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Pod Save the World
Trump Goes to War With Iran
00:47:35
Tommy and Ben react to Trump’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities. They break down the many horrifying ways Iran could retaliate in the short and long term, how the conflict could snowball across the Middle East, and why the US can’t just bomb its way back to the negotiating table. They also get into the administration’s baffling, bad-faith messaging on the attacks, how the Democrats should meet this moment, and the global reaction.
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- [00:00]
Tommy Vitor
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Ben Rhodes
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- [01:20]
Tommy Vitor
Welcome back to Pod Save the World. I'm Tommy Vitorin.
- [01:22]
J.D. Vance
Ben I'm Ben Rhodes.
- [01:23]
Tommy Vitor
And we are recording a bonus episode on Sunday, June 22 at about 1pm Pacific Time to discuss the fact that the United States is now at war with Iran. Last night the US military dropped a dozen 30,000 pound bunker buster bombs on the Fordo nuclear site. We dropped two bunker buster bombs on the Natanz nuclear site. And a navy sub fired about 30 cruise missiles at Natanz and Isfahan, two other Iranian nuclear sites. The total operation involved about 125 military aircraft. They dropped 75 munitions total. So this is a pretty serious military mission. Ben Here's a clip of President Trump talking about what happened in a brief speech last night.
- [02:06]
Donald Trump
Tonight I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success. Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally over obliterated. Iran, the bully of the Middle east, must now make peace. If they do not, future attacks will be far greater and a lot easier. I want to thank and congratulate Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu. We worked as a team like perhaps no team has ever worked before. And we've gone a long way to erasing this horrible threat to Israel. There will be either peace or there will be tragedy for Iran far greater than we have witnessed over the last eight days. Remember, there are many targets left.
- [02:53]
Tommy Vitor
So ominous ending there. Ben. So despite Trump's bravado, his national security team is not arguing that Iran's nuclear facilities were totally obliterated like he said there. J.D. vance said this morning on Meet the Press that Iran's program was, quote, substantially delayed. In other words, the problem was not permanently solved by bombing, as everyone said before they decided to bomb. Just a little more background of what happened. So as listeners know, Israel started this attack on Iran several days ago and did so knowing that they did not have the military capability to take out the Fordo site in particular, which is buried deep into the side of a mountain. For that, it is assumed that you need these massive US Owned and made bunker buster bombs. And the US Is also the only country in the world that has the planes that can deliver them. So Netanyahu knew that to, quote, unquote, finish the job. He would have to draw us into this war. Dragon. Now I guess we'll find out if they worked and if Fordo is destroyed. Ben. But very troublingly, I'm also starting to see background quotes about the need to have boots on the ground in Iran to verify that their program has been destroyed. So that would be a pretty massive commando kind of operation that, you know, you can assume the Israelis would rather that those be American boots. Let's just leave it there. So another important question, Ben, is just whether Iran has moved any of its stockpile of enriched uranium out of these facilities before the Israeli and US Bombing campaigns began. We don't know the answer. Certainly something US and Israeli intelligence would have been watching closely. Will be watching closely. Ben. Just lastly, I think it's worth pointing out that even this really historic, massive, scary mission was well short of the full Pentagon plan to destroy Iran's nuclear program. This is a quote from Politico. The Pentagon assessed this year that the US military would need to do 30 days of sustained strikes to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities owing to their underground depth and spread out layout. So it looks like this operation was just significantly short of that. So anyway, let's just pause there, get your reaction to what happened and then we can get into what might happen next.
- [04:59]
J.D. Vance
Well, I mean, it goes without saying That I think this was totally unnecessary, that there was no imminent threat from the Iranian nuclear program. Nothing had changed materially from a few weeks ago, other than Israel disrupting Trump's own diplomacy and beginning to bomb Iran and demanding that Trump come in. So if he and Netanyahu are a team, Netanyahu is definitely the coach in that equation. Trump, by the way, didn't sound his best. He's kind of heavy breathing and didn't look that good. But I mean, in terms of the strike itself, and we'll get into all the ramifications of things that could come out of, should be noted that Fordeau is buried by design deep, deep underground. And so actually there may not be a way beyond kind of intelligence to determine the levels of destruction there, to determine whether or not any stockpile was moved, to determine what might still be operational deep underground. And that's where you get into these questions about boots on the ground, which obviously would be a major escalation if it's US Or Israeli troops, unlikely that you're going to get inspectors in there. And I should say that with the jcpoa, the Iran deal, you would have had know, not that you would have had them with US Bombs dropping on them, but you would have had access to these sites to see what's going on. So there's a lot of uncertainty here and we may not get total certainty and we can't really trust what's coming out of the US Government because the Director of National Intelligence changed the US Assessment of Iran's nuclear program after she was commanded to by Donald Trump. She went from saying this could be up to three years to saying it could be three weeks, I think, for Iran to get a nuclear weapon.
