything. It does not know anything. Dude, I hate that goddamn thing. You Know, I asked it. I saw this documentary all about Libya and it had Dewey Claridge in it. And I wanted to Write in the YouTube comments about. Oh, that's funny. Dewey Claridge is in the Libya documentary, huh? Because here's conflict of interest about him. And then I wanted to Google the conflict of interest and make sure I know what I'm talking about before I say this. But I. Dude, I know this stuff from when it happened. So I asked Google, I typed in Dwayne Claridge, Blue Mountain Security, Benghazi, Libya. And Google AI told me, Dwayne Clarage has nothing to do with Benghazi. Like, its job is to debunk me, not to help me find it. Not. Well, he owned a company called Clearview that nine different sources say help Blue Mountain Security get the contract to protect the Benghazi consulate, who then outsourced it to the February 17 brigade who did not do their job that day. Remember, Google AI is not here to tell me. Oh, I know what you must be thinking of there, Horton. Let me, let me help you find that instead. No, its job is telling me no, Dwayne Claridge would never do something like that. He would never. He has nothing to do with his company. Hired the company that didn't do the job that day. That is something to do with it. Thank you very much. Like, who programmed this thing where its job is making sure to prevent me from going overboard here.
Thief
They would never do that at Google, Scott, come on.
Scott Horton
I don't like it. Google is a. I've seen pictures of them Iranians with their candles, man.
Thief
I've seen them is the greatest company of all time Before Deep fake. They've never lied about anything. They've.
Scott Horton
They.
Thief
All they have is seeking the truth now. But in all seriousness, Deep, where were we? Deep and I, we're. We're going to come back to the Iran thing. We're talking about the build up to that. But oh yeah, Deep and I had some of this happen live. There's a reel I have on my Instagram from June with the Bezos thing. I don't remember what it was, but we were like talking about Bezos. I'm on airplane mode, so I can't find it, but we were talking about Bezos and Epstein or something. And Google AI spit out like this one line. Answers said all ties of Jeff Bezos and Jeffrey Epstein are completely fabricated and have been debunked. Like one sentence, you see. Usually it's like paragraphs and then we, we were on a Patreon episode. So we start talking about it, like, here with the computer listening, and we're. And we're citing all the ev. Evidence. And so, like, two minutes later, Deep goes and pulls it up and types it in. And this time it gives us some information. Completely different answer. Because it's like, oh, all right. We got caught. You know what I mean? And I'm like, oh, my God.
Scott Horton
That.
Thief
Like, we caught it in real time.
Scott Horton
There's a bubble that's gonna pop. I hate this AI crap.
Thief
Wait, here it is. On September 18th, 2001. So it was the 18th, not the 12th, but close enough. Just a week after the terrorist attacks, Iranians gathered in Tehran's Mosseni Square. They were holding a candlelight vigil for the victims. 9, 11 Security forces shut down the vigil shortly after it began.
Scott Horton
I don't think that's right. Who's she?
Thief
Holly. Can we check that out? Holly Degress?
Scott Horton
I don't think that's right. I think it was a lot bigger than that.
Thief
American senior fellow. Yeah.
Scott Horton
From the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Martin Index Group that we're just talking about. Yeah, the war party. Your enemy, anyway. No, that's not true. It was the regime that. That held the vigil that had everybody do it. Because I've seen pictures where it's like, see a candlelight, whatever. Should be able to.
Thief
Yeah. But we basically didn't accept them sucking up at the time.
Scott Horton
Right. So what happened? Was it right after the invasion of Iraq? Remember now, Ahmed Chalabi, who sold all the lies about the weapons of mass destruction, he was being backed by Iran. Now, he was his own agent. I'm not saying he was just an Iranian front, but Iran knew what he was doing. Yeah. INC Headquarters was in Tehran. This guy's job, this Iraqi Shiite exiles job, was telling American Jewish Zionist neoconservatives that if only you get rid of Saddam Hussein, it's gonna really stick it to that Ayatollah.
Thief
Oh, yeah, that's.
Scott Horton
That is the group there.
Thief
Benjamin Netanyahu was telling us in Congress in 2002, too, because you must have made a ruck. You must have made a run.
Scott Horton
But that's what I'm saying is fuck you. The Ayatollah is upstream because the Ayatollah told Jollibee to tell Richard Pearl to tell Netanyahu that. That's why Netanyahu believe that. I think he got it. He was fooled by these guys who promised him an oil pipeline to Haifa. And the rest Deep div.
Thief
Can we pull up the, the chart of every time since the 1990s, Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed Iran is close to a nuke. Have you seen this?
Scott Horton
I haven't seen the chart. I know there's a great article by a guy named Nima Shirazi called the Phantom Menace that has quotes going back to at least 1993. It's a great article. I don't, I'm not sure the chart that you're talking about.
Thief
I wish I had it.
Scott Horton
And, and by the way, I, I do not mean in any way to spin for Netanyahu. I'm not acquitting Netanyahu by saying that he was duped by Chalabi. No, I understand. You know what I mean? Yeah.
Thief
Basically he said since the 90s, like repeatedly, Iran is two months away. Iran is six months away. Iran is a year away. Iran is nine months away. Iran is nine days away.
Scott Horton
Even here when he attacked them, he said they could have one, they could have a year. He said to Brett Baer, in other words, he's admitting no emergency.
Thief
Yes at that point. And Tulsi Gabbard got shut down on her opinion on this. And it's looking like three months later.
Scott Horton
I'm taking too long to answer your question, is what you're saying. Let me get to the nukes here. No, no, that's important. Okay, so, so, so Rock War two. Rock War two happens. And my point about Chalabi is the Ayatollah hated Saddam and wanted rid of the guy. And the Ayatollah helped use these Iraqi exiles to use the neoconservatives to use the United States to get rid of him for them by making these promises about how they'll suck up to Israel now. And so that's a good one.
Thief
Deep's got it up here. Netanyahu's Iran. Are there links for all those?
Scott Horton
Is there, is there?
Thief
This one's just from X. There's a one there, there's one I'm thinking of that has like a direct source. But this is a screenshot from what I saw.
Scott Horton
Yeah, hot links or it ain't real. Yep, but that's still true. Anyway, Nima Shirazi in, in the Phantom Menaces, the article by Nima Shirazi has proof for all of his claims in there. I can recommend you that. But so anyway, the Ayatollah wanted rid of Saddam, America got rid of Saddam for him. And then not only that, W. Bush took the Iranian backed parties, the Supreme Islamic Council and the Dawah Party to power. In Baghdad, they were doing exactly what Iran wanted. So America's post 911 foreign policy is right up the Ayatollah's alley. He has every reason to want to cooperate with us. Then what happens is there's an Al Qaeda terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia and the neoconservatives convince W. Bush that Iran did it and that Iran was that the attack was organized by Al Qaeda in Iran backed by the Ayatollah's regime.
Thief
So who did it?
Scott Horton
So now it was the Bin Ladenites that did it. So, but they convinced him that. So that. And, and he bought it because he's an idiot. And so that, then that completely destroyed the cooperation, the spirit of cooperation between the United States and Iran on our joint goals. Again, they hated the Taliban, they hated Saddam, they hated Osama. There's every reason in the world that we can use them to help with our goals and vice versa here as from the administration's point of view, except for the neoconservatives, in other words, the Likud, the American Likud. And so Iraq War two ends up benefiting Iran immensely. But anyway, so we'll skip Syria and all that because it's part of that story, but on the nuclear program, because this is the major conflict between Israel and Iran. In 2002, in the state of the Union, Bush declared that Iran was part of the axis of evil. Now this term was written up by David Frum, who was the lick spittle of Richard Pearl, co author of the Clean Break with, with David Worms or. And they said Iran, Iraq and North Korea represent an axis of evil. And heavily implying that they're all tied to Osama bin Laden and the terrorists who hit us on September 11th as well. Now, first of all, just think of how absurd it is, of course, that they want us to believe that, that Osama bin Laden is in an alliance with Saddam Hussein and the Ayatollah and Kim Jong Il.
