Loading summary
Transcript90 lines
- [00:00]
David Rothkopf
You know, there was a time 20 odd years ago when George W. Bush, in making his case for his war, said the United States faces an axis of evil.
- [00:11]
Joanna Coles
Right.
- [00:11]
David Rothkopf
I think a case can be made if you're looking at the number of innocent deaths and the number of wars of choice that shouldn't be undertaken, that the new axis of evil contains Vladimir Putin, but it's now also Donald Trump and Bibi Netanyahu.
- [00:28]
Joanna Coles
I'm Joanna Coles. This is the Daily Beast podcast, Podcast. It's day three of Israel and the United States bombing campaign against Iran and what appears to be war in the Middle East. Who better to talk about this with than the Daily Beast's own David Rothkopf, who's been writing up a storm since it became clear that the action was on and that the military buildup in the Gulf was in fact there for a very specific reason. We've got regime change and we've got Donald Trump strutting around like a UFC fighter with his hands in the air saying only he could have done this. And American casualties. They are what they are. They are what they are. So with no further ado, let's get into it. And just to remind you, David Rothkopf is the founder of Deep State Radio, but he was the editor of Foreign Policy magazine and he worked in the Commerce Department under Bill Clinton. David Rothkopf, welcome on a Monday morning.
- [01:34]
David Rothkopf
Yes, ma'. Am.
- [01:35]
Joanna Coles
Last time we spoke, it was all about Epstein. Now it's all about Iran. We're three days in. What the fuck is going on?
- [01:44]
David Rothkopf
But let's break this down into some component parts. First of all, you're exactly right. It's all about Epstein. This war is all about Epstein.
- [01:52]
Joanna Coles
Well, you nicknamed it Operation Epstein Fury, which I loved.
- [01:56]
David Rothkopf
Well, and that's, you know, that's what it is, right? I mean, it's trying to be a distraction, but it's other things, too. You know, it's the seventh military adventure or in the seventh country undertaken by the peace president. I mean, I think one of the things about Trump is the Yale lies, right? But some of his lies are bigger than other lies. And one of them was, I'm going to be the peace president who's going to end all these foreign wars. And no president has ever launched more military adventures in more countries in a shorter period of time than Donald Trump. It's only seven if you.
- [02:36]
Joanna Coles
Okay, so which are the seven? All right, this is like one of those kind of guessing games. So obviously Iran, Venezuela, Nigeria. What are the others?
- [02:46]
David Rothkopf
Syria. We launched a Tax in.
- [02:48]
Joanna Coles
Right.
- [02:49]
David Rothkopf
And we launched a tax in.
- [02:53]
Joanna Coles
Okay. And then we have the little boats in the Caribbean. Is that separate to Venezuela?
- [02:59]
David Rothkopf
No, I think that all counts as Venezuela. But my point. And it's eight if you count the United States of America, where he has deployed troops in the street against his own people. He said he's ended wars, right? He hasn't ended eight wars. He started eight wars. I mean, one of the wars he said he ended was the war between the United States and Iran, and he just started that one again. So, I mean, one of the big. In the sort of bullshit verse of Trump, where there's all different kinds of bullshit out there, one of the biggest lies that there is is that he actually is interested in peace. He's interested in war. He is the biggest, most reckless warmonger president we have ever seen, David.
- [03:49]
Joanna Coles
Is he even interested in war, or is he just interested and things aren't going well at home? And so he is doing what so many leaders do, which is to take the fight abroad.