- [06:32]
Tommy Vitor
And also they've, they've been repeatedly lying publicly then, which they then come back and say was all just a big ploy to deceive the Iranians. But in practice, they'd just been lying to the American people.
- [06:43]
J.D. Vance
Everything's been a lie. I mean, what they've said, I mean, and this really bears emphasis because we are so far down the rabbit hole with Trump here that this is making the pre Iraq War Bush administration look responsible by comparison. And they were lying as well. I mean, they're just making up intelligence assessments with no evidentiary basis. They're not even bothering to put out cooked intelligence. They're just making stuff up. We can get into the international piece of this. But Trump did say that there was going to be this two week pause to explore diplomacy and offer Iran an off ramp and Actually, a bunch of European foreign ministers took him up on that. And we're literally meeting with their Iranian counterpart in Europe. Like, a couple days ago, David Lammy, who's been on this podcast, went out and said he met with J.D. vance and Marco Rubio, and they assured him that there was a diplomatic opening that needed to be taken. So they lied about. They're lying about the nuclear program. They lied about the timeline for their own strikes. How can we believe anything that they tell us? Trump lied to the world about obliterating the sites. Not even his own surrogates and lackeys will back that one up. So it's part of what is. There's so many things that are uncertain about this, and the worst one is that these bombs dropped on Iran without needing to be. But one of the things that's really disconcerting is we just can't believe anything that these people tell us about really significant matters of war and peace. And neither can the world, and neither can the Iranians who thought that they were in a diplomatic negotiation with Steve Witkoff just a couple weeks ago.
- [08:08]
Tommy Vitor
Yeah, I think what's important to just keep in mind in the kind of early days after an operation like this is that the US Military can and will win any single battle that they are asked to fight. Right. There's no one that can compete with the US Military, and I include Russia and China there. But where we have struggled as a country and as a military is the long game. It's like, it's not about winning battles, it's about winning wars. And that is often because our strategy isn't clear. And that is, once again, the case here. Like, is our goal to degrade or push back Iran's nuclear program? Is it to eliminate it entirely? Are we focused on the ballistic missile program and the proxy forces? Because those were the things the Republicans always said were not part of the JCPOA and which made it such a bad deal. What happens, Ben, if the Israelis keep pushing for regime change? Are we going to back them there? And then again, even bigger picture, and we've talked about this on the show, we are just fully entering this might is right rogue state era. And I'm not naive, and I know that the United States often has done whatever it wants. But at least as you were saying a minute ago, in the run up to the Iraq war, the administration tried to persuade the world and the American people about the intelligence case for WMD in Iraq. Now, they were wrong and they lied. But they. They made a case. They. They tried to pers. You know, they tried to. There was a vote in Congress.
- [09:28]
J.D. Vance
They went to the UN There was.
- [09:29]
Tommy Vitor
An effort to persuade the UN Right. Trump is, like, completely just done away with that. Like, their message is quite literally, who cares what the intelligence says? We're doing what our gut tells us. Like, we don't care if it's legal or constitutional or. Or what the rest of the world thinks. Might is right. And, like, okay, that's fine, I guess, in the near term, but, you know, we're not going to love it when the Chinese or the Russians continue to operate that way as well. Right. I mean, so any sort of, like, international order or norms or institutions that are supposed to keep us safe are just, like, completely tossed out the window.
- [10:05]
J.D. Vance
Yeah. I mean, they're gone. And the reality is, look, let's bring Israel into this, too. I don't believe what they're saying either. And actually, they said contradictory things, too, because the assessments of their strikes before Trump took this strike is that actually maybe they'd only set the nuclear program back about six months because they can't get at Fordo, because they can't destroy these deep underground sites. But then the Israeli foreign minister was out there saying before Trump took this strike that they'd set it back two years with no basis for why that is. And by the way, as someone who used to BE in the U.S. government, I don't know where he gets that number from, because the Iranians know how to do the nuclear fuel cycle. If they have any fuel and any centrifuges, it's a lot less than two years. If they have that down in a tunnel, if they have that underground, it doesn't take a lot of nuclear fuel and a few centrifuges for them to weaponize that. And so I don't believe what the Israelis are saying about this. I don't believe what our own government's saying about this. I'm sure the Europeans and we can get to their response, which has been a little bizarre. Pathetic, but pathetic. I'll just say it, but they got put out on a limb by Trump and he sawed off the limb, whether, like, having diplomacy as kind of a facade for the US to take this shot at the Iranians, The International Atomic Energy Agency, which verifies nuclear programs, they're obviously been cut out of the loop. There's just nobody in the loop except for Trump and his kind of lackeys around him. By the way, who we should also add, do you have a lot of confidence in what Pete? Hegseth or, or Tulsi Gabbard telling you. So we've got Israel, the Israeli government of Bibi Netanyahu and the American government of Donald Trump. No allies in that tent, right? I mean, the Iran nuclear deal, we had all the Europeans and Russia and China in the tent. No UN system, no legal basis for what they're doing. So it's real rogue state stuff. And even. And because I've got, I'm sure, like you, Tommy, I've got people, you know, all over my mentions by half of them are bots, you know, telling me that what a great thing this is.