Thief
No, that's, that's, that's like the Cowboys, Giants and Eagles being.
Scott Horton
Yeah, yeah.
Thief
Makes no sense.
Scott Horton
So. But the thing is also, it's obvious too, isn't it, that the only reason they didn't put Syria in there was because then it'd be too obvious that this is Ariel Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu talking. So that was why they put North Korea in there, just because it's far away. But that also really throws a, your whole axis thing into doubt too. When North Korea had sold some missiles to Iran before, but they had no real alliances. They're not part of anything Anyway, so that's a major step back in our relations with Iran and with everybody else at that time. Now Saddam Hussein said, man, I'm unarmed. Here's my 12,000 page dossier. Don't shoot. And America just bulldozed right in there. Anyway, Kim, I'll, I'll skip the story. Kim said, screw you guys, I'm making nukes. And he made nukes in North Korea. We ain't messed with him since. Or his son. The Ayatollah said, especially as long as you're busy in Iraq, I'm getting going on my nuclear program. But it's a civilian program protected by the Non Proliferation Treaty and our safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency. So we're making a civilian program to produce electricity. Our books are wide open. You have no excuse to invade because we're not making a nuclear bomb. The previous Ayatollah said, we're not making a nuclear bomb. It's haram, forbidden by God. And the new Ayatollah says the same thing too. We're not doing it. On the other hand though, let's not anybody be by be naive. They are mastering the fuel cycle and they're proving that they have the capability to make nuclear weapons. They're making what you call a latent nuclear nuclear deterrent. And they did that legally. That's part of the non proliferation treaty is that any country that signs any non nuclear weapons state that signs that treaty has a right to nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. And so it's, they were essentially attempting to achieve the capability, what you would call as a threshold state, which is the same as Japan, Germany and Brazil. Everybody knows they've mastered the fuel cycle. They could make an atom bomb, but so don't push them into making an atom bomb. And that was essentially the nature of America's standoff. And you know, on Israel's behalf mostly, yeah, but America's and Israel's standoff with Iran for the last 25 years, since early W. Bush years or well, let's say 20 years really. 2005 was when they revealed the, the Natanz facility. They didn't really begin spinning centrifuges till I think the end of that year, maybe beginning of 06. And then so W. Bush put maximum pressure and got sanctions, got the Europeans to add sanctions and do all these things to try to force them to just completely abandon the thing. Refused to negotiate with them in good faith through the end of his presidency. Barack Obama comes in and he's got Netanyahu has sworn in as Prime Minister again right before he's sworn in. The poor son of a. And I hate Barack Obama. I hate to have any sympathy for the guy whatsoever, but for this. Imagine you are elected President of the United States of America two months after Benjamin Netanyahu comes back to power as Prime Minister of Israel.
Thief
Dude, have you ever.
Scott Horton
What a bump. No matter who you are. I would even sympathize with William Jefferson Clinton over that.
Thief
And.
Scott Horton
And I. In fact, the first time that Clinton met with Netanyahu, he met with him for half an hour. 96.
Thief
Yeah.
Scott Horton
And then the story was that he came out of there breathless and said, who does f. Does this guy think he is? Who's the superpower and who's the client state? Right, right. Because Netanyahu just talked to Clinton like he was the butler. Look, bitch, shine my shoes and give me a nuclear whatever just to do that. Anything, dude. God, that guy. Yeah.
Thief
Clinton also spent a lot of.
Scott Horton
He.
Thief
He ran. He had, like, political action committees. I don't know if that's the official term you want to use for it, but there were basically, like, shadow committees working against electing Netanyahu in the first place. And then I believe he worked against it again in 99. It was successful.
Scott Horton
Really? What book do I read about that? I like that. I did want to know.
Thief
You want to know what book?
Scott Horton
I hate Bill Clinton so much, and you're, like, telling me a reason to actually like book.
Thief
You should read that in Benjamin Netanyahu's autobiography.
Scott Horton
Dope.
Thief
I can't wait to read. I finished Benjamin Netanyahu's autobiography, which is like 1200 pages.
Scott Horton
Oh, my God.
Thief
I finished it in September 2023.
Scott Horton
I'm not reading that.
Thief
You should read it because he. The great thing about someone writing a book like that is they think they're the good guy in the story, and they reveal themselves unknowingly throughout the pages. I learned everything I need to know about the guy and what a sociopath he is reading that book. It's funny you bring up the Barack Obama thing, though, because Barack Obama, I'm not a fan of his presidency and he was particularly awful on pretty much all things foreign policy. That said, he was the best president we have ever had by a mile on managing the Israel relationship in so many ways.
Scott Horton
And I gotta disagree with that.
Thief
But I'm willing to listen if you don't believe me. Read Netanyahu's book.
Scott Horton
Yeah.
Thief
And see the fucking thorn in his side. The only reason Israel got some things done is because Netanyahu had a back door to his old buddy Joe Biden. And even though they had political disagreements, they got along. Yeah, that is why some things got done. But Barack Obama, the very first meeting he ever had with Netanyahu, Netanyahu was like all excited to meet him. He walked in, wagged his finger and Netanyahu's face and said, no more settlements. Bibi. Those were the first words out of his mouth, mouth. And it's like, that's like a breath of fresh air. Like, when the fuck has a president ever done that?
Scott Horton
But the history of Obama's presidency is he gave his big Cairo speech and he said, we're going to do a two state solution. We're going to do a two state solution. We'Re going to do it. Oh, we're. Oh, we're actually, we're not going to do a two state solution. What we're going to do is we're going to do an Iran nuclear deal. We're going to do an Iran nuclear deal. And he spent the entire rest of his presidency to get the Iran nuclear deal, which was. And then. And he completely screwed the. He totally. And did nothing for the Palestinians whatsoever. Completely backed down from that. And then on the nuclear deal, he got a deal that was easy enough for Trump to simply withdraw from with the stroke of a pen. A couple.
Thief
The deal was, the deal was terrible. It was a joke.
Scott Horton
It wasn't that bad.
Thief
But he had his fucking speech writer write it, which tells you all you need to know.
Scott Horton
That's not true.
Thief
Ben Rhodes wrote the fucking nuclear deal. Who else wrote it?
Scott Horton
Well, John Kerry and his guys. And plus what's his name with the funny hair from the Energy Department, you know, was the. Do you remember his name? The guy with a really bad comb over there. There was a huge team of people.
Thief
Who were sure other people contributed, but I'm saying like.
Scott Horton
And Ben Rose was the deputy National Security advisor. I don't mean to give the guy credit for anybody. Right. That was where he came from.
Thief
Yeah, yeah, let's call what it is.
