C (4:01)

I'm sorry, but the narrative online is that if you say that Israel led the US into this war, you're anti Semitic. So now they're saying Israel did in fact.

A (4:13)

Right.

C (4:13)

Have a role in determining the outcome of this war. That seems very anti Semitic to me.

A (4:18)

That's anti Semitic. I guess we're all anti Semitic. Yeah, I'm just. Oh, that phrase. Anyway, so like a toddler who's had his pacifier taken away, Israel threw a tantrum and is upset about it and then launched massive attacks, airstrikes on residential homes in southern Lebanon. Take a look at this here. These are, these are apartment buildings. Doesn't seem to serve any military purpose whatsoever. But of course. Oh, I'm sure civilians, unless you ask.

D (4:49)

We'll hear that they're going to and

C (4:51)

they'll Say they were all Hezbollah.

D (4:53)

All of it.

C (4:53)

Even the children.

A (4:54)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

D (4:55)

And there's tunnels under there and, you know, tunnel networks and all that stuff. Of course.

A (4:59)

Right, so. And they also, as I mentioned earlier, launched massive attacks on Iranian and Chinese Belt and Road Initiative infrastructure, which was just completed late last summ, I'm sure. China. So that's a direct attack on China, by the way, and their infrastructure attacks on civilian apartment complexes in southern Lebanon. At least 250 people were killed in these attacks.

C (5:21)

And we continue to see bombs all throughout Beirut. These, the images are horrific. They're just as horrific as what we've seen in Gaza. Entire families, entire storefronts, these are this, what you're looking at is a horror. We have only 256confirmed death at this point. Clearly that's gonna cause more. Israel has also ramped up attacks in Gaza and the west bank, which is what many Zionists were warning last night when the ceasefire was announced, that, hey, okay, the war we wanted is not going to go forward. So we're going to continue attacks. You know, we're just going to focus on our own backyard, basically, eyes are on our own paper since we can't lead the war in Iran. Now, Prime Minister Netanyahu says that this ceasefire bit that the US And Iran have, well, that's cute, but it doesn't really have much to do with Israel. And Israel is going to keep fighting whenever the heck they want. Watch.

E (6:17)

And Israel is stronger than ever. This is the bottom line of this campaign up until now. Let me say there are still additional objectives for us to achieve and we will achieve them either by agreement or by resumption of the fighting. And we are ready to resume the fighting at any moment. Our finger is on the trigger. As you know, two weeks ceasefire has been announced between the US And Iran. No, we were not surprised in the last moment. And I want to emphasize this is not the end of the war.

A (6:55)

Save face. Yeah.

C (6:56)

So he's saying, oh, no, we knew about it. Our entire country's pissed, but we knew, we knew. And there are calls for the resignation of the Netanyahu government inside of Israel now. In response, Iran announced that they're back to closing down the Strait of Hormuz. The Trump administration says, oh, no, no, it just takes a while to open up water. And so it is going to be open. But here's Fox News saying it's not.

F (7:20)

Are saying that oil tankers passing through the strait have been stopped because of Israel's ceasefire breach. So you have that going on and there's a report out there that says that the President might not send JD Vance to Pakistan for the meeting in Islamabad on Friday.

C (7:37)

Might be a little soon for that.

F (7:38)

Yeah, we're just kind of like piecing this together right now. Some of this could play out the way we're saying it and some of it may not. I think it's tenuous at the moment and we've said it many times that

C (7:47)

ceasefires go ahead and stop that. It's hard to listen to Fox News. So Iran's parliament has responded with this statement saying, actually, you already are violating the ceasefire agreement. So there are three points here that they point out. I know that's hard to read. You can screenshot and, or you can find this online later. They're saying there's non compliance with the first clause, which is a ceasefire in Lebanon. That's not happening. You're slaughtering civilians by the dozens. So that's kind of a problem because it was in our talks, in our points. Number two, the violation of Iranian airspace and number three, the denial of Iran's right to enrichment. They are saying, look, we're done with this uranium talk. We're not doing this anymore. You're going to stop bothering us about uranium and we're going to do whatever the heck we want. The Trump administration, administration is saying, actually, no, they're not going to have any bombs anymore. That was never the plan. So which is it? The Iran is saying uranium enrichment is part of the deal. Leave us alone about that. Here's the Trump administration saying, oh, no, we got our way. Watch.

G (8:52)

Iran's ability to fund and support its terrorist proxies has been greatly reduced. At this point, Iran can no longer distribute weapons to its proxies in the region. And most importantly, Iran will not be able to acquire nuclear weapons. Prior to the start of this successful operation, Iran was aggressively expanding its short range ballistic missile arsenal through these weapons and its navy. Iran was attempting to build a military buildup around their country that would pose an imminent and existential threat to the United States military assets in the Middle east, our allies in the region and ultimately the free world.

C (9:30)

We were told in June that they were done enriching uranium. Now they're saying because of this deal and our war, they're done enriching uranium. Iran saying, not at all. Actually, we're going to do whatever the F we want because we won the war. Now we're going to talk to Ryan Grimm from Dropsite News in a second. Go ahead, Philip. What's your point?

B (9:51)

Please Well, I just, my, my question is, like, on that Caroline Levitt clip, like, how, how do you eliminate somebody's ability to distribute weapons to proxies? Like, if they have the weapons and the people the proxies exist, how can you eliminate the ability where they blow up all their trucks?

C (10:08)

Right.

B (10:08)

Like, I don't understand.

C (10:10)

Yeah, that was not in the points. But the points are contentious at this point, so let's at least discuss it. Now, I want to remind you Ryan Grimm had a victory lap yesterday because on Tuesday, when we all thought we were going to die because President Trump threatened to wipe out an entire civilization and trigger a nuclear war, uh, Ryan said that Trump was going to regress to the 10 point plan that Iran had offered weeks ago and spin it as a win. And that is exactly what happened. Now here's the plan that was published. Now, President Trump, and we'll talk about the details of it in a second. But President Trump is saying, hey, anyone who distributes this plan, who thinks they know what the plan is, they don't know what the plan is. Only I know what the plan is. Look at his most recent truth, social media. Uh, numerous agreements are being put out. Don't believe them. Everything's happening behind closed doors, so blah, blah, blah. The problem is that we're seeing clear violations of what was proposed before. And Iran is saying at least these bits of the plan, stop attacking Lebanon and Gaza and we will do what we want. When it comes to Iranian, Iran is confirming that those were parts of the plan. And the United States is saying, not really. Actually, not. Not it at all. Not really. Not it at all. How do we know what's going on? Well, we know that the United States is not going to be able to hold the line. We know that Israel will not do what the United States wants. We have no way of guaranteeing that. Beyond that, what do we know? So we're going to bring in Ryan Grimm right now from Dropside News. Thank you for joining us.

A (11:44)

Hey, Ryan, great to see you.

H (11:46)

Good to be here. How you guys doing?

A (11:47)

Good, good, good.

C (11:48)

Well, we're trying to read the tea leaves like you. The ten point plan that you had talked about seemed like a reasonable plan. It seemed like a reasonable plan to me weeks ago. And now the Trump administration say, no, no, those things are not on it. It's just that we won. Just. That's all you need to know is we won. What do you make of that?

H (12:05)

Right. 10 points. W E W o. And yeah, it is, it is true that you should be very Skeptical of any slop. Accounts that are, like, circulating, you know, 10 point plans, claiming that these are the, the official ones. And the way that the quote, unquote, 10 point plan came together is, was not a straight line either. You know, it was kind of a collection of different proposals that Iran put forward to different intermediaries throughout the course of the, the conflict. And it kind of got collected into, into this, you know, single proposal which the Trump administration initially said was garbage and they didn't like and then said this is good enough to, you know, begin negotiations on. And then as, you know, it starts to, you know, as Trump starts to take blowback for that, now they're saying he threw those in the garbage, but then they sent new proposals that made up a new 10 point plan and he accepted those. But those are secret. That part is just an obvious lie like that. That is just an attempt to justify or explain the unexplainable, which is like, why was this thing that you said sucked three days ago? Why was it acceptable now three days later? And so you have to then make up a lie that they sent something new, but they, in fact, they did not.

