Examining Trump's Iran Deal: Is this Obama 2.0?

Summary

Episode Summary: Examining Trump's Iran Deal – Is this Obama 2.0?

Podcast: Louder with Crowder
Host: Steven Crowder
Air Date: June 18, 2026

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Overview & Main Theme

In this episode, Steven Crowder and his panel delve into President Trump’s newly announced Iran memorandum of understanding (MoU), frequently compared in media and politics to President Obama’s 2015 Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA). The episode’s focus is on cutting through misinformation, examining the objectives and results of the new deal, and providing a conservative critique of both the merits and criticisms surrounding the agreement. Discussion ranges from Iran’s nuclear ambitions, comparisons with past negotiations, the deal’s impact on the Middle East, and a pointed critique of media figures and pundits offering competing takes.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Dissecting Misinformation About the Deal

• Crowder’s Core Aim ([00:01]):

  • “Our only goal today is to clarify and have an honest conversation… There are legitimate cases for and against [the deal], but can we actually have those anymore?”
  • Lampoons common talking points, especially the claim that “1,300 billion American taxpayer dollars that would fix homelessness are being spent in Iran.” Rebuts: “No, we are not. That’s not true.” ([00:01])

• Nature of Financial Aid:

  • The panel repeatedly debunks assertions that U.S. taxpayer money is directly funding Iran's recovery or nuclear program ([11:49, 26:54]).
  • “It’s not American taxpayer dollars. That’s not happening.” ([11:49])
  • “Anyone out there saying $300 billion of your dollars… are either very, very ignorant or lying to you. That's not up for debate.” ([26:54])

2. Stated Objectives of the Iran Deal

• Administration’s Objectives ([13:00]):

  • J.D. Vance: “Destroy Iranian offensive missiles, destroy Iranian missile production, destroy their navy and… ensure they never have nuclear weapons.” ([13:00])

• Panel’s Assessment of Objectives:

  • Iran’s Navy: "Their pre-war navy… 120 were sunk at least by mid March… Trump won." ([13:27])
  • Nuclear Weapons: “We don't know. Cautiously optimistic, and that is a problem… 60 days to work this portion out because it is incredibly technical." ([14:02])
  • Ballistic Missile Capabilities: “That's a no… They are going to keep their ballistic missiles, to be clear.” ([16:45])

• U.S. Leverage in Negotiations:

  • Crowder: “Please tell me you understand the difference between preemptive appeasement through diplomacy and wrecking their shit and then negotiating. You get that? That’s the primary difference.” ([15:03])

3. MoU Versus Obama’s JCPOA: Contrasts and Continuities

• Sunset Clauses & Inspections:
  • "Under Barack Obama, the inspections were a joke… 24-day notice of inspection on undeclared sites, including military installations." ([37:28])
  • "This has not been finalized… But we do know… there’s not going to be sunset clauses on it." ([40:05])
• Conditional Sanctions Relief:
  • J.D. Vance: “The only way the Iranians get any of those resources, not a single penny… from U.S. taxpayers… is if they comply fully and change their behavior.” ([25:00])
• Regional Integration Strategy:
  • "This may prove to be… something that transforms that area of the world where for the first time other nations… may actually have some skin in the game..." ([27:16])

4. Critiques of Critics & Media Figures

• Tucker Carlson’s Critique ([51:13]):

  • Tucker Carlson claims the new deal recognizes Iran as a “normal country…a great power,” criticizing the U.S. for overlooking Iran’s human rights abuses.
  • Crowder rebuts: “What Tucker does is… he conflates case-building exhibits with the actual concern or endgame. The war wasn't about the village people being thrown off a bedrock roof. It was about ensuring those psychos aren't able to damage people here…” ([53:27])
  • Gerald: "He does that all the time… He’s not interested in America being the power it has been…” ([58:31])

• Ben Shapiro’s Critique ([60:30]):

  • Shapiro decries the non-elimination of enrichment and missile capabilities, claims immediate sanctions relief, and criticizes opening the Strait of Hormuz.
  • Crowder: “If [Israel’s critics] want it, then you’re going to go it alone… I think we’re better off here… not being stuck in the middle of this conflict.” ([61:46])

• Policy for Israel:

  • “This should forever put to bed the idea that Donald Trump is controlled by Benjamin Netanyahu… because this goes completely against what they want…” ([48:39])

5. America First vs. Israel & Other Regional Interests

• Panel’s Stance:
  • “We kind of had a binary choice: a negotiated off-ramp or total destruction of Iran… The alternative? Complete and total destruction. Or an option … for Israel. Don't give a shit.” ([61:46-62:00])
  • "It shows that Trump can be a pragmatist, aligning when convenient and telling [Israel] to go screw themselves when they're acting like entitled pricks." ([49:28])

6. Measurable Outcomes and Remaining Unknowns

• Major Achievements:
  • Iran's navy destroyed, substantial damage to missile forces, and major nuclear facilities eliminated ([13:27, 19:43]).
  • “Neutered Iran… no more Iranian navy… not able to enrich uranium, not able to be anywhere close to nuclear as far as we know.” ([43:29])
• Critical Uncertainties:
  • The nuclear component and strictness of inspections/timeline remain unresolved ([14:29, 40:05]).
  • “A lot left to be figured out here. But I do have a lot more faith in this administration…” ([23:33])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Misinformation:
  “Anyone out there saying $300 billion of your dollars… are either very, very ignorant or lying to you. That’s not up for debate.” – Steven Crowder ([26:54])

• On U.S. Leverage:
  “Please tell me you understand the difference between preemptive appeasement through diplomacy and wrecking their shit and then negotiating. You get that? That’s the primary difference.” – Steven Crowder ([15:03])

• On Critics Shifting Goalposts:
  “Forever wars. Okay, that’s not the case. Forever. Oh, inflation, economy. Okay, that’s not the case. Hundreds of billions of American dollars. Okay, that’s not the case. It just… the goalposts just keep moving.” – Steven Crowder ([47:58])

• On Comparing Obama’s and Trump’s Deals:
  “Under Barack Obama, the inspections were a joke… 24-day notice of inspection on undeclared sites, including military installations.” – Steven Crowder ([37:28])
  “Obama’s agreement… gave them a lot… without making them perform. Here, if they don’t perform, they don’t get the benefits. That’s a much better way to structure it.” – Gerald ([39:00])

• On Media Critique (Tucker Carlson):
  “What Tucker does is… he conflates case-building exhibits with the actual concern or endgame.” – Steven Crowder ([53:27])
  “Whoever ends this war is Daddy… The United States ended this war in Iran. Tucker, who's your daddy?” – Gerald ([55:21])

• On Israel:
  “This should forever put to bed the idea that Donald Trump is controlled by Netanyahu… because this goes completely against what they want… If you want it, then you’re going to go it alone.” – Gerald & Steven Crowder ([48:39, 49:05])

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Opening and Setup
  • [00:01] — Introduction, statements of episode purpose, debunking initial myths
• Panel on Objectives of the Deal
  • [13:00] — Outlining U.S. objectives in Iran
• MoU Content & Comparison to JCPOA
  • [26:09] — Direct comparison between Obama and Trump-era Iran deals
• J.D. Vance White House Briefing (Live)
  • [23:54]–[36:41] — Vance’s official explanations and Q&A
• Debate on Critic Responses
  • [47:58] — Criticisms about “forever wars” and moving goalposts
  • [51:13]–[56:40] — Crowder and Gerald rebutting Tucker Carlson’s segment
  • [60:30] — Ben Shapiro’s perspectives and the panel’s critique

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Takeaways & Panel’s Conclusions

• The new Iran MoU is distinctly different, both in leverage and conditionality, from Obama’s JCPOA, with less risk to U.S. interests and no direct taxpayer funding.
• Many criticisms circulating—particularly from prominent media figures—are misleading or miss the changed circumstances post-conflict.
• The deal seeks integrative regional change by making Gulf states stakeholders, not just the U.S. as enforcer.
• While not every objective is met, major goals—navy destruction, nuclear capability setbacks, and some missile reductions—constitute a high-leverage negotiating position.
• Critics from all sides continue to move goalposts or present the debate as all-or-nothing, but the panel argues for pragmatic assessment: “Are we better off with this deal than without?”
• On both progressive and neoconservative criticisms, Crowder’s panel insists Trump’s deal is America-first, not Israel-first or appeasement.

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Final Thoughts

“Instead of guessing, focus on what you know. And hopefully what we’d like to see take place right now…There’s some good, but who knows, right?” – Steven Crowder ([23:24])

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For the full, unsanitized stream, visit Crowder’s MugClub.

Transcript

[Steven Crowder]

Welcome to the lineup.

