Loading summary
Transcript230 lines
- [00:00]
A
Hello everyone. Welcome to the exciting season finale of Iran War. I'm jvl, your host here with my best friend Sarah Longwell and Tim Miller of the Bulwark. We, we thought it would end up this way, which is why we're doing the show live and said normally we would tape it at 2 o' clock in the afternoon, but we said no, no, no, no, we're gonna, we're gonna have either a genocide or total surrender sometime in the minutes leading up to 8 o'.
- [00:29]
B
Clock.
- [00:29]
A
And here we are, we all got what we want. In case you have been away from keyboard for the last 45 minutes or so, we have a deal. It's a very strong deal, a beautiful deal. Many are calling it the kind of deal that only our great leader could have gotten. And 47 other presidents over 47 years have failed to get these deals and he got it done. We have a 10 point plan which is the basis of negotiations which is leading to a two week ceasefire. And guys, how, how great does it feel to you to have won the war?
- [01:13]
C
I mean, it feels great not to end a civilization. I know we're all going to have fun talking about Taco Tuesday and obviously it's good that Trump, although do we measure our lives now in just two week intervals as Trump kicks cans down the road? But obviously I'm glad we're not bombing Iran into the Stone age and eliminating 90 million people, you know, would have
- [01:39]
B
been a dark next level if we were doing that.
- [01:41]
C
Real dark, real dark. And so I think this is a good outcome in terms of not bombing Iran in. It is at best, I can tell, a catastrophic outcome for America's leverage in whatever negotiation we're having. I don't see a world in which this was always the thing for Trump. He boxed himself into two choices. Obliterating a country of 90 million people or demonstrating that he is not serious when he issues these types of threats. And so we're in a tough spot now.
- [02:16]
A
Would you like me to tick through just for the purposes of helping us discuss this?
- [02:20]
B
The. Can we, can I do one thing before we go through the 10 points, please? Because I, I want to make a meta point which is I hate being here and I'm very happy I'm going on vacation this weekend for a couple days just because this is so, this is so unserious. It's so fucking stupid. It's so frustrating, you know, that you have that like were living and dying on the whims of this like madman slash cowardly bully slash megalomaniac in the Middle East. I mean, American troops died as part of this. Iranian school children died. Like, we don't exactly know what all the consequences are. We don't really know if it's over. Maybe, you know, you called it the Steven finale. Maybe it's not. I don't know. Who knows? Like, well, we don't. We don't really know in. Israel seems unhappy with the deal. Iran hasn't actually opened the Strait yet. Iran, I guess, is shooting a missile at UAE right now. Trump, you know, you're about to go into the details of the Ten Point Plan. That doesn't really. It doesn't actually seem like a workable plan. And so, like, the fact that we have to live this, like, reality TV show nonsense where he wants us all to talk about him and we have to give him what he wants because the fucking morons that are our fellow citizens made him president. It's frustrating. It's frustrating and I kind of don't want to, you know, like, part of you just wants to say, you figure it out. Like, we'll see in November. Like, I don't know. There's an element of that I have tonight. Like the, like the unseriousness is, is out of step with the stakes in a way that I find very frustrating.
- [03:59]
A
I understand that. That's a fair, fair thing. All right, I'm gonna, I'm gonna set the table here for us. I should say that I have read now, like, three different versions of the 10 point plan, all of which are substantially similar. And so it appears to be roughly, these are the contours. There is a guarantee from America and Israel that they will not attack Iran again. Now, I would say guarantees are absolutely meaningless and useless. And so no reason to really believe, believe that that is, that is a real thing. This will become a permanent end to the war, not just a ceasefire. Israel will get out of Lebanon. All US Sanctions against Iran are lifted. Iran reopens the Strait of Hormuz. However, it imposes a $2 million toll per ship for all ships transiting the Strait. It will split these fees with Oman and Iran will now establish the rules for passage through Hormuz. Previously, this was an internationally governed body of water. And Iran will use the Hormuz fees for reconstruction in lieu of them being paid reparations. Important things to note that are not in this. Nukes, ballistic missiles. I mean, I, I just.
- [05:28]
B
Funding of terrorist proxies. Is that in the.
- [05:30]
A
Funding of terrorist proxies does not seem
- [05:31]
B
to be in there, that they get to fund terrorist proxies.
- [05:34]
A
So I just want to. And again.
- [05:35]
B
And the registration stays in place. The same regime.
- [05:38]
A
Regime stays in place. Yes, obviously, obviously. So I, I just want to do a.
- [05:42]
B
Fewer ships, though. They got fewer boats. That's just nice.
- [05:45]
A
There's nothing about nuclear weapons in this. There's nothing about ballistic missiles. Israel and America are pledging not to attack Iran again. The Iranian sanctions, which were in place as of like 42 days ago, were gone. Iran now has administrative control over a formerly internationally governed waterway that they didn't used to own. And they are now able to monetize passage through that previously free waterway. And America gets literally, so far as I can tell, nothing.
- [06:15]
C
We get to keep Trump.
- [06:18]
B
Well, we get. I'll do this. I'll just do the steel, man, because I've been watching these guys for the last 20 minutes and so, you know, you can take it for what it's what it's worth. Actually, why don't I just. Sarah, why don't you give your thoughts on that? Why don't I pull it up? So instead of being a sarcastic asshole, I give you what the pro Trump side of this is actually saying.