- [12:06]
Tommy Vitor
Telling me I love Tehran.
- [12:07]
J.D. Vance
But those people don't even know what just happened. And those bots don't even know like what. Because the Iranians could conclude from this that North Korea made the right move by going underground and covert and just popping up with nuclear weapons and nobody's bombing them. And again, what is so difficult to process? And we'll get to the US Politics in this, and we've said this, but it bears repeating, the negative consequences don't necessarily show up the next day. We can talk about whether they attack US troops, but let's put that aside. Let's envision that the Iranians don't take a shot that harms US Service members. And we obviously hope that that's the case, or there's not some terrorist attack, but they could pop up in two years with a nuclear weapon because this happened. And let's not. That's the whole reason that you want diplomacy and a verifiable mechanism with inspectors. If this thing goes sideways, if there is to the international peace, if there is like further instability in the Middle east, if there are efforts to disrupt the global economy, if there are attacks on Gulf states, if there are US troops that have to go into Iran, that's when you're going to want allies. That's when you're going to want friends. And I think Trump doesn't realize it. You may not feel like he needs friends now, but when you need them, they're not going to be there.
- [13:35]
Ben Rhodes
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Tommy Vitor
Mine's pickled.
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Tommy Vitor
So much pressure to perform.
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- [14:24]
Tommy Vitor
That's a reason enough right there to.
- [14:26]
Ben Rhodes
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- [15:19]
Tommy Vitor
Well, you'll feel so much better, though, if if you're in one of those places. But you started saving early.
- [15:25]
Ben Rhodes
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- [17:07]
Tommy Vitor
So let's talk about how Ron might respond in sort of the short term and then let's get to the long term. So short term, a lot of the possible steps you're seeing speculated about are Iran could close the Strait of Hormuz, which for those who don't know is it's very narrow passage connecting the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman. It's right off the Iranian coast and at its narrowest point, I think it's about 21 miles wide with a far narrower shipping channel that's like two miles wide. So very narrow choke point where you have about 20% of the world's oil flowing through it. And that's not just critical for the Iranians to get their oil in and out. It's key for the uae, the Saudis, all these sort of Gulf oil producers. So if Iran were to close the Strait of Hormuz for any extended period of time, you would likely see a massive spike in oil prices. And then obviously that would also more likely lead to a direct conflict between the US Navy and the Iranian Navy that was attempting to shut down the strait. So that would be a big deal. They could also just try to mine it or just kind of slow things down in the strait, but it would be a pretty big escalation. The other thing you're seeing talked about a lot is whether Iran might use proxies to retaliate. They Have Shia militia groups that they support in lots of places like Lebanon and Iraq. They could attack US Military or diplomatic facilities. Ben, the thing I was thinking about, like, there are still Americans in Iran because they live there, because they're dual citizens, because just where their lives are. I mean, you could see them getting rounded up in some sort of scary way. There were reports last night of the U.S. monitoring Iranian sleeper cells in the U.S. i don't know how real that threat is. It's not my biggest point of concern. I worry a little more about attacks on Americans overseas, but, but obviously like, that came out of the US Government, that leak. So it's something they're thinking about. There could be a cyber element where they launch some sort of cyber attack on the US in some way, or they could just, you know, go hard at Israel. All options are on the table here. I mean, we do have one critical data point to look at for precedent, which was on January 3, 2020, Trump had Qasem Soleimani, the head of the IRGC, assassinated. And then on January 8, five days after that Soleimani strike, Iran launched 12 ballistic missiles at a US base in western Iraq. Now, like, only by the grace of God was no one killed, But I think 100 service members had traumatic brain injuries. And Trump, after that happened, decided to de escalate and not respond. But, you know, in that moment, if Iran had killed some U.S. service member, like, we would have been drawn into something much, much bigger. And so all those options are on the table here. So this idea that, you know, we bombed Iran's nuclear facilities and now it's over, it's like, unfortunately, Iran has a say in the matter of when this ends.