- [04:05]
David Rothkopf
Well, I mean, first of all, I wouldn't call him a leader. You know, this is a big, fat orange impulse engine sitting in the White House who can't keep one thought in his head for two minutes. And everything is about him. Everything that he does is about how it makes him feel and what he thinks he can get out of it. There is no process involved. There is virtually no National Security Council working. He doesn't listen to his advisors. According to the reports that I hear on Thursday, it was not clear that he was going to launch this war. On Friday, he decided to launch the war. You know, the military always has a lot of plans, and they're real good at executing plans. But I think one of the really important things here, because the United States has launched a lot of bad wars in the Middle east and elsewhere, is that this is the most reckless war we have ever seen. Because this president is so ignorant and so immune. Good advice. That he will. You know, he just sort of lurches into these things. And, you know, for the two weeks before this, he was shopping for a reason to do it, and he was trying different ones. We're gonna do this to protect the protesters. We're gonna do this to get rid of ICBMs, we're gonna do this to get rid of nuclear weapons. When the real reason he was gonna do it was Epstein. And. And he was going to do it is that Bibi Netanyahu is standing at his elbow pushing him, because Bibi is also up for election later. This year. And Bibi knows he can't win unless he's at war with somebody. And Iran is Bibi's obsession. And so you've got Trump launching into this thing for no reason, with no plan. And let me read you something which I saw just now and maybe you have a reaction to it, cuz to me it was absolutely stunning. So Jonathan Karl, very good journalist, one of the really good ones out here in Washington, tweeted last night the following. President Trump told me tonight that the US had identified possible candidates to take over Iran, but they were killed in the initial attack. Trump says the attack was so successful it knocked out most of the candidates. Trump told me, it's not going to be anybody that we were thinking of because they're all dead. Second or third place is dead. I mean, how incompetent is this? If regime change is your goal, maybe you shouldn't kill the people you thought you were gonna change the regime to.
- [06:54]
Joanna Coles
In his speech on Saturday to the American nation, he said he was calling on the Iranian people to rise up and seize their nation while they had this opportunity. And you know, he was the only American president that was ever gonna present this opportunity. And then he's saying that they already had ideas of people who were going to run, you know, a sub Khomeini regime. And then it turns out he's killed them all. So again, what the fuck is going on?
- [07:24]
David Rothkopf
And even, even as he was talking, he was killing them, right? It's pretty fantastic. I mean, we can analyze this from several perspectives, and one of them is clearly he is ignorant and impulse driven and dealing with domestic problems by acting out internationally, as we just said. But there are other ways you can analyze this, right? For example, this is an illegal war. The Constitution says only the Congress can declare war. He didn't go to the Congress. Even George Bush, who launched the worst war in American history in the sense of most unjustified, which is the Iraq war, went to the Congress, made the case, got approval to go and proceed with the war. He has not done that. And he is undertaking it in a way that only increases the likelihood that we have more chaos, not less chaos.
- [08:32]
Joanna Coles
I think
- [08:34]
David Rothkopf
there was also no justification for the war. The stuff about Iran's nuclear weapons, first of all, he said he obliterated them, so there shouldn't have been a program there. But secondly, all the intelligence we had suggests there was no imminent threat from Iran. None. This is a complete lie. And just because Nancy Mace is going on TV saying, oh no, I've seen The intelligence, it doesn't mean it's true, because Nancy Mace is a pathological liar, too. So, I mean, there was no reason to do it. It was done illegally. It was done without planning. It was done by a guy with the wrong possible motives, with no advisors who are worth trusting. I mean, Pete Hegseth, your favorite said this morning, we didn't start this war, but we are going to finish it. And it's like, what?
- [09:26]
Joanna Coles
And also unable to say whether or not we were going to put troops on the ground. He got very irritated when he was asked that question, because I'm sure he has no idea, because it's not his decision. Right. Despite the fact he's Secretary of War Defense. It's Trump's decision.
- [09:43]
David Rothkopf
Look, it is Trump's decision, and I gotta say, I'm totally against using this name, Secretary of War. But if you look at the record, this administration, this is an administration of war. War is what they're all about. War is their go to, because Congress doesn't do anything and all their policies in the US don't work. So here they are. But the problem is Iran is not Venezuela. Iran is not speedboats in the Caribbean. Iran is a country of 93 million people with advanced weapons system, with advanced allies that has networks of people around the world who work to advance its interests. And there's a reason that even though the US has viewed Iran as an enemy for the course of the past 20 or 30 or 40 years, that we haven't attacked Iran because the potential for unleashing chaos and producing unintended consequences is so high. But if you have this big, impulsive blob in the White House who doesn't think things through, that's how you end up where we are right now.