A (13:30)

So when you look at.

C (13:31)

He's so stupid. He's beyond stupid.

H (13:33)

Yeah, yeah.

A (13:35)

So when you look at this ceasefire seemingly falling apart now, Israel, by the way, Joe Kent predicted this yesterday, sent out a video predicting that this is exactly what would happen, that the Israelis would not want this to happen and they would get in the way of it, try to create some sort of diversion, some sort of an attack. They would scuttle these plans. And that seems to be exactly what's happened here. Iran now blocking the Strait of Hormuz again, attacks on Iranian and Chinese infrastructure as part of the Belt and Road initiative. So that, that's the first really direct hit against China now in this from the Israeli side. And then of course, we're going to talk a little bit later more deeply all about what's going on in, in southern Lebanon. But all of that to say that Israel seems to not want a peace agreement?

H (14:25)

No, they, they absolutely do not want a peace agreement. Certainly not at, certainly not right now. They are in a substantially worse position materially and strategically than they were before they successfully got the US to launch this war. So, no, now, you know, and Netanyahu's strategy, if you want to call it that, has always been just to fight another day and just see what happens. You know, just take that, take another step forward. So, no, they, they want to, they want to continue pushing north in Lebanon, bombing Beirut, relentlessly. And, you know, there's a. There's a gas field in the Mediterranean off the coast of Israel and Lebanon that I think is probably, you know, has something to do with them pushing northward here as well. It's not just the land, it's what's under the. Under the Mediterranean Sea as well. But if Iran is, you know, successful in creating a permanent end to this war while in control of the Strait of Hormuz, they become, you know, that marks them as a major player in the region, a much bigger player in the region and in the world than they were before this war.

A (15:42)

And the amount of money that they'll be making from these transactions, hundreds of billions of dollars in transactions, they'll be part of the agreement, it seems, is they'll be in control of it. So, you know, Moon of Alabama asked this question this morning, which is, if Trump really wants to stop losing the war he had started on the advice Netanyahu, he will have to throw him under the bus. Do you think there's any chance that Trump throws Netanyahu under the bus?

H (16:09)

With Trump, there's always a chance of anything. I don't see it as likely, but it looks like Trump, I mean, it looks like Netanyahu doesn't want to leave him any choice, that it's either he can have the ceasefire that he announced and that he said was bringing world peace and throw Netanyahu under the bus, or he can be dragged back into war again. So the last time we were dragged into war, it was because, you know, Iran has ballistic missiles that maybe could reach Europe. We're like, well, how's. How is that our problem again?

C (16:44)

Yeah.

H (16:45)

Now it would be. We're getting dragged back into war because of Lebanon. Okay. Hezbollah, the ninth, you know, the Marine barracks bombing in the 80s. But I, like, I don't see how you sell the American people on continuing this war on Hezbollah.

A (17:08)

Well, you have.

H (17:08)

People like Iran is one thing. Iran, you. They've been propagandizing Iran. Death to America, the Great Satan. All this stuff for decades. Lebanon.

A (17:18)

Right. Which is a threat to Israel. Now we have to care what Lebanon does to Israel.

H (17:23)

I mean, and. And they're a threat to Israel because Israel is invading them.

C (17:27)

Right. And that's. We should.

H (17:29)

You don't want, like, we should rewind. The safer in your own country. Yeah.

C (17:33)

And remind everybody that Hezbollah exists because of the invasion of Lebanon by the IDF. And I believe 1987. That is why they were created so that this could never happen again. And it's happening Again, they are extremists for sure. They think there are no innocent Israelis. But at the same time, that's not the Lebanese government.

H (17:55)

So they're also basically the government of southern Lebanon. So they actually, now, there's a diversity of political perspectives, you know, inside of Hezbollah because they're all pretty hegemonic when it comes to that area of Hezbollah. So whoever you are in politics, like, you're probably gonna. You're interfacing or part of Hezbollah one way or the other. But, yeah, you're right. There's this 82 invasion that lasted until 2000, and then they were expelled by Hezbollah. And. But now they're involved in everything, you know, from schools to student council elections to, you know, hospitals and. And so forth. It's. It's a social movement and a political party as well as a resistance force. But, yeah, they're like, if they, if they leave, like, Hezbollah has agreed to the ceasefire. If Israel just stops shooting, that will be it. Like, Hezbollah showed, you know, throughout the last cease fire that they were willing to respect it while Israel bombed southern Lebanon during the last quote, unquote, cease fire almost every day.

A (18:59)

Well, you have Fox News doing the propaganda work, Mark Levin and others, of course, doing the propaganda work, because now they're shifting the narrative. It's all. It is about Hezbollah suddenly, like, that's the focus now. It's about Lebanon. So you have the Fox News audience, which is now like, yeah, now we have to care about Lebanon. Yeah, Hezbollah is coming to our children's soccer games. But here's Mark Levin trying to push this. Watch.

I (19:22)

People of Iran. What, are we going to just leave them there? There's nothing that we can do. And we're going to wash our hands over that. That, to me, is morally very difficult, very difficult to accept. And then what about the proxies, Hezbollah? I was reading these statements. Hezbollah has killed more Americans than Iran directly. Hezbollah is Iran. Hezbollah is firing missiles into Israel by the hundreds still. And here we have a ceasefire that they've already broken. And so, yes, the argument will be, well, they don't have control of this and control of that. Well, if they don't have control of this and control of that, how do we even enter into an agreement? There's a lot of complicated issues.

A (20:07)

Yeah, a lot of complicated issues, Mark. So, yeah, the story is now about Hezbollah, and as someone in our chat pointed out just now, there's millions of Christians that live in Lebanon. Right. This idea, you know, I think the, arguably the most Christian of the Middle East Countries as well, but we don't care about Christians at all. So we're fine to just bomb them in those neighborhoods as well. But I love the Fox News sort of propaganda play of this, which is that it was, you know, Iran, through proxies that broke this ceasefire.

H (20:38)

Right. Well, there was never a ceasefire from Israel's side to Lebanon. Like, they, that never for a second recognized it. They, they explicitly rejected it. They said, this does not include Lebanon. And it's, it's kind of crazy making because. So at 7:50pm Eastern, Shabazz Sharif, the Pakistani prime minister, put out a post on social media, announce, you know, with. Gives me the warmest, you know, gratitude to, with the warmest gratitude, I announced the ceasefire. And he said specifically in like the first or second paragraph of a very short item, it's like, you don't have to read very far. It said it applies to the US and its allies and to Iran, and it includes all fronts, including Lebanon. Like, and then Trump shared that post. You now have Trump, JD Vance and Israel all saying it doesn't apply to Lebanon. JD Vance trying to be gracious. There's a little clip of him going around now saying, well, I think this was a good faith misunderstanding on, on Iran's part. They misunderstood the words including Lebanon to mean.

A (21:49)

Right.

H (21:50)

Including Lebanon. And it's an under. That's an understandable mistake because you and I would probably make the same mistake reading those words to think, oh yeah, including Lebanon means including Lebanon.

A (22:01)

Lost in translation.

C (22:02)

Well, no, because I'm not trying to invade Lebanon, so I wouldn't mistake that. I'd have to stop that. So you'd have to have nefarious. I mean, can we just look again at the Iranian parliamentary statement that says here are the three, three ways that already this ceasefire has been broken. Which is non compliance.

H (22:23)

Yeah.

C (22:24)

Yes. Which is non compliance with Lebanon, violation of their airspace and denial of the uranium bit. So again, we, you know, when we look back to what was this all for, what we do this for, what we spend billions of dollars for, to do this for. Well, we did not affect regime change. We did not, in fact, stop their ability to enrich. They're saying right here, this was always a part of the agreement. We are going to have whatever the weapons, whatever we want, and we do want you to pull back from Gaza and from Lebanon so we will have less, far less than when we started.