- [06:41]
C
I guess. Yeah. While you're doing that, the only thing I would say is like it sort of doesn't matter what they argue right now. If we have a two week, if we have a two week time frame. And this is. It reminds me of tariffs, where, yes, he would taco. It would create momentary relief and then we find ourselves back in the same place. Like I, what I don't want people to think is, and I certainly don't want Republicans to be able to convince anybody of. Is that like, oh, okay, well, this
- [07:09]
A
is, this is done part of the deal.
- [07:11]
C
Yeah. That there's been any, any kind of deal reach. Like we are just still in the middle of this. So. Sorry, Tim. Did you find it?
- [07:17]
B
Yeah, I found it. So here it is. The Iranian regime, if this deal holds, will have lost much of their senior leadership, most of their navy, about half their missile launchers, a bunch of their security personnel will be dead. They've lost various bridges and rail lines. They've lost some of their deterrence, their nuclear infrastructure and their ability to use Dubai as a sanctions evasion hub.
- [07:43]
A
Well, there won't be any sanctions, though.
- [07:45]
B
Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm just reading this. I'm reading they don't need to evade sanctions because they're not reading them. This is from somebody over a tablet. I saw several of those type posts where basically it Was like the win here is that Iran's military is weakened and this is pretty close to it. I interviewed Josh Gothon, who can go watch that. That's on this channel as well, earlier, and that was his case. It was, I think probably the most pro war Democrat was that Iran's, you know, capabilities militarily have been weakened. You may be pushed up what. They push that back year too. Anyway, I'm just saying they can't rebuild those.
- [08:19]
A
That's actually, that's not possible. We established this force field bubble which does not allow construction of drones within the.
- [08:26]
B
This was the case I was making. I was just like, I don't. Okay, so yeah, that. It's great that they've lost some ships and some missiles but like at the, at the cost of what, like American lives. At the cost of, you know, at least some sort of economic disruption and in a trade for them now they have basically the same regime just with some members of it dead. But, but a continuity of the same regime just with different people now. Freedom of sanctions and with a.
- [08:55]
A
And America recognizes their authority to control the straits.
- [08:58]
C
Yeah, that's the, that's the biggest part. They're in charge now. This is. I, I don't know. This is full.
- [09:06]
A
Yeah, everybody charge now. I got like, that is exactly what this is. Who's the captain?
- [09:12]
C
Because we all price in Trump's ability to taco. It's sort of. And because we're all sitting around being like, I don't know, are we going to bomb Iran tonight? And like obviously in our heart of hearts we felt like this is where we were going to end up. Very likely. But like this is. We are underreacting to what just happened. The President of the United States uses his personal social media profile. We don't have a diplomatic setup. He is just, oh yeah, Witkoff and Jared.
- [09:42]
B
And Jared, that's who is in the Situation Room deciding what to do. And he's also.
- [09:47]
A
Hold on to that hold. We're in segment too.
- [09:50]
C
I just, I think I saw some, some of the discourse on. The discourse today was there was, you know, frustration with Democrats. I often am like, this is a perfect moment for Democrats to be on offense, go hammer and tong at Trump. But I do think this is a little unfair to the Democrats right now. Trump is being so wildly unhinged, is so like we run out of words to talk about how extreme what is happening is. But we had an American president say he was going to wipe an entire country off of the planet and Republicans did one about it. A couple of them. I saw Murkowski tweet. I've seen concerns is this, this is, this is the kind of thing. And look, you're never going to get a 25th amendment. You're never going to get impeached. But like, it is the kind of thing that in any other time before right now, Republicans would be losing their minds over because they should. The fact that they're not is the most alarming thing. The fact that our president can behave this way and Republicans don't do anything about it, don't say boo about it. That is like, we shouldn't, we shouldn't get caught up in the fact that this didn't happen tonight. We should get caught up in the fact that this is who Trump is now and this is who we're dealing with for the next two and a
- [11:01]
B
half years and all the damage that, all the wreckage that is wrought from it. Right. Like again, for what? For what? For weakening Iran as a military. It's like, what. That wasn't before we started this. Nobody even told us that that was the goal. Like, Donald Trump didn't run for president. Running on like, hey, it's really, you know, it'd be one thing if it was like, hey guys, it's really important because the threat of Iran is so great. It's really important that we lim their missile capability and their navy. Like, that is an important mission to do. Like, I probably would have been opposed to that, but that's one thing. Like, if that pitch was made and it's like, okay, well, we, we have to deal with an economic disruption, we're going to lose some troops, we're going to, it's going to cost a lot of money. You know, we're going to have to spend taxpayer money to rebuild our military as well. But like it was worth it because what we got on the other side was a weekend Iran. There's not, there's any evidence that we're anywhere in that ballpark right now. I mean, yeah, their, their short term military capabilities are weakened, but you know, now they have financial upside and more control in the region. One more thing about the ten point or how we got here in the ten point plan, I want to mention is the Pakistan side. Can we talk about Pakistan? For sure. Did you see that? The original message today, like when this all started to come together, it first surfaced as a tweet from the Pakistani Prime Minister who tweeted that diplomatic efforts are going forward. We're making some progress. We're making some progress on both Sides. Well, the Pakistan PM's tweet, there was a first draft of it they edited. Now you can edit on X, which is nice, but you can also go back to the edit history. In the first draft, it said at the top, draft, Pakistan's PM message on X. Now that's an interesting thing to say. At the top, draft Pakistan's PM message on X, because if it was somebody from, if it was like on his staff, like if it was his press person or whatever, that's like, hey, here's the draft to send to. I don't know, does Pakistan Prime Minister have a golf caddy that does his tweets for him too? Whatever. Like, if you're sending that through, it would just say, hey, the draft of the Prime Minister, I wouldn't say draft for the Pakistan Prime Minister because they live in Pakistan. And so clearly Donald Trump begged him like a dog. I do think it's pretty important to point this out. Like, Donald Trump begged Pakistan's Prime Minister like a dog to send a tweet to help him save face here and say, hey, we're making progress to get the ball rolling so he could do a ceasefire. So now that's better than doing genocidal war crimes. And we're happy about that. But it also is just true that the, that the powerful American President had to beg the Pakistan Prime Minister like a dog to help him save face.