- [19:59]
J.D. Vance
That's right. And you covered a lot of, you know, the short term attacks that they could launch on US personnel, the mining of the Straits of Hormuz to disrupt the global economy, the terrorist attack that might not come tomorrow or next week. Right. But whether it's, you know, potential sleeper cells in the US And I'm not sure about that, whether it's attacks on Americans or Israelis around the world, that's something that could happen on a longer timeline as well. There could be attacks if they just decide to go all out kind of nihilist, they could just start attacking, you know, Saudi oil fields. Right. Not, not to attack the Saudis, but just to be arsonists. Right. And that's actually probably why the Gulf states have been, you know, not exactly supportive of this step. So they have a lot of different options, cyber attacks as well. They'll almost certainly try to take. But the reality is these are all short term things that could escalate. To your point, if it does ratchet up, the pressure on Trump will be to take some further shots inside of Iran. The same people that pressured him in doing this strike will pressure him to kind of go further and maybe go all the way to regime change. We also don't know what the Israelis are going to do. Are the Israelis going to pause or are the Israelis going to keep hitting inside Iran and push towards regime change? Or try to provoke Iranian responses that drag us further in and then you really do have a huge vacuum. And then the pressure will be, well, we need US Troops in there because it's chaos and, you know, someone needs to secure the nuclear sites or there's a failed state. You know, there are all these things that we don't know. And Trump has not articulated this, but beyond just saying like, well, I took the shot and it's over, but the Iranians get a vote on whether this is over. And the other thing I'd say is that, you know, even in the better scenarios, this is, nobody in Iran is going to forget this.
- [21:42]
Tommy Vitor
No.
- [21:43]
J.D. Vance
And, you know, look, we have experience in regime change in Iran. In 1953, 54, we sponsored a coup that seemed like it turned out great at the time, but that laid the seeds for the Islamic Revolution in 1979 and the taking of our whole embassy personnel as hostage and this whole conflict that we've had with Iran ever since. When Israel bombed Saddam Hussein's nuclear reactor in the early 80s, it was treated like a big success. Well, that led to decades of tension and multiple wars with Iraq. And we all know how that ended. So this is what. Americans have short attention spans on these things. American politicians are usually afraid to be against military force in strikes like this, but they have a very long tail. And that could be really bloody and really destructive or really economically disruptive, or it could lead to Iran again dashing for a nuclear weapon covertly. But even if those things don't happen, this is still lighting a powder keg that could explode at any time in the future.
- [22:44]
Tommy Vitor
Yeah. Interestingly, to your point about Iran potentially attacking Gulf Arab Saudi oil infrastructure, it's notable that I'm sure a lot of these Gulf countries, they hate the Iranians. Right? They're their mortal enemy. They would love to see regime change in Iran if it led to a friendlier government that came after. But the Gulf Arabs have not been allowing us to fly through their airspace to conduct these operations. It's all going through Syria in Iraqi airspace, which suggests some hesitation and you know, a lot of people point out that Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz would impact them as well. So maybe it would just be a, you know, sort of self defeating, I think was Rubio or J.D. vance called it like a suicidal decision. But you know, you go after the Saudi oil infrastructure, maybe take them offline, jack up the price, maybe that could net benefit Iran, which is, you know, if they're selling oil at a, at a higher rate, know that gets them some revenue.
- [23:40]
J.D. Vance
And can I say one other thing, Tommy? Like, because all these scenarios you mentioned remind me that like I thought we were supposed to be focused on China, right? Like I personally think we should focus on pivot to Asia, undefeated climate change or AI. Like whatever, all these things, whatever you're describing, we're going to have more military presence in the Persian Gulf for a long time in the Middle east. We're bogged down here. Like we're not focused on these other things. And meanwhile China looks like a responsible global player relative to us. So table stakes just got a lot worse. If the US looks like a rogue state, China looks like a responsible actor. The US is again distracted, or not distracted, focused on the Middle east and not focused on these broader geopolitical tectonic plates that are shifting underneath us. Nothing about this is going to serve our long term interests. Unless, yes, maybe we set back the Iranian program a year. Right? I mean, that's that. Nobody's claiming that you can't destroy a program. It's in people's heads in Iran. They know how to do it. So at best we went through all this to set this program back by like about a year.
