Will Trump Drag Us Into War With Iran?

Summary

Pod Save the World: "Will Trump Drag Us Into War With Iran?"

Release Date: June 18, 2025

In this intense episode of Pod Save the World, hosts Tommy Vietor and Ben Rhodes delve deep into the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran, examining the potential for U.S. involvement under President Donald Trump’s administration. The conversation provides a comprehensive update on the situation, critiques the motivations and actions of key players, explores media influence, and discusses the broader political ramifications. The episode culminates in a thought-provoking debate with Ohio Congressman Greg Landsman, offering contrasting viewpoints on the path forward.

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I. Current Situation: Israeli Strikes on Iran

The episode begins with an update on the conflict, highlighting Israel's extensive strikes on Iranian targets.

• Tommy Vietor notes, “As of Sunday, the IDF confirmed that they had hit over 170 Iranian targets and more than 720 military infrastructure components” (02:00).

• Ben Rhodes emphasizes the scale of the operation, stating, “This is not just an active war, but one that is growing and one that is clearly now a regime change operation” (02:33).

Key developments include:

• Iran has launched approximately 370 ballistic missiles towards Israel, with around 30 hitting targets.
• Significant damage inflicted on Iran's nuclear infrastructure, including the Natanz and Isfahan enrichment sites.
• Israel claims to have neutralized Iran’s air defense systems, asserting control over Iranian airspace.

II. Potential U.S. Involvement: Trump's Role

The discussion shifts to the possibility of the United States entering the conflict more directly.

• Ben Rhodes warns, “This could be a really long and difficult war because of the regime change component of it” (06:36).

• Tommy Vietor highlights reports from Axios indicating Trump’s consideration of a U.S. strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities, noting, “Trump is seriously considering joining the war and launching a US Strike against Iran's nuclear facilities” (07:28).

Concerns raised:

• The use of massive bunker-buster bombs by U.S. bombers to target facilities like Fordow.
• The potential for an endless cycle of bombing operations without clear end goals.
• The impact of such actions on U.S. service members and global oil markets.

III. Critique of Israeli Actions and Netanyahu

Ben Rhodes provides a scathing critique of Israel's unilateral military actions and Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu's leadership.

• Ben Rhodes asserts, “This is entirely a war of choice launched by Israel” (07:05), comparing it to the Iraq War and warning of similar unintended consequences.

• Tommy Vietor expresses frustration, “Netanyahu keeps saying, we were given a deadline, but this is just self-evidently bullshit” (52:12).

Key points:

• Israel’s strikes go beyond targeting nuclear facilities, hitting media stations and military leaders not directly involved in the nuclear program.
• Netanyahu’s coalition government includes figures like Itamar Ben-Gvir and Smoltridge, whom Rhodes criticizes as extremists influencing policy negatively.
• The absence of a clear endgame, leading to prolonged conflict and humanitarian crises in both Iran and Gaza.

IV. Media Influence: Fox News and Propaganda

The hosts delve into the role of media, particularly Fox News, in shaping public perception and influencing political decisions.

• Ben Rhodes condemns Fox News, stating, “There is so little good news out here” (25:28), drawing parallels to the media's role in promoting the Iraq War.

• Tommy Vietor highlights Tucker Carlson’s commentary, noting, “Fox's coverage jumped out at me. Some of the same voices, the Fox” (25:28).

Insights:

• Fox News consistently portrays Israeli actions as ingenious military operations without substantial pushback.
• The media’s failure to critically assess intelligence discrepancies regarding Iran’s nuclear timeline.
• The amplification of neocon hawkish voices, pushing for aggressive military policies.

V. Political Ramifications in the U.S.

The episode explores the internal political battles within the U.S., focusing on efforts to prevent escalation.

• Tommy Vietor mentions bipartisan efforts, “Congressman Thomas Massie and Democrat Ro Khanna have put forward a resolution that would prohibit the United States from getting involved in the war” (47:34).

• Ben Rhodes expresses skepticism about the effectiveness of these measures, given the entrenched hawkish elements within Congress.

Discussion Points:

• The Democratic and Republican divides on foreign intervention.
• Public opinion largely opposing U.S. military involvement in another Middle Eastern conflict.
• The potential long-term costs and geopolitical repercussions of a U.S.-led regime change in Iran.

VI. Conversation with Congressman Greg Landsman: Diverging Perspectives

In a pivotal segment, Tommy engages with Congressman Greg Landsman, an Ohio representative who supports Israel's actions against Iran. Their conversation reveals deep ideological divides and personal experiences shaping their views.

A. Personal Experiences and Security Concerns

• Greg Landsman recounts a personal ordeal where his name was on a hit list for a shooter targeting lawmakers, underscoring the real threats policymakers face (60:11).

B. Justifying the War Against Iran

• Landsman argues for the necessity of regime change, stating, “The initial goal is to diminish, derail the nuclear capabilities of Iran” (63:34).

• He believes that weakening Iran’s regime could lead to regional stability, liberating countries like Lebanon, Gaza, and Syria from Iranian influence.

C. Critique of Diplomatic Failures

• Landsman emphasizes the failures of diplomatic efforts, attributing the conflict's escalation to insincere negotiations and the militant stance of Iran’s regime.

D. Addressing Civilian Casualties and Humanitarian Impact

• While Tommy Vietor highlights the staggering civilian toll in Gaza and Iran, Landsman responds by differentiating IDF’s targeted strikes from Iran’s indiscriminate missile attacks, asserting that Israel aims to minimize civilian casualties (81:25).

E. Path Forward and Hope for Peace

• Landsman remains hopeful for diplomatic resolutions post-military action, advocating for a new Israeli leadership that can foster sustainable peace (77:30).

• He calls for international support to rebuild and support liberated regions, distancing future policies from past mistakes like those seen in Iraq and Afghanistan.

VII. Conclusion and Final Thoughts

The episode concludes with both hosts expressing deep concerns over the ongoing conflict and its potential to spiral into a prolonged war with severe humanitarian and geopolitical consequences.

• Tommy Vietor voices his frustration and despair, stating, “It is so unbelievably pathetic. Pathetic and disappointing. He looks so goddamn weak” (53:20).

• Ben Rhodes warns of the long-term instability and the dangers of repeating past mistakes, urging Democrats to stand firm against unrestrained military interventions (50:20).

Final Remarks:

• A unanimous call for reconsidering the path of war and emphasizing the importance of diplomatic efforts to prevent further loss of life.
• A reflection on the cyclical nature of regime change wars and the urgent need to break free from historical patterns that lead to instability and suffering.

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Notable Quotes:

• “This is entirely a war of choice launched by Israel.” – Ben Rhodes (07:05)

• “There is so little good news out here.” – Ben Rhodes on Fox News (25:28)

• “We have to support this and look at this war and things are blowing up and you're weak if you don't support it.” – Ben Rhodes (09:00)

• “It's so unbelievably pathetic. Pathetic and disappointing. He looks so goddamn weak.” – Tommy Vietor on Trump (53:20)

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This episode of Pod Save the World offers a critical examination of the volatile Middle Eastern geopolitics, the influence of media on policy, and the profound ethical dilemmas surrounding military interventions. Through a balanced dialogue and expert insights, Tommy Vietor and Ben Rhodes provide listeners with a nuanced understanding of the precarious situation and the urgent need for thoughtful leadership and genuine diplomatic efforts.

Transcript

[Tommy Vitor]

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[Ben Rhodes]

I'm Ben Rhodes.

[Tommy Vitor]

Ben, how's New York doing?

[Ben Rhodes]

A little politics here, Tommy. A little lively mayor's race going on.

[Tommy Vitor]

Election.

[Ben Rhodes]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vitor]

What is that? Is that, is that today?

[Ben Rhodes]

It's, it's early voting already. So for people I've been following, this is couldn't be like more of a stark choice. You've got like, you know, Andrew Cuomo representing the kind of restoration of like hard ass Centrist politics and some other things, obviously. And then Zoran MAMDANI, you know, 33 year old on the other direction. It's never dull in New York. Actually. Brad Lander got arrested today.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah, that was crazy.

[Ben Rhodes]

So, you know.

[Greg Landsman]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vitor]

And early voting numbers are way, way up. And for some reason Mamdani is treated like he is becoming ambassador to the UN and only gets questions about what he's.

[Ben Rhodes]

Yeah, like it's actually I've been trying to because you know, I'm always be a New Yorker and like I want to know about his like plans to like make bus free and you know, keep the rents down and. But all people want to ask about is Israel. It's weird.

[Tommy Vitor]

Like it's crazy. Well, we're going to be in a similar boat today, Ben. We're going to focus basically the whole show today on the war between Israel and Iran. So we're going to update you guys on what happened since Friday when we recorded that bonus episode. How this war is quickly ballooned from being about weapons of mass destruction to regime change. Sounds familiar. We'll talk about the voices pushing Trump to get involved in bombing Iran directly. And we'll talk about some of the voices urging caution and the media coverage, all of it. We're also going to talk about some political considerations for Democrats and then why we think no one should trust Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu when it comes to Intelligence about WMDs or regime change wars generally. Then you're going to hear my conversation with Congressman Greg Landsman from Ohio. So Greg is somebody I've known for, for a few years now. I consider him a friend. We profoundly disagree both about the war in Gaza and, and also about this new war in Iran. And we argue about it all the time on text. And so we figured why not take that to the podcast. So let us know what you think.

[Ben Rhodes]

Yeah, I'm looking forward to that, Tommy. I mean, we occasionally air all views here on pod. Save the world.

[Tommy Vitor]

Doing our best. Doing our best to air all the views. All right, Ben, let's just jump right into it. So last Friday we did an episode about this surprise Israeli attack on Iran. If you want more of the backstory into how that all went down, listen to that episode. But this is going to be more of an update for on what things have happened since that time. So as of Sunday, the IDF confirmed that they had hit over 170 Iranian targets and more than 720 military infrastructure components. Bloomberg reported that Iran has launched around 370 ballistic missiles towards Israel with around 30 hitting targets. As of this recording, Iran has taken about 224 casualties in Israel. 24 casualties. So some, some real damage happening. So far, much of Iran's nuclear infrastructure has taken a beating. Like the Natanz enrichment site, Isfahan site, there's lots of missile and military infrastructure that's gotten hit. And Israel has killed a number of additional Iranian military and intelligence leaders. Trump and Israeli officials now say they have taken out all of Iran's air defense systems and they can fly over the country at will. The Wall Street Journal reported the US Intelligence thinks Israel has set Iran's nuclear work back by about five to six months. And while you know US and Israeli missile defense systems have intercepted the majority of Iran's missiles, dozens have gone through and they've hidden major population centers like Tel Aviv. And so Ben, as of 2pm Tuesday Pacific Time when we're recording this, this is not just an active war, but one that is growing and one that is clearly now a regime change operation, not just a limited strike on nuclear infrastructure. We know this because there are all these reports that Trump vetoed an Israeli plan to kill the supreme leader of Iran. So you don't get more regime change than that. And the big question now is whether the United States is going to get directly involved in offensive military operations. Meaning are we going to bomb Iran ourselves? So on Monday night, Trump left the G7 meetings in Canada early to head back to Washington for meetings about Iran. Earlier today, Axios reported that, quote, Trump is seriously considering joining the war and launching a US Strike against Iran's nuclear facilities, especially its underground enrichment facility in Fordow. That is the facility we talked about on Friday. That's buried deep into the side of a mountain when military experts think can only be destroyed by a series of bombing raids. With America's massive 30,000 pound bunker buster bombs which can only be carried by US Bombers. Israeli officials tell Axios they believe Trump is gonna join the fight. We'll see. That could be wishcasting. But if Trump does get more involved, it will likely because of the inexorable push towards war that presidents of the United States feel. Because of voices like this, if diplomacy.