[Josh]

Live.

[Steven Crowder]

Big words from a man who likes soccer. Questioning our orientation like that. That's Gerald. We'll keep his mic muted all day. Hey, the Iran agreement, this memorandum today. All right, let's get into it. We're going to get into it. We're going to get into the three biggest lies that are circulating. There's so much misinformation and incomplete information out there. Our only goal today is to clarify and to have an honest. I think there are legitimate cases to be made for it, against it, and I think they're legitimate cases to be made and I've heard them. Made for the destruction of Iran or not doing anything. Some people have made the case. There are legitimate cases to be made in conversations across the board. But can we actually have those anymore? When you're talking about a negotiation, we understand it's a compromise, right? We understand that we're never going to find an agreement where everyone is going to be happy. It doesn't excuse lying about it. Biggest 1,300 billion American taxpayer dollars that would fix homelessness we're spending in Iran. No, we are not. That's not true. So we're gonna get into all of this. Also, soccer is gay. And we'll explain to you why. And Lane the Brain, our producer has become a folk hero in Japan. I have no idea. A fifth of the population of Japan actually worship him now. You can fact check that on with.

[Sam]

Sam.

[Steven Crowder]

Click Rumble Premium and join now for 99 annually or 9.99amonth to get the entirely ad free experience and an ever expanding roster of content creators and free speec. Glad to be with you. I. You know, I do have a question for you. If you could make one demand of the Islamo death cult that is known as the leadership of Iran, you can make one demand as an unconditional portion of their surrender, what would you. What would you include?

[Gerald]

Don't look at me. I'll ruin it.

[Steven Crowder]

I don't. What do you mean?

[Gerald]

You have to convert to Christianity.

[Steven Crowder]

Yeah. That wouldn't ruin it. No.

[Gerald]

Ruin it for them?

[Steven Crowder]

Well, no, they'd be better off. What are you saying? Christianity has not improved the lives of those who subscribe to it.

[Gerald]

It definitely does.

[Steven Crowder]

You're better than that. You don't sound like a man of faith.

[Gerald]

I don't know that I'm better than that, but I appreciate your confidence.

[Steven Crowder]

Well, we'll have these conf. Conversations every weekday at 11:00am Eastern. Captain Morgan, CEO, how are you?

[Gerald]

Very well. How are you?

[Steven Crowder]

I'm okay.

[Gerald]

Yeah.

[Steven Crowder]

My body's falling apart, but that's. I'm not supposed to be here. I feel like a gold member. Glad you're with things Flaking off.

[Gerald]

You're playing on house money.

[Steven Crowder]

Yeah, that's pretty much it. Wednesday, June 24, at the Addison Improv in Dallas, Texas. Not Firestein on X. How are you, sir? Josh.

[Josh]

Good. The one demand I would have. Remove the hijab. Yeah, the hijabs. Burkas. Get rid of that rule. Tops off in Tehran. That's what I say.

[Steven Crowder]

That's exactly right.

[Josh]

Yeah.

[Gerald]

I know you're not a boo guy,

[Josh]

but for the rest of us straight men.

[Steven Crowder]

Well, he wouldn't mind it if there was, like, an agreement where, you know, a pallet of them was provided.

[Gerald]

Pallet of what?

[Steven Crowder]

I don't know. I feel like. I feel like every time Noodles is gone, all of you feel like you have to be on some weird behavior for Applejack. And you're quiet.

[Josh]

I didn't do anything.

[Steven Crowder]

No, Gerald did, though. It's all. This is all on Gerald.

[Josh]

I was having fun. I said tops off in Tehran.

[Steven Crowder]

That's an alliteration.

[Josh]

It's fine. It implies that it.

[Steven Crowder]

Jill doesn't like fun.

[Josh]

It's not, though. It's.

[Steven Crowder]

He just doesn't like fun. He's like, well, I don't like it. Oh, that's not fair. I don't like that. Your thing is not my thing. He's that guy.

[Josh]

I know. It's really. It's kind of grinding me down.

[Lane the Brain]

I know.

[Steven Crowder]

Like, you don't like soccer. Well, I guess you think the whole world is wrong.

[Sam]

Yes.

[Steven Crowder]

How many times you have to go through this? Everybody's like, what? You just think the whole world missed something.

[Josh]

Yes.

[Gerald]

Yes.

[Josh]

Eventually, I'm gonna have zero opinions.

[Steven Crowder]

The whole world who. None of them can win a war. And most of them, the whole world outside of the United States is not entirely gay. Gayer than the United States.

[Gerald]

They have won wars historically. They just, you know, they're all.

[Steven Crowder]

See, he can't help himself, so he just goes, well, you know, they have. Actually, the teacher. I could do some more homework, I hope.

[Josh]

Hey, how many packages does it take to screw in a light bulb?

[J.D. Vance]

Well, actually, if they have two hands,

[Gerald]

it only takes one.

[Mark Levin]

Yeah, exactly.

[Steven Crowder]

On a technical basis.

[Tucker Carlson]

Yeah.

[Steven Crowder]

All right. I know you don't fact check. Josh, you know, I've told you this. When we're talking, usually you're wrong.

[Mark Levin]

Yeah.

[Steven Crowder]

Well, let me look. I present to you exhibit whatever is Z14. I don't know how far we are in as far as making the case that soccer is gay. I feel like it's pretty definitive, but it certainly seems to be the favorite sport of Marxists. Maybe curling, because a lot of Canadians play it. But remember, I've told you, hey, if you need to understand why the left makes the decisions they do, why they back the people that they do, it's simple, right? Just. You can comment below. What do you do? Just look whoever. Look at whoever is considered oppressed, marginalized, minority will be supported. That's it. They must be oppressed. And the majority must be the oppressor. They must be the colonizer. Right? That's how they support Hamas, Palestine and lgbtq. That's how they support the Iranian regime, but then also, you know, stop Asian hate until they realize, oh, wait a second, black people are carrying out the violence. It doesn't matter what it is. Oppressor, oppressed. Reverse the order. Oppressor, oppressed. That's it. Marxism, always, okay? That's how they build their useful or useless coalitions. Now here, the leftists describe why they like soccer and who they root for. Okay? So for my Latinos watching the World cup, let me clarify this in the rooting order, okay? First, number one place you're rooting for is the country you or your parents are from.

[Sam]

When your country is not playing, you must root for the underdog. We also always choose underdog over colonizers. So, for example, in a Latin American country, over European countries.

[Steven Crowder]

And then we're going all of Africa except South Africa.

[Sam]

I'm going to root for the team that was colonized. I do not want any of the European countries to win it. Let's the rest of us win the game, the tournament.

[Steven Crowder]

Senegal versus their colonizers.

[Lane the Brain]

Oof.

[Gerald]

Do we really need to question who sold them on.

[Josh]

Yeah, you probably should.

[Steven Crowder]

At the bottom, Argentina music should be louder. You go last. Yeah, that's right. They don't like Argentina because they're basically

[Gerald]

white now and they won last year or last time.

[Steven Crowder]

Think about this, Hughes. Do you really have to know? I'm going to support the colonized team. Do you realize that there are. There are places in Africa that would be less colonized, for example, than other for some of the French colonies, the English colonies that still try to rape away their aids. Why do you give them the moral high ground? Also, they mentioned South America. All of South America. You know what language they speak in most of South America, right? Almost everywhere. Spanish. You know the Spanish at one point, right? They were an empire, too. They're just not today because they're lazy and they take naps in the middle of the day. So you understand that that is shifting.

[Josh]

I mean, Mexico was a colonizer, for crying out loud. I know the Mexican empire for about, I don't know, six years.

[Steven Crowder]

Not even that when there's no moral basis. It's just whoever is most successful in their endeavors must be wrong or we will obviously not grant the moral high ground. We'll grant the moral high ground to even evil people. Terrorists, in many instances, they apply it to soccer. It couldn't be more clear now. Do it with trans and kids. Even Democratic congressional candidates in New York City are jumping on this whole colonizer. Colonize. Socce is gay. But they don't realize that. That's my commentary, this trend. The first match this weekend at MetLife Stadium, taking place in New Jersey, even though some people say it is technically New York. But what do you think will win it all? Who are you rooting for? Oh, I like Mexico.

[Josh]

Mexico.

[Unidentified Guest]

There you go.

[Steven Crowder]

I'm rooting for Senegal. Senegal.

[Unidentified Guest]

Okay.

[Steven Crowder]

What now?

[Josh]

Vote for me.

[Steven Crowder]

I'm rooting against America, rooting for the underdog. I got colonized countries like Senegal, who imprison you, by the way, for 10 years for anything even remotely homosexual, which is bad news for their soc soccer team. Ironically, it all comes full circle.