- [10:59]
Joanna Coles
Well, the other thing that he said was to. Jonathan caught the conversation you referenced earlier, is that no one else could have done this but him. And of course, what does work in his favor is that they did get an early victory with the death of Khomeini. No one is mourning him apart from a small group in Iran. So he did get a quick victory, which gives him the ability to sort of, you know, put his thumbs in his suspenders and strut around the Oval Office. At some point, we should also discuss why he was wearing a tie at the fundraiser at Mar A Lago, removed the tie to sit in the temporary situation room at Mar A Lago and also have no tie, unusually when he made his address on Saturday. And it felt to me very like costuming. And when you Go back to the Obama photograph in the Situation Room when they're after Osama bin Laden and you can see everybody looking anxious and neither Biden, who's vice president at the time, and definitely Obama, neither of them wear a tie. And I couldn't help feeling that Donald Trump had studied that photo and produced his own version of it. And of course, JD Vance didn't get the memo because he was in the real Situation Room having been cut out of the action from Mar A Lago with a tie on
- [12:31]
David Rothkopf
that. You know, I've read a lot of analysis since this took place, and that is the only sartorial analysis of this whole thing that I've seen.
- [12:41]
Joanna Coles
Well, I think it's. I mean, I hate to say it, but I think it's significant.
- [12:44]
David Rothkopf
Not wearing a tie, I think.
- [12:46]
Joanna Coles
Not wearing a tie, I think. And wearing the baseball cap, which actually hid his eyes. So when he was delivering on Saturday, you couldn't really see. You couldn't really see his face.
- [12:58]
David Rothkopf
Look, thank God for small favors. The reality is that Donald Trump, you know, a sense of the problem here is that apparently by setting up some velvet curtains somewhere in Mar A Lago, Donald Trump thinks he set up a secure workspace from which Pete Hagseth and Raisin Keane could go and manage this war. Of course, it couldn't be less secure than that. And it shows how ramshackle, makeshift this whole operation actually is. The fact that Trump is going in and out of a fundraiser to give the order to blow up a country, to come back into the fundraiser, to put on his baseball cap, to take his baseball cap. He doesn't go. When American presidents launch wars, typically they go on television and make the case to the American people. He doesn't do that. He does a recording. He puts it up in the middle of the night everywhere you look. This is a chaos producing operation. It is a chaos generated operation. It is about upsetting. I mean, it is resulting in making the world a less safe place.
- [14:25]
Joanna Coles
Well, you also missed out. You missed out the moment where he went and did the YMCA dance, too. So he goes into the makeshift Situation Room, he goes back to the Mar A Lago fundraiser, does ymca, goes back into the Situation Room. I mean, it is like a Seth Rogen version of the American presidency at this point.
- [14:49]
David Rothkopf
It is, it does idiocracy come to life?
- [14:53]
Joanna Coles
Idiocracy, right.
- [14:56]
David Rothkopf
If you recall that, mother. But it is a man so unfit to be president of the United States doing the most dangerous and destructive things possible. And if you are sitting at home Thinking this doesn't affect me, you are wrong. First of all, you'll feel it at the gas pump pretty shortly as prices go up. But secondly, if somehow we decapitate the Iranian government, but hardliners maintain control of Iran or part of Iran, both of which are likely possibilities, and we've negated their ability to use their military to defend themselves, what are they going to do? What do you think they're gonna do? This is the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world over the course of the past couple of decades, and they're gonna start sending groups of people out to blow things up, including here in the United States, in Europe and elsewhere in the world. And so this is what I mean
- [16:13]
Joanna Coles
by reckless when you say Iran is gonna send out terror cells across the world, including here in the United States States. It doesn't make one feel more confident that in charge of the FBI is Keystone Kash Patel.
- [16:29]
David Rothkopf
Kash Patel, No. Or Kristi Noem in charge of dhs. We are being put at risk by the fact that Trump has the most incompetent group of advisors around him in. In American history. But see, I think part of the problem with this is when you break it down, you have an illegal war undertaken for the wrong reasons or perhaps for no reason at all that has to do with national security. Perhaps it only has to do with domestic security. And it's being undertaken without planning, without an nsc, without a real process, without any analysis what the intended consequences might evolve into or of what the unintended consequences consequences might be. And we pull the trigger on it, knowing full well that our allies are likely to be attacked, that friends throughout the region are likely to be attacked, and that any one of the attacks, if it hits the wrong thing, could instantly escalate this into something higher. And it has economic consequences. Our European allies aren't supporting. Is opposed by 8% of the American people. Only 20% of Americans, according to a poll over the week. At 21% support this war. It is the least popular military undertaking in the history of the United States.