- [13:43]
C
So Iran has now said, Iran says it has achieved a great victory and forced the United States to accept its 10 point plan, according to a statement from Iran's Supreme National Security Council. So they are declaring victory.
- [13:56]
B
Any of these things always would end with both sides declaring victory, but usually you do, you know, usually they're, you know, both sides have something to talk about. Yeah. On why it was a victory for them.
- [14:06]
A
So I, this is all unfolded basically as I, as I foretold, which is I said like, eventually Trump was going to have to make a deal and he was going to have to bribe them to get out of it.
- [14:20]
B
Yeah.
- [14:21]
A
And that's what just happened. And on the.
- [14:24]
C
Do you think he's out of it, though?
- [14:26]
B
Yeah, I don't.
- [14:26]
A
I mean, I think he probably is out of it and he's on to the next thing.
- [14:32]
B
So I don't know.
- [14:33]
C
You think our, you think our incursion slash war slash adventure in Iran is over as of tonight?
- [14:39]
A
I think it is likely to be over and he will drag it out to the extent possible just to milk the. I mean, I'm looking forward to the press conference. Where he demands a Nobel Peace Prize for the, the bringing the piece to the war he started. But yeah, I think, I think from
- [14:57]
B
both sides, again, some of these demands are pretty untenable.
- [15:00]
C
Yeah, I don't, I don't think this can be over at all.
- [15:03]
A
Who are they untenable for?
- [15:04]
B
For us.
- [15:06]
A
Why can't we stomach it? Israel, by which I mean, like if you are Donald Trump and you're the President of the United States, why can't you stomach that? The only thing I can think of is like he also wants a piece.
- [15:21]
B
Well, I mean, so just to be serious for a second, I, I will know exactly what the, like you said, there have been a couple different 10 points, but here's one of the 10 points that has been in the plans, which is that Israel can no longer continue its incursion into Lebanon. Well, that unlike our war of choice here in Iran, like Israel has a legitimate security concern about Lebanon. You know, you can disagree on the way that they've gone about it, but like Hezbollah is on their border attacking them. And so it's hard for me to believe that Israel is going to just stop what they're doing in Lebdon. I mean they stopped for a while and started back up for a while. Right enough and then hope that Iran is happy enough with their. Maybe Iran is, maybe the new mullahs in Iran are happy enough with the money that they're banking off the straight of Hormuz that they just look the other way when Israel breaks the deal. That could happen, I guess.
- [16:12]
C
But, but here, but who's, who's negotiate. Are, are we negotiating on behalf of Israel? Like we can't, we can't make that claim supposedly.
- [16:21]
A
Yes, Donald Trump said literally they'll do what I tell them to do. This is, I think it might be
- [16:26]
C
the other way around right now.
- [16:27]
A
Hold on, that's segment two. So I would say though, this is, this is not, this is a tremendous defeat for American foreign policy interests and for America's national interests. It is not by any stretch the worst defeat that was possible. And so today I wrote like 3, 500 words on the petrodollar system and treasury bonds and how if we did get the worst case scenario, which would be like a forked petrodollar system where you had the yuan going
- [17:03]
B
oil through
- [17:04]
A
the straight, being traded in yuan, that that would be the worst of all worlds and that would be the kind of thing which could actually destabilize the American led world order. This is a shit sandwich. But it's One that America can afford to eat.
- [17:22]
B
Yeah.
- [17:23]
A
And so that's, I mean, I look at this and I say none of this had to happen. This entire thing was avoidable and predictable. Donald Trump made America walk into the diner to eat the shit sandwich. But compared to the alternatives, compared to actually invading Iran or putting 5,000 troops on Kharg island and then having them get killed or having the Chinese and the Iranians fork the petrodollar system, this is honestly, if this gets us out of the war, it's, I wouldn't say it's a bargain. It's not. It's a steep price, but is probably the best case scenario for America's actual interests going forward.
- [18:09]
B
Sure.
- [18:09]
C
Okay. What in the show, maybe. Well, maybe in the immediate term in the sense that we are no longer escalating to the point where we are both boots on the ground and doing a nor like doing enormous humanitarian damage. But what about in the long term? Right. Like to the point for us.