[Josh]

What a conundrum that must be to be like, ah, we got a root for the. The colonized country.

[Unidentified Guest]

Yeah.

[Josh]

Oh, they, oh, they, they violate human rights.

[Gerald]

Yeah, yeah, but they were colonized.

[Josh]

Yeah, but it's still okay.

[Steven Crowder]

Yeah, right?

[Unidentified Guest]

Yeah.

[Josh]

They're not running water.

[Steven Crowder]

This is. That's all it is. That's all it is, if you want to understand it, Marxism. And this is because they need to appeal to minorities to build a very large coalition. That's why we've talked about the Bolsheviks. Yeah. There was a disproportionate percentage of Jewish representation. It was single digit percentages. But also Georgians, also people who were oppressed in any capacity. They just build up this coalition. But it doesn't matter as to the motivations of those underdogs or oppressed. And that's why invariably it leads to violence and civil war, because turns out they can't all get along. Diversity is not really our biggest strength.

[Gerald]

They're better off after being colonized anyway in most cases.

[Steven Crowder]

But hey, you know, whatever, Legitimate. I'll stick with that. Yes, of course they are. Okay, you know, let's just go straight to. Let's just go straight to Iran. Let's deal with this. You guys been following this A little bit? You guys heard about this?

[Gerald]

A little bit angry.

[Josh]

What are you, Jay Leno.

[Steven Crowder]

Sex slaves?

[Unidentified Guest]

Thank you.

[Gerald]

Sometimes.

[Steven Crowder]

You ever hear him. How many times can you say, shut up, bitch? Been around for a while. Okay, why are you mad? Before I get into my.

[Gerald]

I'm mad at some of the responses that I'm seeing. And we'll talk about Tucker Carlson here in just a little bit in this segment, I watched more of his video, so it got me more angry.

[Steven Crowder]

All right, so the memorandum of understanding is what this is being called, the tentative. The Iran deal that remains to be finalized. Okay. That was signed yesterday. It will be finalized within 60 days unless there's some kind of mutually agreed upon extension. Let me start this off with what we're going to be doing. We're going to go through the objectives that were listed, whether we've accomplished them or not. The comparison to Barack Obama's Iran deal, where a lot of people are drawing false equivalencies and what this actually means for us, for Iran, for example, the entanglements with Israel, as many people view them. But I want to leave this with the three biggest lies. Just so you know, we'll give you all the references as we do every single show when we stream 11am Eastern, that the United States is giving Iran. We are giving Iran $300 billion. You see this everywhere. I even think it was, I don't know if it was Nancy Pelosi, some representative who said we could fix homelessness with that. It's not American taxpayer dollars. That's not happening.

[Gerald]

Klobuchar.

[Steven Crowder]

Was it Klobuchar?

[Gerald]

I think so.

[Steven Crowder]

And then Pelosi offered some commentary that this is just like Barack Obama's deal, maybe worse. That's incorrect. Incorrect entirely. And that President Trump, you know, Taco Trump, you're seeing that too right now. That's not what's happening. You need to keep in mind with negotiations, the primary question you need to ask is will this negotiation, will this deal, will I be better off for making it than if I had not? And there's a term for that.

[Gerald]

Yeah, Batna. Best alternative to a negotiated agreement.

[Steven Crowder]

Right, Right. So that's how we need to look at this. Now, at some point, there was going to be an off ramp, and it was never going to be ideal. The alternative to an off ramp, and I get it, there could be a different mile marker for it, is complete destruction of Iran, which many people, obviously, namely the critics of Donald Trump. So are we better off having taken this off Ramp. What's good about it, what's bad about it and what's the truth? Well, let's go through the objectives. I think first at the beginning of this war a lot of people tried to lay out the objectives for this administration. Pete Hegseth clarified it and reiterated it. Three primary objectives.

[J.D. Vance]

The mission of Operation Epic Fury is laser focused. Destroy Iranian offensive missiles, destroy Iranian missile production, destroy their navy and other security infrastructure and they will never have nuclear weapons.

[Steven Crowder]

Okay, so I think that's a good place to start.

[Tucker Carlson]

Pretty clear.

[Steven Crowder]

Did we accomplish this? Let's go through some of those objectives. The first one. This isn't easy. This is a gimme destruction of Iran's navy. The verdict. Yeah.

[Gerald]

Achieved a little bit.

[Steven Crowder]

Yeah. Their pre war navy was anywhere from 100 to 145 vessels and I mean 120 were sunk at least by mid March. Yeah. So just to be clear, that's about as definitive as you get. Milton Bradley would say Trump won. Oh wow. Looks like I sunk all your ships.

[Unidentified Guest]

Wow.

[Steven Crowder]

What do you have to say about that? Khomeini, he would be impossible to play that with.

[Gerald]

He just always wins.

[Steven Crowder]

Number two, let's go through this. As far as objectives preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, the verdict, we don't know. Cautiously optimistic and that is a problem. But I'll tell you an even bigger problem is people commenting on this as though we have the information. We don't. Part of this agreement is they have 60 days to work this portion out because it is incredibly technical.

[Gerald]

Yeah.

[Steven Crowder]

And it's funny that people often say, oh, you don't have room for nuance. You don't think there's nuance in hate Ensuring that they don't have nuclear weapons. What's required to inspect said sites? Also the, the down blending, I guess to use the term of the enriched uranium that they have. That takes a while and I'm willing to bet it's going to be more than just a multipoint memo.

[Gerald]

Yeah. Now they're, they're going to have to talk a lot about that. But they do address at least the minimums here. Right. And you mentioned that the down blending, at the very minimum we're going to have this in the 60 day agreement which to us it's either get rid of that stuff or down blend it to where you can use it in your reactors and that's it.

[Steven Crowder]

And that's point eight in this memorandum. And what's included again you can check the referen that Iran agrees not to procure or develop nuclear weapons. The United States and Iran agree to resolve the issue of Iran's enriched uranium, like you said, at minimum down blended under IAEA supervision. And any sanctions relief is tied to Iran complying with all of this, to be clear. So these are going to be pushed to the final agreement. As far as the details, the enrichment, the timeline, the inspections, I also want to put one thing out there that's very important. Before we even get to the comparisons of Barack Obama's deal versus this, please tell me you understand the difference between preemptive appeasement through diplomacy and wrecking their shit and then negotiating. You get that? That's like the primary difference now as to whether we use that leverage to get enough, sure, some of that remains to be seen. But to act as though we are entering into these talks with the same positioning, I would imagine anyone saying that either hasn't thought of this or is being dishonest, that's the whole reason for the conflict. That's the whole reason for the destruction of the Navy. And again, a big part of this. Remember Obama's deal, there were a lot of problems with the iae. They didn't have the ability to inspect Iran's undeclared sites. Right. That was. They were saying, look, we know that they're enriching. We don't know how much that needs to be worked out. We don't have the details. I'm willing to bet that that'll be.

[Gerald]

Well, that'll be a crucial point.

[Steven Crowder]

That'll be a crucial point.

[Gerald]

We've seen them do this before. So going into it, we know that

[Steven Crowder]

point number three, destroy their ballistic missile capabilities. Right. That you saw Hegseth mention. Here's the verdict on that.

[Lane the Brain]

That's a no.

[Steven Crowder]

That's a. That's a. This one has not gone. Has not gone well if that was the objective.

[Lane the Brain]

Right.

[Steven Crowder]

They are going to keep their ballistic missiles. To be clear. And this brings us to bad messaging back then, Marco Rubio being pretty damn clear as to why that would need to be neutralized.

[Lane the Brain]

The purpose of this is to destroy that missile capability. Why does Iran want that ballistic missile capability? What they are trying to do and have been trying to do for a very long time is build a conventional weapons capability as a shield where they can hide behind. Meaning there would come a point where they have so many conventional missiles, so many drones, and it can inflict so much damage that no one can do anything about their nuclear program. That said, we would not mind, we would not be heartbroken, and we hope that the Iranian people can overthrow this government and establish a new future for that country. We would love for that to be possible, but the objective of this mission is the destruction of their ballistic missile capabilities and of their naval capabilities.

[Steven Crowder]

Now, it would have been good if he had just like had a meeting with President Trump or if President Trump had sat down with him and they just sort of, you know, made sure they were on the same page. Because that brings us to now. And I get what President Trump is saying here, but it's bad communication. He said it'd be unfair for Iran to not have these missiles.

[Unidentified Guest]

See. See how it all goes. I think it's going to go well, but we'll see. So I will see you guys at Versailles.

[Steven Crowder]

Can I follow up quickly on something you said at the press conference? You said you don't mind Iran having ballistic missiles. Can you elaborate on that? I want to make sure we understand your position.