H (23:03)

Yeah, that's right. You know, we now have that really good piece in the New York Times that, that lays out precisely how Netanyahu sold the war to Trump and his cabinet in the situation room on February 11. And he said, you know, we can kill the Ayatollah and a bunch of the top leadership. We can, we can block their ability, blunt their ability to attack Gulf countries and project power into the Strait of Hormuz. They won't be able to block the Strait of Hormuz. We'll be able to overthrow the government, and we'll be able to replace them with a kind of secular, you know, pro American, pro Israeli government. Like that was. That was what they sold. And so then they embarked on this mission with those. With those things as the goals. Although it seems like Trump, before he even launched it, kind of gave up on the regime change part, but still wanted to do the war. But, you know, none of those. Yes, they killed the Ayatollah and a significant amount of the senior leadership on, you know, minute one, but beyond that, it's been just. Yes, they have. We have a lot of weapons, and we can. We can bomb a lot of military and civilian infrastructure, which, which we did. And yes, Iran's ballistic missile supplies are, are depleted, maybe down to 50% or so, but that's because a huge portion of them blew up in our bases in the Gulf and hitting targets in Israel and throughout the Gulf. So, yes, we reduced the number of ballistic missiles they have, but that's because they use them on us. So I don't quite get the strategy there, but, you know, I'm not a

A (24:41)

military expert, so I want to dive deep into how we got here and go through that New York Times piece after a quick break. But before we do that, I want to put up this, which is a tweet from Ethan Levins, and I want to get your take on this, Ryan, which is. So this was fully Trump's plan. He says sign a ceasefire, but allow Israel to keep bombing Lebanon. This makes Iran break the ceasefire to protect Lebanon, giving Trump no choice but to invade Iran. This explains Trump accepting Iran's terms. He never intended to go through with it. Pretty cynical, do you?

H (25:13)

I don't think that. I don't think that's right. I think it's a little bit too much forethought. If Trump wants to invade Iran, he'll just invade Iran. I think the reason he accepted his terms is that it was the only out for him once. The entire kind of world was like, you can't. You can't end a civilization. Like, that's not. That's not on the. That's not on the table for You. So he had, and so he needed an out. And the only face saving out was to say, aha. They've offered me this 10 point plan. It's good enough. We're going to work on this. And I, I think when it comes to them attacking Lebanon, I think that maybe that's a bit of a power play from the American side. Let's, let's see how far we can push Iran. Like, is this the old Iran that it was doing, you know, calibrated retaliation and is, and is much more cautious, or is this the new Iran which is responding, you know, to violence with violence? So I think they're kind of testing Iran at this moment.

C (26:17)

There's a lot of maga who are like, he didn't mean it. You know, it was just negotiating. It's the art of the war. And I find that deplorable because how can you tell that to kids? Kids don't understand that. Where are the adults in the room? You can't just go around waving a knife at daddy. Like it scares them. And I can't accept that as like, oh, come on, you took it seriously because he is the leader of the free world. He did say it. And it's genocidal intent. And I was doing everything I could to keep my kids from the Internet yesterday because I didn't want this to scare them.

H (26:58)

It's crazy. Yes. There's no, there's no justifying it. Like, and some are, of course, but like he lost so many people.

C (27:09)

You think?

H (27:10)

Yeah.

A (27:11)

Oh, yeah.

H (27:11)

I mean, just, you know, you've got, you had a Tucker saying, check please, Megan. Yeah, and that's like at the higher level, like, I think on the lower, like on the more grassroots level that's, you know, this was sold as liberating the Iranian people.

A (27:32)

Right? Yeah. And we, a week ago. Right. We're going to come save you. And how we do it is we blow up all of your bridges and infrastructure and we kill your, we destroy your universities. Yeah, that's how I, you know, that's like, it reminds me of the Broadway show Hamilton, you know when you have King George come out through that little intermission and he says, you know, I will send a fully armed battalion to remind you of my love. Right?

H (27:58)

Yes.

A (28:00)

Anyway, Ryan, stay right there. We're going to take a real quick break. I want to come back. I want to dive deep into this New York Times report. How did we get into this war? How exactly did the Israelis sell this to the United States? And how did, why did the Trump administration seemingly go along with it. The lies we now know fully. We're going to break that down when we come back.

C (28:20)

But first, first we want to tell you about our friends over at IQ Bar. Yeah, we'll do that. This episode is brought to you by IQ Bar, our exclusive snack, hydration and coffee sponsor. IQ Bar has protein bars and hydration mixes and mushroom coffees that are the delicious liquid, low sugar, brain and body fuel you need to win your day. If you haven't tried them yet, then you need to look into the Ultimate Sampler Pack. It's a great place to start. You get a mix of everything, the bars, the hydration sticks and the coffee. And what I like is that it's all clean, no gluten, no dairy, no soy, no junk ingredients, things like magnesium and lion's mane that actually support focus and energy. Their protein bars are particularly great for a smart snack. Lots of fiber, no added sugar. So you're not getting that slight spike and midday crash when you're trying to stay sharp on a busy day. They have over 25. Five star review. 25, 20,000. Sorry, five star reviews and counting. So more people than ever are fueling up with IQ Bar. For me personally, I do carry these for my children and for myself because we're always on the go and we like having high protein options that are not loaded with sugar. It's an easy grab when we're running late. Also, it's great to have an electrolyte mix because I have athletes as well. So right now IQ Bar is offering our special pro listeners 20 off all IQ bar products, including the Ultimate Sampler pack, plus free shipping. So to get your 20 off, text redacted to 64,000. Again, text redacted 64000 that's redacted to 64,000. Message and data rates may apply. See terms for details.

A (30:03)

Well, how exactly did the war in Iran begin? Americans deserve to know, of course. And according to a new report yesterday in the New York Times, we learned it all came down to our closest ally, of course, Israel. We all knew that. But to have it printed in the New York Times, and I can't believe we're actually citing the New York Times, but you actually have Trump administration officials going on and sort of off the record with the New York Times. We got exact quotes from them in the New York Times revealing that Israel lied to the United States using, quote, farcical intelligence claims to convince Donald Trump to attack Iran. Marco Rubio is one of those administration officials off the record saying Israel Present presented a, quote, bullshit plan that relied on bogus assertions that killing the Ayatollah Khomeini would prompt a civilian uprising and the installation of, of a secular leader. Even Joint Chief of Staff General Dan Raising Cain was on the record saying, sir, this is, in my experience, standard operating procedure for the Israelis. They oversell and their plans are not always well developed. They know they need us. That's why they're hard selling this thing. In other words, the entire plan was fake. A plan to drag the US into their war. Ann Coulter tweeted this. Every single Trump advisor is now off the record telling the New York Times they were opposed to Netanyahu's government argument for the Iran war. That's how well this war is going. Ratcliffe, Farcical, Rubio. It's bullshit, Kane. Standard operating procedure for the Israelis. They oversell. Susie Wiles against being dragged into another war in the Middle East. Chung, how would they explain away eight months of insisting that Iran nuclear facilities had been totally obliterated?

C (31:48)

They didn't.

A (31:49)

They didn't. They just hoped you were too stupid to remember.

C (31:52)

Yeah.

A (31:53)

Ryan Grim from Dropside News is back with us. And I wanted to get Ryan's take And really the ins, you know, beltway reporting better than just about anyone. So this is a really fascinating pulling down of the curtain by the New York Times. I would never really want to quote the New York Times in any other capacity, but here they have individuals who've been quoted directly who were in this meeting, 90 minute meeting. Maybe can you can walk us through how this unfolded? So if there's any lingering doubt for Americans out there exactly how we got into this war, here it is.

J (32:26)

Yeah.

