Dave Smith (40:15)
Yeah, no, that's a fair point. And it is, it is important to point out that particularly in terms of the flow of migrants, he's, he's really gotten like an A plus on that. He's done a remarkable job. And I think so much of that seems to just be who the president is. It really does send a signal. But so yeah, that is, that is a fair point. And one of the things that's been interesting over the last few days is that so Benjamin Netanyahu, I guess is coming to the US in the next few days. I think Trump said something like there'll be some brief celebration over how successful the mission was. Oh, by the way, before even getting to the Netanyahu thing, I should say this is because it's just kind of funny to me. But so you've got. In terms of the damage that was done to the Iranian nuclear capabilities. Now again, as I've been clear on this the whole time and again, this is what all the intelligence backs up. In fact, I'm going off of the intelligence assessment here. I'm going off of the IAEA and the Director of National Intelligence and the CIA and, and European intelligence and Israeli intelligence, which all were saying that Iran has not yet made the political decision. This is before the 12 Day War. Iran had not made the political decision to attempt to acquire a nuclear weapon, let alone were acquiring it. They hadn't even decided to start going for it and they were in negotiations to bring it. So there was, it was a non existent nuclear threat. So. But now there were, as I'm sure you saw, Rob, and I'm sure people listening saw there were, there were kind of like conflicting reports about how much damage has actually been done to the Iranian nuclear facilities. Now I know I had a couple, a couple military buddies of mine who I've talked to and one, Daryl Cooper has talked about this publicly and he worked for the Department of Defense for a while and he was a part of the several damage assessments and what he said. And I've heard this from a few other people who I know who have military experience. They're basically saying anytime you're doing a damage assessment, if you can't get verification on the ground, there's very little confidence in whatever you're assessing. You know, you go off satellite images and stuff like that, but it's very hard to know exactly how much damage you did. But so the New York Times and cnn, they basically got leaked a report that said that it hadn't been that damaged and that they'd maybe only been set back by a few months or maybe a year, but that really hadn't done major damage. Now then the White House, they attacked CNN and the New York Times, but they also did acknowledge that the report was real, but that there was other information they didn't have. Then Tulsi Gabbard comes out like, no, no, we have intelligence that it actually was very effective. And it's that Trump's like totally obliterated. The Iranians are kind of playing coy in the middle, like, not exact. They're the ones who would know. They're not exactly saying what happened. And they've given a couple statements indicating in different directions. But you have this situation now where just to be completely clear here, I have no idea. I don't think a lot of them know for sure. I think the Iranians know, and I think that's about it as of right now. But I don't know. I think it certainly is possible that you drop a whole bunch of these bunker busters, it's going to do a ton of damage. So I'm not, I'm open to the idea that they were obliterated, as Donald Trump said. But what's interesting about it is you have all of these different groups with their clear incentives to take the narrative they want to take, right, like the, the New York Times and CNN wants to damage Donald Trump. As we've seen in the past. They're quite happy to use, utilize lies in order to do that. They'll utilize the truth, too, if that'll damage Donald Trump, but they're quite happy to make shit up, too. So you can't really trust them. You know, they're trying to damage Donald Trump. You know, they're also beholden to the war party. And so, of course, the war party would like the pretext for war to, to remain, you know, and be like, oh, there's still a nuclear threat we got to take care of. Maybe we got to bomb them more. Donald Trump obviously is incentivized to say what an overwhelming success this mission was because I'm such a great president, you know, and then the Iranians have their own interesting set of incentives where, you know, they don't want to admit that we got hit really good. They also don't want to broadcast to the world that, like, the strikes didn't work. So the same issue is still here for you to come back and attack us on anyway. You know, I can't lie. So I have to just say, I, I don't know. But for my own propagandistic reasons, I do like the Trump line the best. Like, I do. I, I do like the, oh, yeah, there you go. No more reason, right? This, this nuclear threat that never existed to begin with, but yes, it's been totally neutralized. So I guess we don' to worry about this problem anymore going forward anyway. So now Donald Trump has, has been pivoting toward talking about trying to end the war in Gaza. And Donald Trump's got a problem on his hands here, which is that he, he's damaged