[Unidentified Guest]

No, I'm saying that if other countries have them, it's a little bit unfair for not to have some. A ballistic missile is not the same thing as what we're talking about when we talk nuclear. But if Saudi Arabia and Qatar and they all have some, I would say in relative proportion, I think it's okay. That's what I mean.

[Steven Crowder]

Now, it's not written that way, but what he just said, I don't have as big of a problem with. Yeah, and let me explain to you what I mean. Marco Rubio was very clear that in tandem it's a problem.

[Mark Levin]

Right.

[Steven Crowder]

Iran's this sort of opaque policy where we're not able to inspect. We have no idea what they're doing with their uranium or enriching it, and then building effectively a dome, a covering, so that no one would ever be able to stop them to inspect. See what they are doing with nukes. That was the primary problem with those ballistic missiles. If you take away one of those components, namely the nuclear component, then you can make the case that, you know what, actually everyone around there having a similar amount of missiles kind of forces them to play nice as opposed to a race to nukes. So when you remove the nuclear component, which remains to be seen. So there's a lot of if this, then that I think that there could be a case made that it's at least not as irreparably damaging for Iran to have some ballistic missiles.

[Gerald]

Yeah. And we did wipe out about 50% of their pre war levels of missiles. So it's not completely failed, but there's still enough left that if that was your goal, you didn't Achieve it.

[Steven Crowder]

Well, also, they're going to be less effective with said missiles because of their Navy being wiped out.

[Gerald]

Yes. So that hurts a lot.

[Steven Crowder]

Yeah. All these things. I mean, you were talking about this, that they have the right. That extensive.

[Unidentified Guest]

Yeah.

[Josh]

When you have ships, you could take them out into the sea, and then you have a longer range. They don't have that ability now.

[Tucker Carlson]

Right.

[Josh]

So they have to. All they have. All they have to launch is from land.

[Gerald]

Yeah.

[Josh]

So, I mean, it does. And you said 50% of their missiles gone. It's a huge, huge deal. And with Trump just saying this. And they have a right to defend themselves, essentially. Kind of looks like America plays Dad.

[Steven Crowder]

Yeah.

[Josh]

You know, Overseer. Like, hey, look, we did what we wanted to do. Now what you guys do is on you. But we're gonna keep a close eye.

[Steven Crowder]

I mean, you're starting off with a negotiation. Like, for example, let's say you have a dog that's just constantly being a problem in your neighborhood, and the dog is biting people, and the dog's not fenced in at all.

[Mark Levin]

All right?

[Steven Crowder]

And you go, okay, here's what you have to do. Your dog needs to have a muzzle on him, and we need to have a fence that he can't jump. All right? He doesn't have the muzzle. He didn't do the. But there's a fence, and he can't get out. Now, the muzzle is less important at that point. It doesn't mean that you didn't start off with that negotiation. But the primary issue is the dog is no longer a threat to bite people. That's what we're talking about with nuclear weapons in Iran. Right. It's also not that hard to get ballistic missiles. That's a lot harder to regulate than nukes. Nukes. People kind of keep track of those. So ballistic missiles. I'm not thrilled with it. The messaging is bad. Here's the catch. I should tell you they do have to purchase their missiles from China and, of course, hope they never have to use them. Yeah, I wouldn't.

[Gerald]

Whoops.

[Josh]

Not great.

[Steven Crowder]

It was a Chachki economy. They're not. They shouldn't be making missiles.

[Gerald]

That actually makes it all worth it. I'm actually fine with it now.

[Tucker Carlson]

Yeah.

[Steven Crowder]

Did you have anything you wanted to add to that before we go to the comparison of JCPOA and this?

[Gerald]

Yeah.

[Tucker Carlson]

No.

[Gerald]

And I agree with your point. Like, it was all tied. The missile shield was always tied to nuclear weapons. And I do think that we're taking a different approach with Iran right now. We're taking an approach that says the last decades of trying to solve this problem kind of with hard force or with sanctions or any of the things that we've tried hasn't really worked. How about we try to take a baby step to integrating them in the region a little bit and making all of them play nicely together? Maybe that will be a path forward while not taking the military option off the table. There's no loss for us if we want to go back over there tomorrow and start bombing the hell out of these people. We can do that again.

[Steven Crowder]

We probably won't, though. Let's be honest.

[Gerald]

We probably won't. But here's the other thing it did show the rest of the world, especially the Gulf states, you better have an alternate to the Strait of Hormuz. You better build something that can get oil out so that if this ever happens again, you remove that chip, you remove that from Iran's capabilities. We're not talking about this story. This is done weeks and weeks and weeks ago because they don't have that to close. To inflict pain. Yeah, that's what they need to do.

[Steven Crowder]

It could also be a case made that they sort of know they have a little bit more leverage. All they need to do is close that straight for a while and we'll come to the table and acquiesce for now. Yeah, that's the way. So I really do think there are legitimate grievances, criticisms on all sides, and some of those remain to be resolved. The thing that's really hard with this story, and I know this feels dry, but it's because last I was spending so much time with it and seeing people communicate opinions, where I go, well, that's, you know what, that's pretty reasonable. Then I realized it was articulately put, but it was based on nothing as far as reality. Just people have either no information, incomplete information, incorrect information, and then they relay that information to you with their opinion. But. But the truth is a lot of people are guessing.

[Gerald]

Yeah.

[Steven Crowder]

Instead of guessing, focus on what you know. And hopefully what we'd like to see take place right now. It's. There's some good but who knows, right?

[Gerald]

There's a lot left to be figured out here. But I do have a lot more faith in this administration to figure this out than other ones. And by the way, Speaking of which, J.D. vance Right now, the vice President speaking at the White House, doing a briefing on this very topic. So we probably should go to him at some point. I mean, we can go to him right now or we can have the guys watch and see if anything interesting. I'm sure he's going to get some rather pointed questions.

[Steven Crowder]

Let's go to him right now and then they can let us know. We'll continue with the JCPOA stuff.

[J.D. Vance]

After destroyed their capacity for enrichment, the facilities at which they were using to develop enrichment and develop a potential nuclear weapon, those facilities are still destroyed. Their conventional military is still sounds like it's a cold. Their capacity to threaten their neighbors still largely gone. And now we see whether they are willing to comply with the next step of the President's peace plan. As you all know, the part of the peace plan, the part of this MOU that I think have been most misrepresented by certain parts of the media, is the idea that the Iranians get all these benefits. You will hear things about $300 billion or $24 billion or this or that number of money or amount of money. And the simple fact is that the only way the Iranians get any of those resources, not a single penny, by the way, from the United States of America under any circumstances, but the only way that they would ever get any benefit of the bargain is if they comply fully and change their behavior. And so you really have a win win situation for the United States of America. If the Iranians don't change their behavior, their military and their nuclear program is still destroyed. If they do change their behavior, then they are going to have a transformative relationship with the Middle east and the Middle east will have a transformation, formative relationship with the people of Iran. That's a win for the American people and for the President of the United States. Regardless of which option the Iranians ultimately choose, we obviously want them to choose the right option. The interesting thing about their system, and I think it's important for the American people to appreciate this point in particular, is that there are real divisions within their country about how exactly to proceed. And what we've seen over the last couple of months is that the, the pragmatists within the Iranian system, the people who really do want to transform their relationship with the Middle east and with the world, those people are winning the argument. The United States wants those people to win the argument. The United States wants to have a better relationship. But in order for that to happen, the Iranians have to perform. And if they don't perform, as we've said before, they don't get any of the benefits of the bargain. So what I'd ask all of you is just to report honestly that the United States luck isn't giving out like this.

[Steven Crowder]

Almost like they read my preparation benefits,

[J.D. Vance]

the sanctions relief and so forth that comes along with this bargain.

[Steven Crowder]

I guess we can show that.

[Gerald]

And I was going to say, well

[Steven Crowder]

look, going off this, then we'll go back to him, right? Comparing. I wanted to get to the comparison that people are making because there are memes out there. Obama's deal with JCPOA versus Trump, they're calling it the mou, the memorandum today what we look, what we saw with Barack Obama was there was a bunch of oil and energy sanctions lifted, right. Upon IAEA verification. They that administration reversed like 160 billion in oil revenue losses. They restored access to $56 billion in frozen assets and then released about 1.7 billion. But it was really 1.3 billion of American taxpayer dollars plus interest to Iran. Now there's more, more to it than that because a lawsuit and stuff we weren't just like lawsuit from. That being said, 79. So more than Donald Trump will be paying as far as American taxpayer.

[Gerald]

Zero. Right? Zero, zero.