H (32:26)

And also I think Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman are very reliable reporters, if you can criticize, maybe their politics if you want or whatever. But like, you know, they're, they're, they're, they're getting that. They're getting the act as accurate a story as you can get when you're reconstructing it from people's motivated, you know, retellings. But the way these stories work is somebody in the room tells you what happened, and then that enables you to take that account to everybody else that was in the room. And since they realize that you've got the story, they're incentivized then to tell, to give their spin on it. And it's very difficult for people to completely fabricate stuff in those moments because you'll have then three other people who are in the room saying, no, that guy never Said that. So what we have here is that on February 11, Netanyahu secretly went to the Situation Room, which is not unprecedented, but extraordinarily unusual for a foreign leader. In the Situation Room behind him on the big screen, he had the head of Mossad and several top military officials. And he gave this 90 minute presentation where he said, you know what we were talking about earlier, that they could kill the Ayatollah and the top officials. They could. They shouldn't worry about Iran being able to control the Strait of Hormuz because they'd be able to so kind of bruise them immediately that they wouldn't be able to do it. And they wouldn't be able to project power and attack their Gulf allies either. No idea why they thought they couldn't close the Strait of Hormuz when you can just do it with mines and a few drones. Then they said they would overthrow the regime and replace them with a, you know, a more pliant client. And the next day, the CIA analyzed all of the different elements of that plan and told the President that the first one, yeah, yeah, you can kill the, you can kill them. That's probably true. The CIA to its discredit said, you can probably do number two, which is, you know, severely degrade their ability to attack the Gulf countries and block the Strait of Hormuz. Clearly, they were wrong about that. And the CIA said that the other two pillars of the plan were farcical, which then Marco Rubio translated for Trump as bs. And Trump said, well, that's their problem. And let's just do the first part. And I think he was really, it really appealed to him to be able to assassinate the Ayatollah.

A (35:01)

I mean, they've, and so they really believed that regime change would happen.

H (35:05)

Let's, they, they, they, they said they did. I don't know if we can get into their mind, actually.

A (35:11)

Yeah.

H (35:11)

Because it doesn't matter to them, like, if they can get us in. And whether they actually believed it or not is almost besides the point. Maybe they did.

A (35:20)

So is there any lingering doubt that it was Netanyahu fully making this big sale, this big pitch?

H (35:26)

No. The only question is, what would Trump have done this absent any push from Netanyahu? There's no question Times calls it a hard sell. Like, there's no question that he pulled out all the stops, did everything he could to get Trump to do it, that nobody can disagree with that. There's no question that Trump has agency that, you know, he had a, he could have not done it. Israel has been pushing previous presidents to attack Iran, including Trump, and they didn't do it. So it's possible to not attack Iran. Now, would Trump have done it without Netanyahu pushing for it? It's hard for me to see why and. Or how that happens. Like, who. Like, who puts it in his ear and gets him going on it? I don't know. But, I mean, ultimately, it's on Trump. He's the one that brought the United States into the war. Netanyahu brought Israel into the war. I don't know. What do you think?

A (36:27)

I mean, it's hard to say when you say he's surrounded by a lot of sycophants. So I find it difficult to believe that they're all sitting there saying that this is so farcical. They're telling the New York Times. We, you know, we just. They, they. They oversell it all the time. We don't believe their lies.

C (36:44)

But there were two people in that room who would have something to lose, which is J.D. vance and Marco Rubio, both who have presidential hopes beyond this administration or at least continued political hopes. I don't think anyone else in there will be punished for this. So all of them would not want it for that selfish reason, you would think. And so now we have this Game of Thrones situation where everyone's pointing fingers. It was you. Was you. It was you. And, you know, that doesn't bode well for continuing to sell the war as a success and something that may continue to be necessary because Iran may very well not be done if Israel's going to ramp up in Lebanon, which they have said that they will.

A (37:32)

And also, can we just talk about the intelligence piece of this? Because we're just relying on Mossad being in the Situation Room giving us this intelligence. Like, we really have very minimal, if nothing, that the Strait of Hormuz wouldn't have been closed. They publicly told us it would be closed. Like, this isn't like, some mystery on top of, like, the Strait of Hormuz, like, that we would have regime change in that country. Like, we're just believing everything Mossad tells us.

H (38:00)

Well, it sounds like Trump. No, it sounds. I mean, it sounds like the American advisors did not believe it. Ratcliffe was a Kane that said, this is what they always do.

A (38:10)

Oversell.

H (38:11)

Yeah, yeah, they oversell it. They get ahead of themselves. It's not a sophisticated plan. It's just like a blunt, like, well, we're gonna overthrow the government. And, you know, Rubio saying it was not realistic. So it's not like, they believed it, we did it anyway.

A (38:33)

I guess it's just so darn troubling that we're just, we allow a foreign leader to come into the United States situation room, just sort of strong arm the administration. I know Trump has agency, but it doesn't seem like he does. I mean, he seems like, you know, unless we're now seeing this rift between these two countries with a ceasefire, maybe there's agency being shown here. But every time we've said, oh, Trump has agency, that's always been like a canard because at the end of the day, he seems to always fall back into the lap of Netanyahu over and over again, even if there's like a ray of sunshine, that maybe there's like a rift between him and Netanyahu and he's going to really be America first. I feel like we all just get played on a regular basis.

J (39:19)

Right.

H (39:20)

But Trump is still a person with decision making authority. Like to, to let him off the hook on that, I think is not.

A (39:31)

No, you're right. I don't like when people treat him like a toddler, you know. Do you have a. You had a question?

C (39:38)

No, I don't think I did. I'm annoyed, I guess. And, and, you know, we can lead read the tea leaves as much as we want. Who wanted this? Who would have? Why would they have not? But they did it. The point is they did it. And, and the people who may have had these opinions should have resigned because it was in the American public's interest to know better and not be sold this war. So you don't get out for saying, like, well, I wasn't for it, but I went along with it. Because you let them sell it to us. People died, People are still dying. So, yeah, I'm not willing to give anyone the benefit of the doubt right now at all.

H (40:17)

Yeah.

A (40:18)

So, Ryan, I guess just to wrap it up here, where do you think things happen go next? We're just seeing Israel attacking Lebanon, killing hundreds. Iran is now vowing revenge for what they're calling savage, a savage massacre. Hundreds of people killed. So where do you think things go next over the next 48 hours?

H (40:37)

I think, I do think that if the US does not get Israel under control, that Iran is going to, is going to hit Israel hard. I think that the calculation, whatever calculations they made about what Iran's strategic reaction or tactical reactions would be in any given moment seem to continue being made based on the previous Iran, the new Iran, after they annihilated the more moderate reformist leadership is driven by people who have been saying for years that this conciliatory diplomatic approach to the US And Israel was going to get, get them all killed. Then it got them killed. And so the hardliners are now in control. And I'm sure that there were people internally who were like, even this deal is a mistake to take right now. We should keep hitting them. And now those people are validated again, vindicated again, because they're like, look, we told you, you cannot trust these people. They are liars.

A (41:51)

Yeah, I think you're spot on about that. Well, Ryan, you predicted it and it's come true. Not that you want to take a victory lap on this, but Ryan Grimm from Dropsite News, thank you for joining us. Thanks for your analys and thanks for your great reporting as always. We really appreciate it.

H (42:08)

Thanks for having me on.

A (42:09)

You bet. Thanks, Ryan.

C (42:10)

All right, coming up, we are going to talk about these horrific bombs in Lebanon of civilians. It is Gaza 2.0. Yeah, it's horrific. So we're going to talk about that in just a second. We have a great guest coming on to talk about it. But first we want to tell you about our friends over at American Financing. Because let's be honest, the cost of living isn't just high, it's exactly exhausting. If you've been leaning on credit cards lately to just to cover the basics like groceries, gas and utility bills, you're essentially paying a survival tax of 20 or more on whatever you're paying because of the interest payment. So why keep handing your hard earned paycheck to the big banks when you can keep it for your family? Our friends at American Financing have a better way. They help homeowners tap into their equity to pay off high interest debt. With no mortgage rates currently in the fives on average, American Financing is saving their customers $800 a month. That's nearly $10,000 a year. That's back into your pocket. It's not a loan, it's a total financial reset. It takes about 10 minutes to find out what you could save. And there's no upfront fees, no obligations to talk to a salary based mortgage consultant. And here's the kicker. If you start today, you could delay two mortgage payments. So American Financing is America's home for home loans. Call them at 866-890-8434 or visit american financing.netacted one more time. That's americanfinancing.netacted well, we just got a comment here.