[Ben Rhodes]

Is not successful and we left with the option of force, I would urge President Trump to go all in to make sure that when this operation is.

[Tommy Vitor]

Over, there's nothing left standing in Iran.

[Ben Rhodes]

Regarding their nuclear program.

[Tommy Vitor]

Well, as President Trump said on Friday morning that he had given Iran 60 days to make a deal. And that was day 61, day 63.

[Greg Landsman]

You know that, I mean, this was.

[Tommy Vitor]

A, this wasn't really a hard deadline. He gave them 60 days, and on day 61, the strikes began.

[Greg Landsman]

You know, sometimes when you see evil, it's actually evil.

[Ben Rhodes]

Wouldn't Israel be doing the United States and the West a favor by taking them out?

[Greg Landsman]

And if we had an ally country that's trying to destroy the regime or at least their nuclear weapons, I think we'd be appreciative of that, don't you? I think so.

[Tommy Vitor]

So that was Senator Lindsey Graham, Senator Tom Cotton, and then radio host Fox News personality Mark Levin, who, boy, Tucker Carlson is right, he is a horrible voice. So, Ben, we're gonna dig into lots of different pieces of all of this, but I just wanna start by asking you about any kind of big picture takeaways from you since we talked on Friday, and then kind of where you are on whether you think Trump is gonna get us directly involved in this war offensively or not.

[Ben Rhodes]

Yeah, a couple big picture things. I mean, first, I think it's really important to say that there's no reason that this war had to happen. Now I'm struck, Tommy, that since Israel launched what it called a preemptive strike, they didn't even go through the exercise of putting out cooked up intelligence suggesting that the Iranians were just about to weaponize a nuclear weapon. Iran has had, for people who don't follow this closely, Iran has had a nuclear program for decades. Bibi Netanyahu has been warning about them being on the press specific nuclear weapon for as long as I can remember. And nothing changed between the day before this strike happened, the day after. So there was no reason for this to happen. Now. Israel was not any less secure the day that they took the strike than they were the last 10 years. Right. So this is entirely a war of choice launched by Israel, ostensibly against the nuclear program. Second thing is this is very much feeling like a regime change operation. And we have to emphasize that too, because if they were just hitting the nuclear facilities, just even hitting nuclear and ballistic missile facilities, you know, that would be one thing. I still wouldn't think that was a good idea. And, you know, frankly, that would only at this point have set the Iranian nuclear program back a few months. They're not hitting just those targets. They hit the television station. What does the television station have to do with the nuclear program? They are just killing generals and scientists, including generals that are not involved in the nuclear program. What does that have to do with setting back the nuclear program? They were, they were hitting oil facilities. Right. So this feels very much like Israel has like a target list that includes people and infrastructure and aspects of the regime, including media, and they're just hitting it all. And the fact that they want to kill the Supreme Leader, I mean, we are in a new world here. I mean, whatever you think of the Supreme Leader and not a fan of his, we're now just in the place where we assassinate the leaders of other governments. We just decapitate regimes and preemptive wars. That is a wholly new place to be here. It seems like Israel is again treating the Iranian regime like it's Hezbollah. Right. Like they're just going through it like it's a series of personality based assassinations. But the problem is this regime runs a very large and important state, Right. With. With huge resources, with tens of millions of people. And so this, what you've not heard from Israel is any description of where this ends, where this goes. I mean, the things that are the most eerie to me because there's a lot of echoes of the Iraq war here, Tommy. And we're going to unpack some of those. But you see some people, you know, I saw Newt Gingrich tweeting something like, now is the time for there to be like a secular, moderate, inclusive government in Iran. Like, where is that government going to come from? Right. So to me, it feels, it's very alarming. We're a week into this thing and it's just on a rapid escalatory cycle. And it feels to me like Donald Trump is getting pulled into this thing, that he couldn't stand up to Bibi Netanyahu. He's afraid to do that. He was too weak to stand up to Bibi Netanyahu. His own diplomacy got derailed. That's bullshit that we gave diplomacy a chance. We didn't. The Iranians were trying to make a deal. Then Israel killed the guy who was trying to negotiate the deal. And he's afraid. He's more afraid of Fox News and Lindsey Graham and Bibi Netanyahu than he is of his own base who he promised that he wouldn't do this. And it's a scary place for us to be.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah. So the Wall Street Journal just had a piece that posted a couple hours ago about kind of where the US And Israel differ on the intelligence case. And it said before launching its attack on Iran last week, Israel provided the US with intelligence it deemed alarming. Tehran was conducting renewed research useful for a nuclear weapon, including an explosive triggering system. But US Officials briefed by the Israelis weren't convinced that the Information pointed to a decision by Tehran to build a bomb. It sounded like they were doing research. The Times, New York Times had sort of similar reporting. Like, the US Is not aware of new intelligence showing Iran is rushing to get a bomb. And I think that's very important because, one, I mean, obviously it's the entire pretext for the war, but two, Netanyahu was on Fox News over the weekend and on, you know, countless news channels just lying and saying that they, Israel had to act now because Iran was rushing to get a bomb. When, you know, the US Intelligence timeline is still like, yeah, it'll take one to two weeks to produce enough weapons grade uranium for a nuke. And then you. But then you would have to go through the weaponization process. It could take much, much longer to get it on a warhead and then to get it on a missile that could hit targets. So we're talking about a. That would take, you know, like six months to up to three years according to, like, whichever intelligence assessment you believe. But Netanyahu is just kind of like yada, yada, yada in those details and claiming there was some sort of imminent threat he had to neutralize. When the Times also reported then that US Intelligence, like late last month, figured out that Israel was planning an imminent attack with or without us. And they say Trump warned Netanyahu not to do anything and not to screw up his diplomatic efforts, but basically, like, Bibi just didn't care and Trump was too weak to make him listen. So, like, all of that bullshit we were talking about last week about how, you know, there was this elaborate ruse between the US and the Israelis where they were just, it was like, designed to fool the Iranians. That was total bullshit. Like, the Times reported that Mr. Trump was still stressing the importance of giving diplomacy a chance and while doing so was not intended to deceive the Iranians about the immediacy of a potential attack, but the possibility that it might deceive them was like a welcome side effect. So words. Trump sincerely wanted diplomacy. The fact that he kept talking about it certainly does seem to have convinced some of these Iranian generals and scientists and people that they were safe, you know, sleeping at their homes rather than going to a bunker. But this was not 5D chess, as we expected.

[Ben Rhodes]

Yeah. And just to put a point on the intelligence thing, because it really is important. I mean, it's amazing to me that we, you know, nobody even feels compelled to have to make this case anymore. You need to go through several steps to acquire a nuclear weapon. You need to acquire enough nuclear fuel, and that requires its own breakout. You know, that you're. You're rushing to enrich uranium at a high percentile so that you can have enough fuel for a bomb. You need to know how to weaponize that nuclear material, which we, you know, we don't know that the Iranians, I mean, in the past, the assessment has been that they didn't have the capacity to weaponize. But then you have to, as you said, go through this process, which takes months to miniaturize the fuel, put it on a warhead, all this stuff. Right. The reason that's important is that Israel had plenty of time, plenty of decision space to do this. And instead they did it to derail Donald Trump's diplomacy. And every now and then, we give ourselves this allowance. Imagine if a Democratic president got humiliated like that. Well, I guess Joe Biden did. So we can imagine it because it just happened. You know, Bibi Netanyahu did to Trump an even worse version of what he did to Biden, because with Biden, it was just like, I'm just going to ignore what you say about Gaza and take all your weapons and bomb people there. But here he wants the US to come in the war that he started over the objections of Donald Trump. And Donald Trump feels like he's getting pushed that way. That story was amazing because basically the reporting was that Donald Trump thought the war looked good on Fox News and that he was watching Fox News. And you know why? Because Fox News doesn't tell you the full story. Fox News gives you this completely airbrushed version where Israel looks like they're in the most ingenious military operation ever. And Donald Trump's like, well, I want to be a part of that, you know, and this is a crazy, crazy way to make decisions about war and peace. The American people, where are they in this? Donald Trump has not really spoken at length to us about, you know, we usually would expect presidents to give speeches about what would be our objectives here, you know, what would be the legal basis for launching this military strike. What's the end game? What's the risk preparing people for, you know, oil prices to go up and for our service members in the region to be at risk. They're not even communicating any of this. The only communication that comes from them are in these kind of random, you know, comments to the press that Trump's make makes in between meetings or on social media posts where they're, like, navigating their own internal MAGA fight about this thing. It's a crazy Crazy, crazy way to launch what could become not guaranteed, but could become a really long and difficult war because of the regime change component of it.

[Tommy Vitor]

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[Ben Rhodes]

Yeah. And we talked about some of this a few days ago. But there's what Iran could do in response, Right. The ballistic missile strikes that have already taken lives in Israel, the strikes that they could do against U.S. bases and facilities that could endanger our personnel, strikes that they could launch. I mean, one of the reasons why the Arab states have come out vociferously against what Israel is doing, I think that's in part because they know that Iran could just bomb Saudi oil fields, as they've done in the past, to try to just completely disrupt the global economy. Because if they're going down, they're going to take everybody down with them. That's still a possibility. They could obviously launch terrorist attacks. In different places they could attack. You know, they could look, even though their proxies are weakened, they could do things in Iraq. But even beyond that, I think the important point is mine.

[Tommy Vitor]

The straight of Hormuz too. I mean there's a lot of things.