[Steven Crowder]

And so that's more zero, just to be clear. So anyone out there saying $300 billion of your dollars, who are people who are now fiscal hawks, they are either very, very ignorant or lying to you. That's not up for debate. The reconstruction of $300 billion is incredibly conditional and it is designed to provide a potential bridge to all of these other Gulf states who hate Iran so that they can actually have some skin in the game. In other words, if we've said for a very long time, this is my favorite part, I will say of this deal, to be very clear, it's not only not American taxpayer dollars, this may prove to be, and we don't know yet, historically, something that transforms that area of the world where for the first time other nations who have hated Iran, who have not wanted Iran to have a nuke, who have sort of siloed themselves from Iran, may actually have some skin in the game and a vested interest in a more stable Iran and be able to take part. In other words, if we want to remove ourselves, recuse ourselves from the Middle east, that area of the world, this could be an off ramp for that and some self regulation that could be fantastic. And it's being misrepresented as $300 billion of American taxpayer dollars. That's not true.

[Gerald]

Yeah, exactly. And you saw J.D. vance say that to transform the relationship with the Middle East. That's what we were just talking about with the Gulf states.

[Mark Levin]

Right.

[Gerald]

If Qatar wants to invest and build a power plant In Iran. That's the kind of thing that this deal covers. Only if Iran changes its behavior. Old regime of Iran not changing their behavior at all. Constantly being a threat to their neighbors.

[Steven Crowder]

Yeah.

[Gerald]

That is a guaranteed war at some point for some reason.

[Josh]

Right.

[Gerald]

Changing their behavior in the Middle east, tying them a little closely together with the other Gulf states and making sure that they have incentives to do the right thing and have a flourishing economy and have the right people win the argument. As J.D. vance said, within Iran, that's a different strategy that we haven't really been able to try effectively at all before.

[Steven Crowder]

It required a neutering.

[Gerald]

It required a, hey, here is your place. If we send ground troops in, there is zero question that we take over Iran, period. It may be costly, but we will win that war short of nuclear weapons, even just full capabilities outside of that. Done. They know that right now we can neuter you from the sky and you can't do a thing about it. And then we can send some boys in to march through your streets. We'd prefer not to do that. Second part.

[Steven Crowder]

Yeah.

[Gerald]

How about we just integrate you back into society and you guys play ball.

[Steven Crowder]

Let me give you an analog. You know, what's happening a little bit. When I saw. I thought of a scene from a movie, and you'll understand it in a second. Now, we're not going to be the ones who are putting troops on the ground there, but getting this sort of coalition of all these Gulf states.

[Mark Levin]

Right.

[Steven Crowder]

He just mentioned them. I think he mentioned Saudi Arabia, Qatar. There are others as well who, for example, go, okay, we are going to help you rebuild with this reconstruction. 300 billion, you know, diffused over a lot of them. That means that Iran could find themselves with more technological capability. That means that Iran, Yeah. Could find themselves with more ballistic missiles. But now you have everyone in that region who have been frustrated and kind of exhausted with Iran, who are regulated. It's kind of this, like, you know what? Here you go. Here's your gun. Now pull that smoke wagon and see what happens. Yeah, that's what's going on here a little bit.

[Josh]

Yeah.

[Steven Crowder]

Like, pull it out, see what happens. That scene in Tombstone where they just get slapped by their neighbors, not by us. That's the dynamic that could emerge from this. It may not, but that's the attempt. Do you want to go back to Vance? He's answering questions to do that?

[J.D. Vance]

What we're trying to ensure is they don't rebuild that capacity not just a year from now, two years from now, but many, many years from now so that our children never have to worry about a state sponsor of terrorism having a nuclear weapon.

[Mark Levin]

Thank you, Mr. Vice President. You were just saying that you're hoping this deal would prevent Iran in the future from getting a nuclear weapon from what's been put out there. I'm curious, how does the MoU reflect that in the future Iran will not, in fact get a nuclear.

[Gerald]

What's stopping them from down the road

[Mark Levin]

to your pointing and restarting from where we were?

[Steven Crowder]

Good question, though.

[Sam]

Yeah.

[J.D. Vance]

Well, number one, they would have to get a lot of money in order to rebuild their nuclear program. You're talking about billions and billions of nuclear infrastructure that the United States destroyed. In order for them to rebuild that program, they would have to get a lot of money. And we have them in an economic chokehold right now that we're not going to release until they fundamentally change their behavior. What would that look like? That would mean a real inspections regime. That would mean a real enforcement regime, as the MOU contemplates. That would mean the destruction of, of their enriched stockpile. All of these things are the sorts of steps you're going to take if you're serious about ending your nuclear weapons program. And that again, is why I go back to this fundamental trade that's built into the deal. They need money to do anything. Their economy is in absolute dire straits. But in order for them to get any integration into the world economy, they're going to have to show us and verify for us that they are changing their behavior and that's why the deal is set up in the way that it is. Go ahead.

[Josh]

You have the parade in the corner

[Steven Crowder]

yesterday that he was going to blame you if the talks of the ride go sideways. Are you worried that he's going to make you the fall guy?

[J.D. Vance]

No, not at all. I think the President was joking, but as he often does. But no, I think, look, the entire team has worked very well on this and we've got this thing to a very good place for the American people. Now, I have seen some progressive criticisms of me personally saying, what experience does the Vice President of the United States have with hostile high stakes negotiations? And I would point those progressive critics to the fact that just two days ago I spent over an hour on the View. So I actually have great experience in very hostile negotiations. And I've used that. I mean, look, Joy Behar is way tougher than the Iranians and she and I are best friends now. So we're going to get to a good place here. We're going to get to a good place. We're already at a good place. It's just a question of whether we can really get the icing on the top of fundamentally transforming Iran's relationship with the world. Go ahead.

[Sam]

Thank you.

[Steven Crowder]

A couple of just timing questions.

[Gerald]

How soon as the MoU lays out,

[Steven Crowder]

can Iran start selling any of its oil that has sort of been impounded?

[Gerald]

Right. With the blockade?

[J.D. Vance]

And two, can you sort of explain

[Gerald]

the Lebanon component to the MOU and how that front.

[Steven Crowder]

That's a big one in the enforceability of it.

[J.D. Vance]

Yeah.

[Tucker Carlson]

So.

[J.D. Vance]

So the Lebanon component, this is about regional peace, right? This is about regional peace. And what that means is we expect Hezbollah is not going to be firing rockets and firing drones at the Israelis, and we also expect that the Israelis are not going to be going wild in Lebanon. Right. Both sides have to honor their end of the deal. Now, as you guys know, sometimes these cease fires are a little messy. The President, United States said this a couple of weeks ago, that some cease fire in that region of the world just means they're shooting a little bit less at each other than they were before. What you've seen is radical progress in Lebanon, less shooting, less firing. But you're still going to have these little flare ups from time to time. And that's just the sort of thing that we're going to have to manage through the diplomatic process. Secretary Rubio has been sort of the person on point. It's actually worked out extraordinarily well because we do have substantially less shooting. But it's going to be something we have to to manage. And eventually what we want to see is the Lebanese government, the elected representatives of the people of Lebanon, who are able to police southern Lebanon so that Hezbollah is not taking over the country, the Israelis are not threatened, and then consequently, the Israelis are not attacking southern Lebanon or Beirut either. That's the plan there. You asked about the Iranian oil. Look, one of the interesting things that you've seen is that the Iranians have been completely unable to sell oil, not because of sanctions, but because of the blockade. Fundamentally, the thing that we have done here, the original, you know, what we give, what they give, is that we said we're going to lift the blockade, we're going to allow you to sell some of your oil and they're going to open the Strait of Hormuz. We see that process starting to work already. It's going to take a little time before it picks up fully, but that's where we are today. Go ahead.

[Sam]

Thank you, Mr. Vice President. The MHM just on the strait. The MOU guarantees these 60 days of toll free passage, but after that it

[Steven Crowder]

is of course speaking of J A

[Josh]

senior US Janice Leno yesterday that they

[Sam]

expect Iran to push aggressively on this, but also that Gulf states won't allow any kind of tolls. How strenuously will the US fight to keep tolls out of the strait and keep any fees away from the future strait commercial traffic? And are you going to leave it to the Gulf states to kind of fight this battle?