- [18:02]
Joanna Coles
Can we talk about. David, can we just talk about the language, too, that he uses in terms of the potential of American casualties? There was a sort of moment on Saturday when where he raises it as a subject, and then it goes. It is what it is, as if this is somehow acceptable. And you think back to previous presidents and the care with which they talked about the potential of losing American lives and the risk here and the fact that we haven't been sold on the reasons for war seems to undermine again his single minded decision making process. Almost as if he's discovered in Trump too that he's got a military at his disposal, that he's rolled over Congress and he's just going to do with it what he wants and there aren't real people at the heart of it. I mean, we saw three servicemen already dead, three F15s blown out of the sky with those pilots parachuting down in Kuwait. So again, a carelessness and a recklessness the likes of which we just haven't seen when a military action is involved.
- [19:22]
David Rothkopf
Yeah. By the way, the three F15s were blown out of the sky by friendly families.
- [19:26]
Joanna Coles
Even worse. Right. Even worse.
- [19:30]
David Rothkopf
Right. And when Trump was asked does he have a message for the families of the people who died, he turned around and he walked away because he doesn't think he has to answer to anything. I think in some respects you're absolutely right. One conclusion we might draw from, since the Congress has rolled over and played dead, since the courts have largely played dead on this kind of thing, since his advisors just say yes, yes, yes, do whatever it is that you want, and since he doesn't think he ever has to answer for any of this, whether it's because he never run for election again or because there will never be an election again, one or the other. Donald Trump is waging the first American war in the past 250 years in which the commander in chief thinks he's the king.
- [20:21]
Joanna Coles
Right.
- [20:21]
David Rothkopf
He doesn't think he's the President of the United States, he thinks he's the king. And this is an astonishing. There's to this though. The instigator behind this war with Iran is Bibi Netanyahu. And he has been pressing the United States to do this for a long time. He is also in the middle of a scandal. He is also facing an election at the end of this year which could cause him great political harm. And he also feel can conducting war outside of his country is the best way for him to remain in power. He also doesn't care about casualties. He doesn't care about the consequences of these things. And I would argue to you there was a time 20 odd years ago when George W. Bush, in making his case for his war, got on television and said the United States faces, and this is a term come up with by David Frum, who's now opposed to this writing for the Atlantic. And he opposes an axis of evil in this world. I think a case can be made if you're looking at the number of innocent Deaths and the number of wars of choice that shouldn't be undertaken, the number of illegal wars and the number of war crimes committed. That the new axis of evil contains Vladimir Putin, but is now also Donald Trump and Bibi Netanyahu.
- [21:53]
Joanna Coles
Wow. So the axis of evil changes to Russia, Israel, and incredibly, the United States.
- [22:01]
David Rothkopf
Well, if these are the countries that are attacking other countries illegally, producing deaths as a consequence of their policies, both in war and also policies like withholding food and aid from people around the world are doing this recklessly, are doing this not to advance peace or national interests, but to advance the very, very narrow interests of the leaders of those countries. What they are doing is fundamentally evil. And so this is the new axis of evil. And it should be chilling for every American that we're part of it. Am I saying the US Military is part of that only because they are following the orders of the President of the United States, because they're waging this illegal war on behalf of the President. Am I saying the Congress, the enablers in Congress are part of it? Yeah, they are. They're letting him get away with this. Now, there is going to be a war powers vote later this week, but we know that it's kind of symbolic because even if it passes and says the President can't continue, he's not gonna sign it and he's not gonna pay attention to it, because again, for the first time in the 250 year history of the United States, the commander in chief is the king.
- [23:24]
Joanna Coles
Just to play devil's advocate, no one is mourning the death of Khomeini, apart from perhaps a few clerics in Iran, as far as we know. Is there an argument that actually, though Trump has acted utterly impulsively, that this turns out to be a good thing for the Gulf region?
- [23:50]
David Rothkopf
Look, there are hundred potential scenarios. Three, four or five of them may be good scenarios. If this results in the collapse of the theocratic regime in Iran, the collapse of a regime that has been oppressing its people since 1979, and the people rise up and are able to choose a leader who represents their interests and advance democracy in the region, and they are then able to work out agreements with other countries in the region that produce stability, of course this would be a good thing. But all of those outcomes are highly unlikely. And even were they to take place, they would take many, many months to manifest themselves. And even if it appeared to take place, it's quite likely that there would be strongholds of people who remain committed to the goals of the theocratic regime who would try to destabilize this government.