[Ben Rhodes]

Right, just fuck up the global economy. Exactly right. But the other thing is the regime change part is what's so important here. Because in a way, the more robust this Israeli war and maybe US Israeli war is, the bigger the danger. Because what if you do take out the regime? What if they do kill the supreme leader? Well, who's going to be in charge of Iran? You know, and what we've seen in the past, I mean, Trump says that the skies, we totally own the skies over Iran. Guess what? We totally own the skies over Iraq. We totally own the skies over Afghanistan. We totally own the skies over Libya. And how did that turn out? This stuff always looks like, you know, when it looks like a video game in the first few days, the same fucking people. And it's the same people. It's like Lindsey Graham and Tom Cotton and all these people that supported the Iraq war, that every problem in the Middle east is a nail and they reach for the hammer. The messier it gets, the more unpredictable it gets and more unforeseen the consequences and the more you get dragged in because there's a cycle of logic. Well, we bomb the Fordeau thing and then let's say they take out the Iranian regime and then it's like, well, we need the US to go in there and, and help stabilize, you know, make sure that the oil fields are secure. And then we, you know, are there going to be US troops in Iran? Right. I mean these are going to be questions that could be on us soon. And again, like nobody is explaining what the end state of this military action is. By the way, the Iranian nuclear program would be set back about a year if they blow up. For now they still know how to do all this stuff. They could take that underground and then what would are we just going to keep bombing and we're just kind of be in this open ended state of war in Iran. Never mind how that looks internationally, never mind all the humanitarian issues. So this, there's just so many questions that nobody's answering.

[Tommy Vitor]

And again, we've talked about how Trump shifted the Republican base, the MAGA base, into more of an anti war direction because he correctly, I think identified and channeled anger at the post 911 regime change wars. But the legacy Republican media has not adjusted at all. Like Fox News watching Fox this past week and I watch it most days, all day. It's given me flashbacks to like 2003 and the run up to the Iraq war. So like if you watch it Fox it's, it's non stop idf, you know, handed out propaganda B roll of airstrikes. It's interviews with hawkish voices and neocons and like the Israeli ambassador to the US you got Brett Baer doing softball interviews with Netanyahu where Netanyahu is just like spewing lies about the Iranian nuclear program in the timeline and getting no pushback. And then Ben, what was fascinating to me though was I caught this interview by Steve Bannon of Tucker Carlson. We'll play some of more of it in a minute. But they were talking about Fox's coverage and this from Tucker Carlson about Fox's coverage jumped out at me. Some of the same voices, the Fox.

[Greg Landsman]

Platform who was so, you know, the Fox platform is just, it's so disgraceful. What's, you know, there's so many good people at Fox. I worked for the Murdaughs for, you know, all in over 20 years. I always liked them. I like them now. I'm not attacking them personally and tons of people at Fox are my friends. But the one theme that runs longitudinally through the history of Fox is the promotion of wars that don't help the United States. And why is, why is that? It's the owners are committed to that vision. Most of the time it's, you know, it's fine. But when it really comes down it, when it's a question of whether U.S. military power will be exerted on behalf of a foreign country thousands of miles from here, they are all in and anyone who stands the way will be destroyed. I don't think it's personal, by the way.

[Tommy Vitor]

So that was spot on from Tucker Carlson. Someone who would know. But it's not just Foxman. Matthias Dor, who's the CEO of Axel Springer, which is like the big sort of media conglomerate that owns Politico. He wrote this op ed they linked to it in Politico playbook. So I read it. Here's a graph from it. It is therefore surprising that Israel is not being celebrated worldwide for its historic, extremely precise and necessary strike against Iranian nuclear weapons facilities and for the targeted killing of leading terrorists, but that the public response is dominated by anti Israel propaganda. Now this is a CEO, I don't think he's like editing, you know, News Copy when it comes in or anything but like, I don't know if you work at one of his publications. You know damn well that critical coverage of this war is not going to be welcome.

[Ben Rhodes]

Yeah, and this has been part of, I mean, the way in which we got into the Iraq war, which again, was not about Israel. Right. That was just the US Doing something really fucking stupid on its own, was in part having advisors who didn't understand, you know, these countries that they were going to invade and, you know, reconstruct, you know, what Donald Trump said. Right. Like, we sent the nation builders over there. We thought we could build a government in the Middle east in a culture we didn't understand. But it was also this kind of xenophobic, cheerleading media that was just 100% behind taking us into war. And it's extraordinary that the exact same people on the exact same platforms are cranking up the exact same play all over again. And what's interesting with Trump and the America first stuff is we'll sell Ukraine out. We'll sell every ally in the world out. The Europeans are now not our friends. The Ukrainians are like leeches. But if Israel wants to bomb and decapitate a government in the Middle east, it's like, well, how could we not be there? And it's almost as if the US Is already at war because they make no distinction between what Netanyahu is doing. It just gives him the authority to take us to war in Iran, which is what he's trying to do. And he's using Fox to talk to Trump. I mean, that's what he's doing in those interviews.

[Tommy Vitor]

And it's working.

[Ben Rhodes]

Yeah, he's literally. They're going on all. Not just him, but all these IDF people are going. Fox are literally going on that for an audience of one. I mean, it helps that they get to talk to some right wing Americans too. And it's a really strange thing to see. And again, to be very clear here, this is. You can hate the Iranian regime. I have, I know plenty of Iranians who despise the Iranian regime and would love to see, you know, people who are involved in, in the women's movement there would love to see a new government in Iran who are like, deeply disturbed by what's happening, in part because some people have family members in Iran who are endangered, but in part because they know that this is not the Iranian people kind of removing their own government themselves. That if you have Israel and the United States killing thousands of Iranians and decapitating their government, you're likely to get like really hardcore reactionary IRGC types, like running parts of that state, whatever remains, or like just a total failed state or some kind of civil war, because you do have different factions that would want to be competing for power. And that's scary. And nobody's talking about that. There's nobody talking about that on Fox. And all these people that love to spike the football now, you know, they're the people that you kind of can't find to do a Fox hit 10 years from now when, you know, things are a mess in that part of the world. And so, yeah, it's just. We've seen this movie before.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah, man. And, you know, the Atlantic, to their credit, had a great piece that quoted a bunch of members of the Iranian opposition, some on the record who are really brave and some on background, saying, we, we don't want this. This is not helping us. We want to take down this regime, but we don't want it this way. Not just because of the political change it could lead to, but also because it's going to kill a bunch of innocent people and it's going to lead to shortages of food and medicine and fuel and immense suffering. And Ben, just even stepping further back out on sort of the coverage, there's a lot of understandable coverage on sort of the impact on Israeli civilians in Tel Aviv and the horrific images of these, like, crushed civil, you know, apartment buildings and things and people trapped in rubble. And that's like, totally appropriate and understandable and your heart breaks for those people. But there is almost no coverage of that kind about the, of the civilian toll happening in Iran. Now, part of that is because of a lack of media access. Part of it is, you know, just because the censorship laws, etc. But I do think it leads to a sense that people in Iran are somehow complicit in this or, you know, sort of like everyone is a combatant when it's just not the case. Like both sides, there is immense suffering among civilian populations, just as there is in Gaza. And but I think that kind of like, yeah, there's just a lack of coverage and I do think it's, like, genuinely damaging.

[Ben Rhodes]

Yeah, no, I think that's right. And I think in a strange and dark way, Gaza kind of plowed some ground for this because that has been the experience of Gaza, right. That like, a single Israeli casualty gets an enormous amount of attention relative to, like, thousands of Palestinian casualties. And there's a valuation of life, human life, and how these wars are covered. And you look at. And by the way, Iran is. There are challenges, you're right. But it's Not Gaza. I mean, there are journalists there. There's a capacity to report on this. There are already hundreds of people, if not thousands who've been killed in Iran. There's like apartment buildings that have been destroyed or damaged. You have Donald Trump tweeting that the city of Tehran needs to evacuate. That's another theory.

[Tommy Vitor]

Terrifying. 10 million people.

[Ben Rhodes]

There are 10 million people in an incredibly densely populated city. And there are Iranians who now who are trying to get out their gas shortages. People can't get out, Life is disrupted. I mean, the casual way in which we, you know, what's interesting is the American people, I thought had come to put a higher bar on going to war, that we saw the failures of the post 9, 11 wars. And again, I think Gaza has weirdly rolled back the tape and it feels cost free to kill people and to assassinate the leaders of countries or, you know, or to treat it again like a video game. And again, let's just name it too, Tommy. Like, these are brown people in Iran and Gaza and it's like they're all the same. And like, let's just, you know, it's not, you know, let's read like a heart wrenching story about Israelis in, you know, shelters in Tel Aviv. And we don't really look at the Iranians who got killed in the war that the Israelis started. Like, so I don't know, I find the lack of any. That the default position isn't that war is bad, you know, like to be pretty. Pretty, you know, disgusting, frankly.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yep, I totally agree with you. Okay, we're going to take a quick break and now seems like an entirely appropriate time to remind you that for a limited time only, when you buy something from the crooked store, you'll get a promo code for a 30 day free trial of Friends of the Prod, our subscription community. That means a full month of ad free pods, exclusive subscriber only shows, and access to our Discord server completely free. So if there's a T shirt you've had your eye on or you need something to wear to the next protest, now's the perfect time to grab it. The offer ends tomorrow. Support the mission. Get the merch. Head to crooked.com store. Check it out. Now, today's podcast is sponsored by Acorns. What does retirement look like for you? How do you want to spend your golden years? Well, depends on whether we're at Gitmo or Alcatraz is reopened by then. Yeah, Just kidding. Well, you'll feel so much better though, if, if you're in one of those places. But you started saving early. Yeah. And investing Alcatraz. You'll kind of have a view, which I guess I could cut both ways because then you're sort of, you know what you're missing. Just kidding everyone. You want to spend your golden years doing fun things, seeing your family, traveling the world. But you have to save for that. Acorns is a financial wellness app that makes it easy to start investing for your retirement now. Because the sooner you start, the more of a chance your money has to grow. You don't have to be an expert. Acorns recommends a diversified IRA portfolio that can help you weather all of the market's ups and downs. You don't have to be rich. Acorns lets you get started with the money you've got right now. You'd be surprised at what just $5 a day can do. Plus, sign up for Acorns Gold and you'll get a 3% IRA match on new contributions in your first year. That's extra money for your retirement on Acorns. I'm sure many of you waited way too long to start saving for retirement. I certainly did well into my 30s. It can feel daunting. You can wonder if they'll ever catch up. The only way to do it is just to start right now. Be methodical. Put in what you can every week. Five bucks a day, five bucks a week, five bucks a month. Whatever it is, over time it will add up. Your investments will see a return in the markets and you'll be so, so, so glad when you retire that you started investing as early as possible. Sign up now and join the over 1 million all time customers who have already saved and invested over $2.2 billion for their retirement with Acorns. Head to acorns.com world or download the Acorns app to get started. Paid on client endorsement Compensation provides incentive to positively promote Acorns tier one compensation provided investing involves risk. Acorns Advisors LLC, an SEC registered investment advisor. View important [e-mail] World USAA knows dynamic duos can save the day like superheroes and Sidekicks or auto and home insurance. With usaa, you can bundle your auto and home and save up to 10%. Tap the banner to learn more and get a'@usaa.com bundle restrictions apply. All right, so back in March, Ben Tulsi Gabber, the Director of National Intelligence, testified before Congress about the U.S. intelligence community's assessment of Iran's nuclear program. She said the following quote, the IC continues to Assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon. And Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program. He suspended in 2005. 3 so, end of quote. So Trump was asked about Tulsi Gabbard's testimony by the press during his flight back from the G7. Here's his response. You've always said that you don't believe Iran should be able to have a nuclear weapon, but how close do you personally think that they were to getting one? Because Tulsi Gabbard, Tulsi Gabbard testified in March that the intelligence community said Iran wasn't building a nuclear weapon.