- [18:26]
A
I'm just saying what other is it for?
- [18:28]
C
But this is. So this is because this would be my pushback to your, your thought that this is over, which is to the extent that we've had any stated objective, something that was existential for the United States, the case has been made that a nuclear Iran, their ability to get these weapons, any of that is a no go. And currently, again, without knowing all of the 10 points, we've got nothing like that. There's no assurances, nothing about that in there. And so I cannot imagine you think America just accepts that after all of its stated objectives. I mean, and it's true, maybe Trump can't be humiliated, but Rubio can.
- [19:07]
B
Sure. No, I agree with Both points at JBL's point and who knows how it ends up eventually fully ending, but we weren't far away from total calamity and economic calamity. And there are a couple of cliffs coming up in April. And we've been talking about this where you're talking about potential fuel shortages, not just high gas prices, but shortages, supply chain disruptions. We're already going to have a little bit of that. And that's going to continue through the summer. But it could have been a lot worse the longer this would have gone on. And then your point about the federal. So there were a lot of really catastrophic ends to this. That's just one example that this would be avoiding of that. But that said, a, this is worse than Trump initial plan was unconditional surrender. Remember that? Remember unconditional surrender. I mean, that's where we started was unconditional surrender. So it's not that. And two, I think that, you know, Sarah's pointing out like the stuff is still ongoing. Like right now I'm just looking at my social media feed. This is Trey Yingster Fox posting. The cluster munitions are raining down on Tel Aviv. So I don't know if that's Iran or Hezbollah, but they don't think the war is over. Now we saw this, this story would play out during the Gaza ceasefires. You remember that There would be like a deal.
- [20:28]
C
Yes.
- [20:28]
B
And then there'd be like a last. And then people. There'd be like at the end of
- [20:32]
A
the 12 Day War too.
- [20:32]
B
Yeah. So there were like some fuck you missiles that went from both sides like they a deal. But you know, the. We still, you know, want to fire off a few more, you know, for dessert. So maybe this is that. That we're dealing with. But also it's also it's. It's decently possible that they're pretty far off on the, on the terms of the negotiations.
- [20:54]
A
I guess I'm just trying to make the. Take the, the half full view of this as much as possible. So when you're happy to dunk. I know because again, everything in this is terrible. Everything is worse than the status quo. This is bad for America. But if this is really the full cost of ending this absolute disaster, then I can't see a better outcome or a cheaper off ramp. That's all I'm trying to say. Sarah, you want to say something but you got to put a pin in it because first we got to go to our first message from our sponsors pin. Tim, before you start, I would like to speak to my Bulwark plus friends out there who are listening to this who who like getting ad free podcasts. I love you guys so much. We're so grateful for your support. However, it is not possible to do the ad free versions when we are doing live shows because we have to read the ads live while we're talking. Now if you come back and watch this show on YouTube through your premium account or on Substack through your Bulwark plus account after it has been done, all of those ads will be gone. We just, you know, magic eraser them out. But when you're doing it live, there's no way to do that and I'm very sorry.
- [22:09]
B
So sign up for Bulwark because that's great. But also enjoy the ads because you know, I'm pretty good at an ad read.
- [22:15]
A
Yeah, professional reads here. Enjoy these professional reads.
- [22:18]
B
If you've been listening to the show for a while, you already know how much I like Sol's out of Office Sparkling beverages or THC beverages. They've also got gummies as well. That's more in Sarah and Bill Crystal's camp. And now they got some new ones. It's the Mood Gummies Soul's, a wellness brand that makes delicious hemp derived CBD and THC products designed to make feeling good simple. Soul's new Mood gummies have precise dosing, clean ingredients and formulations designed for predictable effects so you can choose how you want to feel while staying in control. Whatever the moment, there is a Soul Mood Gummy to match. If you're looking for a bright social energizing buzz, go with the uplift. We could all use some uplift. 3 milligrams of Sativa THC. That's perfect for a daytime plan. You know, maybe sitting by the pool or it's time to wind down at night. The mellow gummies deliver 3 milligrams of indica, THC and CBN. Ideal for cozy nights and unplugging. They also got the balance. If you're just looking for something in between, make today a good day and get yourself some soul gummies. I might have to do that after, after having to spend this time with you guys when I go see a concert. Right now Soul is offering my audience 30% off your entire order. Go to getsoul.com and use the code the next level. That's getsold.com promo code. The next level for 30% off.
- [23:29]
A
Sarah, did you put a pin?
- [23:31]
C
The only thing I wanted to add to this is if we want to look at a bright side besides the sort of immediate.
- [23:38]
B
I don't.
- [23:39]
C
Okay. Not even a little.
- [23:41]
B
Not really. But go ahead.
- [23:42]
C
Other people might let me try. I think that Trump and I'll be interested to see the reaction. I think that Trump has done himself an enormous amount of damage over the last week with his face with the right wing influencers. Like we're not going have to go through Tucker's whole thing about Trump. But the, the number.
- [24:05]
A
Tell me a little bit about it. What did he say?
- [24:08]
C
Well, he, he, he gave him a little lesson on, on Christianity and what that means but he, he mainly said like you're trying to do a genocide, you're trying to kill all these people and what is wrong with you? You're a madman. And lots of, I mean unlike Megyn Kelly who said Megyn Kelly said if we drop a nuke, she'd still vote Republican.