- [25:00]
Joanna Coles
So there's what, 90, 91, 92 million people in Iran? There's a million of them are in the police force. About 80% of people are said to want some form of democracy. 20% still supporting a theocracy. How split are the 80% in terms of potential political leadership and who would be the dominant successor?
- [25:30]
David Rothkopf
Well, first of all, we don't know who the dominant successor will be, because there has really been no opportunity for an opposition movement to grow or to take roots. Secondly, there is no mechanism for those people to express their views except to take to the street, which is why the police force is large and design suppress that. That doesn't mean that there could not be a democratic movement there. But I do want to pump the brakes a little bit here and say, have you heard Donald Trump mention the word democracy? The State Department, when he took over, eliminated the word democracy in websites as a goal of this administration. In Venezuela, Donald Trump did not remove Nicolas Maduro and replace him with somebody who would move them towards democracy. He removed Nicolas Maduro and let him and his entire regime remain in place. And he is perfectly happy to deal with autocratic regimes so long as they're willing to play ball with him. And that's why, you know, there are even some people in the US who are out there promoting the idea that the son of the Shah of Iran, who has never spent any time in Iran, come back and take over. And this is another weird scenario. Is it really gonna be that the United States is gonna go and depose the theocratic, oppressive regime of Iran to put a monarch in place?
- [27:03]
Joanna Coles
Well, and also, it's shocking how similar he looks to him. I mean, it's almost like going back in time and seeing the Shah back, only a younger version of the Shah. It's really uncanny how similar they look.
- [27:16]
David Rothkopf
Well, we know that Trump is super comfortable with people who rule their with an iron fist and is not comfortable with democracy. And so the idea that Donald Trump is gonna be the father of democracy in Iran seems really, really far fetched. But the idea that we're gonna be able to get there from here is even more far fetched.
- [27:39]
Joanna Coles
Okay, so what's the opportunity for the grift here? I mean, we know that Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, the Manhattan real estate developer, were supposedly in negotiations with the Iranians. Do we think there is, you know, is this the Iranian riviera, you know, 3.0? I mean, what is the opportunity here? Because whenever Trump is involved, you know that there's some kind of self interest that perhaps we haven't noticed yet.
- [28:14]
David Rothkopf
Well, yes. And so let's begin where we started. Right? The biggest self interest here is to wag the dog and distract from his problems, notably Epstein. Right, but it's not just Epstein. Every single initiative Trump has put forth in terms of public policy is less popular. Or to put it another way, every single initiative that's set forth has a negative approval rating in the whole country. So his whole political agenda is unpopular. And he has this giant unfolding scandal that you talked about the other day that is threatening him at every time. So the self interest, number one, is to change the subject, to wag the dog. Secondly, there are all sorts of side grifts that we don't know about. Perhaps you followed the story of Poly Market, of course, and the number of people who made like $50 million, some huge amount of money betting that this war would start. Well, who the heck are they? And why did they all of a sudden act right before this thing happened? And how many of them have anything to do with this administration? We'll never know. But that's a potential area of grift. Also, look at the Trump Venezuela deal. Trump went into Venezuela, got Maduro out, put his number two in charge, has made no moves towards democracy or changing anything in that country, except one thing. He said, give me some ships full of oil, give me some oil production, and that'll be the extent of our discussion. And then the money from those things goes into a bank account in Qatar, which unbelievably is in the name of Donald Trump, not in the US Government yet. And so there is something being siphoned out of Venezuela that somebody is making some money off of that's not the US and is not changing our interest there. So could a deal with Iran involve some provisions, oil provisions or trade provisions or real estate provision, whatever, as side deals, crypto provisions that we'll never see or hear about? I don't know. And people might say, well, it's outrageous you suggest president would do that. That's all he does. We know he profited to the tune of $5 billion in his first year back in office. So you're absolutely right to ask the question. And there are a million opportunities in this kind of thing. To make more money.