A (43:40)

Super chat from Ayman Rommel from Lebanon who's watching us live right now in Beirut. Lebanon says today was very tough.

C (43:48)

It's awful.

A (43:49)

Yeah, of course it was, because devastation has rained down on southern Lebanon. The problem. Well, if you've seen the. It's continuing right now as we speak. So we're like in real time, continuing to bomb. Israel's. Continuing to bomb southern Lebanon. And new reports from the IRGC on the Iranian side. They have called this an Israeli savage massacre, killing hundreds of people in one of the biggest series of attacks yet on its capital, killing hundreds, according to the civil civilian defense. The IRGC aerospace force has pledged revenge for this attack, according to Tehran is a breach of the ceasefire agreement with the United States. And they said this represents a historic and crushing defeat for the United States. And so they are going to respond to Israel.

C (44:40)

Now the IDF is saying as long as Hezbollah continues to threaten our civilians, we will continue to operate against them. So they have no remorse, they have no explanation for targeting civilian infrastructures. You've seen the videos. We're going to show you a few here as I speak. These are apartment buildings, of course. Every time. They never have to prove. Nope, Hezbollah was there. We were targeting Hezbollah. But you can see these are attacks across a populous city center. This is. This is a capital city. You know, you're not just. That's. Can we call that a precision strike? Is that what we'd call on civilians going for Hezbollah there? No. You know what the casualties are? Before we went to air, the number was about 256. I'm sure it's far higher than that now. We've had condemnations from Qatar, from various foreign leaders, but again, Israel's saying it's our prerogative. We're going to do it because Hezbollah is attacking us. And again, I remind you that Hezbollah was created in 1982 when Israel first invaded Lebanon. That was the impetus for this group saying we shall never have this happen to us again. Are they religious extremists? Yes. But did it have to be like this? Obviously not. And so now it's an entire civilization that's being attacked that I guess they're thinking, we let Gaza slide. We watched dozens and dozens of children die every day on our screens before our very eyes. So we're going to say some bad words. We're not going to like it, but we'll abide it because we did already. I mean, right?

A (46:19)

People will go along with this, but Iran is having enough of this. So, yeah, the international community has gone along with this for far enough.

C (46:26)

Why the heck Not, I mean, you know, kill some Muslims. We'll just keep going. That's. That's what they've done. They can just keep going, I suppose. We're going to talk to Ben Swan now about this. He's been following the situation in Lebanon and the international response. Thank you so much for joining us. Good to see you again.

A (46:42)

Independent journalist. Great to see you, Ben. So where do things stand right now as we come to air on what the response is and what you've been tracking inside of Lebanon?

J (46:52)

Yeah, we actually just finished interviewing a crew that's on the ground in Lebanon right now in Beirut. So the numbers right now anywhere from about 280 to 350 who were dead. Again, as you said, it's very dynamic because right now you have over 100 different locations that were bombed this morning. And so the death toll is always changing. Injuries close to 1500 now. So it's a very serious situation in that respect. Something that's very interesting, though. You know, normally there is kind of a sop, a standard operating procedure that Israel will use when they bomb any kind of area. And one of the things they'll do is they'll, you know, with their pager technology, with leaflets, with advertisements that start running across people's cell phones, they let people know, this is the area we're going to strike. This is when we're going to strike. If you're a civilian in this area, you need to get out. Israel does this all the time. They do it in Gaza, they do it in Lebanon. They do it everywhere. Today they did not. There was, from everyone we've spoken to on the ground who was in Beirut. There was no warning ahead of time. There was no indication this was going to happen. There was no description of where these areas that were going to be hit. Normally they'll say, we're going to hit, you know, this building because Hezbollah is there in Gaza. We're going to hit this building because Hamas is there. So if you're a civilian, get out. They did not do that today. And so you had people, women and children, who were killed as a result of these strikes. People had no idea they were coming. And, you know, you made the comment as we started, you know, just kill some more Muslims. But actually, these aren't just Muslims who are dying. You know, Lebanon has the largest Christian population that remains in the Middle East. The areas in southern Lebanon that are being hit aren't just Christian areas. They are so historically Christian. The wedding in Cana, where Jesus performs his very first miracle, where he Turns water into wine is in southern Lebanon. Where Simon Peter is laid to rest is in southern Lebanon. The Christian communities there are as old as Christianity itself. And these are the people who are being hit. These are the people that are being targeted. Israel says, just like they said about Gaza, we're going in there because we're going to take out the Hezbollah fighters because they're attacking us. That's not what they're doing. They are taking southern Lebanon all the way up to. I got to get the name of the river right, but it's the Latani river up to the Litany River. The goal is to take all of southern Lebanon and to basically make it part of greater Israel. That is what they are doing today. Netanyahu's office put out a statement essentially telling the members of the Lebanese army to get away from the final bridge that they have not yet blown that connects northern and southern Lebanon. There's one left that crosses the Litani River. And today, I don't know if they've hit it yet or not, but that was the warning that went out this morning. So the one place they warned about was they were going to hit this bridge. When they hit that bridge, they have now severed geographically physically severed, northern and southern Lebanon. Southern Lebanon is what Israel intends to essentially conquer and keep.

A (50:06)

And that's what Ambassador Mike Huckabee told Tucker in that interview when he pressed him on it. The Greater Israel Project. Should Israel take this land as part of this, what they believe they have a right to? And he said, yeah, take it all. Take it all. He tried to walk it back later, but it was really an admission of, of course, exactly what this Greater Israel Project is.

J (50:27)

Yeah, it absolutely is. And again, I guess I struggle with the Lebanon situation as a Christian myself. You know, over Easter weekend, we just had our Easter. The idea is you should be praying for and thinking of Christians around the world. We have a president who says he cares deeply about Christians in Nigeria. And again, as I mentioned, you know, one thing that the war on terror has done over the last 25 years and virtually no Americans really recognize this or acknowledge it, is we have decimated Americans, have decided, decimated the Christian communities in the Middle East. We decimated the Iraqi Christian population, which was about 5 million people. Many of them died. Those who didn't die fled into Syria, into Lebanon. They fled into other areas. Syria became really the main country for that. They with the war in Syria and us trying to overthrow Assad and hand it over to ISIS and to Al Qaeda, we decimated the population there. There has been a systematic decimation of these groups. Christians in Syria. Right. Again, go back 2,000 years. The very first churches ever planted by the apostles were in Syria. And those are the places that we've watched this happen. And now Lebanon almost feels to me like it's one of the last steps in this process to eradicate Christianity from this region of the world. And so, just from a religious perspective, I think not only is it sad and is it a horrific thing to watch happening, but also to know that it's American evangelicals who are largely responsible for giving Israel the pass to do this.

C (52:19)

Right. And so what is the corner that we've mopped ourselves into as Americans? Because is Trump really willing to restart the war so that Israel can take Lebanon? At the other end of the spectrum, does Trump have any influence whatsoever to make them stop? Because here's how it's gone. As Israel has utterly destroyed Gaza, here's the American response. No, stop.

A (52:47)

Stop.

C (52:47)

Don't do that.

A (52:48)

Please don't.

C (52:49)

Yeah, so what. What power do we have to stop them if they're going to keep going? And yes, we can stop selling them weapons, but that's not gonna stop them at this point. Point in time, they have enough to keep going. So this is. Can you see the corner that I painted? What do you think of it?