- [24:42]
Tommy Vitor
Yeah, not great. Okay, so let's talk about how Iran might respond in the long term. We've talked about some of this, but it does seem likely that they will withdraw from the npt, the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty. Seems likely they will kick out international inspectors. You know, you could see a scenario where they kind of announced to the world like, well now we're going to develop a bomb because it's the only way we can protect ourselves. Or they could just as you said, decide to do it covertly. I mean, you wouldn't to your point. I mean, we don't know if they moved around some of this enriched uranium. You would need just a little bit of that and some of the advanced centrifuges to enrich uranium to bomb grade pretty quickly. So that's a possibility. Politically, I mean, people in D.C. talk about Iran like it's completely monolithic and like they don't have politics too. But this is almost certainly likely to empower the more hardline anti US forces who will argue that talks with the US are useless because they can't trust us. Right. This is as Trump's message and the JD Vance Rubio message this morning was like, now Iran should come back to the table. Well, I don't know that you can bomb people back to a negotiating table when you've been lying to them and pulling out of agreements you made. It will almost. This strike will probably stir more nationalism in Iran. It could harden support for a regime that is pretty much hated otherwise. But you know, they, they hate the regime less than they hate being bombed by the Israelis and us. And then Ben, I'd really like, I really can't overstate how much I worry about this long term terrorism threat. You know, like I have talked to you about this and talked, I tweeted that like you could see a bus full of American tourists get blown up somewhere in Cyprus or something in a few years. And all these MAGA morons were like, that's, you know, kind of trying to, well, actually me saying that Iran's done this in the past and what's the difference? Like, yes, you idiots. Like, that's my point, right? Like they have a track record of doing this shit. If we incentivize more of it, if we goad them into more of it, if we, you know, it's like give them another reason to do something evil that will harm the regime long term. But like they view it as a face saving opportunity or something. They feel like they're, they need to do this is how the world works, right? Like it's like everyone wants to start the story on, on, you know, at their kind of inflection point, right. Like we're always the victims, we're always responding. But the Iranians are going to view this as like one of the biggest attacks on their national sovereignty, whatever, you know, in like the decades at least. And they're, they're going to respond in some way. We just don't know what it will be.
- [27:14]
J.D. Vance
Yeah, and to your point about diplomacy, I mean they're, they're going to conclude we made a deal, the JCPOA that we complied with for years and then Trump pulled out for no reason whatsoever. Then we were in a negotiation with Trump and we thought we were getting close to a deal. And then Israel bombed us, and then Trump bombed us. And, and so that's that, that doesn't suggest, I mean, you know, I, I would like. The best option is, yes, that there's a deal that the Iranians come out. They say, we just want to end this escalatory cycle. And, and we will do a deal with you. But I don't know, I mean, the way that they, they've, you know, the way that they've experienced these negotiations, they might be saying that while still doing the COVID option. Right. And obviously you try to cover that with intelligence and inspections in a deal, but I, I don't think that they're going to trust America's word in a deal. We'd have to bring the rest of the world into it. We'd have to bring the UN into it. That Trump has ignored. Right. To, to verify that deal. So this just opens up a lot of questions. And he is so short term, you see him, he's like, oh, this is done. I took the shot. Everybody congratulate me. I'm moving on. Iranian nationalism has been kicked up. I've talked to people that hate the regime who say that people in Iran are enraged by this. There's a rally around the flag thing that happens, even if it's not necessarily rallying around the regime that doesn't go away overnight. Like you said, it creates political pressure on them to do something. But it also, you know, kind of creates a dynamic where kind of change, like the kind of progressive change you want inside of Iran from, like the women life, freedom movement, gets harder, not easier in this scenario. Like, you can't, like we've learned this bombing a government does not, like, elevate the more progressive forces in a society. It tends to do the opposite.
- [29:04]
Tommy Vitor
You know, no, the Trump people are like kind of hanging this had on this idea that he gave Iran 60 days to cut a deal. Then on day 61, the Israelis started bombing.
- [29:14]
J.D. Vance
Then why was Wyckoff going to go there on day 63? Why schedule the meeting?
- [29:17]
Tommy Vitor
Right. Which is. So that's totally bullshit. And then Trump gave them two weeks. And then you pick up the Atlantic this morning and you read that the two weeks thing was just a ruse to trick the Iranians. But reportedly the US Couldn't get those talks going or a back channel through Turkey going with Erdogan because the Supreme Leader was unreachable. Because he's in a bunker. Because of course he is. Because, you know, we're reading all these reports that the Israelis presented to the US a regime change operation to kill the Supreme Leader.
- [29:46]
Ben Rhodes
So, of course it's hard to get.
- [29:48]
J.D. Vance
The guy on the phone, you know.
- [29:49]
Tommy Vitor
Like, yeah, it's tough to get on the phone. So, Ben, let's listen to a couple of Trump's lackeys talking about what happened last night. First, here's J.D. vance on Meet the Press this morning. Sort of a super cut of some of what he had to say.