- [31:00]
Joanna Coles
Right? To make more money. And also, one of the, I mean, there are two questions I have following up from that. One is, as you say, he's trying to run away from his problems at home or distract from his problems at home. And he's been blaming the Iranians for involving themselves in the 2020 election and the 2024 election, signaling again insecurity around the elections, sowing doubt about the elections, which we know is all you have to do to begin to unsettle a democracy. So your thoughts on that? And then also there was one person he talked to where he said, well, we killed him before he killed me. And I wondered to what extent there was an overhang from the moment when the intelligence services said to him, the Iranians have been trying to kill you.
- [31:52]
David Rothkopf
There may be. I think he is a little pathological on the idea that people are out there killing. You know, he's. Remember, under the ballroom, he's building a bunker. Right. You know, where.
- [32:04]
Joanna Coles
David, to be fair, someone did shoot at him and narrowly nicked his ear. Then there was the guy on the golf course.
- [32:11]
David Rothkopf
Nicked his ear.
- [32:12]
Joanna Coles
Well, he appeared to. Well, there was definitely blood. Who knows what happened, but he certainly killed other people in the audience in Butler, Pennsylvania. So I never want to be flippant about that. That fe like a very real assassination attempt, which I think would freak most people out. Then there was the guy with the gun in the bushes on the golf course. Then there was the guy recently that got shot dead at Mar a Lago. So I think it's fair to say there are a lot of people that would like Donald Trump dead.
- [32:40]
David Rothkopf
I totally agree with the last statement. As far as the other statements go, I don't know. Yeah, I saw that. And people died in Pennsylvania, and that's terrible. And the guy seemed like a crazed guy and all that. I still think it's a little weird that Trump went around for days with a bandage on his ear that he didn't need, that there's no scar, that he never went to the doctor, that he turned this thing into a meme and put it on a coin and put it on the back of a watch and profited from this whole thing when it really wasn't that imminent, that damaging an attack on him. But, okay, let's set aside the Iranians have said there was intelligence that, say the Iranians were coming from Trump, that could have colored what he did. But let's also stop a second and try in the heat of this moment to be rational a little bit and talk about killing Khomeini, who, as you say, there will be no tears shed for Khomeini. Do we get to kill all the leaders of all the countries we don't agree with? Do we get to depose all the regimes in every country around the world that we don't agree with. The whole idea of international law is that you don't do that. I saw a very thoughtful commentator on this whole thing respond to a story in which it said that killed Khomeini. And he said, note to journalists, I think the word you're looking for is assassinated.
- [34:17]
Joanna Coles
Right. And of course, let's make the point that it was America that led those international laws after the Second World War.
- [34:25]
David Rothkopf
Yeah. And also get to the point that Iran got into this situation because in 1953, we kicked out the government that was there because we thought we knew better, and that put in place the Shah, who then ripped off the country for 25 years to set it up so that Khomeini and the other members of this theocratic movement could take over back then in the Iranian revolution. So it was America's regime change mentality that has led to. To the Shah's regime, the regime that replaced the Shah's regime, and now who knows what the heck it get to. I think if there's one thing that we know is that we are bad at regime change.
- [35:18]
Joanna Coles
Right.
- [35:19]
David Rothkopf
And Donald Trump is just not something we very well.
- [35:22]
Joanna Coles
Right. And Donald Trump has said he doesn't know how long the bombing will go on for. It may go on for two or three days. It may go on for four weeks. It will, in fact, go on as long as he decides it will go on. I mean, can you imagine being Marco Rubio or Pete Hegseth and having to work with him on this?
- [35:40]
David Rothkopf
Yeah, well, I mean, look, they just say, yes, sir, how high, sir? They don't care. Pete Hegseth is too dimwitted to ask the question. Rubio is smart enough to ask the question, but won't ask the question. But the reason Trump says we don't know is because he doesn't know.
- [35:55]
Joanna Coles
Right.