Scott Horton
But the deal, if you read the deal, what the deal actually did was it severely rolled back Iran's program. It made where Fordo was a research facility only, no production. They poured concrete in the Iraq heavy water reactor. They shut down like two thirds of the centrifuges spinning at Natanz. And the only thing about it. And they expanded the inspections regime so that the Americans and the IAEA could inspect even sites where everyone agreed there were no nuclear materials or any overt proof that there were nuclear materials or nuclear machines or machines that could accept nuclear materials in any of those places. In other words, in military bases where. And then the deal was on the UN Security Council, America and their friends, the American government and its friends outvote the Russians and the Chinese, right? It's, we got America, France and Britain versus Russia and China. And so. And there was no veto power on this. So if America, Britain and France agreed that there was something in Iran they wanted to search, there was nothing Russia and China could do about that. And the Iranians, as long as they had a good reason to show, then the Iranians had to let them inspect even military sites, which is far beyond any inspections regime that any country has ever had by a million miles. And all the hype about, oh yeah, but explain these molecules here and explain this sample there. All of that has been, all of it has been debunked over and over again from the implosion testing at Parchin and all of this stuff. I mean, I spent years on this stuff stuff. And every one of those. Oh, the IAEA is raising very serious questions about a sample that seems to reveal an isotope of this or that. None of that is meaningful. None of that has traced back to any illicit or secret parallel nuclear weapons program of any kind. And so what happened was at the time that they did the deal, it was as though the non Proliferation Treaty never existed. It was as though no one had ever heard of the safeguards agreement or the IAEA inspections regime there. It's like we're all just pretending that none of that is going on. And as far as we know, Iran is making nuclear bombs right now and so Israel might just have to bomb them. And I think Obama was legitimately worried that Israel was going to do what they did last June and just go ahead and start the war. And in fact, you can find this if you want. Zbigniew Brzezinski said that if Israel tries to fly over Iraq to bomb Iran, Obama should shoot him down. Yeah, he wasn't exactly tight with the neocons. Only on Russia. Yeah, not on Iran and Israel.
Thief
I'm just, what I'm saying is it's a low bar, Scott, but comparatively speaking, obviously with the Cairo speech and saying he would get the two state. He didn't do that, to be clear. Like he backed down on that. Not even close. But like he's the only guy, the only fucking president I can point to in modern history who actually was willing to be like you.
Scott Horton
No, that's not true.
Thief
When something didn't make sense.
Scott Horton
Why do you think Bush senior was a one term president? Let's force them to do this thing right now. The, the two state solution. This is our chance. And then they were gone.
Thief
I'm unaware of that.
Scott Horton
Yeah. And they blame Bush himself, blamed the Israel lobby for his defeat in 1992. George W. Bush and Colin Powell tried to do the two state solution after September 11th, until Tom Delay came to town and said, we'll turn the entire evangelical Christian right against you and you'll be a one term president just like your old dad.
Thief
Yeah.
Scott Horton
So he started all the wars and so he backed down.
Thief
Yeah.
Scott Horton
And so Barack Obama, he went a bit further. But, but yes, it's true that the deal, it wasn't a treaty. He wasn't able to get a treaty through. Israel has too much control of this country for that. And so it was an agreement that Donald Trump was able to simply tear right up in 2018, which set us on the path for the current conflict. Even though there's so much hype about this, it drives me crazy because like Mike Baker went on a certain major podcast and said, well, what do you think 60% might mean? Or something like, why are we doing hypotheticals here? What are we talking about? He and Marco Rubio both said, like, well, the only countries with 60% enriched uranium have nuclear bombs. That doesn't mean anything. What are you talking about? We all know. Yes, a nuclear, an atom bomb made with uranium has to be approximately 90% uranium 235. That's the sweet stuff, not the 238. That's why you spin it in centrifuges. You take the ore, you refine it, you convert it to uranium hexafluoride gas, then you spin it in the cascades of centrifuges till you get all the 238 goes to the outside and the 235 stays to the inside. And that's the stuff that at 3.6% uranium 235. Oh, and then you convert it back to a metal for introduction into your reactors. So at 3.6% you use that for your electricity. At 20%, you can use those for targets for your medical isotope reactors. Above that, you're getting toward nuclear weapons grade material. Right. But so then Mike Baker goes 60%. What are you talking about, Mike? They stopped at 60. They didn't go to 90. They're not making weapons fuel. What in fact are they doing? They are making bargaining chips for negotiations. They're trying to build up something to give away. And what's the history of the 60%? The history of 60% is that Donald Trump tore up the deal in 2018. Then in December of 2020, in Trump's lame duck period, the Israelis, through the Mek Mujahedini cult, communist terrorist cult, did this machine gun attack and killed Fakrazada, who is the leader of the Iranian nuclear program. And then Iran decided that they're going to start enriching up to 20% again. Then. Then in April of 2021, they did a sabotage attack at Natanz, which they took credit for and said that they did it, the Israelis. And it was after they did the sabotage attack at Natanz that the Iranians started enriching up to 60%, which they announced that they were going to do. At no point did they kick the IAEA inspectors out of the country, withdraw from the safeguards agreement. And they're not even in violation necessarily of their safeguards agreement now. They are in violation of the JCPOA that America completely withdrew from and that they are technically still within. Because it says in the treaty that if America stops abiding by not the treaty, the deal. If America stops abiding by the deal, Iran can stop abiding by parts of the deal. They don't have to implement all of the strictures of the deal without breaking the deal. They can stay in the deal. It says in there, if America starts not doing what they're supposed to do, then you don't have to do what you're supposed to do again. So now all that's happening here is they're trying to get America back into negotiations so they can either get back into the JCPOA or something like it.
Thief
The devil's advocate question. I would have, because I, I mean, I'm on your side with this. I, I, I did not support striking them. I just want to see where people could be coming from potentially. If a regime like that, which, regardless of some past where maybe they wanted to try to cozy up to us a couple of times, if a regime like that, that does say death to America, that is totalitarian, that is not controlled by our CIA, is going to, you know, enrich uranium and get up to a 60% level, who's to say that they won't as a bargaining chip, who's to say they won't try to make the bargaining chip to 90%?
Scott Horton
Well, that's the whole point. Negotiate now before they do. As I said, this has been a latent deterrent all the time since 2005. They're saying, look at me, I know how to enrich uranium. Right? That's like, look at me. I have a bullet factory in my backyard. I also own firearms. So far, I haven't loaded any of my weapons. So you can have your inspectors hang around, but at some point, the point is, you understand I'm asking you to not push me so far that I go ahead and start loading my guns and pointing them at you. Right?
Thief
That's the whole point.
Scott Horton
All of this is diplomacy from the beginning. So who's to say that they won't? I'm warning you. They might. They're warning you they might. That's the whole point. Listen, guys, I was enriching up to 3.6%. Then I went up to 20, and I got a plausible deniability that that's just for my cancer isotopes. And everybody needs, everybody knows we need that. But like, now, here I am at 60. Would you please come and sit at the table and talk? That was what it was. If they wanted to go to 90 and make bombs, they could. If they wanted to make 90% and hold it and say, you know, I could make a bomb out of this, they could have done that. They did not do that. So the question is, why stop at 60? What's the point of having 60% U235 at all? Because it's a bargaining chip. It's simply a card to play in negotiations so they can negotiate it away.
Thief
So why did we attack them?
Scott Horton
Why did Israel attack them? Israel attacked them because right now, everything's coming up, Benjamin.
Thief
But we did, we did support the attack with, with. Oh, yeah, that dropping, dropping bombs on force and all that.
Scott Horton
Well, that was two weeks into the thing. And I, I believe that Donald Trump knew good and well that they were going to attack and gave them the green light to do it. Okay, so that counts. And. Which was a real betrayal of diplomacy at the time.
Thief
Yeah.
Scott Horton
Now, Tucker Carlson, sources in the White House told him that's not true. They were in the middle of negotiations. They had a scheduled meeting on Sunday, and the Israelis just did this and forced it on the administration.
Thief
Forced it. Like, why did we back it up? That's what I want to know. Why? If they're breaking red lines, why is there no, like, there are.
Scott Horton
Trump looks, Trump looks weak. If Netanyahu is dragging him around, if he can deny he's dragging around by saying, of course I told him to do it, then he saves more face that way.
Thief
Or he gets to publicly excoriate him and say, you Broke the red line. I'm going to go deal with Iran myself now and negotiate with them. You. Why does he do. That's a strong move. Why does he do that?