[Greg Landsman]

I don't care what she said. I think they were very close to having. I got this one on you.

[Tommy Vitor]

So for those of you who couldn't hear that he said, I don't care what you said. So glad to see our president cares about the facts. I was notable, Ben, that Trump had this big like Camp David meeting about Iran earlier this month. He didn't include Tulsi in that. In fact, you know, the CNN reported that US Intelligence believes that Iran was up to three years away, as we mentioned earlier, from being able to produce and deliver a nuclear weapon on target. However, again so Trump, he says to the press there he doesn't care what the intelligence assessment is. There's this big debate about whether or not he's going to get involved. We don't have many data points because as you mentioned earlier, Trump has not addressed the country but he did truth the following things on Tuesday. This all happened today. These are verbatim quotes. Unconditional surrender, all caps, exclamation point. We know exactly where the so called Supreme Leader is hiding. He's an easy target. He but is safe there. We're not going to take him out parentheses kill. At least not for now. But we don't want missile shot at civilians or American soldiers. Our patience is wearing thin. Thank you for attention to this matter. Then he truthed we now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran. Iran had good sky trackers and other defensive equipment and plenty of it. But it doesn't compare to American made, conceived and manufactured stuff. Nobody does it better than the good old usa. So he managed to I guess fit an ad for Raytheon into that last one. So Ben, that feels ominous. It could be that our last best hope for kind of the anti war coalition that's out there is Trump listening to parts of the MAGA coalition that has consistently said they want no part of this war. Here are some examples of people who might make that case to him. President Trump knows that the Bush era doctrine of regime change wars in the Middle east is foolish. It's costly, and it is counterproductive as an anti terrorism strategy. I'm old enough to remember the last time Israel coaxed the United States into a regime change war in the Middle East.

[Ben Rhodes]

Imagine what happens in Iran now. And you would think that they would probably be less likely to want to negotiate at this time, particularly when they may feel that negotiations were a ruse. I'll call out Fox News and the New York Post. They're known to be the neocon network news.

[Tommy Vitor]

We have propaganda news on our side, just like the left does.

[Ben Rhodes]

Of course, we don't want to see.

[Tommy Vitor]

The people in Israel bombed, but they're.

[Ben Rhodes]

Only being bombed because Israel attacked Iran first.

[Greg Landsman]

You think that. Do you think we're enjoying the combat offensive combat opera?

[Tommy Vitor]

Well, we have to. We have to.

[Greg Landsman]

We can't never the product of like, look, we have to stop. You've actually helped. Tehran's got hit. Civilians are dead in both places. And if we don't think that that's sad, then we're not fully human. Like, you have to believe that's sad and you have to really mean it.

[Tommy Vitor]

So Ben, that was Matt Gaetz, Senator Rand Paul, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, Steve Bannon, and then Tucker Carlson again. It's weird to hear those guys, that group of people, like sounding the most reasonable, making the most sense, being the most empathetic out of all the Republicans you hear talking about us about this war, but, like, it is what it is, I guess.

[Ben Rhodes]

Yeah. I mean, there's always been an internal inconsistency because Trump always campaigns as this anti war guy, this America first guy. But he also tries to be like this tough guy, you know, who's like the biggest Israel supporter. You know, he used to brag in the first term about, you know, getting rid of civilian casualty restrictions on ISIS or dropping the mother of all bombs on Afghanistan. So he's kind of, he's never really been one or the other. And this is a real substantive divide, as you hear there. I would say to people who are listening to this podcast, if you made it this far and you're like, these guys, why don't these guys care about Israel and Israel shouldn't have to live with this threat. Again, I think the substantive point I would make to you is that Israel did not have to do this at this point, that they could have seen how the Trump diplomacy went. It seemed like Iran wanted to deal with even if that didn't go well, they had, you know, potentially years before they needed to make this decision. You should not launch a war unless you have to. But I want to raise another point, which is that let's say this doesn't go that well. Let's say that the US Gets into this thing and it's clear this time that Israel started it and kind of pulled the US into it. This could be dangerous for Israel. Right. Because I'm telling you where some of those people are going to go. Right. They sound reasonable now, but like a Marjorie Taylor Greene will suddenly like, you know, be turning against Israel. Right. And so this kind of normalization of Israel just, you know, they went to war in Gaza or the west bank or Lebanon or Syria, or they're bombing Iraq or they're bombing Yemen and now they're going to war in Iran, like, and then the US Gets dragged into it. That could be really bad in the long run for, you know, not just Israel standing in the world because the rest of the world is looking at this and being like, this is some, some fucked up shit that's happening here. You know, there's no international law that, that says that this could happen. But also if it goes poorly, that's a huge risk in terms of this kind of right wing of the United States, like turning hard against Israel.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah. And you know, Ben, there's, you keep the thing they're kind of hanging their hat on now is Trump suggesting that, you know, he had given Iran 60 days to negotiate and then they didn't do it. But we know from all the public reporting that the Trump administration couldn't get its own position straight for part of those 60 days. Remember, there was a big sort of fight between Steve Wyckoff and Marco Rubio and other hawks within the administration about whether Trump's position was whether Iran would be allowed to have like a low level enrichment program or no enrichment. Right. So, you know, the idea that like there was some clear set of talks happening and Iran just wasn't being a constructive participant seems kind of unfair. Also, you know, Trump had Steve Witkoff do it, someone with no experience for like a very highly technical set of talks. So again, I mean, like the IDEA that day 61 we had to bomb seems crazy to me. The thing that I have been thinking about and worried about. You're right. I agree with you that the political ramifications of this going south for Israel within the Republican Party could be very consequential. I'm worried that we here in the west in our media, they're going to kind of assess this thing on a day by day, week by week basis. And the war could look good for a month or three months or six months or even a year. But then three years from now, a bus full of American or Israeli tourists in South America blows up and it's Hezbollah or some sort of IRGC backed something or other. Right. And the timeframe over which this could play out and the fact that US civilians could be a direct target because we are now perceived as being a party to this war is something that is just not. It's not even being discussed in the coverage.

[Ben Rhodes]

That's right. You know, one thing I think about, Tommy, is because look, there's, here's the best case scenario. Even the best case scenario is, you know, if Trump bombs Fordo, the best case scenario is the Iranian regime is just, just kind of wants us to end and they kind of capitulate and, and that somehow stops somehow the Israelis accept not going full regime change and you've set the Iran nuclear program back and yes, there's been some war, but you know that, that could happen. Even in that scenario, though, I think you could still see the kind of consequence you're talking about. And here's the example I'd give. Do you remember in the first Trump administration when they moved the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and me and I think you and a bunch of people were like, well, this could be dangerous. This could kill the two state solution. This could lead to violence. And I remember that when they did that, there was some violence. A bunch of Palestinians got killed because they charged the fence in Gaza and I think several dozen Palestinians got killed. But there weren't like these huge terrorist attacks, you know, And I remember all these people dunking on me online like, oh, you know, look, you warned that this is gonna be terrible. And look, it turned out fine. Well, you got October 7th a few years later. Right. And I honestly think that, you know, killing the two state solution, moving the embassy, doing the Abraham Accords, cutting the Palestinians out of everything, you know, led to October 7th. And these people don't understand that when we're warning of consequences, we're not saying that like next week the world is going to end. And so then what they do is they hold you accountable to next week. They're like, these guys said that this is going to go poorly, but look, they're bombing everything and it looks great on Fox News. And then two years later something horrible happens, like you said, and it's like, time starts then and it's like, well, we have to go bomb them because this horrible thing happened. And we never take responsibility for being the ones who contributed to this chain of events, you know?

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. A couple important sort of political considerations, Ben, or political points. There's a movement in Congress to try to prevent this war. So Congressman Thomas Massie, conservative Republican, and Democrat Ro Khanna have put forward a resolution that would prohibit the United States from getting involved in the war. I think AOC is now a co sponsor. They correctly argue that those a war with Iran would have to be authorized by Congress. We sort of. That that's also gone from the debate. Tim Kaine has a similar resolution on the Senate side. Bernie Sanders has a no War against Iran act that he's introduced. So, so good folks are doing some good work there. But I don't have a lot of hope that the Republican led Congress will pick up those pieces of legislation. But Ben, more broadly, just on the politics of this, I mean, you and I were talking about how you can kind of feel some Democrats who, you know, are opposed to the war in Iran, who have been warning against it for years, starting to get a little squishy because the early results look favorable for the Israelis. And to them, I would just say, first of all, stand up for what you believe in, for God's sake, or what's the point of being in politics? And then two again. Remember how shock and awe looked in the first few weeks and then how it morphed into something very different, like this war has not even been going on for a week. The idea that we know the outcome and should just capitulate and follow Bibi Netanyahu's lead is crazy. And there was some polling out today. The Economist YouGov had a new poll. They asked, do you think the US Military should get involved in the conflict between Israel and Iran? 16% said yes, 66,0% said no, and only 19% of Trump 2024 voters support US military involvement. 53% are opposed. So, like the point, it's just crystal clear that no one in this country wants to be involved in another regime change war in the Middle East.

[Ben Rhodes]

Yeah, I'm really glad, you know, you framed it this way because, you know, first of all, a lot of these people, they're just kind of looking out the window. And what they're forgetting is that the very things they warned about, you know, Iran could go underground, try to get a nuclear weapon, the regime could collapse, and you could get a failed state in Iran, like there could be terrorist attacks. There were never things that were going to happen in the first week or two, you know, like, so it's not like objectively the military operation isn't going to quote, unquote, better than was anticipated when people had that sense. All that's happening is you have the normal juggernaut of political and media momentum towards this is great and we have to support this and look at this war that things are blowing up and let's watch on television and you're weak if you don't support it. And I would say to Democrats, there are a lot of people who spent the rest of their political careers regretting their position they took on the Iraq war. You and I worked in the White House, Tommy, and probably have this podcast because Hillary Clinton voted for the Iraq War, you know, which probably seemed like the safe thing to do in 2003 and that's how Barack Obama was able to beat her in 2008. So there's a whole host of ways in which this could go wrong in the medium term. And by the time Democrats are thinking about who they're going to support as the party standard bearer next time, those consequences are probably going to be happening. But even if they don't, right, and this is a really important thing and I hope any Democrats listening, like at least hears me out on this. Even if they don't happen, even if somehow, you know, they, they destroy Fordo and you know, there's some kind of messy de escalation and everything kind of settles down. You should still be against this. We're Democrats. Do we really support preemptive wars in which you try to kill the leadership of other countries, no matter how odious those countries governments are?