- [35:55]
David Rothkopf
And if he doesn't know, nobody knows. Because everything we do is driven by the impulses of one guy. There's no policy process. There's no group of gray heads coming together to try to provide advice on this thing. There is no teamwork among allies trying to reach a coordinated. There is what is going on between the ears and underneath the cotton candy hair of Donald Trump. And that should be extremely scary. I would say one thing, though. It's not going to go on for months and months. This war is not going to be a protracted war. How do we know? Because if it were, the price of oil would go way up. And if the price of oil went way up, although it would make a little bit more money for Trump as he's hyphens stuff out of Venezuela. His colleagues in the House, in the Senate are going to be coming to him and saying, wait a minute, didn't you say you were going to bring prices down? If the price of oil is gasoline is back up at four or five dollars during the summer, the Republican, the Democratic landslide that everybody expects to take place in November is just going to get bigger and bigger. He won't let that happen. So he's going to fight this and then he's going to declare victory because we don't have a bow he can tie around it. There is no neat and tidy ending. And then we'll see if we have to do it again. And this will end as Venezuela ended, as the first Iranian attacks ended, as all his other attacks will end, saying, well, look, we think we've got a good solution here and if we don't, we will not hesitate to strike again. And it'll be the biggest strike that anybody's ever seen. You've never seen a strike like this. And so that's the way he does it. He smacks. He tries to use the leverage that he gets to negotiate something that benefits him, but he threatens to smack them again and so on. It's the behavior of an out of control bully. It is not the behavior of a president of the United States or a nation state.
- [38:02]
Joanna Coles
So how do the Democrats obviously, with the midterms in their sights, react to this?
- [38:11]
David Rothkopf
Well, I mean, look, there have been plenty of statements and sort of the best statements I think are Khamenei was a bad man. Nobody will shed any tears from him. Having said that, this is an illegal war. It was a war of choice we should not have chosen to undertake. Americans have already died. More Americans will die. It is unleashing chaos into the region. It is causing pain and suffering among our allies. It is not helping the Iranian people advance towards a more democratic outcome. It is upsetting our economy. And he is trying to use it as a detection from his problems at home, including Epstein. And so we should stop this war. We should retrain our focus on our issues at home. We should hold hearings to cut through the lies that have enabled this and we should move back to a government under a Democratic Congress first and later, a Democratic president that follows international law, follows us domestic law, brings the best advisors in to advise. The president produces wise decisions that are undertaken only after their potential consequences are assessed and returns the United States to global Leadership based on our example, as opposed to based on bullying, greed, ignorance, and hate, which is the formula that is currently guiding the Trump administration.
- [39:58]
Joanna Coles
Well, that's a lot for a Monday morning. When we talked on Friday, we had no idea we were going to have this conversation. You've created a new axis of evil, and in the center of it is the United States of America. What a chilling. What a chilling.
- [40:12]
David Rothkopf
I would say one thing we did know that this was potentially going to happen. I did an episode of Deep State Radio over at my little podcast network, True.
- [40:20]
Joanna Coles
And you predicted it. Kim Gaddis on your podcast, totally predicted it.
- [40:26]
David Rothkopf
Well, Kim Gaddis, we also had Steve Cook from the Council on Foreign Relations, and both of them had been talking to people throughout the region. And the consensus in the region was, A, this war is going to happen, and that B, at the end of this war, the United States would end up cutting a deal regarding Iranian nukes that was worse than the deal that Obama cut in 2015. And I still think that what they predicted on our episode last Wednesday is what's gonna happen.
- [40:59]
Joanna Coles
So it's all a waste of time, except that you get rid of a truly repressive, tyrannical leader.
- [41:06]
David Rothkopf
Yeah. But you don't know who's replacing it.
- [41:08]
Joanna Coles
Right. Right. No, you don't. You don't. And we've seen this play out in the region before, as we know, with Iraq and Libya.
- [41:16]
David Rothkopf
Yeah. And we've also. Look, our biggest enemy for 50 years was the Soviet Union, run by a bunch of tyrannical bad guys. And then the Soviet Union collapsed. And rather than becoming democracy 10 or 15 years later, what did you get? You had Vladimir Putin coming back and running it as a criminal oligarchy underneath a dictator. Look at the history of the world. These things do not end up with Hollywood happy endings most of the time.
- [41:49]
Joanna Coles
So, David, I wanted to ask you about one of the most prevalent memes that I saw yesterday, which was that Mossad was so well organized that they'd managed to infiltrate medical facilities in Iran, in particular dentistry, and that dentists, Mossad agents posing as dentists had managed to infiltrate the top group of Iranian leaders. And whenever they went for dentistry, they managed to implant a tracker in their teeth. A friend in England called me earnestly to discuss this and say, had I heard what an incredible group Mossad was because they'd done this. Of course, it turns out to be completely untrue. But it was such an interesting, I thought, conspiracy theory brought to life.