[J.D. Vance]

Well, first of all, we believe international waterways should be free of tolls. And that's been our position. That's what you see of course in the 60 days of the MoU. And when you say it leaves it open, it doesn't really leave it open except in the sense that of course the final negotiation is going to set the terms of what comes afterwards. Right. You said, I think that it's the, it's the Omanis and the Iranians, but it's actually the MOU contemplates that the Omanis, the Iranians and the Gulf coast coalition together will figure out a proper security framework for the straits in the future. And what I mean by that is that we don't ever want this to happen again. That's not about tolling, that's about ensuring that the straits are never used as a choke point for the global economy ever again. It's frankly not what the Iranians want, it's not what the Omanis want, it's not what the GCC wants either. So what we're going to do, of course working with our allies in the region is to ensure that that is required, reflected in the final deal. And if that's not reflected in the final deal, there's not going to be a final deal. And that, that is, I keep coming back to this fundamental structural point of this negotiation which is that we have all the cards. If the Iranians want the benefits of the bargain, they have to give us the things that are necessary to get those benefits. Go ahead.

[Gerald]

He's doing better than he did on the View.

[J.D. Vance]

In my, both you guys, there's one in the white and then one in the, than you know, orange I think.

[Steven Crowder]

What about the pink?

[J.D. Vance]

I'm sorry?

[Steven Crowder]

You said what about the pink?

[J.D. Vance]

Maybe I'm, maybe I'm colorblind. It looks more orange to me. I don't want to have a debate about that.

[Gerald]

Orange.

[Lane the Brain]

Pinkish.

[Gerald]

I understand that you go first and

[J.D. Vance]

then in front of you go second.

[Steven Crowder]

You lose out on so much joy of the world.

[Sam]

How does the points about granting some immediate waivers on sanctions, especially from the Treasury Department, how does that square with the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act? And are you planning on briefing Congress on this portion?

[Steven Crowder]

Screw Congress.

[J.D. Vance]

James Braid, our head of ola, we do plan to brief Congress very soon. I believe that they got the formal copy of the signed document this morning and if not, they're going to get at some point later today.

[Steven Crowder]

All right, you've been listening to Vice President. Yeah, I was going to say this is actually a good time for me to come in. CNN sucks. So going. You know, this is an important. Another comparison here.

[Gerald]

The inspections, huge.

[Steven Crowder]

So people go, oh well, at least under Barack Obama there was a cap. And those people are also being dishonest or they are incredibly ignorant. So under Barack Obama the inspections were a joke. That was a re. That was the reason for the JCPOA being torn up. You will hear those on the left and the Marxist right say, well, it was capped at three point, I think 3.6%. They're enriched uranium. And they only went beyond it when Donald Trump tore up the agreement. No, Donald Trump tore up the agreement because inspections were a joke. They weren't, they weren't. It wasn't capable to conduct them. We suspected them quite reasonably of enriching far beyond that and again, we need to do something differently. So that's why it was torn up and then we knew that they had enriched it. As to when, your guess is as good as mine because under Barack Obama there was a 24 day notice of inspection on the suspected undeclared sites, including military installations. So imagine they've got 24 days come on to move their stuff to Eddie Haskell and gee, you look really great. There's nothing here. Mrs. Cleaver. The IAEA, by the way, as I understand it, never asked to visit these sites. Oh, they feared that that kind of request would just collapse the entire jcpoa. So that's a very important thing to keep in mind because Iran was holding the cards. Yes, they were able to intimidate the people who were tasked with investigating, inspecting their sites and they had to give him 24 days notice. And even then they're going, you know what, I don't wanna walk into an ambush. Let's just not do it. So they weren't being conducted.

[Gerald]

Right. And basically Obama's agreement with them gave them a lot of these things without making them perform to get these things. Which is what he's just saying. He's like, hey, they don't perform. They don't get the benefits of this agreement. That's a much better way to structure it.

[Steven Crowder]

Well, and there are a bunch of sunset clauses under the Obama agreement.

[Gerald]

That's one of the biggest problems with it.

[Steven Crowder]

Yeah. And those don't. Those are not in this. No.

[Gerald]

So they had sunset clauses. And a lot of people skip right over this when you talk about the jcpoa. That is what they wanted to avoid because they saw the same pattern with North Korea. Buy time so that you can develop it and then it's too late. Right. So they're like, listen, we don't want

[Steven Crowder]

to say just one. You just said they referring to three different people. So they wanted to avoid sunset clauses.

[Gerald]

So the administration wanted to avoid the same issue that we slow walked with North Korea. Right. They slow walked. Really the rest of the world specifically. Usually we wanted to avoid that. We also didn't want to just give them a 10 or 15 year agreement that basically said, we're going to give you some money and you don't really, we'll give you 24 days notice to go do this. Just please don't develop nuclear weapons. And then 10 or 15 years later, it's like, okay, well now we have to sign the next contract with these guys and hope that it holds after that. He's like, no, we're not doing that. We have to reset this relationship. That isn't going to work.

[Steven Crowder]

That was a huge problem right now. This has not been finalized, meaning the terms as far as the inspections. That's one of those TBD, right. Next 60 days, what we have. But we do know they've been. Adam, there's not going to be sunset clauses on it.

[Gerald]

Right.

[Steven Crowder]

It's going to be a deal and it is going to be the final deal or no deal. That's how it works. Few points I think here to consider because there's good, there's bad. I'm pretty hopeful. I also think that history could look back on this if this goes poorly and people could say, you know what, this is something that the Trump administration did not handle well. Well, I go back and forth on it really does depend on all of these issues that are to be determined. But I will say the critics of President Trump, you know, the people who said, I was betrayed and I'm not voting for him. Right. Back then they were peddling misinformation saying Donald Trump said no, no new wars. Well, it switched from no forever wars to no new wars whatsoever. When Donald Trump was very, very clear, he's always been clear that he would take A hard line on Iran, but let's go with the critics. No forever wars, right? This administration, and I said, give it three months, which was kind of right on the money, about 40 something days till the fighting stopped. And now we're a little past three months as far as this final agreement. I said, give it and then we can kind of make an assessment. Other people are saying, impeach him because this was guaranteed to be another forever war in the Middle East.

[Josh]

We're lurching again into another forever war,

[Steven Crowder]

repeating the same mistakes again and again, launching hegemonic wars. Forever war.

[Gerald]

That's a forever war. And the only way they're going to achieve that is regime change.

[Sam]

Worried about sending their loved ones into what could be another forever war, the Trump family appears to be profiting from the war and in really no rush to end it.

[Steven Crowder]

Okay, those same people, right, and they were all gas and inflation and this is not America First. Now those same exact people are saying, what with this off ramp tackle Trump,

[Gerald]

our Navy, the most powerful one, our air force could have escorted tankers in and out of the Strait, but he chose to halt them. Yeah, Taco will be the joke.

[Mark Levin]

Look, sometimes politicians forget what every school child knows.

[Steven Crowder]

If you stand up to a bully, nine times out of 10, they will back down. The taco meme, Trump always chickens out exists for a reason. And I think they have taken to

[Josh]

heart what people may have heard of the taco phenomenon.

[Steven Crowder]

Trump always chickens out. The Iranian regime counts on being tougher and more resolved than Trump is. One of the names given to President Donald Trump in America is Taco. Very popular, isn't it? I'm sure you would have heard of it. Trump always chickens out. Taco. Trump always chickens out. This is exactly what has been happening in the past 24 hours. I'm sorry, here's my racism just coming to the surface. I can't take you seriously with that accent.

[Gerald]

It's hard. It's very difficult to say.

[J.D. Vance]

Yeah, yeah.

[Steven Crowder]

It's like, even if you disagree with Russian propaganda, you know, Pravda or Russia Today, when you hear someone like, and we know that with Donald Trump, this will be the approach that you're like, oh, my God, they mean visit.

[Lane the Brain]

Yeah, it's very serious.

[Steven Crowder]

And we know that you are like tacos. I think you do. But I don't know, do you like tacos? Comment below.

[Gerald]

Like my video.

[Steven Crowder]

It's not a serious country. So these were the people that Donald Trump was addressing. And this brings us to some pretty bad messaging. But I also Understand what Donald Trump meant to do. And this isn't me being a mind reader. This is me looking at a track record here. Donald Trump makes this mistake consistently. And I've, by the way, I've been guilty of it. I think everyone is who works in this space, just like a mechanic is guilty often of assuming that you have baseline information. And sometimes you'll find yourself confused. Anytime you get into a space that's specialized or niche, you have less information than the person who specializes in said niche. So Donald Trump will often start assuming that you have this baseline information. When that's not the case, it comes across quite poorly. So he posted this on Truth Social. He said, these fools, which means the critics, the people who were saying tuck ol Trump, these fools who think I haven't been tough enough on Iran when the stock market just hit a record high and oil prices are tumbling down, are either jealous bad people or stupid. Most likely stupid people say make America great again. President djt now I will say I understand what he is. The information there that's a given is a neutered Iran where they have had billions of dollars in their nuclear enrichment facilities capabilities destroyed, a navy that is completely destroyed with really no enforcement mechanism. So that as a baseline which was ignored and has now been accomplished, what remains is the primary criticism that, oh, oil prices, oh, inflation, well, now that is going away now. That's what he meant to say. Yeah, because it does matter. There's no more Iranian navy. You can say that there is. You know how there used to be an Iranian navy? There's not now. That's not like a small thing like, will every country that has a navy please stand up? Iran, not so fast. Yeah, you know, like, you know, that's a huge deal. Not able to enrich uranium, not able to be anywhere close to nuclear as far as we know. And that remains to be negotiated. These are all big things. But the critics were saying it doesn't matter because either insert lie here, hundreds of billions of American taxpayer dollars going to rebuild Iran. That's not true. It doesn't matter because this is hitting Americans and why do they care about what's going on in Iran? And by the way, if you didn't have that base information, you could say, well, yeah, the Dow was already at record highs.