[Tommy Vitor]

Do we really regime change authorizations by fascists, really right wing leaders based on intelligence no one has seen?

[Ben Rhodes]

No legal basis for the United States to be doing this. No basis in international law for this to be happening. Civilians getting killed in Tehran and civilians getting put at risk in Israel. You are so afraid of getting called weak that you're gonna go along with something that is that immoral and unethical and against every principle that the Democratic Party as people that are supposed to value the equality of human beings, cares about. Give me a break. I would not support any Democrat for president who capitulates to that kind of thinking. We've been there before, we're better than that. And we should stand for something and not be afraid to be like dunked on by the same group of Lindsey Graham's that are going to dunk on us anyway. So get some backbone, Democrats.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah, and look on the merits. What is happening in Gaza is deplorable and evil and immoral and just wrong on every level. But there was also part of my frustration with Joe Biden's policy towards Gaza and in dealing with Netanyahu was that he allowed the United States to to be pushed around by Bibi Netanyahu. And listeners of the show know that we are not big fans of Bibi Netanyahu. He's corrupt, he's a liar, he puts his own political considerations ahead of the security of his country. But on top of that, despite calling himself like Mr. Security, he was catastrophically wrong about the most consequential foreign policy decision of our lifetime. This is a clip of Netanyahu giving, quote, unquote, expert testimony to Congress about Iraq before the invasion. This is from 2002. Let's listen. This is a tyrant who is feverishly trying to acquire nuclear weapons. And today the United States must destroy the same regime because a nuclear arms Saddam will place the security of our entire world at risk. It is simply not reflecting the reality to assume that Saddam isn't feverishly working to develop nuclear weapons. If you take out Saddam, Saddam's regime, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region. The more victories you amass, the easier the next victory becomes. The first victory in Afghanistan makes the second victory in Iraq that much easier. The second victory in Iraq will make the the third victory that much easier. Catastrophically wrong about could not be more wrong. Everything, Everything, every single point he made there was catastrophic and we weren't cherry picking from that. He was fucking wrong about everything. And now he's making the exact same arguments for a regime change war based on some real, you know, at least for now, secret intelligence about WMD in Iran. The fact that anyone would follow this fucking guy into another regime change war is insane to me.

[Ben Rhodes]

Is that who you all want to follow? I mean, he guaranteed it, right? It'd work out so great. And the only thing I have to add to that, Tommy, because it's so clear, is so clear the third victory. He clearly had Iran in mind back then.

[Tommy Vitor]

Of course he did.

[Ben Rhodes]

He didn't stop at the second victory. He said the victory in Afghanistan, which didn't turn out to be victory, will lead to the second victory in Iraq and then make the third victory easier. He was thinking about Iran in that testimony. Right? And this is someone you're gonna follow into a war. I don't Think so?

[Tommy Vitor]

Like, when Donald Trump was elected, I was despondent on every single level. The one possible silver lining was I thought there was a chance he would have the fucking balls and the political leverage to stand up to Bibi Netanyahu. But to watch him get led around like this and just become Bibi's little lap dog in the face of a catastrophic regime change, war in Iran is just. It's so unbelievably pathetic. Pathetic and disappointing. He looks so goddamn weak.

[Ben Rhodes]

Yeah, and, and look, you know, Bears, we should keep repeating it. I mean, you, I hear you guys on Pods of America sometimes talking about, like, the need to repeat, you know, the tax cuts, the billionaires. He said he'd end the war in Ukraine on day one. That war has escalated. He said he'd end the war in Gaza. That war has gotten worse. He said he would stop this war and make a deal. And now we got a war here like this. This is just more chaos and it's, it's weakness. In this case, it is weakness. He's afraid to stand up to Putin in Ukraine and he's afraid to stand up Netanyahu in the Middle east. And that's ultimately potentially going to put us at risk.

[Tommy Vitor]

It's just, it's just terrible. It's completely demoralizing. All right, Ben, that's all I got. Anything else you want to get off your chest about this war? Netanyahu, anything else going on?

[Ben Rhodes]

No, no. I mean, I, you know, we, we definitely covered the waterfront on this one. It is, it is like the only thing I will say, Tommy, is that as people who are old enough to remember the Iraq war debates, it's kind of interesting to watch, like, what it would have been like if Twitter existed in 2003, you know what I mean? Because I saw like John Poterz or whatever his name is, like, dunking on you, and I was like, I haven't thought about that guy since the Iraq war when he was like the biggest cheerleader for that, you know, Dude, John.

[Tommy Vitor]

Podhoritz tweeted out an article his father had written 15 years ago about how he needed to bomb Iran. He was like, thank God my 90 year old dad is still alive to see this. I was like, oh, intergenerational bloodlust. What a beautiful thing. But it's been fascinating. Like, the media changes are fascinating in that yes, social media exists. Fox News is exactly the same. But it's like the far right networks like the Oans, where like, Matt Gaetz is a host, suddenly are anti war There are these interesting new dynamics. Unfortunately, none of them are strong enough to push back of the kind of Tom Cotton's of the world and the Netanyahu's and the inertia of Washington just being a city that is just has bloodlust and is just horny for war at all times. That is a bipartisan criticism.

[Ben Rhodes]

Yeah, I totally. I've been going down this kind of Vietnam book rabbit hole and it's eerie. It was like that decades ago. I mean, the one last thing I'd say is it's interesting. Like for all the talk of Trump completely transforming the Republican Party, and in many ways he has. He is not. It's interesting on this stuff. These are the same cleavages that have been in the Republican Party for decades. Right. There's always been these isolationist America firsters, and they've always been these kind of neocon hawks. And Trump, turns out, didn't resolve that.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah, he stitched them all together to win a couple elections. The question is whether this could rip it apart. I don't know. We'll find out, I guess. Okay, we're gonna take a quick break. When we come back, you're gonna hear my debate with Congressman Greg Landsman about the wars in Iran and Gaza. He is a supporter of the Israeli effort in Iran. He has been someone who's been a pretty strong backer of the war in Gaza. So we debate it all and let me know what you think. Potsdate of the World is brought to you by Haya. Typical children's vitamins are basically candy in disguise, filled with two teaspoons of sugar, unhealthy chemicals and other gummy additives growing kids should never eat. That's why Haya created a super powered, chewable vitamin. Haya fills in the most common gaps in modern children's diets to provide the full body nourishment our kids need with the yummy taste they love. Formulated with the help of pediatricians and nutritional experts, Haya is pressed with a blend of 12 organic fruits and veggies, then supercharged with 15 essential vitamins and minerals to help support immune system, energy, brain function, mood, concentration, teeth, bones and more. It's non gmo, vegan, dairy free, allergy free, gelatin free, nut free, and everything else you can imagine. Free high is designed for kids tune up and sent straight to your door so parents have one less thing to worry about. I know Charlie's a big ha guy and I huge ha guy. He was taking the Mensa entrance exam last time I saw him at your house. Yes, that's after just a year or two of Haya Vitamins. And if you're tired of battling with your kids to eat their greens, Haya now has Kids Daily Greens plus Superfoods, a chocolate flavored greens powder designed specifically for kids. Packed with 55 whole food ingredients to support brain power, development and digestion. Just scoop, shake and sip with milk or any non dairy beverage for a delicious and nutritious boost your kids will actually enjoy. We've worked out a special deal with Haya for their best selling children's vitamin. Receive 50% off your first order. To claim this deal you must go to hyahealth.com world. This deal is not available on their regular website. Go to H I Y A H E a l t h.com world to get your kids the full body nourishment they need to grow into healthy adults. Your new beginning starts now. Dr. Horton has new construction homes available in Ellensburg and throughout the greater Seattle area. With spacious floor plans, flexible living spaces and home technology packages, you can enjoy more cozy moments and sweet memories in your beautiful new home. With new home communities opening in Ellensburg and throughout the Seattle area, Dr. Horton has the ideal home for you. Learn [e-mail] Dr. Horton, America's builder and equal housing opportunity Builder. My guest today represents Ohio's first Congressional District, Congressman Greg Landsman. How you doing?

[Greg Landsman]

I'm okay. How are you doing?

[Tommy Vitor]

Good. A little background for listeners. So Greg and I met I think in D.C. a while back and then we hung out in LA. I can't remember which was first, but we've been friends for several years now. You're someone I consider a friend. It's weird to be friends with elected officials. I still feel like a, a, a little teen staffer at the back of the room, like intimidated by the title. But often our friendship has entailed intense, passionate debates about the war in Gaza. We've had some pretty profound disagreements, but what I always really, truly respect and appreciate about you is how thoughtful you are in those conversations and how decent you are. And so I think we both figured like, I don't know, let's, let's take this thing live, right? So let's, let's talk about not just Gaza, but also this brand new war with Iran. Sound good? Yeah.

[Greg Landsman]

Yeah, of course. And I. The feeling is mutual. I mean, I, you know, this is one of the most complicated, if not the most complicated issues in the world and to have legitimate debate is really important. To be able to talk about this with People that you trust who, who I think ultimately have the same, you know, goal. Right. Or goals, which is you want security and peace and something that's sustainable in the region for Palestinians, for Israelis, for the Lebanese, for Syrians, for everyone and for Iranians. And how you get there is not at all clear or it's not simple.

[Tommy Vitor]

It's not simple at all. And I think just having a conversation that both of us know is in good faith and coming from a good place, I think sort of the best we can do. But first, I know that on Sunday you were told by law enforcement, by the Capitol Police, I believe, that your name was included on a list being carried by that lunatic guy in Minnesota who murdered Minnesota State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband, who wounded two others. I just, I can't imagine how scary that was, learning that knowing, you know, at the time, the suspect was still at large. So just, you know, how you doing? And, like, do we know anything more about this guy's motives or what the hell he was doing?

[Greg Landsman]

Yeah, no, I'm good. I, I know what, you know, and, you know, this is a clearly an unwell person, you know, who targeted Democratic lawmakers. He had a list, multiple lists, and for whatever reason, I was on one of the lists, the, the list in his car, uh, the quote, unquote, hit list. I, I, I found out about it Sunday morning. We were called by Capitol Police, and, and, you know, at first you're just, you know, it's, it's sort of bizarre. And then you start to do the math. You know, the drive time between Minnesota and Ohio is probably 10 hours, 12, you know, 12 at the most. You know, I don't know exactly where he was, and, and at that point, you know, no one knew where he was.