Scott Horton
He and the Republican Party still got to deal with the Israel lobby from here on out. It's a lot of money.
Thief
He doesn't have to win another election. This is what I don't understand. Why does he billionaire.
Scott Horton
He could finance the Republican Party himself with a new endowment for the next 50 years. Right? He, he, I mean, the New York Times said, digging through their things, that they said he had at least $4 billion. We know his children and great, great grandchildren are set for all time. He's in his late 70s. The whole point. When he ran in, in 15 and 16, he stopped saying this. I really wish he'd stuck with it. It sure made a great line in a debate. Was like he said something very close to, look, guys, I'm retired. I already won at life. That's why I'm here. Is like as a charitable thing for my country. So take control of this thing, away from these kooks and at my. I don't have anything to gain from this. I don't care. So why is he. And so what he should have done right then was just started writing checks because. And I think what happened was he even said to aipac, I don't need your money. He was like, they said, oh, my God, he's anti Semitic because he's saying these Jews have money. When he's like at a meeting of the Republican Jewish Coalition or whatever it was, he's going, I don't need your stinking money. But then he realized real quick, the Republican Party does, you know, got 435 House districts, 100 Senate seats to fight over. And you've got all the state Houses and state Senates and the governorships and all of that. That's a lot of money. And you can't just make that big of a break. He's not willing to. And look, I'm the one who just said he's got billions. If anybody could or should, it would be him. But then Miriam Adelson, Sheldon Adelson, they go, look, man, we got hundreds of millions of dollars for you here. We'll write you a check for 100 million right now. We'll write you another check for 100 million in two years, another check for 100 million in three years.
Thief
And you'll put the embassy, you'll put the embassy in Jerusalem. You'll send Jonathan Pollard back to kiss the Ground and shake Netanyahu's hand and pardon Scooter Libby. Pardon Scuba. I didn't even know that.
Scott Horton
Recognize the seizure of the Golan Heights.
Thief
And then also, by the way, you know, the rumor from the May 28, the report, the reports from the May 28, 2400 million that Miriam Adelson gave him was that it was in exchange for eventually supporting the settlement of the west bank for Israel. Now, I will give Donald Trump this credit. As of the recording of this podcast five days ago, he said that's not going to happen. Let's see if he sticks to that. But I'm saying, like, he's given them everything else they want. Jonathan Pollard's running for Knesset now on the, on the, on the platform of nuking Gaza, by the way. I don't know if you've seen that.
Scott Horton
But it's like, Jesus Christ.
Thief
I see. Like that. And I'm like, what the.
Scott Horton
Well, you saw where Smotrich said Gaza is going to be real estate bonanza. I just love that, man. Like, go ahead, dude.
Thief
Like, like, you have to look at this. Like, a lot of the Israeli people, of course, don't support this government. It wins with the minority because they have multiple. They have multiple parties. And then the hardcore hardline, like, Orthodox communities support it. But you have to take them at their word when they say this out loud. When Ben GVIR says out loud over and over again, we're going to ethnically cleanse Gaza. Get him out. Bomb them till they're gone. Total war. This is a guy who has a picture of Baruch Goldstein over his dining room table. I think he's fucking serious about it. Like, that doesn't mean that fucking Jews in the Diaspora support this. None of my Jewish friends support this. But it is now making a bad name for everyone around the world because of the actions of, like, this group of people who is wanted by the icc. It doesn't make sense to me then, when the president of my country is fucking risking enormous Middle Eastern wars again at their behest, when they have no international support right now. All the leverage should be on this end. I understand. And that there's money flowing and whatever, but you don't have another election to win, man.
Scott Horton
But see, these are all Donald Trump's friends. And no, Arabs are not really. You know what I mean? Like, the, the Saudis flatter him and stuff. But like, in New York City, where he's done business his whole life and all these things, all his friends in California, too, on his, you know, TV Business and whatever. Everywhere he goes. And look, Donald Trump is from Queens. He's not a Brooks Brothers, waspy wasp. He hangs out with Jews. He always has. You know what I mean? So, like, he just doesn't see the mileage and being on the other side of that. This doesn't make sense at all.
Thief
Yeah, but he's picking out the ones right now who are hardliners. A lot of them aren't hardliners. A lot of them don't like.
Scott Horton
Well, net. Well, Netanyahu needs the hardliners. Right. He was. He had formed so many different coalitions. The last time, I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, I believe was in December of 2020 when he formed his latest coalition. He had to go ahead and go this far. Right to Ben Gavir.
Thief
Yes.
Scott Horton
And smoches, where before he hadn't brought in guys this far to the right. But at this point, he needed them to stay out of jail. By the way, do the word real quick in just a sec. But I want to point out real quick that there is. It's available on the Pirate Bay, if anybody has a VPN and still uses that thing. I do. It's called the BB Files, this great documentary. And essentially all it is is it's surveillance footage, basically, from interrogations of Netanyahu and his wife and their friends. And Netanyahu tells Shin Bet national police on video, why did I support Hamas? Because that's how you thwart a Palestinian state. But don't worry, we control the height of the flames. Now, this is the same thing that he said in a meeting of the Likud, where one of the ministers came right out and told a reporter, and that reporter went and got it immediately verified with someone else who was in the meeting. And then a different guy published a book saying the same thing. And then they denied it and said, he never said that. Well, here he is in Hebrew in this video and verified by other Hebrew speakers. That's the translation, all right. And he's saying this directly to the Shin Bet while being interrogated. They go, how can you support these terrorists? And his answer is, I know what I'm doing. That's the guy. And then their violence is the excuse for him to do anything in since then. But now, so fast forwarding, because we can't spend. I don't think we got time to spend too much on. Well, we'll see how it works. But let's fast forward through the. The horrific Gaza genocide that's happening now to just where we were in June So Netanyahu is looking at it like everything's coming up Likud, right? He's kicked the crap out of Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. Nasrallah is dead. He bombed the crap out of him with airstrikes and with the pager attack and just severely crippled their power, destroyed, I guess, you know, vast amounts of their weapon stocks and exhausted their missiles and whatever. So I don't know how you gauge it on a percentage chart, but Hezbollah's power has been severely diminished. Then their ally Bashar Al Assad in Syria is gone, replaced by Osama bin Laden's stepson, crazy Abu Mohammed Al Jalani. That's only the slightest exaggeration, but he's.
Thief
Like on stage with Petraeus doing like Q and A's now. Are you fucking kidding me?
Scott Horton
And this is a guy who, who openly admitted to American government television, Frontline pbs, that he fought Americans in Mosul and Ramadi in Iraq War ii.
Thief
By the way, fully support, you know, people in the UN Walking out from a speech from Netanyahu. The fact that they didn't walk out from that guy's speech is fucking embarrassing, seriously.