J (53:04)

Well, I think. I think it's first. I don't think it's a real corner. Do we have the ability to say you will stop? Yes, the president has that ability. The United States still has the leverage and the power over Israel, especially when you're watching so much of the world turn against Israel. Right now, you mentioned the French have condemned these actions, the Italians have condemned these actions. Maloney, in, in Italy, the Prime minister there is talking about wanting to bring up Netanyahu on war crime charges. So I think the world has turned against Israel in a lot of ways. They need the United States and they need that support. But there's the reality of it versus what's actually happening, because I would have told you six weeks ago, there's no way Netanyahu can walk into the Situation Room and make Trump go to war. Now, I don't think he made him go to war, but whatever influence he had was enough to be able to convince Trump and the people within Trump's circle were able to convince him that this was a good idea. Having said that, Trump will not restart the war. I don't think over this. I think he'll demand it ends because this war is a humiliation The US has been so badly damaged in terms of our reputation as a global military power. It's so bad that the President of the United states wants a $1.5 trillion military budget going into next year and basically says we'll cut every domestic program we can find in order to fund that. And it's not because he just loves war. It's because I think we've been exposed that we are so far behind the rest of the world. Iran, for all you can say about them, listen, they've surprised the world in the way they were able to stand up, I think, to these attacks and to this war. But having said that, they're still just a regional power. They are not a global superpower, as they're now flexing as if they are. But global superpowers like Russia and China, we're nowhere near. If Iran can do to us what they've done and do to our military equipment what they've done and withstand us the way they have, we're in a very, very scary position when it comes to facing actual world powers like Russia and China.

A (55:17)

So you're reporting from Lebanon because I don't want to discount what you were saying at the beginning, talking to the crews they're on the ground as they're digging through the rubble, looking through for. Looking for survivors. What do they expect to happen next? Are they expecting Iran to come to their assistance? Are they expecting a more. Another savage massacre, as Iran has called it, another round of massive attacks? Will we see ground forces? What are the people they're expecting to happen next?

J (55:44)

Well, from the people we're talking to, they don't know. They don't know if anyone's coming to help. They believe that Iran will continue to fire on Tel Aviv, but that hasn't slowed anything down. You know, if you look at what's happened over the last, you know, six weeks or so, the Iranians have bombarded Tel Aviv. They've bombarded all kinds of locations in Israel with missile strikes. It has not slowed down Israel at all. It's so interesting is while Americans are focused on the US And US trying to bomb different locations, we have not really been paying attention at all to what's going in Lebanon. It's gotten very little coverage, really. I would say the last two days is the only time it's gotten any really serious coverage at all. And it's because Israel has made so much progress. It's almost as if conspiracy theory here, almost as if Israel walked the US into this war because they believe they would decapitate the Iranian leadership, they would take care of that. But that wasn't the primary goal. The primary goal was to put up a huge curtain so that everyone's looking over here at what's happening with Iran that the US can deal with and Israel will fire missiles and fly over in bomb locations. But their real focus, their methodical focus was on Lebanon and on, on taking, as I mentioned, everything in southern Lebanon to add to that Greater Israel project.

C (57:02)

I don't at all think that is a stretch.

A (57:05)

It's not a stretch.

C (57:06)

I don't think you're out on a limb at all. Like you are on the base of the tree. That's, that's not a limb. You're basically in the treehouse. Okay, yeah, yeah.

A (57:17)

Because. Well, the other piece of this, right, is to Natalie's point, like, I mean, to drag the United States into this because as many astute observers have pointed out, one of the goals of Israel right now is to really hurt the United States because we are the ones with a yoke in some ways around their neck. We have prevented them in large part from tackling the west bank, from fully going into Lebanon, right, From fully realizing this Greater Israel Project. It's really been the United States. So to eliminate the United States, have us bogged down in Iran, have us our empire crumble, like that's at the heart of this story. And I don't think most Americans even know that they're using us in such a nefarious way. I hope people wake the F up. Sorry.

J (58:02)

Well, and it's also that Israel was incredibly good at propaganda, right. And controlling media and controlling messaging, maybe the best in the world at controlling messaging. And one of the things they were able to do by controlling the messaging is if every single day. All we've talked about, I know for our shows, all we've talked about for the last six weeks is Iran. It completely dominates every headline. It dominates the X feeds, it dominates cable news. That's what everyone's talking about, right? And when you have something so dramatic happening, yeah, it's very easy to say, everyone pay attention over there. Look at what's going on. Look at those huge explosions. Look at what the Iranians are saying now. And then you just move as fast as you can. And I do believe one of the reasons we saw the kind of hits that, that Beirut took today. Now keep in mind, in the entire time that Israel's been engaged in this six week war and they've been attacking Lebanon during that time, the most they have done in terms of bombings and hitting targets. The most they have done was today. This was the most aggressive day so far. I believe that's because Netanyahu and the Israeli government were left out of these negotiations. There's a lot of reporting that he was very angry about the fact that Trump went in there and had this negotiation with Pakistan. And that's a whole thing, too, really. I think the US Handed the Pakistanis. Here's what we want to say, and let's get this done. Because they needed a quick exit. But while that's all happening, Netanyahu was left out of that. The Israelis were left out of there. They were not a part of that. Why? Because. Because the administration knew they'd blow it up. They're not going to be able to be a part of that. So because of that, I think it changed and dramatically affected the Israeli timeline for being able to take southern Lebanon. And that's why they've accelerated the way they have today.

A (59:56)

Oh, yeah, it's.

C (59:58)

That does make sense. Yeah.

A (60:00)

Well, just a short time ago, we heard from Pakistan at the United nations saying that this US Ceasefire did in fact include Lebanon specifically, and that Israel and the United States are lying that it was actually part of this agreement. Any final thoughts?

H (60:16)

Yeah,

J (60:18)

good word. Lying's a good word.

A (60:20)

Yeah.

C (60:21)

Right.

J (60:21)

This entire war has been a lie from day one. But go ahead.

C (60:25)

Well, right. I mean, I guess originally my thought was, oh, they were mad that they were embarrassed by the ceasefire, so it's kind of a demonic thing. I'm gonna go take it out on these people who I can. Cause I can't hit Iran that I've been wanting so badly. But what you're saying, if I may just summarize, is actually, it's tactical, because if we're not going to focus on Iran so much, we're going to see what they've done in Lebanon. Now, something I've seen recently, and I haven't been able to see this for myself, is that Israel's taken more territory in Lebanon than Russia has in Ukraine in the course of this four years of war. And that's. I need to see that for myself. But that's wild to think that that has only happened since the February 28, in five weeks. And so, yeah, if we are going to turn our attention to this now, they're not going to have the opportunity. Maybe I say that, but they do what they want. So I don't know. What do you think?

J (61:21)

Well, they do what they want, but I will say there is. There is public ire that comes when you see the video, when you see. I don't know if you guys have seen these. We ran them yesterday in our show. But the drone shots flying over southern Lebanon, what's left behind? It looks like Gaza. You could put it up to an image of Gaza and say, which one is which? You couldn't tell the difference. I mean, they have flattened entire towns, cities, villages. They're doing the exact same thing. We use the term here in the US Carpet bombing. Right. When we go in and we just bomb everything. It's not carpet bombing. It's almost like a construction project where they flatten everything and they flatten the land, and there's not gonna be anything left behind because you're not coming back here. And one of the reasons that Russia has been so slow in their war with Ukraine, you know, is that Putin has said repeatedly there are homes and villages that are 300 years old that they're going through. He's like, we're not going to destroy that. So they're moving very methodically. They're trying not to kill civilians. It's the entire opposite of what Israel is trying to do, which is Israel wants to make sure when this is over, you're not coming back here. We're taking this. It's ours. We're building here. And that's why, again, you sever the bridges, because you're saying this land is ours and we're taking it no matter what.

C (62:35)

Right. In fact, there's a. What you mentioned is corroborated by a group called Breaking the Silence. It's a group of IDF soldiers, former IDF soldiers, and they have detailed their destruction of Gaza and how it was basically a construction project, a deconstruction project, where they took these massive bulldozers called the Teddy Bear, and they just destroyed factory, food, farmland, on purpose so that nobody can go back there and actually live there. And it's a systematic destruction of civilian necessities, basically. And so that happened. Look up. Go to breakingthesilence.org IL and look up the report called. Not you, but our audience. I assume you might have seen it. It's called the Perimeter, and it's horrific. So if this is what's happening right now, we got to scream louder.