[Tommy Vitor]

Right.

[Greg Landsman]

And there was a point in the evening, you know, we beefed up security, and there's a. He texted me and just said, you know, can you turn on, you know, the outdoor lights and turn off the indoor lights?

[Tommy Vitor]

Jesus.

[Greg Landsman]

And it was, it was just precautionary, but, you know, I didn't know, and I thought maybe he saw something. And it's hard to get that picture of that guy in the, in that mask out of your head.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah.

[Greg Landsman]

And so, you know, There was probably 30 minutes, 40 minutes where I thought, maybe this guy's in my backyard.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah.

[Greg Landsman]

In any event, they ultimately got him at 10:30. And at that point, you're sort of like, all right, well, that's it.

[Tommy Vitor]

I'm so sorry that you had to go through that it's terrifying for you, it's terrifying for your wife, for your kids, everyone around you. That image is horrifying. Like that guy in the mask is terrifying. Then like Mike Lee, like making jokes about it and he's, do you know, crazy.

[Greg Landsman]

That's how I saw the picture. I saw the picture from Mike Lee's tweet. Somebody sent me Mike Lee's tweet and that's where I saw the picture. So the only reason I had the image in my head was because Mike Lee decided to be an asshole and, and, and, and make light of this matter further politicize it, which is the last thing we need. And, and I hope Mike Lee wakes up tomorrow morning and realizes, you know, what an asshole he was and, and says, look, I'm sorry, I want to be part of the solution. I shouldn't have said that. I shouldn't have been so cavalier about the fact that, you know, people were murdered.

[Tommy Vitor]

Well, I'm glad you're okay and I'm grateful for you talking to me about it and still doing the show. Okay, so let's, let's talk about the war between Israel and Iran. Listeners will just heard, you know, Ben and I do a whole like sort of show about the latest developments. So I'll skip the big wind up. But why do you think that this Israeli operation against Iran is the right thing to do, is necessary? I was just hoping you kind of make the case.

[Greg Landsman]

Yeah, I mean the, the initial goal is to diminish, derail the nuclear capabilities of Iran. And you know, that's all the above ground stuff and, and to do something similar to Iran's ballistic missile program, you know, ultimately ending their nuclear capabilities is what should happen. That involves, as you know better than anyone, below ground stuff that Israel may or may not be able to do on its own. But if you get to the point where Iran is no longer an existential threat, not just to Israel, but to others in the Middle east and to the United States because of this regime, not because of the Iranian people, but because of this regime, then, you know, you're talking about a fundamentally different landscape in the Middle Middle east and the pathways to peace become much, much more straightforward. I mean, it just, I think it is the end all be all in terms of getting to peace, that Iran is the last remaining, this regime is the last remaining big barrier to peace. And I, I understand that people have very strong feelings that there are other big barriers to peace. And, and I'm, my, my position is that if you can, if you can Get Iran off the table. This regime where they no longer have existential, the, the ability to, to, you know, to, to, you know, drop a, an atomic weapon, that you have dismantled their terror networks. You know, Hezbollah is gone, Hamas is gone, the Houthis are gone, terror cells and Syrian, Iraq are not being funded. You, you then are liberating not just Iran, but Lebanon, Gaza, the West Bank, Syria, Iraq.

[Tommy Vitor]

Well, so, okay, so part of what you're talking about there like this, this bigger picture goal where Hezbollah is gone, Hamas is gone, the Houthis gone, that's like a bigger, spicier meatball. So let's get to that in a second. But just on, on the nuclear program, I guess I'm, I don't understand the timing. Netanyahu suggesting that Iran was on the cusp of getting a nuclear weapon, that there was some new intelligence that indicated that they were about to break out. The New York Times reported that we, the US Knows of no new intelligence that sped up the timeline or that Iran was rushing to get a bomb, that. The Wall Street Journal has a report that there might be some sort of good faith disagreement on the intelligence picture. But I think most experts believe, yes, Iran could enrich enough nuclear material to weapons grade to have what you need for a bomb in a week or two. But then it would take months if not years to fit it into a warhead, to weaponize it, and then even longer to get it onto a missile to deliver it to various places. So I don't understand the sort of imminence of the threats. Also on the timing, I mean, you've got the IDF has just fought this 20 month war in Gaza. They have talked publicly about like severe ammunition shortages. They've lost a huge number of armored vehicles. There's this big drop in reservists showing up. I saw one report said over 100,000 Israeli reservists failed to show up. The ones who do are exhausted. You've got, you know, thousands, if not tens of thousands of Israeli reservists calling for an end to the war and the ceasefire. The Israeli economy's taken a big hit because of the war, both because of like a reduction in tourism and the cost of the, the direct action. And then like the Israeli people are exhausted. Iran itself is sort of diplomatically isolated. And Trump was in the midst of this diplomatic effort. And so I just, I just don't get why he would rush this and why this was necessary now and whether, but, or whether you think it was sort of appropriate to move this quickly.

[Greg Landsman]

Yeah, I Mean, I think there's two schools of thought. There's always been two schools of thought, at least in the last, I don't know, 10 years or longer, 15 years. Like one is there is a diplomatic pathway for, you know, with Iran. And that was obviously something that you all pursued. And there are strong arguments for that pathway. There's also the, the, the argument that there, there are, there are no real diplomatic plays with Iran. Iran isn't going to, you know, play by the rules in the end because of who this regime is and what their intentions are. So yes, they were meeting, but they weren't making any real progress as, as, as we understand. And this is about as weak as Iran has been. And so when you have an existential threat that close to breaking out, you can easily make the case that this is your moment and that you've waited too long. There are some Israelis who believe that. There are obviously some people who believe that Israel should have done this sooner. And now, you know, whether it was, you know, the right time or not, it, it has happened. And you know, I think the big question has to be, you know, as Israel focuses entirely on these, these military targets and if there is the possibility of ending what's happening, the enrichment work that's happening underground, does Israel get the support they need to finish this? I would hope so. And I, and I, I understand.

[Tommy Vitor]

So you want the US to directly get involved. Do you want, I mean, basically what we're talking about is the USB one or B2 bombers dropping the massive ordinance penetrator, this 30,000 pound bunker busting bomb on Fordo or other buried sites. You think that's what should happen?

[Greg Landsman]

I think that Fordo has to go and how they do that, you know, whether it's something that, you know, if Trump decides, well, we'll just give him the bombers and let Israel do it. Okay. I mean, I, but I think this is, you have a, it's a moment of truth, like you can finish it, finish it now. If Iran comes back and says, okay, we would like to negotiate and they get to a real, a place of, of legitimate desire to be done to, to shift to a civil program, to have real inspections, and I think it has to include any deal, has to include dismantling these terror armies so that Lebanon can be free, Gaza can be free, Syria, that they are, they are done. They have to get rid of Hamas and Hezbollah, you know, and, and, and the world is, would be for that. The world would all jump in and support those efforts and help those countries rebuild. There would be enough money for Gaza, enough money for Lebanon, enough money for Syria. I would, I would think on the.

[Tommy Vitor]

Negotiations, I mean, there is this sense Bibi keeps saying, like, oh, Trump gave him 60 days. You know, we got to 61, so I bombed. I just think that's like, self evidently bullshit. Like, Trump had scheduled talks for day 63 with Witkoff. There are some reports that Witkoff was kind of like unwilling or unable to engage in real detail at some of these meetings. And also, like, he's sending a real estate guy with no subject matter expertise to lead the effort in the first place. I think it's going to slow things down. So I just sort of like think holding to that timeline is a little bit unfair. That said, it does seem to me that Trump was sincerely pursuing a jcpoa, like nuclear deal. And to me, I think that's obviously better path for a few reasons. The first is that the Obama era deal worked. From 2015 to 2018, the IAEA issued over a dozen reports showing that Iran was complying. Iran shipped out their nuclear stockpile. They disabled this, dismantled centrifuges. They gave inspectors more access. They disabled this heavy water reactor at Iraq. Trump's staff, his own team testified before Congress that Iran was complying. And then when Trump pulled out of the jcpoa, Iran still stayed in compliance for a while until we started sanctioning them. And then ultimately when the US Killed Qasem Soleimani, I think they started enriching again. And they also at that time, ramped up support for, for proxy groups in the Middle east like Hezbollah and the Houthis. So I guess where I'm coming from is, look, I hate this Iranian leadership. I think they do horrible things, not just to Israel, but to their own people. Right? Like, they've thrown friends of mine in jail for literally years. But I think the record shows is that the best way to deal with them is through diplomacy. And I think history shows that you could. The way you can permanently, verifiably get countries to get rid of their nuclear programs is through diplomacy, which is what South Africa did in the 90s. It's what, you know, Ukraine did after the fall of the Soviet Union. Ultimately, I think we could bomb the shit out of Fordo. We could hit it with every bunker buster bomb in our arsenal. Basically, what Iran needs is like a couple advanced cascades centrifuges a couple weeks, and they can enrich enough nuclear material to have what they need to build a bomb in some other covert facility. Like, you can't. We can't bomb the know how out of them. Even if the US And Israel kill all of these nuclear scientists.

[Greg Landsman]

Yeah, you can do an enormous amount of damage. And they already have. I mean, Israel has done an enormous amount of damage to, you know, Iranian air defenses, to their ballistic missile program and to, you know, the, the, the nuclear capabilities. A couple of things. One is on, on the time I want to come back to it because I, you know, I have seen, you know, reports out of CENTCOM that there were there, there were very serious concerns. I get you're right. That it's about how you read the intelligence and obviously the IDF is going to read it one way as opposed to the way our folks are. Two, I, I want to believe that Iran would get this regime would get to a place where they could, they could negotiate honestly and that it would include all of the things that you and I would want included. And, and maybe this is the path to do that. That, that, that the sword is a, is an incentive enough. The damage that has been done and just how weakened Iran is. This regime is based on the events of the last year or two and the, you know, events of the last couple of days that they are so weakened that they will do an actual, a real deal. Now. I, I want to be incredibly respectful for the work that you all did, the argument against, you know, and because I, I'm sure you've made it, but I know the argument that you hear when you're in the region, they say that it was time bound. The, you know, the, the, the, the original agreement with Iran and we could.

[Tommy Vitor]

Have just renegotiated it all along. Right. And never let her out to enrich to where they got to. So that's a huge mistake in Trump's book, in my opinion.