Scott Horton
And why does anybody support him? Because he kills Shiites for Israel. That's it. That's the only reason, you know. Well, for the Saudis and the Turks, I guess, feel the same way. I have all the quotes in the book where the Saudis say Prince, Turkey, or I forgot which, which Turkey, Saudi Prince says dash. That is ISIS is our response to your support for the Dawah. In other words, America put the Shiites in power in Baghdad, so that's why we're supporting the caliphate now. You know, so anyway, that's basically the policy. So June. No, so in June. So now the, the Hamas has been severely weakened. They're going to survive, but they have been severely weakened. In Gaza, Hezbollah is crushed. Well, severely set back, let's say in southern Lebanon, Bashar Assad and the Baathist regime in Syria allies with Iran and Hezbollahs no longer exists. Ain't nobody can do nothing about the Houthis, as we talked about, bomb them for years. And they're still there, but they can still bomb them and, and weaken them somewhat, I guess. The Iraqis seem to, even though they're friends with Iran, they seem to be mostly staying out of Israel's business, although they have attacked American positions in Syria. Their Shiite militias and stuff have. But then Iran is the big one. So the question is, if you're Benjamin Netanyahu, do you leave Iran there? Because Iran is a Good way to try to rally the Sunni kingdoms and join in all the Abraham Accords and everything and ally with Israel against the Shiite Persian enemy or what the hell, go ahead and go for the coup de gras, man. You've already done this and this and this and this. You got all these things going for you. Go ahead. One, destroy their nuclear program as much as possible. And to get America in there so that now it's our problem too. And now I don't know if, if Netanyahu is playing chess here at all. Forget 3 and 4D chess, just how about regular chess? It could be even checkers. Hell, I don't know how to play chess. It could be that what he's saying is what he's really doing is setting America on a path of more and more conflict with Iran until it goes all the way to regime change. Or it could be that he's just hoping for the best. We'll just bomb him as much as we can, we'll sit back their program as much as we can and then I don't know, see what happens then. They act on very kind of like high time preferences the Israeli government a lot of the time. So I really don't know what they're thinking there. But I can tell you that they have not obliterated Iran's nuclear program. We know that they have. Yes, we know that they have destroyed. I think they may have made fordo the comm facility essentially inoperable. But Natanz has survived. Much of the Isfahan conversion facility has revived, although I think maybe not the major most important building there, but I think the infrastructure there has survived the they bomb like surface targets at Natanz. But the majority I think of the centrifuges are still there. And the Iranians claimed at least that they were already working on a new secret facility deeper under a taller mountain. And they're continuing their program. They're absolutely. At least their stated position is that one, they're still not going to make nukes. And I'm not saying we can believe that. I'm saying it used to always be verified by the IAEA they weren't diverting any of their uranium. Now they've had a big break in their IAEA inspections for months. So we don't know what's happened in the country since then. As all the anti war people have said for years, they're more likely to make a nuke now than ever before, at least officially. They say nothing has changed. They have no intention to get a nuke no ambition to get a nuke. The Ayatollah says that God says, no nukes. Forget it. And so we're not doing that. However, we are going to keep enriching uranium and we are going to have a civilian nuclear program. It's a matter of our sovereignty and independence, and you're not going to take it from us. And we won't even talk to you until you acknowledge that. Now, I don't know if that's really right. I guess I would have to say it's like a 51% chance at least, maybe more. I don't know. It's definitely increased risk that now they're making nukes. It was always a bluff that. Don't make me begin to make nukes. We would always say, if you start making nukes, we'll attack you. And they would go, if you attack us, then we might make a nuke. Don't attack us, and we won't. So it was a perfect standoff. Now Israel has called their bluff on our behalf, and Trump has adopted Israel's point of view that for Iran to have a nuclear program at all is the same thing as them having a nuclear weapons program. Oh, no, they're a year from a nuke. If they tried to make one is not good enough for Trump. He's willing to bomb over that. He's willing to accept Israel's parameters for that. So what does that mean when they prove that, hey, we're still spinning centrifuges, we're still making uranium, and we're still going to have a nuclear program. Then we bomb them again, and then they say, go to hell. We're still going to do it, and you can't stop us. Then we got to send in the 82nd Airborne. And then what? You got to kill every Shiite cleric in the country till there's nobody left to call himself Supreme Leader? You're going to parachute in the Shah's grandson and the whole thing gets completely absurd.
Thief
Who's lived in Washington, D.C. for 46 years, by the way.
Scott Horton
Yeah. And look, Iran is three times the size of Iraq with four times the population and all mountains.
Thief
Yeah, geographically.
Scott Horton
And they haven't been at war since 1989. And so look, I admit I was surprised at how well the Israeli Air Force did against Iran's anti aircraft. They had a lot of guys infiltrated in there who did sabotage missions. Yes. Plus they hit him with cruise missiles from standoff range, you know, with. I guess they had local guys lays in them or just excellent satellite coverage. The Iranians were doing a piss poor job. Hey, security is a government program, man. So they did a piss poor job of protecting their anti aircraft and Israel almost immediately had total air dominance over the country and America as well. Nobody even took a shot at the B2s when they flew them in there. So Iran did much more poorly than I thought there. On the other hand, they were very wise to fire only 14 missiles, which that's how many bombs America dropped. So they fired 14 missiles in response at bases in Iraq and in Qatar. And they called ahead of time, like they had done before. After the killing of Soleimani, they called ahead of time and they fired at empty corners of bases, said, make sure you shoot this down. We're not going to do nothing. But we're talking about saving the barest of face and not doing what all the propaganda would have said, which is launch a war against America. It's the madman Ayatollah. The moment this guy has a nuke, he's going to nuke Tel Aviv. Even if it gets every last Iranian kill. He doesn't care because that he's so religiously motivated with His End Times 12 or Theology and Things. Yet here he is. America bombs the hell out of his country and in a highly symbolic way too, right? Like destroying this important symbol of their independence in this way. And he does the minimum. And all he can tell Trump is, look, man, I don't want to fight you, because after all, what cards does he really have to play?
Thief
That's what I'm saying.
Scott Horton
Trump, Trump can really escalate. The only real card he has to play is a secret weapons program. Now, which I'm not betting on that, but man, I couldn't bet against it either at this point. After all, it's only consistent with what I've been warning this whole time, is that if we bomb them, then they're much more likely to make a nuke poking it.
Thief
And it's like, dude, this is, this is where I'm always careful how I say this. I'm never gonna in any way do anything except shred terrorism and talk about how bad it is. What I do try to do is plan for a better future. And one of the ways to do that is to determine what caused this, why did this happen? Why did someone, why did someone that was a baby at one point become a murderous terrorist when they were 20 years old or something? And unfortunately, when I see people blowing up buildings 20 years from now, 20 year olds, 25 year olds, I'm going to hate them. For it. I'm going to call it out. I'm not going to like it. It's going to be very sad. I'm going to completely understand how it happened.
Scott Horton
Right.
Thief
And I've seen this movie over and over again and no one's ever given me a good answer as to how to prevent that.
Scott Horton
Well, we just have to stop the intervention. I mean, that's it. And look at all the. There's been a lot of FBI entrapments, but there have been some real ass terrorist attacks in this country since September 11th. And they've all been motivated by American foreign policy. Hell, even when the FBI entrapped some idiot, they don't say, don't you hate freedom? They say, don't you hate America? Bombing this country back home that you care so much about, that's how they get them every time. And then same for the actual terrorists. And if you look at Zazi who tried to do the New York subways, the guy and his wife that did the San Bernardino attack, the Boston bombing, Fort Hood, Orlando, this is all blowback, man. There's this huge propaganda campaign about Orlando that said that Omar Mateen was a repressed homosexual whose religion hates gay people. And since he was so gay and yet so devoted to his religion, he decided to go crazy and massacre a bunch of helpless gay people partying at a club, the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. And so gay people unite against Islam. Guess What? That was 100% a lie. It was all of it. He wasn't gay at all. He'd never been there at all. His first target was Disney World. And then he decided they had too much security, so he googled nightclub and Pulse was the first one that came up. When he got there, he said, where are the women? And then he shot the place up anyway. And the only reason that all of this came to light was because they tried to falsely prosecute his old lady. And in her defense, she was able to get all these materials to prove and was able to testify and demonstrate all about this. There was nothing that was true like that. And as I quote thoroughly in the book, people who knew him said he hated gay people. It was like he hated everybody else, especially America and Israel and England and whatever. Like. Yeah. And then most crucially and importantly, while he was in there, oh, this is a part of the story too, there were two heroic cops who were following him right into the bathroom. He had killed a bunch of people and then had her. A bunch of people in the bathroom was holding the hostages in there. And these Two heroic cops were closing on him, ready to get his ass and ready to risk their lives to bust in there and shoot him in the head. And their superiors called them back and forced them to pull out of there. Then they laid siege to the place for like four hours or maybe two. But I think it was longer than that. For hours, the cops hid in cowardly terror outside. And then they finally breached a hole in the wall of the building. And when the innocent captives started coming out, the cops blew them away anyway. So while he was in there for hours, safely protected by the security force who was supposed to be protecting the people from him, he wrote a giant message on Facebook and he called 911. And we have the transcript of the 911 call and we have the entire Facebook message. And it is 100% bin Ladenite grievances against American foreign policy, particularly Barack Obama had built the caliphate in eastern Syria and western Iraq. And then he launched Iraq War III to destroy it again. Again. So at this time he was bombing the crap out of Iraq and Syria. And Omar Mateen is telling the 911 operator, you have to stop bombing Syria. You're killing women and children. You're killing women and children. You're killing women and children. You have to stop the airstrikes. You have to stop the airstrikes. That's it. It's the same thing since Ramzi Yousef wrote his letters to the New York papers in 1993. You have to stop bombing Iraq from bases in Saudi Arabia. You have to stop helping the Israelis murder the Palestinians and the Lebanese.