[Mark Levin]

Yeah.

[Steven Crowder]

The Strait of Hormuz was already open.

[Josh]

Yeah.

[Steven Crowder]

Gas prices were unbelievably cheap in comparison to Biden. They were comparing Trump. Here's the big irony. They were comparing Trump economically in the face of a war against Trump, that's who he was addressing. And here's a montage just so you no longer have any doubt. I do hear everybody complain about the price of groceries and the gas. It's just not me. We don't know the cost, prices, the groceries, whether we're going to pay rent or eat. Medicaid gets cut. We have issues with SNAP benefits.

[Sam]

New poll shows President Trump economic approval Medicaid work requirements underwater According to A Reuters In IPSO survey, only 22% approve of Trump's handling of the cost of living and just 21% approve of his handling of inflation. This comes as inflation rose 4.2% last month to a three year high.

[Gerald]

I think the reason you see him so eager to make this announcement is the pressure he feels in terms of gas prices and rising inflation. Wages are stagnant and prices are up.

[Steven Crowder]

Whether you look at it from economic

[Gerald]

numbers, gas prices, fertilizer prices, food prices, this thing was an albatross. This report says people here are struggling

[Steven Crowder]

to keep up with the rising cost

[Gerald]

of simply having a roof over their heads.

[Steven Crowder]

So I think this is pretty important. That's why we started off with the objectives. The objectives. Destruction of the Navy. The objectives. Destruction of their. Their missile capability, Their ballistic missile capability. Of course, their ability to develop nuclear weapons. All right, Contrast that with the rhetoric. Rhetoric and the criticism. Forever wars. Okay, that's not the case. Forever. Oh, inflation, economy. Okay, that's not the case. Hundreds of billions of American dollars. Okay, that's not the case. It just. The goalposts just keep moving.

[Gerald]

Yeah.

[Steven Crowder]

Did we accomplish the objectives? In some cases, yes. In some cases, no. But what are those. Do you think that those people now, the people saying, we don't want no blood for Israel. Okay, there you go. Now you're a taco. What is it? Yeah, yeah. What do you do now? Here's the off ramp. Everything is going to stabilize. It'll go back to the comparison that you've used, which is not Biden ever. It's good. Trump, what do you think's gonna happen? It's just going to shift to something else. Including, by the way, those on the Marxist right who claim to be amongst you and be America first. That's what is most bothersome to me. Do you want to get to some of the worst responses?

[Gerald]

I think we should, but I'm glad you brought up Israel, because this should forever put to bed the idea that Donald Trump is controlled by Benjamin Netanyahu or Israel, because this goes completely against what they want. There is no clearer line in the sand for them than being able to go into Lebanon whenever they want and to be able to strike Iran whenever they want. And we basically just said, no, you can't. I don't want to hear it anymore.

[Steven Crowder]

Or if you want it, then you're going to go it alone.

[Gerald]

Yeah.

[Steven Crowder]

You're going to go, hey, you want to fight a war? Then you guys go fight your own wars. This does show that there can be periods where we can have goals that happen to be running parallel to each other, and that doesn't last forever. Meaning, okay, we believe that our objectives are sufficiently accomplished. We're taking the off ramp. Israel saying, no, no, no, we're not.

[Sam]

Well, good.

[Steven Crowder]

Then fine. Our goals are no longer aligned. This shows that Donald Trump can be a pragmatist in dealing with aligning with them where convenient and telling them to go screw themselves when they're acting like entitled pricks. And I get that they want to defend themselves. I understand it. But it doesn't mean that their method in defending themselves or dealing with these conflicts is the same as ours or that it should be.

[Gerald]

Has Israel fixed the Iranian problem? Has anybody in the last, say, 40 years fixed the problem with Iran? I know it's been since 1979, but has anybody actually had any material impact on them? Yeah, we can talk about slowing down weapons development for nuclear bombs. We can talk about taking out scientists. We can talk about, you know, cyber warfare, where he destroyed all their centrifuges and stuff like that. But does anybody actually solve the problem? No, we're taking a different approach to solving the problem. And if Israel doesn't like that, I'm sorry.

[Steven Crowder]

Yep.

[Gerald]

It doesn't include just bombing them all the time from now until whenever, until you get somebody to come in and do your dirty work and do the ground invasion that you can't do yourself. I get it. It's fine you're not big enough to do that, but you're not going to draw us into that. We're going to change the game here. And if they get in the way, I guarantee you Donald Trump is going to have some very strong words, hopefully strong actions.

[Steven Crowder]

Yeah.

[Gerald]

Against that.

[Steven Crowder]

Well, you know what? That brings us to what I think are some of the worst takes and responses that include both Tucker Carlson and Ben Shapiro, not fans of how either of them reacted. Doesn't seem like either of them are talking America first or maga. So here's Tucker on his show saying that the deal shows Iran is a power player. And he does this thing that he always does where he Takes exhibits he would get destroyed in court because of the way that he tries to build his case. It's disingenuous, it's illogical. And anyone who would be able to conduct some kind of a cross examination would make him look like a child because he makes the case. I guess. I guess America doesn't care about gays and women now or something.

[Tucker Carlson]

Why is this significant? Well, because the United States is addressing the Islamic Republic of Iran not as a rogue terror state, the Third Reich reconstituted in the Middle east, but as a normal country. In fact, as a powerful sovereign country whose internal affairs will be as a matter of record and agreement treaty unmolested because you don't interfere in the internal affairs in powerful countries.

[Gerald]

Oh, really?

[Steven Crowder]

Of course.

[Tucker Carlson]

Basically this paragraph two, before we even get to the straight of four moves and the nuclear program and all the rest, this document is acknowledging that Iran is not a rogue terror state. Iran is a sovereign nation, in fact a great power because it's negotiating with the world's greatest power, the United States. And the United States is acknowledging that. Hey, you know, you have a right to run your country as you like.

[Steven Crowder]

Pause. Just really quickly, does that mean this is something that Tucker does? That is a great disservice to anyone who is just watching him skim past this that you have the right to run your country, however. No, no. You mean the irgc, the people. If you, you could make that case with Canada where if we were to invade Canada, like, you know what, you guys are just too gay. Canadian government. And so we're gonna de gay ify you. Whatever you go, oh, hold on. There's a problem. They were elected by equally gay people. Right? This government was elected to do lockdowns in silly, goofy gay shit so you would be in conflict with the people. That is not the case with Iran. When Tucker says you're free to run your country however you want, what he's really saying is you are free to subjugate, to rape, to torture, to enslave your own people who didn't vote for you and don't want you. It's very important to make that delineation. It's not why we were in the conflict, but he does that on purpose and he does it consistently. Let's Continue.

[Tucker Carlson]

In almost 50 years of watching reports on television about how Iran is an out of control theocracy that murders gays for being gay and prevents women from being getting educated or whatever, they've been telling you the truth. We're okay with that now because you're a great power, and if you want to throw gays off buildings, it's not really our business.

[Steven Crowder]

Goalpost.

[Tucker Carlson]

Well, that's quite a change, whatever you think of it.

[Steven Crowder]

Yeah, it's actually not a change. And so this is what Tucker does, this thing. And this is why I say get torn apart in court. And he knows it because he's. He's not an idiot. He's hoping that you are. So in court, you will present exhibits to make a case, and ultimately, you'll have an actual ruling. What the United States was doing was presenting exhibits, Right? Their ultimate goal is, hey, we don't want a nuclear rant going. This is a nation that is so unstable, where more than half of their government leadership are active pedophiles. They have harems of, effectively sex slaves, concubines like Muhammad, their holiest prophet, who's no doubt looking up at us that this is an unstable place where they throw gays off rooftops, they sex, they enslave young women as sex slaves, they torture dissidents. And this completely unstable. See, exhibits A through X wants to have a nuclear weapon so that they could outsource. They could actually export that instability across the globe. And by the way, look, all their neighbors are incredibly concerned about it. So what Tucker does is he takes the exhibits, he takes the case building, and he conflates that with the actual concern or endgame. We were saying, and the whole world was saying, a nation that does ABC and acts in a way that aligns with xyz hanging gays, throwing them off rooftops, burning people alive, raping dissidents ceremonially. Right. Those people, because of all these indicators, really shouldn't have a nuclear weapon, because they've also told us what they would do with it. The war wasn't about the Village People being thrown off a bedrock roof. It was about ensuring that those psychos aren't able to damage people here who don't share those values. Does that make sense? And he does that all the time.