- [42:35]
David Rothkopf
Well, first of all, it's based on One of the great Mossad successes ever, which is getting the pagers that were going to Hezbollah in Lebanon and actually implanting explosive devices in the pagers and then in one day, blowing a bunch of them up as part of their effort to decapitate Hezbollah. So did they do that? Yeah, they did that. Did they do the thing with the Tanis? No, but I do think this is just cautionary to everybody. One of the things that this war is producing that no other conflict has produced because it couldn't have, is a lot of AI slop. And you're getting a lot of video saying, oh, look, here is the aircraft Abraham Lincoln on fire, which is one out there completely made up. AI slop. Or here is this building blown up. Or here is this. And people who are getting their news from Instagram or TikTok or Twitch or Facebook or some other feed where it's not filtered by people who trying to determine what's true or what's not are doing themselves a real disservice. Just like people who get their news from, you know, Fox or.
- [43:58]
Joanna Coles
Well, anywhere but the Daily Beast. I think anywhere but the Daily Beast. And Deep State Radio.
- [44:05]
David Rothkopf
Exactly right.
- [44:06]
Joanna Coles
And Deep State Radio.
- [44:07]
David Rothkopf
Yeah. The dsr. The DSR Network is. We're just a satellite in the universe of the Daily Beast there.
- [44:13]
Joanna Coles
Well, we're very pleased that you're a satellite and highly recommend your podcast in terms of deeper learning of what led to the military action in as much as anything led to it, other than, as you're frequently pointing out, Donald Trump's impulsive behavior. Well, what a way to start the week. Let's talk later in the week, David,
- [44:35]
David Rothkopf
about the Academy Awards.
- [44:36]
Joanna Coles
Anything. Let's talk about anything other than the collapse of Western civilization.
- [44:42]
David Rothkopf
Yeah. No, because I was waiting for the question about the marriage of Zendaya and Tom and Holland.
- [44:47]
Joanna Coles
Good for them. They kept it secret.
- [44:48]
David Rothkopf
We're rooting for them.
- [44:49]
Joanna Coles
We are rooting for them. We're rooting for anybody that gets married. God knows it's a tough road ahead. David Rothkoff, so nice to see you. Thank you for putting it all in perspective, alarming though it may be.
- [45:01]
David Rothkopf
Well, hard to. But I summed it up perfectly a minute ago. We are living in a moment where what's going on inside the decaying psyche of Donald Trump is the single most important driver of events in the United States and around the world. And if that doesn't scare the insides out of you, I don't know what else would.
- [45:30]
Joanna Coles
All right, so we promise to keep you up to date on this really remarkable situation going on in the Middle east. And of course the tempestuous narcissist at the center of all of it, Donald Trump. And I'm really struck by David's analysis that there is a new axis of evil and that includes the United States. Tell us what you think. Give us your comments on YouTube. Come to the Daily Beat Beast to follow the action moment by moment. You can comment on the Daily Beast site too. I want to give a big shout out to our Bee beast tier level YouTube community members where you get all sorts of extra content. Thank you so much for continuing to support the Daily Beast. We really are independent media, so your support helps us continue to bring you the podcasts, the news, the information you find you can't get from the mainstream media. So thanks again to every single one of you. Bebeast Andrea Hodel, Anne Lauge, Benjamin Mark Stockton, Bruce Fee the Capinator Celia Buchanan, Connie Rutherford Cyber Writer Daniel dog lover Dawn McCarthy, Deb K. Ostrander D. Kuja Watts, Di Stone, Earl Squillason Edits Gavin J. Gallagher, Harry Clark, Heidi Riley, Indigo Snap, John H. Over Rocker, Julie M. Daniels, Karen White, Lisa Callahan, Lisa Kriezek, Lisbeth Maria Voltaine, Methinks mills and Linds MJF Hodel 88 Patricia Hill, Peter Cashel, Robert Fripp Fripp Sandra Clark, Sandra Parker, Shemit Signa Lund, Tatnall, Thomas Moore, Val Love, Francisco, Vida Silvestre, Will Hutchison and Yvette Johnson Big thank you to our production team who've been monitoring the situation all weekend. Devon Rogerino, Ryan Murray, Rachel Passer, Heather Passaro and Neil Rosenhaus.