J (63:29)

We got to scream louder, and the rest of the world needs to step in. And at this point, I think that, you know, the Chinese are condemning it, other countries are condemning it. I think there is less tolerance at this moment for Israel continuing to do this because the world sat silent while Gaza was destroyed. And so Many people were just obliterated. It was a genocide. It is a genocide what happened in Gaza and the world did nothing to stop it. I think many people globally did not realize what was happening until. Because Israel moves very fast when they do this. Right. They really are. When you do a deconstruction project the way they have, the world hasn't really seen that before. It's a totally new concept. And so I think it caught people by surprise. I think now that they know what it is, there will be less tolerance for it this time. And I would say what's happening in Lebanon is more likely to actually spark a global war, a World War Three, than the war between the United States and Iran in actuality. Right.

A (64:28)

Because if you're hitting Chinese infrastructure as part of the Belt and Road Initiative, China's brought in, the world will not sit by and allow this to happen. I hope, I hope. Fingers crossed. And we should be clear. Yes, Iran violated the ceasefire in response to Israel violating the ceasefire. And there's confusion as to, you know, did Iran fire first on Bahrain and UAE and Kuwait. Well, you know, Israel was hitting Lebanon simultaneously while this ceasefire that President Trump was promoting was suddenly taking effect. So, yeah, the fog of war right now. And of course, there's lots of propaganda from both sides, but we'll be continuing to watch it. Great work, Ben, on what's going on in Lebanon. We'll be following you. Thank you so much for joining us. Ben Swan, great investigative journalist as always. Great to see you.

J (65:14)

Thank you.

A (65:15)

Appreciate it. So, yeah, you know, if you break down sort of the timeline and if you listen to like, the mainstream media, which is like the CIA backed, you know, NBC News and those types of, you know, saying that, well, Lebanon was fired upon first, came under intense attacks after this peace. This, this peace fire. Peace fire. This ceasefire agreement was put out and that Israel said it was not covered by this agreement. Then Iran says they responded and hit Bahrain, UAE and other Gulf targets in response. And now they're varying response on Tel Aviv. So needless to say, I wonder Lebanon was part of this agreement. So that's. It's all. Anyway. Go ahead, Philip.

B (65:56)

I wonder what happened to, like, maybe, maybe it's just because of my, my age, but I remember a time when like, UN peacekeepers were a thing. Like, but did that only. Is that only something that happens in Africa? Like, did they only go to Africa? That was the only place the UN thought they needed to send. Like, because doesn't the UN have their own, like, army for specifically stopping things like Genocide and blue helmets.

A (66:19)

Why?

B (66:20)

Yeah, did they disband them in the early 2000s? I don't, I.

C (66:24)

They're on sabbatical.

A (66:26)

Yeah, we don't really use them. They are, they're not working. They're just like the white helmets, basically. In Syria, we call in the blue helmets to basically do NATO's work is like a leave behind army. Like, hey, when we need something stirred up, when we need like a fake or a false flag planted, call in the blue helmets, call in the white helmets. Fake a gas attack in, you know, in Douma or whatever, we need call in the white helmets or the blue helmets because these are the good guys. I mean, the United nations was actively funding the invasion of the United States through NGOs of illegal immigrants pouring across our southern borders, literally getting debit cards from the United Nations. So I don't trust those guys at all. But yeah, we don't really have an international peace force at all, so.

B (67:16)

Well, no, I mean if you, if you look at like, if, if you look at like some of the shenanigans they were up to like in, in some of the, after like the Congo and stuff like that, like, that's pretty shady organization. I'm just curious like, because I remember like as a kid that was like, that was the, when the UN peacekeepers showed up, that's when you had to behave, right?

A (67:33)

You know, telling you them holding like a baby with like a bottle, like they rescued a baby, you know, and there's a UN Peacekeeper with a blue helmet with like a baby bottle, you know, thank God we saved this kid. All right, we take some super chats here. We got some super chats coming in and just any kind of comments there and we will read those if we can. But first, first, you know, you're smart enough to know when something in your body just isn't working. When you're dragging by 2pm, when you can't focus, when your stomach feels off after every meal. Those aren't just random symptoms. A lot of it starts in your gut, with your gut bacteria. That's why we love Just Thrive probiotic. Unlike a lot of probiotics that never make it where they need to go, Just thrive is clinically proven to arrive in, in your gut 100% alive. That's the thing. You ever see these like probiotics, you're like, is it, how long has this stuff been sitting on a store shelf? Like, are these actually still alive? That's the whole point. They need to be alive when they go into your body. That means better digestion, healthy immunity. So they are guaranteed and clinically proven to be 100% alive when they hit your gut. Bacteria, your gut and more energy throughout the day is what you'll get. And I love this part. You can try it completely risk free for 90 days. It comes in capsules or a berry flavored gummy. If you don't feel a difference, they'll refund every penny. So you have nothing to lose. Even if the bottle is empty. You go through the whole bottle and you're like, ah, I didn't notice the difference. They'll refund it. So here's my challenge for you. Try just thrive for yourself. Go to justthrive.com/redacted. It's right there on your screen. Just Thrive. Oh, sorry. Just thrive health.com/redacted. Just thrive health.com redacted and save 20% off your first order. That's just thrive health.com redacted. Promo code redacted. Be the best you with Just Thrive. All right, let's see some super chats here. Thank you for. Thank you. We got a nice donation of $4 there. Fabian Latore, thank you so much for your kind words. And then I read this one, but I want to put up it on the screen from Ayman Ramal. I live in Beirut, Lebanon. Today was very tough. Thank you. It's horrible. And our thoughts are with the innocent people that are getting dragged into this horrible situation.

C (69:56)

Yeah. And we're so sorry that our tax dollars have supported it. We don't want that. Yeah, we never wanted that.

A (70:03)

Eternal vigilance. Redacted news. Great show. Thank you, guys. Appreciate that.

C (70:07)

Thank you very much.

A (70:10)

Peter says. Peter Von Arc says Hegseth is a war criminal.

C (70:14)

Oh, you guys seek out Dan Davis's YouTube show today where he goes over Pete Hegseth's press conference this morning declaring all this war victory. He's so mad the whole time. It just is really great. If you need good company. Of being constantly mad that he's in rare form, the Colonel. And it's. It's worth watching. I'm cheering him on all the time.

A (70:36)

Game, set, match or game set? Mock says I'm a proud American that supports Israel.

C (70:42)

Okay. All right.

A (70:44)

Good for you.

C (70:46)

Good for you.

A (70:47)

Good for you.

C (70:48)

You like death? That's fine.

A (70:53)

I just, I don't see support.

B (70:55)

Support what?

A (70:56)

Yeah, support what? Exactly. Like, I have friends that live in Tel Aviv. I support them not getting killed. Like, I support them being able to live and take care of their beautiful Little children and I have to hide in a bunker every freaking night because of this murderous demon that leads their country in Netanyahu. Like, I support Israel. I support Israelis. I don't. I don't support. I don't support their government and their genocidal government, just like I don't support my government and our homicidal genocidal government that's increasing to a 1.5 trillion dollar war budget. No, I don't support that at all. I support my country.

D (71:30)

And I would.

B (71:30)

I would take a step. I would take a step further. I also don't support Israelis that support their genocidal government. I'm all on board with the Israelis that don't support that, that don't want that, the ones that protest against it. But I'm pretty, pretty anti anybody that's pro genocide. That's just not a stance I. I could never see myself getting into.

A (71:50)

Yeah, Steve. You know Steve. Steve has been following Philip's allergy problem. Hey, Philip, One proper step for allergies. Start with local, raw, unpasteurized honey. It has to be local where you are. If any of the.

B (72:05)

I have some, and I'll tell you, I hate sweet things so much. I. I can't stand.