Thief
All right, let's.
Scott Horton
This whole time, that's what it's always been.
Thief
Let's ask the difficult question here then, because right now, obviously the actions of the current Israeli government are. You just can't defend them at this point. But I do always say this, and it's, and it's fair to say this also considering that a minority voted for them within that country. You know, I would not have, want to have been defined as Bush, Cheney. Right. So I, I try to separate people from their governments. I always do that as much as best as I can around the world. My friend Eric Zulager has an amazing quote where he literally says, people are not their governments and it puts things in perspective. So that, that said, and this gets a little weird with like the anti interventionist stuff, but let's see what you do with this outside of what is going on now, which is wrong and I think should be dealt with in a legal manner and hopefully that something like that does happen. The actual existence, though, in the Middle east of a country like Israel, which is the one country that is not like the other. It's not collegiate culture. It's not, you know, like Arab regimes, stuff like that. If Israel were not there and it were just sucked up and the entire Middle Eastern region from head to toe, were, you know, I'm generalizing here, but mostly like Khaleeji, Arab culture, the separation of that culture, quite literally and figuratively separating east from west, would that be a pretty big problem?
Scott Horton
No. What difference does that?
Thief
You don't think it would make a difference?
Scott Horton
Tell me what advantage Israel gives the United States there. The only one I can think of is they help Barack Obama back Al Qaeda in Syria, but that was him committing treason for them, wasn't it?
Thief
So I'm not saying that they're right in doing this. However, I would say Israel is highly. What's the word? They go on offense a lot when they spot a problem. And I disagree with a lot of their offense, to be clear.
Scott Horton
Not against our enemies. When we fight their enemies for them. They don't even come with us when we.
Thief
And that's also a problem. I agree. Yes.
Scott Horton
I'm sorry, hang on. We got to stop here. I got to take a leak so bad.
Thief
All right. All right. We'll be right back. All right, we're back. Go ahead, Scott.
Scott Horton
I think, you know, I'm not the greatest expert on the ins and outs of all this stuff, but I think overall, Israel is an obstacle to even the empire achieving its goals over there, which would, without Israel's interference, would simply be about securing petroleum resources, for that matter, lording control over them. Right, to screw the Russians on the price or. Or the Chinese on access or whatever. But any and all of those relationships would all be so much easier if we didn't have the headache of having to deal with the Israelis. And they don't even have any petroleum or hydrocarbons at all until they finish stealing all the natural gas from the Palestinians off the coast of Gaza. So, you know, they're like, I was saying about. There's that one example of Harold Road, the Neocon, taking over the Office of Net Assessment and purging all the Arabists in the Pentagon think tank in the lead up to Iraq War ii. But, like, that's a routine thing. That's like almost a cliche. Like all the Arabists getting fired from the Pentagon or getting fired from the State Department, all the people who actually know what they're doing, doing have to make way for the people with the Israeli agenda to come in and do their job instead. And so that's a mess, man.
Thief
It's a mess over there right now for sure. And it does seem like there are so many actions, especially when you look in the Micro, the last 20 years in particular, last 20, 25 years in particular, there's so many actions that were sold as like, hey, this is really good for us or really important for us. And it's like, is it? Yeah, I don't think so, dude.
Scott Horton
And even when you look at, like, who are the biggest proponents in America pushing for Rock War one, you go, man, I recognize a lot of those names. Charles Krauthammer and William Sapphire and Bill Crystal and the whole thing, man. Yeah. So, you know, I don't know what's the best book about that. And, you know, if anybody has ever done a deep dive, I should ask Jim Loeb. I bet he would know because, you know, there's a lot more going on in Iraq War one than just Israel. But then it's like, well, you look at that list of pro Iraq one hawks and it's like, there sure are a lot of neocons who write for a living. What can you say? But, like, they sure do agree on war against Israel's enemies a lot, you know?
Thief
Yeah, it gets strange, you know, and it's one of those things, the more it goes on, the harder it is to look at it objectively. Just because, like, I don't understand why you can't just stop the bombing right now at this point. Like, I mean, it shouldn't have started it, but, like, well, that's the new.
Scott Horton
What Trump is doing with this supposed peace plan is trying, I think, to give Netanyahu a lifeline. The fact is, as we all already knew, for an insurgency to win, they just have to not lose.
Thief
Right?
Scott Horton
And so that's what's happened here. And I wrote an article as soon as the war began for Antiwar.com saying, Look, the only way to really eradicate Hamas would be to inflict a level of violence that this population that they are embedded within absolutely cannot stand. So, no, there has to be better way. Cut this off, do it differently. And they Shin Bet and Mossad and IDF have all the ability in the world to pin, prick and kill one guy at a time when they want to. And they demonstrated that all the time.
Thief
Yeah, they did it in Iran and.
Scott Horton
They'Ve done it in Gaza. Right. When they took out the lead, some of the leaders of Hamas, they got you Know, one guy flies a drone in one window to get the one guy that they're looking for and shoots them. Pretty dystopian, crazy nightmare thing. But then why are you carpet bombing the.
Thief
That's right.
Scott Horton
Doing the whole DAEA doctrine against these people when you can, you know, they could shoot these people with poison darts one at a time with no collateral damage whatsoever if that was what they wanted to do. And so, yeah, it is. It's the sickest thing in the world. It's the most criminal regime in the world. And it was funny. I accidentally. I don't know what I was searching, but I found something else, and it was a tweet that I had said in last December where I said, donald Trump might be the most Zionist president of the United States in history, but he might be the last one. He is, because Israel is going to be permanently controversialized now. They are a dead letter. Name is mud on the left and more and more on the right all the time. It's something like 50, 50 on the right right now.
Thief
It is.
Scott Horton
People are sick and tired of being lied to.
Thief
Yes.
Scott Horton
And condescended to and used and abused in this way. I mean, for all the people listening to this or watching this think, Benjamin Netanyahu respects you. And this is a guy who has said on multiple occasions, in fact, on September 11, he told the New York Times, good for Israel. This is very good. I mean, not. Not very good, but, you know, good for the relationship between America and Israel. But the original sentence ended with good, period it. And then at another time, he said, we are truly benefiting from America's. From the September 11th attack and America's struggle in Iraq. Our struggle in Iraq. That's what you're benefiting from.
Thief
He's not that. He's not. He's not. He is not defensible. And again, I'll say this, I highly recommend people read his autobiography. He tells you exactly who he is. He doesn't realize he does.