[Gerald]

He does that all the time. And he started off his entire episode, and this is where it pissed me off, I guess, the most. He said that the American empire is over, and it is at the signing of this mou, and he's America first. It's a little separate from the next video, we're gonna say, but it's along those same lines. He said it's basically over. And then he compared us to the British Empire and said they were basically over after Suez, certainly after World War I and World War II. But they kind of stayed around. He's making this kind of comparison that Britain couldn't win a war on its own and had to call in other people to help to win that war. And so therefore they are no longer the empire that they used to be. That is not what happened here. He's making that example and he's doing it in bad faith. It's not a legitimate argument. And again, he's hoping the viewer will just go, yeah, well, that seems. That seems right. I wanna remind Tucker of what he said several months ago. Whoever ends this war is Daddy. He was thinking China was Daddy. And he said it in not so many words. In the rest of that episode. The United States ended this war in Iran. Tucker, who's your daddy? It's the United States.

[Steven Crowder]

Well, Iran's a great power. Great power, apparently.

[Gerald]

Yeah.

[Steven Crowder]

Here you go. Here's actually a clip to that effect that, ah, the American. American supremacy is now done. Because he's making. He's maga. He's. He's America first.

[Tucker Carlson]

The United States has shown that it does not have, despite possessing the world's best or biggest or certainly most generously funded military.

[Gerald]

He seems to be questioning, does it

[Tucker Carlson]

not have the military power I never would to impose its will on the 34th biggest economy in the world? That is not a lesson that we're going to take decades to come to. That is an extremely obvious conclusion. In fact, that is the obvious conclusion of this document, again, for good or bad. And there's something poignant about it. There's something sad about it. There's something also bitter about it, considering it was predictable. This is why people opposed a regime change war against Iran, because this was always.

[Steven Crowder]

It wasn't a regime change war. It would have been nice. And they've clarified this administration many times. If the people stepped up and decided that they wanted regime change, but we weren't going to do that, that would have to come from within Iranians. I hope you don't pull in Israel and go look at our polling. Donald Trump sucks now because it was on you.

[Gerald]

Yeah.

[Steven Crowder]

I love you. My heart goes out to you. If you don't do it, them's the brakes. Same thing with Israel. We don't like Donald Trump. Well, we don't give a shit about your polling. He's not your president, he's our president. This couldn't be more clear that he is. For better or worse. Whether you agree or not, in good faith, Donald Trump is acting on behalf of the American people. That's what I think is a Main takeaway, by the way, his logic. Tucker's you could use it with any post conflict agreement, you could use it with us in Japan and the conditions that we let. We also, by the way, did help directly rebuild and fund. Like yes, it is completely disingenuous to say that. And he uses it all as a springboard to say we're no longer an empire and we shouldn't be, we're not that great. And boy, Iran is an up and

[Gerald]

comer and they just proved it because we didn't have the military capabilities. And I love how he did a little switcheroo here just to try to make a bigger case. He's like, our military, our military, their gdp, it's like, well, why don't you do their military? Their military's not that much better. But it's 16th in the world, so it's not nothing. And we didn't even do what we were capable of doing.

[Steven Crowder]

Right.

[Gerald]

So it's just, it's such. And again, I really hope that this is the final nail in the coffin of Tucker Carlson being a thing because he has shown completely. It won't be by those statements that he is not interested in America being the power that it has been and still is today. He is interested in something else. I don't know what it is, but he seems to be pretty rare. Pretty pro Russia, pretty pro China and pretty pro Islam based on his comments and where he chooses to vacation.

[Steven Crowder]

Well, it won't be a thing as long as people like Ben Shapiro around, who by the way, has been on the show many times and I've had a friendly relationship with him. But he acts as a very good backboard for someone like Tucker Carlson who's trying to paint everyone who disagrees with him as Ben Shapiro. Like, because people like Ben Shapiro and Mark Levin's been on the show and I think he's a very decent man. I just disagree with him. It's like they don't have the chip in their brain to simply understand that there's the appearance of them looking out for the best interest of Israel.

[Gerald]

Yeah.

[Steven Crowder]

Above those of the United States or at very least, which to me is just as offensive. Equal to. It shouldn't even be close, a little

[Josh]

different if Ben Shapiro was wearing, you know, combat uniform, it'd be a little bit different. Be a little different if Mark Levin was wearing a helmet, carrying a, you know, carrying a gun.

[Steven Crowder]

But so, and that's what allows people like Tucker and people to go, they just want to send. Well, no, we don't we want the best interest of the goals of the United States to be accomplished. I don't know exactly what someone like Ben Shapiro wants because on the flip side of Tucker Carlson, he's equally wrong. Just the other direction.

[Mark Levin]

Well, I've said many times, the president deciding to go into Iran and to hit nuclear facilities in Operation Midnight Hammer and then to go after Iran's ballistic missile facilities, nuclear facilities, Army, Navy and Air Force in this current operation was the signal act of political bravery, perhaps of my lifetime. With that said, this MOU appears to be, just from the text, a disaster that does not achieve any of the actual signal goals that were set by the administration. Administration at the beginning. There were effectively five goals that were set by the administration at the beginning. One was ending the nuclear program. Not just nuclear weapons, no nuclear enrichment, zero enrichment. That is not in the deal. Ballistic missiles ended. That is not in the deal. And the president today suggested that ballistic missiles should actually continue to be held by the Iranians because the Saudis, our allies, also hold ballistic missiles. Then you have the support of terrorism. That is not part of the deal. Anything that looks like an attempt to end terrorism, a permanent opening of the Strait of Hormuz toll free. Not only is that not in the deal, the deal appears to have a provision allowing Iran and Oman to attempt to toll the straits after 60 days. And then finally the idea that Iran would receive some sort of sanctions relief after all of those things happen. We are already seeing from day one relief in their ability to ship oil out of Iran. In my opinion, the Vice President of the United States, the chief negotiator on this particular project, has not well served the presidents.

[Steven Crowder]

Also, there's another clip if you guys can pull up from his own show where he talked about, well, what is Israel, their hands are tied with this deal. They're not. Israel's hands are not. Go it alone. Go it alone. Because here is the key takeaway for me. Look, and I hope that everyone understands we kind of had a binary choice. A negotiated off ramp or total destruction, which would be total destruction of Iran, not the United States in this scenario, let's be honest. So again, could be a different mile marker as to where that off ramp is. Is the negotiated off ramp better than the complete and utter destruction of Iran and certainly the regime? Well, those who said no new forever wars would have to acknowledge that it is. Those who said, inflation, gas, this is not good for America, America first impeach Trump would have to acknowledge that the negotiator off ramp is. And those who actually want what is best for. The United States would understand that this was always the end point. There would be a negotiated off ramp and we generated leverage by destroying their navy and rendering them far less capable than before. The alternative? Complete and total destruction. Or an option number three. That seems to be coming from some folks and I understand why you have grievances with them. Yeah, but this is an off ramp for us. But not. Not the best one for Israel. Don't give a shit. I think we're better off here and I know that some issues remain to be seen, but I think we can all agree that you'd be better off not being stuck in the middle of this conflict. If it's avoidable and certainly not a middle seat on an airplane, some things are out of your control.

[Gerald]

Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. I've just received word from our flight attendant that due to an electrical issue, all the laboratories are currently out of order. We're doing our best to coordinate an emergency landing, but the closest available airport is Tucson, which is about two hours away. I've turned on the fasten seatbelt sign, so please remain in your seats and we'll have you on the ground in no time.

[Steven Crowder]

Take control of your money. Click the link in the description to download Rumble Wallet today. Use the code CROWDER10 to claim $10 in US stablecoin. It's stable. Well, it's a big I just realized we've gone over time, so if you're not yet a Rumble Premium member, click that button. You get to continue with us. We're going to do chat Thursday. Of course we have a show tomorrow, but that's just right. Rumble Premium members. If not, you'll continue watching Haley for free. We had another segment prepared for today. It's this this podcast Elizabeth Andress saying that there are no good men left. And let's play it.

[Sam]

So many of my girlfriends who are silk pajama.