- [24:27]
A
So good to know.
- [24:29]
C
Megyn Kelly, crazy like that is. It's crazy talk like that is that there's nothing serious about it, whatever. But he has done himself an enormous. I mean, Marjorie Taylor Greene, that Tim Dillon guy. A bunch of people are saying 25th Amendment, never going to get a 25th Amendment. I would just like to say for anyone who hopes for a 25th amendment, and we've all done it before, the Cabinet votes on that. So if you think that Pete.
- [24:52]
B
And then Congress still has to vote
- [24:53]
C
and then Congress still has to. Like it was in the first term where you had a sane Cabinet. It was something that maybe could be discussed, but not anymore. We're just. That's never going to happen. But I do think he's done himself an enormous amount of damage with his base. And I also think that if Democrats are looking for a message in this right now, they should all talk about humiliating. This is for Donald Trump. Like if this deal is agreed to, he should be told. Now the scary part about that though is that if Trump feels too humiliated, he might go back to trying to bomb people. But we shouldn't let foreign policy happen this way. And so he should be ridiculed for it.
- [25:31]
B
Yeah. I propose the Democratic message be like, your life is worse because of this and you can't trust him. He totally betrayed you. Everything's been more expensive. He said he'd fix your prices. He didn't. What did he do? Like, Iran has fewer ships now maybe. And we'll see what happens. I don't think that's a good deal for most the American people. He's posting right now. The President is live. He's posting through it. Yeah. On his account. And so he has one post. I'm not gonna read all of it, but I guess CNN World News, he might literally be stuck in 1984. Like his brain just kind of just bleeds out 1984 references from time to time. Except, you know, it's like a Ted Turner era thing. But he's saying that CNN put out a false statement about from Iran declaring victory. And he's looking into investigating cnn. So that's what's happening with the free country. And then he posted the official statement of Iran, which I think is pretty funny that he's bragging about this official statement. So I want to read it to you in response to the brotherly request of the Pakistan prime minister and considering the request by the US for negotiations based on its 15 point proposal, as well as the announcement by POTUS about acceptance of the general framework of Iran's 10 point proposal. I hereby declare on behalf of Iran's supreme National Security Council, if attacks against Iran are halted, our powerful armed forces will cease their defensive operations. You know that Trump is posting that as if it's a win, which is the victory scenario because the Iranian statement, the minister of foreign affairs there is saying that like we considered the US's request, we declined it. But now that they've accepted our request of the ten point plan, we'll, we'll potentially move forward. That's where Iran's at right now.
- [27:23]
A
I want to talk about the, the political fallout from this, but I want to wait a minute. And first I want to talk about a story by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan that is out and it's going to get me in a lot of trouble. I'm going to get yelled at. But you know, what the hell, we're here, we might as well do it live.
- [27:42]
B
I just, before I get into that story, a commenter says you have asked if you've been shaving your eyebrows and now I'm curious about that. Are you doing any male grooming?
- [27:50]
A
Shave my like cheek? No, I don't do any male grooming. Do I look like a guy who is the product of grooming?
- [27:57]
B
Well, I don't know. You've been, you've been the co host with a gay man now for a couple of years on a podcast. I thought maybe I was rubbing off on you, so to speak. I did some male grooming.
- [28:07]
A
Come on, a little something for the effort there, Skip. Thank you.
- [28:12]
B
All right, back to the Maggie Haberman story.
- [28:14]
A
All right, I again, I just need your, your indulging to, to, to read from this Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan in the situation room. On February 11, Mr. Netanyahu made a hard sell. I'm sorry, I need to, I should set the scene. Benjamin Netanyahu came to the White House on February 11th and he brought with him the head of the Mossad and a number of Israeli military leaders. And they met with Donald Trump in the. And Jared. And they met with Donald Trump in the Situation Room of the White House. Not a thing that's common. Just let it go. Mr. Netanyahu made a hard sell, suggesting that Iran was ripe for regime change and expressing the belief that a joint U.S. israeli mission could free finally bring an end to the Islamic Republic. At one point, the Israelis played for Mr. Trump a brief video that included a montage of potential new leaders who could take over the country if the hardline Government fell. Among those featured was Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran Shah. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Mr. Netanyahu and his team out.
- [29:24]
B
Is that what. I'm sorry, I'm sorry to break up. Is that what happened? I. We have the seats right now. We know it happened now. Since the story's come out, we know what happened is Reza Pahlavi is the opposition. As the exiled opposition leader, son of the Shah, is he going to be taking over or where?
- [29:38]
A
Does not appear that way. But, you know, we have two weeks figured out. Maybe that's one of the details. They're going to negotiate. Mr. Netanyahu and his team outlined conditions they portrayed as pointing to near certain victory. Iran's ballistic missile program could be destroyed in a few weeks. The regime would be so weakened that it could not choke off the Strait of Hormuz.
- [29:56]
C
And.