Scott Horton
But by the way, one more important point here. You know, Tucker Carlson has recently called for Netanyahu to step down or to be made to step aside by Trump kind of thing. And others are repeating that. And then I've seen other people criticizing, understandably, saying, ah, man, you know, what you don't want to do is just narrow everything down to Netanyahu. And if only we could get rid of this one guy, things would be so much better. When, in fact, the problem is the Zionist project itself, public opinion in Israel right now is completely insanely behind Netanyahu beyond what you would want to believe could be true. And so these questions all still remain. Well, that's true. However, he is by light years. How many parsecs is a light year? Is it the other way around? By, by, by diameters of galaxies, Netanyahu is the most savvy and capable prime minister that Israel could possibly have. There is no one in the lineup who has the political levels of control and sophistication that this man can wield throughout the United States and Europe. Forget it. Naftali Bennett is nothing. Yara Lapid, all these guys I could deal with, Yar Lapid, okay, give me Benny Gantz, any one of these blood soaked killers, because none of them measure up to his capability in being the head of state of that nation and getting what he needs done. And I don't know what it is, but it's like, I remember. You ever read the Rise and Fall, the Third Reich?
Thief
Yes.
Scott Horton
Where Shearer, he describes Hitler as just like the most fanatical person on any issue who ever lived. Like, no one has ever been as excited about anything as this guy was excited about getting up in the morning and getting power. And I was like, that's Netanyahu, dude. This guy is just. There's a lot more Hitler comparisons that are also apt for him. But just the absolute doggedness of the guy. Do you think he cares about anything else than wielding this power? You know, that's all he cares about.
Thief
I, I agree completely, Scott. The one place I would push back is I think he's completely lost his fastball and I'll tell you why.
Scott Horton
Well, I don't disagree with that, but he's still the baddest guy on the field by a mile, by, by, for.
Thief
But he is completely isolated the world, he has completely lost. Like, that's the, that's the thing I would say about Netanyahu. Prior to 2023, Netanyahu, regardless of what you think of him as a person, this is just an objective statement, as a skillful whatever. Yeah, he was a politician on the level of a William Jefferson Clinton. The guy was absolutely masterful in being able to.
Scott Horton
What time you say I need to leave here?
Thief
About 15 minutes.
Scott Horton
Okay.
Thief
The guy was absolutely masterful on a Machiavellian level of acquiring power, holding on to it and expanding it, regardless of what uses he was using that for. However, I think he has completely lost the ability to read a room at this point. I think that, I think that he has absolutely no clue that literally him showing his face anywhere is, is Continuing to down the pole points of, of people supporting his nation. And the fact that, that after all this, he would come here and go to the Israeli consulate in New York and openly bring cameras in to capture him talking with American influencers about how to influence the public on social media.
Scott Horton
For Israel's gains, how to wage war against us.
Thief
In fact, bro, like the complete innovation. You're right.
Scott Horton
No, no, no, you're totally right about that. However, though, that's still the public and that's important, but that's longer term in terms of picking up the phone and making things happen in Washington. Yeah, he's as dialed in as, as. As linked into power and with the instincts and the insight to know who, whose phone he has to ring, what he has to do to get what he wants. And I think, yes, it's true, Israel would, Would serve. It would. Would do itself a great hasbara benefit by getting rid of him and giving us a nicer prime minister to look at or whatever. But the other edge of that sword is he would be, you know, that footage of. Of Zelensky at the UN meeting where everybody turns their back on him and he's just kind of standing around, you know what I mean, doesn't know what to do. Yeah, that's Naftali Bennett, which, by the way, Naftali Bennett caused September 11th 7th, just in case you don't know. He was part of Operation Grapes of Wrath in Lebanon. And he's the one who called in the UN. Pardon me, called in the artillery airstrike against the UN shelter and killed 106 women and children. And that was what it was. Well, first of all, it was Muhammad Atta and Ramsay bin Al Sheb signed their last will and testament and decided they wanted to join the jihad because of the fight, because of the invasion of Lebanon three days before. I think this was three or four days into the invasion. So they had signed the last one Testament, then the Khan of mass grab. And this is the first kind of massacre because they did it again in 2006, actually. But in 2000, in 1996, they did this. And then a couple of months later, Bin Laden put out his first declaration of war called Declaration of War against the Americans occupying the land of the two holy places. Pretty subtle, right? And then on the first page it says, it goes on and on about the Khana massacre, and he says, we'll never forget the severed heads and arms and legs of the children who were massacred in Ghana. It was literally Naftali Bennett that pulled that trigger. That ordered that strike and killed those people. And then that was. Muhammad Atta was the lead hijacker on September 11, and Ramsey Binochi was his buddy who helped organize the thing from Europe but wasn't allowed in the country.
Thief
There's just no one to root for. It's just, it's like, it's just a.
Scott Horton
Bunch, a bunch of people to root against.
Thief
I mean, it's, it's all evil.
Scott Horton
Yeah.
Thief
The yin and the yang. It's all evil.
Scott Horton
But you're right, though. So there's the two sides of the coin. Right? Is Netanyahu is so violent and murderous and horrible that he's undermined support for the project itself overall, seemingly. And whatever. He's made people very angry at least. But if he's gone and replaced by somebody seemingly less psychopathic, that could be a PR boost for Israel. But then again, they would have a less capable leader getting their business done. And so combined with the actual consequences of the immediate consequences of the murderousness, I've got to go with a weaker other guy to, to do it. Even if it makes Israel look better overall. We're talking about looking better because we're killing fewer than a Waco massacre worth of people every day then under the new guy. Right. So that's the difference in the PR is whether they're mass murdering children every day, which you look@antiwar.com keep track of this every day. And it's always between like 50 and 130 or 50 and 100 and something. But it's usually right around like 80 to 90, 100 people. So roughly a large Waco massacre every single day over there. Every single day.
Thief
And like it's, it's got it, it's got to stop. Period. End of story. Before I get you out of here, you just wrote a book on Russia, Ukraine.
Scott Horton
Yes.
Thief
And everything that happened there also.
Scott Horton
All Bill Clinton's fault.
Thief
Yes, all. But why is it all Bill Clinton's fault?
Scott Horton
NATO expansion and the Balkan wars.
Thief
So that then.
Scott Horton
And then lots of other things. But yeah. And that was his role. And the shock therapy as well.
Thief
The shock therapy.