- [30:01]
J.D. Vance
We're not at war with Iran. We're at war with Iran's nuclear program. And it was only when the President decided that the Iranians were not negotiating in good faith that he took this action. He didn't take it lightly, but I actually think it provides an opportunity to reset this relationship, reset these negotiations. The Iranians are clearly not very good at war. Perhaps they should follow President Trump's lead and give peace a chance. If they're serious about it. I guarantee you that the President of the United States is, too. I certainly empathize with Americans who are exhausted after 25 years of foreign entanglements in the Middle East. I understand the concern, but the difference is that back then we had dumb presidents, and now we have a president who actually knows how to accomplish America's national security objectives. So this is not going to be some long, drawn out thing we've got in. We've done the job.
- [30:52]
Tommy Vitor
So that's just a great example of how they're not even trying to make an argument like, basically, oh, no, we're going to be okay in this operation because Bush was dumb and the rest of the presidents were dumb and were smart. And Also, Ben, like J.D. vance saying we are not at war with Iran, we're at war with Iran's nuclear program is just such like, unbelievable, embarrassing bullshit. Like the Brave truth teller, J.D. vance, who was, you know, like fighter for the common man, skeptic of wars of choice, would have absolutely crushed any politician who said something that's self evidently stupid and ridiculous because he knows what it means to bomb Iran. We're at war with their country. And by the way, Trump tweeted Iran now as the choice to end this war. So they might want to get on the same page here with their, their spin.
- [31:38]
J.D. Vance
Well, and first of all, we should be very clear too in all this, this bombing, because Israel's bombed them too. And Trump said we referring to the US And Israel. Iranians have been killed. And let's not lose sight of Iranian. Hundreds of Iranian civilians have been killed. I'm sure hundreds more have been injured. Tehran, people have been trying to evacuate. It's chaotic. People are panicked. People are scared. Those people aren't like oh, they're not bombing us, they're bombing the nuclear program. Those people, like, are part of Iran. And you can't just, you can't bomb a country and kill its people and say you're not at war with them, you're at war with a facility. That's just not how this works. J.D. vance's superpower is sounding absolutely confident and assured and sometimes even intelligent about everything he's talking about, but he has no idea what he's talking about. This guy three years ago was an author, venture capitalist running for Senate in Ohio. What does he know about starting a war over a nuclear program in the middle of the east with a country of 90 million people? So their level of certainty in how they talk, they talk about this the same way they talk about trans sports or ice raids. And it's just reality is going to catch up to these people. There is still such a thing as objective reality, no matter how much they try to speak it out of existence.
- [33:05]
Ben Rhodes
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- [33:58]
Tommy Vitor
Yes, that's after just a year or two of Haya vitamins.
- [34:00]
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- [34:40]
Marco Rubio
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- [35:00]
Tommy Vitor
Here's another supercut Ben of some of Marco Rubio's comments from this morning. I think he went on Fox News Sunday show and CBS earlier today.
- [35:08]
Marco Rubio
It was not an attack on Iran. It was not an attack on the Iranian people. This wasn't a regime change move. This was designed to degrade and or destroy three nuclear sites related to their nuclear weaponization ambitions.
- [35:21]
J.D. Vance
Are you saying there that the United.
- [35:22]
Tommy Vitor
States did not see intelligence that the supreme leader had ordered weaponization?
- [35:29]
Marco Rubio
That's irrelevant. I see that question being asked in the media. That's an irrelevant question.
- [35:33]
Tommy Vitor
But that is the key point in US Intelligence esteem assessments, you know.
- [35:36]
Marco Rubio
No, it's not.
- [35:36]
Tommy Vitor
Yes, it was the political decision.
- [35:39]
Marco Rubio
I know that better than you know that. And I know that that's not the case. What happens next is up to the regime. Okay, the regime wants peace. We're ready for peace. Look, at the end of the day, if Iran is committed to becoming a nuclear weapons power, I do think it puts the regime at risk. I really do. I think it would be the end of the regime if they tried to do that.
- [35:57]
Tommy Vitor
So there's just a great example of how they're just not even trying to make a case like the your argument is that the US Intelligence assessment about whether Iran has decided to get a nuclear weapon is irrelevant. What?
- [36:11]
J.D. Vance
And there's total internal inconsistency in what he said because he described them as three like nuclear weaponization sites. And then he said that it is irrelevant because they're not, they're three nuclear sites. It's different. Right? Whether they've decided to weaponize is whether or not this is an imminent threat. And so in the same appearance, he, he's all over the map. It's a weaponization site. Then there's not a weaponization decision. Then it doesn't matter. And then if they do decide to weaponize the Will and the regime, like, like in, in just oozing arrogance, you know, Again, I just, I can't help. I, I hope for the best here. I really do. I just, I don't have a lot of confidence in watching and listening with these guys.