- [29:56]
A
And the likelihood that Iran would land blows against U.S. interests in neighboring countries was assessed as minimal. Besides, Mossad's intelligence indicated that street protests inside Iran would begin again. And with the impetus of the Israeli spy agency helping to foment riots and rebellion, an intense bombing campaign could foster the conditions for the Iranian opposition to overthrow the regime. The Israelis also raised the prospect of Iranian Kurdish fighters crossing the border from Iraq to open a ground front in the northwest, with further stressing the regime's forces and accelerating collapse. Yada, yada, yada. The Next Easy peasy. Mr. Trump met with his team to go over it. Mr. Ratcliffe briefed him. Him being the President of the United States, on. On the assessment, the CIA director used one word to describe the Israeli prime minister's regime change scenarios, quote, farcical. So I would just like to ask, is it an accurate summary of this reporting to say that the Israeli prime minister and the head of the Mossad sat in the Situation Room and gave a presentation to the US President to trick him into a war that served only Israeli interests and did not, as a factual matter, unfold the way they promised it would. Is that an accurate.
- [31:19]
B
The word trick is tough. The word trick is tough. Okay.
- [31:22]
C
Not trick.
- [31:22]
A
Okay.
- [31:23]
B
I would not maybe use the word trick.
- [31:24]
A
Persuade.
- [31:25]
B
Because she'll persuade. Yeah, exaggerate. Use some hyperbole. How do you use trick or not?
- [31:31]
A
Like, if the things they say are.
- [31:33]
C
No, no, no, no.
- [31:34]
A
Facially preposterous at the time and then are also totally vitiated by events. Could we then say trick or not?
- [31:43]
C
No, no. The reason you can't say trick is because that would require, like, a level of subterfuge. That the great American country that's going to figure out and like, the idea that, I mean, we knew. We, like Ratcliffe knew. Anybody who is a serious American foreign policy person knows that you can't just quickly do this thing. I mean, first of all, can we just think about the logistics of one of those points? We are going to bomb them and people are going to be in the streets because, you know, when people run out into the streets, when there's an active bombing campaign. So it sounds. So I. But I think to your point, like, so that. Not the tricking, but does it sound like this was maybe not so much on our agenda before Netanyahu showed up and talked our president into it? Because our president is an idiot.
- [32:38]
B
Sure does. And was high on his own supply. Yeah. I mean, like, it seems like the outcome. Every other word I love JB always goes to the maximalist view and makes you. And makes you kind of process that. Like, any word short of that, I would accept. But just ask the thing. Yeah. Sarah said there's no subterfuge. There was no subterfuge. Like, there's no secret cabal. There's no whisper campaign by the Jews. Like, there's nothing. None of that is happening. Like, you know, and what is happening is very upfront. Like, the Prime Minister of Israel came to our country to persuade Trump to get into a war that he's been wanting to get into for a long time. In private, he made the case. In public, he made the case. The President of the United States and his Secretary of State agreed with the case. They said publicly that Israel's security concerns were part of the case. Trump has said that explicitly. Marco Rubio said that, you know, obviously that, like, you know, we would. We're going to have to respond because Israel is going to do it anyway. And, like, that's just what they all said. Like, it's what they all said and it's what happened. And so, like, you know, some anti Semitic conspiracy podcasters might try to make it seem like this is shadowy or whatever. And some pro Israel people might try to like, nut pick the worst examples of that to try to say that any criticism Israel of Israel is anti Semitic. But, like, if you just block out those arguments, like everyone else up to and including Donald Trump and Bibi are, like, pretty blunt about what happened. Like, the only time that they're not blunt about what happened is if they're asked specifically. Because it's embarrassing. Like, it's embarrassing kind of to say that BB persuaded me. So if you Put it in that way. Like, were you pushed into this by them? It's like, no, I'm a man. I can make my own choice. And like, yeah, sure. Like, of course it was Donald Trump's choice in the end. Like, we elected a madman. And like, that was the American people's fault and Donald Trump's fault. But, like, it was Donald Trump's choice after, like, Israel made the case. And Israel made the case because this is an acute security concern for them. And so, like, that's just reality.
- [34:50]
C
Yeah. But that also brings you to another thing where as you look backward now, to the things that they were saying before, there was no imminent threat to the United States. Like, if you take this reporting and you say, well, this is how this unfolded, at no point was the case made that somehow there was an imminent threat to the United States.
- [35:08]
A
No.
- [35:08]
B
Well, of course not.
- [35:09]
C
So probably we should have gone to Congress then.
- [35:12]
B
There's plenty of time. Yeah. There's no short. And then the reason they did it quickly is because we have the intelligence about where the Ayatollah is going to be. And again, this goes. This is important, actually. This is important because the folks, now, the pro Trump folks are going to try to do, assuming this actually ends. We'll see the pro Trump folks are going to try to do this post hoc spin, which is like, we achieved our objectives. We wanted to limit their ability to project their strength and their power. They have no navy now. They have no air force now. It was critical that we got rid of their ships because their ships were very dangerous. And now they only have half the weapons that they used to have, half the missiles they used to have. And that's a big win for us. And a bunch of their leaders died. Right. That's what they'll say. That is a win for them. But the thing is the initial pitch, the reason why we had to do this without going to Congress, the reason why we had to do this in secret, the reason why we had to do it quickly was because they wanted to jump on the opportunity to take out the Ayatollah. And they didn't jump on the opportunity to take out the Ayatollah because they wanted Ayatollah junior To be in charge. That that was not what was in the PowerPoint.