[Greg Landsman]

Okay. Anyway, it was time bound, but they got, they, they got a lot of money up front. Right. Because a lot of the assets were unfrozen and that money ultimately made its way to, you know, arguably to Hezbollah and Hamas, that the inspections weren't as great as, as, as, as people wanted them to be. That there were serious holes, questions mostly because Iran is known or this regime is known as, as a, a bad actor when it comes to some of this stuff. So, you know, there were, there were issues and I think you, you have to put yourself in the shoes of the people who are the most vulnerable to us being wrong, and that is the Israelis. And part of the challenge here is that Netanyahu has lost a lot of trust with a lot of people and so you come to a moment like this where I think it makes sense to go and say, we're not going to let you get any further in terms of enrichment. We're going to put our foot down, we're going to stop this. The timing is questionable because people have lost faith in Netanyahu. Right. His government was potentially about to dissolve. We don't know. He had serious issues with.

[Tommy Vitor]

Honestly, I bet he was going to survive. The guy's a survivor. But I'm sorry.

[Greg Landsman]

Yeah, no, no, no, you're right. I mean, they call him the magician because he finds himself in these. Yeah. So I get the skepticism. And this is a thing that Israelis talk about, which is like, you know, you talked about the exhaustion. There's also this frustration with the leadership. And I will say this. I think we can get to peace, and I think that this ends hopefully in a way where we have a path to no more enrichment in Iran, that they're going to pull back from the terror army. You know, work. All that stuff. I do believe, and I think most people believe, that you're going to need a new regime. Like, it's not going to be this. This regime, and you're going to need a new coalition government. It's not going to be this coalition government in Israel, you know, with Ben GVIR and Shmoltrich, like, it's not going to happen.

[Tommy Vitor]

Look, I think you're getting something really important, which. This just isn't about WMDs. This is a regime change operation. We know that Donald Trump vetoed a plan from Netanyahu to assassinate the Supreme Leader of Iran. And I think if you look at the recent couple decades of regime change wars, Iraq, Libya, Syria was a catastrophe for 15 years. I see the same kind of neocon voices arguing, oh, it'd be clean and simple. And then, you know, like, flowers will bloom across the Middle East. And I just, I find that very hard to believe. And I also, like, I see Trump saying, okay, you know, we're going to bomb them and then that'll force the Iranians to cut a deal. But if you're the Supreme Leader, like, this isn't just about your nuclear program. This is about your survival. This is about regime survival. And how can they trust us to implement a deal? You know, like, either Trump was too weak to keep Bibi from bombing in the middle of his diplomatic efforts, or those diplomatic efforts were insincere. Trump pulled out of the JCPOA, Iran has been burned by the U.S. you know, sort of in these hostage deals that the Biden cooked up. Trump posted a message this morning about how he could kill the Supreme Leader at any time. So, like, I just, it's very hard for me to, like, you know, I agree with you. You have to put yourself in the, in the shoes of the people most vulnerable. I think we also have to try to put ourselves in Iran's shoes sometime and understand where they're coming from and that innocent civilians are dying there and that, you know, a regime change operation is very unlikely to lead to a government that is more friendly to Israel, in my opinion. I think you're more likely to see the guys with the guns, like the IRGC and others in control.

[Greg Landsman]

We don't know. I mean, I, you know, look, I, I, the regime change, the way in which you described it is boots on the ground. No one's talking about putting boots on the ground. I mean, we're not invading Iran. No one's invading Iran. I mean, this, they have invaded the airspace. They've taken over the airspace. But this is, this is different than, you know, what we saw in Iraq or Afghanistan. And although we don't know where this is going. But I, I wouldn't, I wouldn't advocate for, you know, troops on the ground or, you know, or anything like we saw in, in those wars that you mentioned. Yeah, I think it's, you know, regime change is very difficult in, in Israel, to be clear, which is a democracy, there's going to be an election next year. So whether, you know, his coalition and for those who you don't, don't know this, to be prime Minister, you need 61 members of the Knesset to join your, to join your coalition. I think, I think Netanyahu is at 68, 69. Maybe it's something, you know, it's something like that, you know, he could lose, you know, eight or nine people and then that immediately leads to a new election. Right. But next year there will be an election. Any, in any, in any event. And so you're going to have presumably new leadership, a new government in Israel. Iran, obviously not a democracy, a theocracy. You know, this crew took over in 1979. And it is entirely possible to imagine a scenario where because of how weakened they've been, there is a domestic, you know, uprising and there's going to be a change, you know, because they don't want to continue to live like this. I do think that the actions, while unsettling and, and frustrating for some and, and, and, and, and, and also like Israel is targeting military.

[Tommy Vitor]

And oil and gas infrastructure and they're hitting in urban areas in the same way that Iran is like targeting the Israeli mod, which is in Tel Aviv and hitting urban areas. Like the same thing is happening, right?

[Greg Landsman]

No. Right. So the IDF is targeting very specific, strategic, you know, whether it's oil and gas or it's the, you know, the weapons, you know, stockpiles, whatever it is, they're not indiscriminately lobbying missiles into Tel Aviv or into, into Jerusalem. I mean, you know, Iran is just. Yes, Iran has focused some of their missiles on military targets, but it is indiscriminate. I mean, think about what happened in April last year. I mean, 2, 300, you know, objects in the air, killer drones, you know, missiles. That was indiscriminate. All civilians or mostly civilians. Right. So it is different.

[Tommy Vitor]

Well, no one was killed. I mean, like, 10x more people have been killed in Iran than have been killed in Israel. Look, I hear what you're saying. You're making a point that I agree with and I think is, in some sense is valid. I don't, I don't know what exactly each side is targeting. I agree with you that you're seeing, like, apartment buildings in Tel Aviv getting hit, and there's just no discernible military value there. And that is clearly a war crime and unacceptable. We're also seeing reports that the idf, in their early decapitation targets, were going after senior military leaders in these buildings that flattened the whole thing. So I don't know who else was in the building and what civilians have been killed. There were some early images of, like, a little girl who had been killed. So the war is horrific, right? Like, horrible things are happening because of this conflict. Well, let, let's, let's get to Gaza, because in the days after October 7th, obviously Israel had to respond militarily. 1200 people had been murdered. There were hundreds of hostages sitting in Gaza. There was literally ongoing rocket fire. Right. The idea that Israel would not respond militarily to that is insane. 20 months later. I just cannot understand any argument for continuing this war, because in my view, Hamas is decimated. There's absolutely no chance they could pull off another October 7th. And frankly, I think it should have been prevented in the first place. The IDF had the plan, right? Like, Netanyahu took his eye off the ball. He had IDF troops off the border and up in the west bank dealing with settler violence. The Israeli, the senior Israeli officials like Yoav Galanto. I know, you know extremely well the former defense minister has told hostage families, quote, there's nothing left In Gaza to do, the major achievement has been achieved. I fear we are staying there just because there are a desire to be there. Ehud El Merritt, the former Israeli prime minister, said the government of Israel is currently waging a war without purpose, without goals or clear planning, with no chances of success. Even Steve Witkoff, Trump's emissary to the region, said, quote, israel is prolonging the war even though we do not see where further progress can be made. And then, you know, to civilian casualties. I mean, the death toll in Gaza is staggering. The reports are 55,000 Palestinians dead. I personally believe that is likely to be a severe undercount. 90% of housing units are destroyed or damaged. 22% of the population faces catastrophic levels of food insecurity. Top Israeli government ministers are calling for the ethnic cleansing of the Gaza Strip. So I just, I hear you, like, yes, Hamas is not a partner for peace, but they are an idea and a political organization as well, in a group that sort of like, exist to resist and to try to kill Israel. I just don't think we can eradicate all of Hamas through this war, and I don't understand the argument for continuing it at this point.

[Greg Landsman]

Yeah, I mean, I, as I said, I was able to, and I try to, because I'm in the position I am. I, you know, I try to do all my sort of complaining and arguing directly with folks. And so, you know, and I built up trust to where I can go and sit in a room with Netanyahu and say, like, like the humanitarian aid situation isn't at all where it needs to be. Like, you got to search humanitarian aid. You got to, you know, and this is something that Galam pushed for, you know, a long time ago, which was what we're seeing now, which is essentially these humanitarian bubbles, you know, because of the technology that, that Israel has, what they found in the tunnels there, they can separate Hamas from the Gazans, facial recognition, all kinds of stuff, and, and create these places where Gazans are completely safe and, and they're getting food and, and medicine and everything that they need. And how that is a, you know, not just the Jewish thing to do, not just the right thing to do. I'm Jewish. And not just the right thing to do. It's also the strategic thing to do. Separating Hamas from Gaza, Gazans is, is a strategic imperative because then you can, you know, further, you know, dis, dismantle or disarm, demilitarize the rest of. Of Gaza. I think ending this war, getting the hostages home is the priority. I am with Galant and others that you, you got to get that deal done. And I'm also with Galant that I wish that deal done. This is where I'm gonna, I wish that deal got done a long time ago for a lot of people's sake. And Netanyahu's argument was we have to secure the southern border along Egypt because that's where Hamas is continuing to get arms and the Philadelphia corridor. And there's some truth to that. But Galant would make the argument you can go back in pretty quickly. Yes, it's harder, but you got to get everyone home. I, I, I don't know what to say other than yes, I agree. However, the, the issue of Hamas still has to be addressed. Let's say that Netanyahu gets an agreement and, and they end the war tomorrow and all of the hostages come home. There is still a big question about what you do with Hamas. And yes, Hamas can't do another October 7th. But that's not the only goal here. I mean, Hamas, in part, you're thinking, I'm thinking about the Palestinians. Like they need a legitimate governing authority that allows them to leverage, you know, all of these resources that I think are going to be brought to the table from the Saudis and others to rebuild. You want to rebuild with a new governing authority, not with Hamas. And so there, there is a legitimate strategic question of what does Israel and everyone else do with Hamas? Because we can't go back. You can't go back. You can't, you know, have all of this awfulness happen and then go back to what was happening pre October 7th. I mean, one, you're not going to have long term stability, you're not going to get to peace to the Palestinians in Gaza are going to have what, another 15 years of awfulness.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah, I hear you. And you can't go back. But you also have to face the reality that Netanyahu is pissed away 20 months without thinking about the day after. Right. Like, there's been no effort to create or empower a political entity that can be representative of the Palestinian people, whether they're in Gaza or the west bank or anywhere, and can serve as that representative and kind of like take the mantle. Right. And so this we can't go back kind of argument, which I, I totally understand, I empathize with and I hear on some level is being to use to justify like endless wheel spinning and pointless war and just like the, the slaughter of Palestinian people. And I fear that that is fueling anti Semitism around the world. Like there There is a hard to quantify, like moral damage that happens to any country, whether it was the US in Iraq or Afghanistan or the Israelis. With this war in Gaza, when you're kind of like a part of this, something so awful and cruel happening and like what's the end game then? Like, how can we as Americans help push to end this? Because in my book, I feel like I'm a taxpayer, I don't want any more of my tax dollars going towards this war. I don't know why we're shipping 2,000 pound bombs to Netanyahu to use in Gaza. Right. But like, it seems like there's a real reticence to use any of that kind of leverage.