Scott Horton
The rigging of. Yeah, the rigging of the election in 1996 and the destruction of their economy in the name of free market capitalism. They. They installed corrupt cronyism that ran the thing. I mean, they were already screwed. Transforming from communism to capitalism. But the Clintonite liberals made the very worst of it, basically is what happened there then W. Bush tore up all the treaties, continue NATO expansion over, you know, did all the color coded revolutions Clinton started that. Bush continued it. Bush and Obama built the anti ballistic missile systems in Romania and Poland. They have dual use launchers that can host Tomahawk missiles. They continued to push toward integration of Ukraine into NATO. Obama overthrew the government of Ukraine again in 2014 and used a bunch of Hitler loving Nazis to do it and then launched a civil war. John Brennan went to Kiev and insisted that they launched the war in the east, which started the civil war. And then of course, they all framed Donald Trump for treason with Russia gate. So he was unable to solve any of this conflict in his first first term and instead gave in and escalated and gave weapons to Ukraine. That helped make matters worse. And then Joe Biden of course is absolutely belligerent on the issue and instead of negotiating in good faith, he tried to simply just act tough. And they thought they'd be cute and they would do like America did to the Soviet Union and Afghanistan in the 80s, just like the Bin Ladenites did to America and America did George Bush and Barack Obama and Donald Trump did to America in Afghanistan in our era, is to bog them down and bleed them to bankruptcy, force them out the hard way, inflict a strategic defeat. That's why at the start of the war, even before the war and after the start of the war, there was no big diplomatic push to stop the thing. And as we know now, America and Britain intervened to prevent negotiations that were ending the war early. They could have ended the war in April of 2022. And America and Britain went in there and prevented them from ending the war because they wanted to keep it going, because they don't give a God damn about Ukraine, but they like seeing Russians killed. And they said it over and over and over again, we're killing Russians. No American soldiers are being killed, but we're killing Russians. We're sending them home in coffins. We're sending them home in body bags. We're destroying the Russian economy. We're bringing them their knees. At the height of their excitement in 22, they said, this is going to bring about the fall of the Putin regime. We're going to stick it to them. Riskies. Good. That was their motivation for deliberately even provoking the war, or at least refusing to engage in the barest honest diplomacy to try to prevent it. I think their plan A was to warn them, you better not. But plan B was not negotiate. Plan B was. Heh heh heh. We're gonna, and this is, by the way, three months after they America's absolute humiliating, disgraceful withdrawal and defeat In Afghanistan. And they got the word Afghanistan in their mouths for why we need to do this. Change the narrative again. Yep, yep. And then. But replicate what we did to the Soviet Union in the 80s in Afghanistan. Never you mind what we just did to ourselves there again. Or the consequence, the fact that we were dealing with the consequences of the blowback from the last time we've been over there. And so what do we expect to happen here? They told the New York Times, they said, you know what, honestly, we don't know the first thing about defeating an insurgency, but we sure know how to back one. And so that's what we're gonna do. And so, yeah, they think they're smart, but they're really not. And, and so yes, the book is provoked. This one is called Enough already. Time to end the war on Terrorism.
Thief
We'll have the links to both of them down below. So make a note of that thief if we can.
Scott Horton
And forgive me for my shameless plugs, but I gotta get rid of those things. And I busted my ass to put them together for you. I, I think you'll really get something out of it.
Thief
Yeah.
Scott Horton
So that was enough ras. Jimmy Carter threw Donald Trump in the Middle east and then provoked is H.W. bush through Joe Biden in Eastern Europe. Love it. And the neocons throughout Russiagate, Ukrainian Nazis, Balkan wars and all the color coded revolutions and everything you need to know.
Thief
Scott Horton, you are fun to talk to, man. You know, you're an encyclopedia of a lot of things. I appreciate you going back and forth on some hard topics today. We will have to do this again.
Scott Horton
Thank you very much for having me.
Thief
All right, everyone check out those books. We'll have those linked down below.
Scott Horton
And you know what, one more thing.
Thief
Yeah.
Scott Horton
Very soon after this comes out, within a few weeks at least, we'll be launching the Scott Horton Academy of Foreign Policy and Freedom, which I mentioned earlier. It's like Tom Woods Liberty classroom room and he built it for me. And it's courses by me walking you through the Middle east wars. Essentially the extremely long version of a lot of what we've talked about here today, as well as provoked and all of the Eastern European thing and the lead up to Ukraine and the Ukraine war and then plus it's a bunch of other great experts on a lot of other great stuff. And so if you go to scotwardenacademy.com you can put your email address in there.
Thief
There.
Scott Horton
And if you put your email address in there, then you'll be the first to know when we're, we're ready to launch and it's really going to be something cool. So.
Thief
All right, we're going to link that down below. If you like what you heard today, enjoy hearing Scott speak. That sounds like that's for you. So we will have that link in description. And until next time, sir, thank you. All right, everybody else, you know what it is. Give it a thought. Get back to me.
Scott Horton
Peace.
Thief
Thank you guys for watching the episode. If you haven't already, please hit that subscribe button and smash that, like button on the video. They're both a huge, huge help. And if you would like to follow me on Instagram and X, those links are in my description below.
Julian Dorey Podcast #345
Scott Horton WARNS about Nuclear War, Netanyahu & Iran
Date: October 14, 2025
In this widely ranging and impassioned conversation, Julian Dorey welcomes renowned antiwar journalist and libertarian thinker Scott Horton to dissect the escalating risks of nuclear war in the Middle East, with a particular focus on Iran, Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu, and U.S. foreign policy. Horton offers deep historical context, sharp critique of American intervention, and a libertarian's vision of foreign policy, while Dorey draws out practical, moral, and strategic questions about global power, alliances, and the future of peace. Together, they dive into not just the current flare-ups, but the roots of modern American empire.
[01:57 – 08:25]
“Even worse than that is like helping the Israelis blow up some Palestinian kid… But even worse than that, in a way, I mean this in a sick, weird, disgusting way… When my money they take straight out of my pocket is just going to pay interest on the debt to the Central bank of South Korea.”
— Scott Horton (07:37)
[08:45 – 18:09]
Austrian Economists & Hard Money: The conversation shifts to the influence of Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard, and their advocacy for sound money and libertarian principles. Horton recommends key reading for understanding government corruption and monetary policy.
“They argue that no, and I’m pretty much sold on that just because I got no use for these bastards.”
— Scott Horton [09:17]
Rothbard’s Historical Framing: Horton explains Rothbard’s take on left vs. right, the origins of liberalism, and how capitalists were originally the “left” fighting against entrenched power.
“It was private property that destroyed feudalism.”
— Scott Horton [12:14]
[18:09 – 32:29]
Ron Paul's Legacy: Horton credits Ron Paul as the movement’s great communicator and predictor, whose antiwar, anti-Fed message inspired millions.
Key Ron Paul Moments: The “Giuliani moment” at the 2007 debate is highlighted, where Ron calls out U.S. intervention as the root cause of September 11 (“blowback”) and stands firm amidst political backlash.
“He won over 20 million people overnight with that.”
— Scott Horton [32:13]
[40:41 – 81:31]
“Israel attacked them because right now, everything’s coming up, Benjamin.” — Scott Horton [81:33]
[84:34 – 119:27]
“Tell me what advantage Israel gives the United States there. The only one I can think of is they help Barack Obama back Al Qaeda in Syria, but that was him committing treason for them, wasn’t it?”
— Scott Horton [105:22]
[119:36 – 124:09]
On the cost of empire:
“If we could get rid of the, the, part of the most expensive part of our national government that people care the least about and, and want the least... we could have even a continental defense...but that ain’t gonna happen.”
— Scott Horton [04:37]
On Israel-U.S. relations:
“These are all Donald Trump’s friends. And no, Arabs are not really. You know what I mean? ... All his friends in California, too, on his TV business and whatever. ... He hangs out with Jews. He always has.”
— Scott Horton [86:30]
On Iran’s nuclear program:
“Would you please come and sit at the table and talk? That was what it was. If they wanted to go to 90 and make bombs, they could. If they wanted to make 90% and hold it and say, you know, I could make a bomb out of this, they could have done that. They did not do that.”
— Scott Horton [81:20]
On U.S. responsibility and blowback:
“We just have to stop the intervention. I mean, that’s it. ... They’ve all been motivated by American foreign policy. ... That’s what it’s always been.”
— Scott Horton [99:37, 103:44]
On Netanyahu’s unique power:
“By light years ... Netanyahu is the most savvy and capable prime minister that Israel could possibly have. ... There is no one in the lineup who has the political levels of control and sophistication that this man can wield throughout the United States and Europe.”
— Scott Horton [112:44]
Dorey and Horton conclude that current militaristic U.S. policies—especially in support of Israel—are not only morally wrong but against American interests and even the stated goals of empire. Horton is pessimistic about the likelihood of reform but insists a deliberate return to constitutional principles and non-intervention is the only rational course. As the global risk of nuclear conflict rises, these warnings are urgent.
For listeners seeking a historically grounded, antiwar perspective, this episode offers an unvarnished critique and a suite of resources for further investigation.