his political coalition. There is no now, it's, believe me, I'm not downplaying this. It is, it was very much in peril. It was rescued by the fact that Donald Trump, after the Iranians had their little, you know, restrained response and gave us advanced notice after that. Donald Trump pivoting to a ceasefire immediately and wrapping the thing up that, you know, rescued his very, you know, damaged coalition. But you still can't undo the fact that, that you, you had just so many people and, and people with big audiences who were, like, so opposed to the policy in Iran. When you got Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon and Jack Posaybiak and Charlie Kirk and all of these guys talking about how you're going to destroy your own political coalition, that doesn't just go away in weeks, that does damage to your, the cohesion of your base. And now Donald Trump's looking at this reality where there's still, look, he's been unable to end the war in Ukraine despite his efforts, and he's been unable to end this war. And they're both very unpopular and they're both kind of destabilizing. They both bring a lot of volatility over here and like, political volatility. I mean, and so now he's talking about wanting to, to end this war. So then he comes out with this, this, this post a few days ago about how Netanyahu's trial should be called off. Did you see this, Rob? And this is, I will say there is something about all of this. This is just kind of, my, my read of the situation is that I, I think that Donald Trump's thinking on this is that Netanyahu doesn't want to end this war because he knows he's going on trial for corruption charges when he ends it, and that if he can get rid of that trial, then maybe he can persuade Benjamin Netanyahu to end the war. That seems to be what he's thinking here because he's also signaling that he wants to wrap up the, the, you know, Israel's campaign in Gaza. And there is just something, I feel like this is so, it's so ripe for conspiracy theories because it's almost impossible not to speculate about the level of control that Israel has over our politics. But it's really amazing, Rob, to witness that just days after Netanyahu, Donald Trump pushes for a ceasefire, and then Netanyahu just unloads, attacking Iran after that. And Trump is so frustrated because he's like, my God, you know what I mean? Like, he's working actively against your interests and, and then you're like, he's trying to lure you into a war that you're trying to get out of, and you're, you're frustrated. And then the next Day you're out advocating that his charges are dropped. Because this is how you see, you could maybe influence him, him into ending this war that we're funding. Like, you want to end the war that you're funding? Stop funding the thing. Like, it's just so bizarre. And with Donald Trump particularly, you just know him, like, we just know from his personality type that like, if anyone else disrespected and humiliated him this way, he would just be eviscerating them. Like, just, you know, the best you got is in what. When he's at his angriest on one clip, he like very, he goes. And he lumped Iran into, he goes around and Israel don't know what the fuck they're doing. That's the most he could muster up. That was even like kind of critical of Israel was. He was being critical of both Israel and Iran. And yet Elon Musk, you know, because people will say, well, it's as simple as the, you know, the Adelson's gave him hundreds of millions of dollars. It's like, how about Elon Musk? Elon Musk gave him hundreds of millions of dollars. He turned his back on him. In a second. Tucker Carlson gave the, the keynote address at the Republican National Convention. He threw him under the bus in a second. Anybody else he'll throw under the bus. And his former vice president, it doesn't matter who. Like, he'll throw his wife under the bus if she crosses him the wrong way. But Benjamin Netanyahu, the way he's got to massage this guy is be like, well, maybe if we could get his trial canceled, then maybe he. Like, it's as if we're Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu is the President of the United States of America. Like, it's as if, as if he's the guy who runs the country with the most badass military that's funding us. And then we got to go, man, we got to ask him real nicely if he would maybe do this thing. But this is the way Trump treats Benjamin Netanyahu. It's just, it's, it's too much for regular people to not look at that and go, like, what's going on here? Like, what type of control do they have? And even for, for me, I got to be honest, like, it just, it makes me speculate in my mind, like, what do they have on you, dude? Because no one else could get this type of treatment for, for Donald Trump. I mean, like, you think about what he's uncorking on Thomas Massie for opposing A bloated spending bill, and yet Benjamin Netanyahu can just spit in his mouth on the international stage and Trump just takes it. It's wild. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Crowd Health. I've been telling you about this company for years now because I just love what they're doing. I think it's such a great idea and such a. 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