- [36:13]
A
The President said that the Ayatollah junior Was not acceptable to him.
- [36:16]
B
Yeah. So, like, they failed at their mission. Right. Like, if their mission was, hey, let's. Let's limit the ability of the ability of Iran to project their strength with their missiles, and their ships. Well then there's no rush to do that. We could have done that anytime. They could have gone to Congress. They could have made the case. They could have gone to the American appeal. But they didn't do that. They went and did it the way that they did it because they believed, maybe they didn't believe it would actually work, but they thought it was at least possible that regime change could happen. It's like, we gotta jump now. We can take out all these guys who are all meeting because they had an all hands meeting of the IRGC for some reason. And it's like that's why we did a bet. Because regime was the. Was the initial goal.
- [36:54]
A
Yeah, it was post Covid return to office for the. Had a big all hands, all staff meeting. We're talking about our new show up at the office. Policy guys.
- [37:02]
B
Yeah. So that's that. We should. Are we going to do Jared too? Sorry, Sarah, if you have something on that, but I'd like to talk about Jared.
- [37:09]
C
I was just going to give JBL one. One thing that I don't normally give JBL an admonishment. Oh, no, no, no. JVL often does one of these to me where he's like, sarah, is Trump as bad as Putin? Or you know, and. Or name your other terrible leader Pol Pot.
- [37:31]
B
Yeah, whatever.
- [37:32]
C
And I'm normally the one who has to sit there and be like, jbl, you know, this is because to be fair, he's not poisoning people and pushing them out of windows. However, the way he is behaving right now, he is indistinguishable from dictators in other countries. Like this idea too, that he was just like, I'm going to go run Venezuela. Also. I don't know if you saw this, but JD Vance is actively campaigning for Viktor Orban right now because authoritarians got it. Hang together. I just.
- [38:04]
A
You know who else is actively campaigning for Viktor Orban?
- [38:09]
C
Putin.
- [38:10]
B
Yeah, yeah. While he's sending anti aircraft weaponry allegedly to Iran to shoot down our pilots. Yeah, we're supporting his man in Hungary actively. We need to do Jared for a second because it is so crazy. And it's like. And this is a brilliant reporting by Maggie and Jonathan Swan. So this is not a criticism of them. It's just like, it's hard when you guys are talking.
- [38:33]
A
You know what, Tim, I'm sorry, hold it. Wait on Jared, because first I gotta give you a message from our other sponsor. The show is sponsored by Green Chef, where fad diets fail. Green Chef delivers real food and Recipes that make healthy eating easy and lasting. With Green Chef, every week you get over 40 recipes made with organic produce, responsibly sourced proteins, and nothing you can't pronounce. Meals come pre portioned and ready in minutes. And if you want guidance behind the plate, they include free, unlimited one on one nutrition coaching that helps you stay on track. Green Chef is the only certified clean meal kit tested by the Clean Label Project and the most sustainable meal kit. With 20% less food waste and 100% offset delivery emissions. And over and above everything else, Green Chef is just delicious. Just cruise their website, Check out some of these options. Moroccan spiced Tilapia with Couscous. Turkey skillet with Creamy Chimichurri. Pork chops with Shallot Sauce. Shallot Shalot. Our lady of shalot. These are meals you'll look forward to every time. Head to greenchef.com 50next level and use code 50next level to get 50% off your first month and then 20% off for two months. That's code 50next level@greenchef.com 50next level. Jared.
- [40:03]
B
Oh, Jared Kushner. I thought we were. I thought we were still doing the Green Chef thing. And it was like a Subway, you know, Subway takes thing I had to do. I was like, didn't he turn into being a pedo? Everyone's a pedo.
- [40:13]
C
He did. He was a bad one.
- [40:15]
B
It's really unfortunate how many pedos there are out there.
- [40:19]
C
I don't mean they're all bad, but he was like a particularly.
- [40:22]
B
It was very within the category.
- [40:24]
C
Within the category of pedo. Yeah, he was.
- [40:28]
B
Anyway, it is so the degree of corruption and outrage and in dealing with Jared Kushner is, like, beyond description. You could have written a whole separate New York Times article that was just focused on the fact that Jared was present at this meeting and what that means for national security implications and for corruption. You could have gone to ethics advisors. Like, you could have just done a whole separate article, like, just on him. But like, the shocking element of, you know, a foreign leader being in our security, you know, obviously, you know, took up more interest. But Jared's presence, he doesn't have a security clearance. He doesn't work for the government. He is. He was denied a security clearance actually in the first term. He's the president's son in law. He has financial dealings with multiple players in the war.
- [41:25]
A
Tim. I mean, it was important that Saudi Arabia's interests be represented in that room, the table.
- [41:29]
B
That's true.
- [41:30]
A
I mean, they are the other major Partner in the war.
- [41:32]
B
And so I, it's just unbelievable. I, you know, I mean, I think about the scandals of the past of like Roger Clinton selling access to somebody, you know, some African country telling them that they was going to be able to get him a deal with the administration. It's like Jared Kushner is in the Situation Room planning a war when he's on the take from one of the partners in the war at least, and he's involved in some development project in Gaza that Israel is wrapped up in. And he's also negotiating with the counterparty that ideally I think we would have liked to come to a deal with without having to cause all this death and destruction. But so Jared's sitting on all sides of this. He's getting rich off it and he's the President's son in law. It's fucking insane.