C (72:10)

Oh, but you can take the pollen then. Just take the pollen. You don't have to have honey.

B (72:16)

You can go is the issue.

C (72:18)

I know, but if you are taking it, you're building an immunity to it.

A (72:22)

So you can take a lot of it. You can take it all over your face like.

C (72:26)

Like, it's not that bad. My daughter and I take it. You just, you can go to the local, wherever they sell local honey and say, can I just have the pollen? I don't want the honey. And they sell it in little, like, pellets, and you can take that. So you're starting to build yourself an immunity to the pollen.

J (72:42)

Yeah, yeah.

D (72:42)

You need to spend the next year getting an immunity to Ian.

B (72:46)

Powder.

D (72:46)

I mean, pollen.

C (72:47)

Yes. Odorless. Hey, I should mention both cups were poisoned.

A (72:52)

The. The fine folks. The fine folks at YouTube actually reached out to us here at Redacted, and they said it's come to our attention because we've been complaining about the fact that so many of you are being unsubscribed from our show. So I actually sent them a letter. I sent them a strongly worded letter with so many examples of your comments saying, I've been unsubscribed. I subscribed to your show. I've been unsubscribed, unsubscribed Unsubscribed. I'll keep subscribing. I know they don't want me to subscribe, so I sent like so many examples of you guys complaining about it. And YouTube says they are going to look into it and they're going to try to find out what the heck is going on and try to put a stop.

C (73:27)

Oh, that's nice.

A (73:28)

So it's been happening for like two years where the YouTube just like un. Unsubscribes you from our show. So please subscribe. If, if you discover that you're not. If you're not seeing our notifications or we're not showing up on your homepage, it's likely because YouTube unsubscribed you. So just check your. It's free to subscribe. It's free. Just click on the Follow button or subscribe button on rumble and on YouTube and on X. And hopefully I'm working with them now. Hopefully they're going to fix this issue because. Yeah, we would.

B (73:59)

We would.

D (73:59)

We'd be well over 3 million subs by now.

A (74:02)

We'd be over 4 million subscribers if they weren't continually. Yeah, if we get like 30,000 new subscribers a month, they unsubscribe like 30,000 people. Like, it's like, it's. They do it to keep us at the same level and people complain all the time. I see so many of your comments. They're like, I've been subscribed. They unsubscribed me. So anyway, anyway, YouTube and you can working with us. So thank you, YouTube. Appreciate that.

D (74:26)

And you can watch on the show, you can see the subs coming up on the show constantly all day. I know. And when, when we're in working on the server, there's still new subs coming in all the time. We see it pop up on the screen. So we know people are subbing every single day.

A (74:37)

It pops up here on the screen when you subscribe. Like your name pops up here on the screen throughout the show. So then why, why do they feel if like a hundred people subscribe to us during the live show, why does YouTube then unsubscribe 100 people? It's like a very weird, like, I don't know, they've got something set for our.

D (74:53)

We can't look at these channels more than cnn.

A (74:56)

Yeah, seriously, what the hell.

C (74:59)

Yeah. I have one more complaint I'd like to bring up. I have seen people online saying Trump voters are responsible for this war in Iran. Why was that not Align during the Biden administration because the Biden administration clearly brought war to Ukraine. How come Democratic voters didn't blame themselves for that? Because they live curious.

A (75:21)

Because they, they don't see that. They don't understand that. They facilitate. They don't understand that they facilitated a coup in Ukraine and then facilitated a war against Russia. They don't understand that.

C (75:32)

Right.

A (75:32)

Cognitive dissonance.

C (75:34)

So, I mean, my point is voters across the board cannot be blamed for what these politicians do. We're all trying to read the tea leaves the best as we can. We think, well, this is a pretty crappy war in, in Ukraine. Don't want anything to do with that. So I guess I'll vote against this party. That does not mean anybody voted for a war in Iran. Some people did, but very few Trump voters did. I want to sort of put that out there.

D (75:57)

Well, there's a difference between people that voted. Yeah. You know, those of us that voted for him because we actually believed that things were going to change and be different, and then he turned around and did this. And it's like, we can't be blamed for that, like this any more than

C (76:09)

we, you know, anyone who voted for Biden can be blamed or, or anyone who voted for Obama can be blamed for, you know, Lebanon.

D (76:18)

But unfortunately, you have those.

A (76:22)

Yeah, yeah.

D (76:24)

The sycophants who will, you know, support Trump no matter what he does. He could, like people said he could shoot somebody in the face and they'd still be like, well, you know, he had it coming. He.

C (76:32)

Right.

D (76:33)

You know, like, so I just called the personality just. I, I don't get. I don't understand that.

A (76:38)

Well, yeah, Kamala Harris said she would, she would go to war against Iran. And Hillary Clinton said that if you vote for me, you'll. I will take us to war against Iran. I mean, those are her words. You can watch the video of her saying that.

C (76:50)

Yeah.

A (76:51)

That she would launch a war against Iran. So, like, all of them are in cahoots. And, you know, so you had Trump out there saying, absolutely, absolutely no more wars in the Middle East. That's what that New York Times piece reference Susie Wiles saying she was disgusted by this another war in the Middle east piece of the thing, if you believe what she's saying.

C (77:09)

So anyway, break your allegiance to partisan politics and blaming, you know, the electorate. I don't think that most voters can be held responsible for any of this.

A (77:20)

By the way, the next thing that they're now doing is they're laying the groundwork for J.D. vance is sort of being like this anti war guy with the help of Peter Thiel. So don't fall for it. I guess at the end of the day, like, if you're like, well, J.D. vance will save us, you know. No, no, none of these guys are going to save you. Absolutely not. Like, we need a clean house. We need people who aren't tied to these people at all. We need, like an America first party at the heart of it. But these people are not going to come save you. Marco Rubio is not going to come save you. JD Vance is not going to come save you. Anyway, that's my thought. Anyway. We got another super chat here. The US Iran ceasefire does not apply to Israel strikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon. White House press secretary Karen Levitt said during the White House press conference. I know she was full of.

C (78:09)

Yes, she said, thank you.

A (78:11)

Boa. Yes, we did play that sound bite earlier in the show today. It doesn't matter what Carolyn Levitt says. The propagandist from the White House.

C (78:18)

She also said that they destroyed Iran's nuclear capabilities last June.

A (78:22)

Right.

C (78:23)

You know, as long as we're putting stock in what she says, take a.

A (78:25)

Yeah, take it with a grain of salt. They take your propaganda elsewhere and it is part of the agreement as Pakistan just.

C (78:33)

It clearly is.

A (78:34)

Yeah, it is part of it. And by the way, hitting apartment complexes in Lebanon is hitting Hezbollah. No, you hit women and children. You've hit thousands of people this afternoon in the past few hours. Like hitting Hezbollah. Okay, now what you're really doing is killing Christians as well. But no one wants to talk about that.

C (78:51)

Well, families, it doesn't matter. Families. Right? That's not a precision strike by any stretch of the imagination.

A (79:00)

Fabian Lator says, let's show our appreciation for Redacted. Thank you so much. Fabian. Fabiana. Is that Fabiana fa. That's a beautiful name. I don't think I've ever heard that before. Thank you very much and miss old school, thank you for your 99 cent super chat or rumble rant. Thank you so much. All right, everyone, thank you guys for joining us here on Redacted. I just got the signal that we've got to wrap the show up. The powers that be.

C (79:27)

I kicked him under the table.

A (79:29)

Can turn off the lights. So I'm just going to drag this out even further then.

C (79:33)

Well, then I'm going to go.

A (79:34)

You play some footsie. All right, thank you guys for subscribing. Don't forget to subscribe to our newsletter. Redacted.inc is the place to go to sign up for that. It's free. It'll be delivered to your inbox first thing in the morning. Redacted.inc Sign up for the newsletter, click there. Boom. You'll be signed up and we'll see you tomorrow here on redacted at 4:00pm Eastern Time. Have a great night, everybody. Want to go?