- [36:54]
Tommy Vitor
No, not at all. So let's just talk about the Democratic Party and the Democratic reaction. I just, I want to just make the case to Democrats that I feel like in moments like this there is a tendency to kind of shrink from the debate and to worry that taking military action looks strong and decisive while talking about facts and nuance and restraint or diplomacy looks weak. I mean like what was this operation called? Military Midnight Hammer. Yeah, let's just call it war. Gives Trump a boner. Yeah, but like if you let that political fear silence you now, when people are really paying attention, then only the hawks are the ones out there making the argument and we will lose that fight. Like remember Donald Trump ran as an anti war guy. He stole that mantle from the Democrats in 2016. Joe Biden made it worse, unfortunately through his handling of Gaza, but also through what I think was principled leadership on Ukraine. Right. But we became viewed as like the warmonger party. Like we need to get back to being the anti war party. And that means not just opposing wars like this, but also standing up for diplomatic problems, which I know I'm going to trigger you now, Ben. But like that gets me back to the jcpoa because the jcpoa, the Iran nuclear deal worked. It was working when Trump pulled out of it. His own Secretary of Defense, Jim Mattis, testified before Congress in 2017 that Iran was in compliance of the JCPOA and that it was in our national security interests to stay in it. But he pulled us out of it. And part of why support for the JCPOA was weak I think is that very few Democrats would full throatedly fight for it. It was like there was so much throat clearing about the flaws and the fact that it didn't encompass the ballistic missile program or support for proxies and blah blah, blah, blah, blah blah. And the reason for that is because Iran's nuclear program was seen as an existential threat. One and two, everybody knew that Iran would never cut a deal all at once. They gave up every element of what they viewed as their self defense. But instead of just fighting for the thing, we looked weak. And like there is a direct line between Trump pulling out of the JCPOA and where we are today. And unfortunately it runs through four years of Joe Biden not re engaging on all of these matters and not getting back into the jcpoa. But, like, I just think we gotta, like, we gotta have some confidence and some courage in these moments.
- [39:18]
J.D. Vance
Yeah. It should not be this complicated. The JCPOA point is the obvious one. You had a deal. It was working. Iran was complying. You didn't have a nuclear Iran or a war to worry about when that deal's in place. Trump tore it up. And that was a direct line to what just happened. And by the way, when we used to say in the JCPOA debate that it was a deal or a war, people said, oh, how dare you say that?
- [39:40]
Tommy Vitor
Well, how dare you?
- [39:40]
J.D. Vance
Turned out that that was the. But let's just start the clock from today. This was dangerous and unnecessary and based on lies, faulty intelligence, or just outright lies about the intelligence. The American people are against this. Republicans and Democrats are against this. This presents all kinds of risks. It's the kind of thing Americans are sick of. It's the kind of forever war politics that have cost multiple presidents, and yet Democrats still have this kind of caution about being against the use of military force or being crosswise with Israel or whatever the thing is. Let me just add this point to Tommy, to this. How can Donald Trump be an authoritarian threat to American democracy in every realm except this one? How can you say that this guy is like a fascist who's like militarizing ice, who's deploying the National Guard to our streets, and not be concerned about him launching a new war only several months into his presidency? The last I checked, it's not good when fascistic leaders launch foreign wars. It's very strange to say, well, I'm against all the authoritarian things Donald Trump is doing, but I'm not against this lawless war he launched against Iran in league with Bibi Netanyahu, another lawless guy who's committed war crimes already in Gaza? We're going to be on board with that because we don't want to have that political fight that makes you look like you have no principles, that makes you look like you're afraid, that makes you look weak when we should be pointing out that Trump did this from a position of weakness. He was dragged into this by Netanyahu and a bunch of hardliners in the Republican Party. And we cannot pretend like Trump is normal in this one area of policy. He's somehow normal when he drops bombs on Iran and he's a threat on everything else he does. That makes no sense. The same Donald Trump that is deporting people to a gulag in El Salvador and deploying the National Guard to our hometown of Los Angeles and dismantling the federal government is the same person that launched this strike and has not told the truth about it and has filled his administration with totally incompetent people. Radic incompetent people like Tulsi Gabbard and Pete Hegseth who are in charge of this war. This is not a close call for Democrats. And I think people are watching this, including people like us who are in the Democratic Party to be like, well, let's see some backbone from our leaders. Let's see some people who are willing to go out there and have a fight on principle. That, by the way, the American people we know agree with us on.
- [42:12]
Tommy Vitor
Yeah. And I think there's a number of Democrats out there making the case that Congress needed to vote to authorize this war. And I think that's an important part of the debate. But where I'm seeing Democrats, I think shrink from the fight is just on the substance itself. And that like, this is not how you solve the problem. This is not how we're going to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. And that it's not okay for the United States to just act as a global rogue actor and just bomb countries without any sort of legal basis or even intelligence case for why it was imminent and necessary. Right. I mean, like all the Republicans who are saying, oh no, we didn't need Congress, the President, United States has the authority to respond to imminent threats like proliferation of wmd. The US Intelligence assessment as of March was that Iran was like a year at least away from getting a nuclear weapon. Like there was no imminence here. And they're not even trying to tell us that that assessment changed. They're just saying we don't care.