[Greg Landsman]

Well, a couple things. One is in order to, to, you know, be done with Hamas, the, the tunnel system does have to be, you know, destroyed. Not entirely, that would be impossible. But you know, part of what you're seeing is the destruction of infrastructure and it looks terrible and, and I get how bad this war has been, but not, but period, a lot of it is infrastructure that the IDF believes has to be destroyed in order to limit what Hamas is able to do. And, and get to a point where Hamas is so weakened that they are willing to accept a deal. I mean, the Jordanians, the Egyptians, their frustration is that there were so many deals and so many opportunities and Hamas, you know, said no, we're not that, you know, we're not going to give these last remaining hostages up. And that is a frustrating position to be in. And, and I, and I do, I, I do get frustrated that while there is a, plenty of, when you're at war, there's plenty of awfulness to be talked about and people should sit in it and feel it on both sides. And I have, I mean, I can't get Images of, of October 7th out of my head. I never will. I, you know, I've seen out, you know, hours of footage and I can't get images of what happened, has happened and Gaza out of my head. I never will. And I don't want to because I want to be, I want to be somebody who's there at some point as part of the solution that is there, you know, working through a sustainable piece that's building it all back. You can't fight a war, any war, and not make mistakes. And, and, and some of them have been awful mistakes. Why it is so frustrating that the, the, the, the international outrage for Hamas just has not, didn't, didn't last longer than, you know, 24, 48 hours and the Same with Iran. Like, it is so clear to me that, and, and maybe this is unfair and maybe I'm being, you know, naive, but if the world would just Europe and, and, and, and, and, and I think the Gulf states are closer than anyone but Europe, you know, you know, the, the, the anti Israel, pro Palestinian movement here in the United States, if they just say, look, we are going to take a, a beat and we're going to leave Israel alone, we're going to stop saying Israel is the worst, and we're going to focus all of our intention, attention and outrage on this Iranian regime and Hamas and just say, look, you have to be done. You have to be done. You have to be done. I, I just don't understand what, why that isn't the, at least something that folks who have been saying, Israel's the worst. Israel's the worst. Israel's the worst.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah, yeah, because, because Hamas is a terrorist organization, my expectations for them are rock bottom. They are evil motherfuckers. What they did on October 7th was evil and unjustifiable. No civilian should ever be killed. But I just think we all have to live in, like, kind of look at the recent history, which is that the only way we're gonna get these hostages out is through a negotiated ceasefire. That's gonna be imperfect, just like the Iran deal was imperfect. Like, not everyone's always gonna get what they want out of these deals. And like, that's diplomacy. But I think part of what you're seeing about the reaction to Netanyahu is he's a fucking liar. Like we played earlier in the show, audio of Netanyahu testifying before Congress in what, 2002, 2003, about what a cakewalk the Iraq war would be about Saddam's wnds lie. I watched him lie to Obama's face during the Obama administration. He's a fucking liar. And I think a lot of my frustration with the Biden administration's Israel policy was the sense you always got from him, because he said it all the time, was that he still thought we were living in Golda, my years, Israel. And there was this, like, bygone era of a liberal, democratic, progressive Israel. But Israel under Netanyahu is very different. And there's literal extremist terrorist sympathizers in his cabinet. Like Itamar Ben GVIR had a photo of a mass murderer of Palestinians on his wall. And I just think, like, U.S. policy is just not adjusted right? So I think.

[Greg Landsman]

Well, that I agree with. Hold on. That I agree with US Policy has not adjusted and, and I think that the understanding how the coalition government works is, is so hugely important for American politicians and American, you know, policymakers. He needs 61 votes. And, and he decided in part, he claims, and I agree, he, he is a, he's a difficult guy to trust.

[Tommy Vitor]

You know, so diplomatic.

[Greg Landsman]

But he says that, you know, he tried to go in a different direction and, and folks on the left said no. And so he ended up with, you know, a coalition that included Ben GVIR and Smoltridge. And it's absurd. Those people should be out of his government. And he has assured us over and over. Oh, oh, no, they don't, they, they talk a lot. But, but I run the show, they're not running the government. And I've pointed out instances to him like. No, no, no, buddy, there are, there are moments where they, they seem to have the wheel.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah.

[Greg Landsman]

In terms of, you know, what they do with the police and, you know, moving money around because, you know, one of the guys is in charge of the money and why money isn't going into the, the west bank, into the Palestinian Authority. Oh, we're taking care of that. I mean, all those things.

[Tommy Vitor]

Right, right.

[Greg Landsman]

But our folks have to appreciate that every time you come in hard on Netanyahu, you know, he, he, his coalition sort of strengthens around him. And so it isn't so clear. It isn't so like, oh, let's just, I'm gonna go and I'm gonna be tough with BB because like, you can do some of that stuff behind the scenes, some of that stuff. If you play out publicly, it only strengthen, strengthens the guy. It only helps the, the, the existing coalition. If you start to, you know, play the politics and understand the Knesset and figure out how to get a deal done where he can expand his coalition or change or shift his coalition, I think you could get to a place where he has a fundamentally different governing coalition that does not include Ben GVIR and Smoltrich.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah, look, I think you make a lot of good points. I think you're right in your analysis. But I think at the end of the day, Netanyahu is not committed to a two state solution. He's not committed to peace. He's never like, delivered on any of the things people hoped he would. So I think like kind of fish rots from the head down is my take on this one.

[Greg Landsman]

I mean, listen, I, he, he is very, I mean, the politics in Israel are so complicated. As you know, the number one issue is security. It's, it's just like the, you Know, you go to America, anywhere in America, the number one issue is, is, is the economy and then it's border and then it's public safety, and then it's, you know, people care about climate and people care about this. In Israel, everyone, it's security, security, security. So whether it's him or somebody else, the situation remains very complicated. So even if it's not Netanyahu, whoever comes in next is going to have a difficult task. Now, I would get the war done. I would search humanitarian aid, I would build the biggest coalition ever for peace. I do believe that if he had the politics on his side, Netanyahu would 100% say, yes, we're going to put ourselves on a path to getting to. I think what they're comfortable with at the moment is Palestinian self determination or self governance, because there is a, Every, every day you get from October 7th, it's, it's easier to say, okay, we can head in that direction. But if October 7th was this awful terror attacked, you know, and, and the reward is a Palestinian state, that, that is a, that is a challenge for a lot of Israelis who say, wait, wait, I'm all for peace and I'm all for getting to that at some point, but why are we talking about that now?

[Tommy Vitor]

No, I totally understand that. And that's the damage, right? Like October 7th is going to reverberate for years, if not decades, if not generations. And I hope that the exact kind of feeling you're describing, which is totally understandable, which is we can't let this horrific, evil, unjustifiable terrorist attack feel rewarded. I just hope that that doesn't, you know, block a pathway to peace in perpetuity.

[Greg Landsman]

I want, and this is, you know, here in the United States, because I'm a 90s kid, so I grew up in the 90s. I remember, I remember getting excited about politics in part because I saw the Rose Garden ceremony where Clinton was, you know, shaking hands with Arafat and Rabin, a prime minister of Israel, head of the plo, and how close they got to peace. And I want to see that kind of leadership here in the Middle east, people who can step out onto the world stage and bring people together around something bigger than what we have now. And I've pushed the prime minister to be that kind of leader like Zielinski has, which is like rallying the world around your cause. And I want to see that for Israel, I want to see that for the Palestinians, I want to see that for us. And I hope we get to a point where the situation in Iran gets resolved where the conflict ends very quickly, that hopefully there is a diplomatic path, that it was sort of, you know, helped along by the awfulness of the last couple of days, because they do respond. They do respond to these kinds of attacks. They, they. They are worried. They don't want war in the end, the Iranian regime, they don't want war. They want to stay in power. And so maybe this is enough. I hope it is. I hope it's enough for them to say, you know what? Let's. Let's get it. Let's get a deal done. And I hope we get to a point where the Israelis have the kind of, you know, leadership that can step out into the world stage and bring the world together and. And not just for Israel, but, but for Palestinians and everyone in the region.

[Tommy Vitor]

I think that's a great place to end it. I hope that the most optimistic version of whatever the hell both of us said throughout the course of this 45 minute conversation is what comes true. But as always, I'm really grateful to you for making the time. You, too, for pushing back. And see you on the text chain soon.

[Greg Landsman]

Okay. See you, buddy.

[Tommy Vitor]

Thanks again to Congressman Lanzmann for joining the show, and thanks to you, Ben, for doing this from New York.

[Ben Rhodes]

I mean, oh, God, I feel like I've been preparing for this podcast for 15 years.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah, I just feel depressed, man.

[Ben Rhodes]

Glad to join. Yeah, I know. There's just not a lot of good news. We just got to level with the world owes here. There's just. There's not a ton of good news out there. The Knicks can't even hire a coach, too, you know.

[Tommy Vitor]

Well, I'm just seeing on Twitter now, first of all, there's all these videos flashing up as we speak of Israeli interceptor missiles over Tel Aviv, you know, trying to beat back the next barrage of Iranian missiles. So, like, hopefully no innocent people die. And there's also a report that Trump and Netanyahu just spoke on the phone, so hopefully that's not a fucking USA green light call, but we'll see.

[Ben Rhodes]

Maybe looking at another bonus pod here.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yes.

[Ben Rhodes]

Subscribe to YouTube.

[Tommy Vitor]

God damn it. All right, buddy, talk to you soon. Positive World is a crooked media production. Our senior producer is Alona Minkowski. Our associate producer is Michael Goldsmith. Our executive producers are me, Tommy Vitor and Ben Rhodes. Say hi, Ben.

[Ben Rhodes]

Hi.

[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 Hefcote Mia Kelman, William Jones, David Toles and Molly Lobel. Matt De Gro 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 [e-mail] friends. Don't forget to follow us at Crooked Media on Instagram, Tik Tok 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 proud proudly unionize with the Writers Guild of America East. Your new beginning starts now. Dr. Horton has new construction homes available in Ellensburg and throughout the greater Seattle area. With spacious floor plans, flexible living spaces and home technology packages, you can enjoy more cozy moments and sweet memories in your beautiful new home. With new home communities opening in Ellensburg and throughout the Seattle area, Dr. Horton has the ideal home for you. Learn more at Dr. Horton.com Dr. Horton, America's builder and equal housing opportunity builder USAA knows dynamic duos can save the day like superheroes and sidekicks or auto and home insurance. With usaa, you can bundle your auto and home and save up to 10%. Tap the banner to learn more and get a'@usaa.com bundle restrictions apply.