- [43:08]
J.D. Vance
Yeah. And look, this is where Joe Biden got into trouble because he did a lot of good things right in fighting climate change, joining Paris agreement, like focusing on Asia Pacific, like trying to standing up for Ukraine. But it was this region, it was the Middle east where blank check support for Gaza didn't go back into the Iran deal, fist bumping with mbs. You can't have a Democratic Party foreign policy where you carve out what is kind of the most important file here, which is war and peace and the Middle east and all these complex relationships. We should have a long conversation in this podcast about the Democrats want to have an alternative to Republicans. You have to be consistent and principled on it and you can't kind of carve out These areas where you are acting out of political fear, because people will smell that and they won't take you seriously on other things. They won't take your warning seriously on the National Guard, in the streets, while you're saying, well, I support Trump dropping gigantic bombs on a country on the other side of the planet with no legal basis or no intelligence basis, just because that's where he and Bibi Netanyahu decided to go.
- [44:12]
Tommy Vitor
Yeah. And also, we have a political opportunity here where you are seeing a bunch of people who supported Donald Trump in the last election come out and say, this is bad. We don't want war with Iran. This is the exact opposite of what he told us he was going to do. Some have called for him to be impeached. So we need to speak to those people and provide a clear alternative. Final thing, Ben. I mean, the international reaction has just been completely muted and bizarre. Right. Like Keir Starmer's statement from the UK is a good example. Like, talks about how Iran's nuclear program is a grave threat to international security, can't be allowed to have a weapon. US has taken action to alleviate the threat, blah, blah, blah, calling Iran to return to the negotiating table. Like, just a few days ago, top officials in the UK were talking about the illegality of this operation. Like, I don't know, I'm not seeing. Like, I'm not seeing a lot of voices from our allies saying much of anything. We are seeing condemnation from the Russians, from the Chinese. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said a kind of a crazy tweet. A number of countries are ready to directly supply Iran with their own nuclear warheads and that the enrichment of nuclear material, and now we can see it outright, the future production of nuclear weapons will continue. You never know with that guy whether he's tweeting something on behalf of Putin or whether he's just shitface somewhere kind of popping off on his social media account. But I don't know. I'm curious what you make of just kind of the silence in the face of this ballooning war, mainly from Europe.
- [45:42]
J.D. Vance
I mean, the Global south will be horrified by this. Russia and China will try to take advantage of it. Europe is not unlike the Democratic Party in this one. They're afraid of Trump, they're afraid of tariffs. But the reality is, at a certain point, you're going to need your own foreign policy here. Otherwise, you're just going to be riding, not just shotgun, you're going to be riding in the trunk. While Donald Trump is driving the car off a cliff here. And I think early returns on this one are. You can tell they're not happy about it, but they're also kind of putting their head down and I don't think that's very sustainable either.
- [46:12]
Tommy Vitor
No, I don't either. Okay, I think that's it from us for today. I'm sure we'll be talking about this a lot more this week, so thanks for listening. Please subscribe to Pod Save the world on YouTube. We cover all the biggest events happening in national security in the US and around the world. This nuclear issue and the war in Iran has been front and center. We've covered Gaza. So if you subscribe to Pod Save the World, you will hear at least weekly updates on all the biggest events. And we try to talk in normal ways with language you can understand and actually make it fun and interesting. So thanks for listening. Please subscribe to Pod Save the World.
- [46:47]
J.D. Vance
See ya.
- [46:50]
Tommy Vitor
Pod Save the World is a Crooked Media production. Our senior producer is Ilona Minkowski. Our associate producer is Michael Goldsmith. Our executive producers are me, Tommy Vitor and Ben Rhodes. Say hi, Ben.
- [47:00]
J.D. Vance
Hi.
- [47:01]
Tommy Vitor
The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Kanner is our audio engineer. Audio support by Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Thanks to our digital team, Ben Hethcote, Mia Kelman, William Jones, David Toles and Molly Lobel. Matt de Groat is our head of production. If you want to get ad free episodes, exclusive content and more, consider joining our Friends of the Pod subscription community@qriket.com friends friends, don't forget to follow us at Crooked Media on Instagram, TikTok and Twitter for more original content, host takeovers and other community events. Plus find Pod Save the world on YouTube for access to full episodes, bonus content and more. If you're as opinionated as we are, please consider dropping us a review. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America east.
- [47:50]
J.D. Vance
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Tommy Vitor
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J.D. Vance
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- [48:05]
Marco Rubio
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