- [42:23]
C
You don't have to go back to George Clinton. I'm sorry, Hunter Biden sold his paintings like Hunter Biden. That was all Republicans talked about that the President's son. He was selling influence. And I'm sorry. So we now have a president's son in law who is actively negotiating, who took 3 billion from the Saudis after he left office last time. Is that it is.
- [42:48]
B
It's still taking money for them. I think the fact that we're not
- [42:51]
C
that everybody just lets the corruption. I guess it is. At what point? No king's protests are nice, but at what point do Americans run into the streets over this level of corruption?
- [43:06]
B
Hopefully soon. I would say, just as a point of correction, because this is not a fake news outlet. It's Roger Clinton, not George. George Clinton was the funk artist.
- [43:15]
C
He was the funk artist.
- [43:16]
B
You missed that one. And Roger did not take money from. I apologize to all of the nations of Africa. I thought he'd take money for a foreign government. I guess that was mixing him up with Trump's first national security advisor who took money from Turkey, but he took money from associates of the Gambido crib family to try to get some pardons.
- [43:34]
A
Oh my.
- [43:34]
B
People took 50k from them. So that was his. That was his crime is the itals.
- [43:41]
A
Yeah, like I said. Okay, so we got that. It's all very interesting. I, I do wonder was vamp. Do you guys think Israel has been like a useful and helpful ally for America's interests over the last few months?
- [44:01]
B
Just factually? No, just factually.
- [44:03]
A
Just objectively.
- [44:05]
B
Obviously. And Israel is doing this to itself. It's the most frustrating thing about all of this. Like Israel's choices are driving us away. And maybe it is because they feel so threatened by their neighbors. And after October 7th, this is not an irrational thing to think that they need to take every opportunity to take out every terrorist group and every funder and that is maybe a rational view of Israel. And everybody could, you know, talk about the way that they prosecuted that and criticize them. But I just, just like thinking about like whether this is something that's in their interests. So that's fine. But, but simultaneously to that they have involved us in a lot of stuff that we didn't need to be involved in. There's been massive backlash in America over the way that Israel's prosecuted their war there. We have lost lives, American lives as part of this. There's been, there's going to be economic damage at least at some level of the straightforward moves impacts everybody. We've lost control of the straight reform. Right? And so it's like, and you know, so whether you're talking about the America first perspective, where I think a future Republican side will look at this and say, what are we getting out of this deal? I think you're going to see America first politicians. I'm not endorsing this, but I think in the same way that I say that it's illogical for Bibi to be concerned about the security of Israel, it would be illogical for a right wing America first candidate in America to say that we're not getting anything out of this deal. More peace out. And it's totally logical and more so for Democratic politicians to say, wait a minute, you guys are fucking around in our elections. You're helping Republicans, you're running negative ads against us, you know, like and, and simultaneous. And you're, you're. Joe Biden had to carry this fucking baggage where Joe Biden helped them in the, after October 7th. And then he still got attacked and undermined by BB. This is not the people of Israel, but by the Israeli, the Israeli government. The Israeli government. And so it's totally rational then for the Democrats now when they come in to say screw you, screw you. You went, yeah, good luck. You went, you know, not totally like, you know, obviously not antagonist. Yeah, not antagonistic but like America's interest. You made this, you made your bet on all this. And maybe it was rational for your regional security interests, but you knew what the potential ramifications would be. And I think that they're going to end up now Israel unless there's a change and there's elections like our elections probably before theirs. But like, you know, they're going to end up probably with two presidential nominees that want to distance themselves from the relationship next time. And it's. And all. And it's going to be a rational choice on all sides.
- [46:43]
C
Yeah. And just on, on this really quickly because I was, I was like trying to explain this to my kid about why this was happening and I was sort of trying to explain Israel and I was saying, ultimately this is Donald, Donald Trump's fault. Like, Donald Trump promised America no more foreign wars. He had an America first agenda, which meant that nobody else was going to be dictating our foreign policy. So he is doing the exact opposite of everything that he proposed. That's one facet of it. The bigger facet that I. Okay, so I am unabashedly pro America. Hold on.
- [47:27]
B
Abashedly. I would say I'm abashedly.
- [47:29]
C
But this is. And Tim and I, you've talked, and I've talked a lot about how we've had to like reevaluate our thinking on Israel because the way that Israel is behaving right now and the way that we are behaving right now is wrong. It is wrong in this moment. And so it is different from saying, you know, I'm not going to say America's bad or Israel necessarily is fundamentally bad. Our behavior right now is fundamentally bad. And so like, we as this people who can't change their thinking on things by looking at what's happening and saying, boy, Israel has caused us now an enormous amount of, of problems in this country. And like, we're supposed to have a special relationship, but this isn't how friends treat each other like, this isn't how relationships are. And so I just, I think that a Democrat saying now we have to fundamentally rethink our relationship is in part can be put on the fact that their way that they have behaved over the last eight years has been horrible.
- [48:38]
B
Can I make a metaphor? Canada's doing this with us.
- [48:42]
C
Yes, right now. That's right.
- [48:44]
B
So Mark Carney is saying, hey, look at how America has behaved. American leadership has behaved. American voters have behaved. It was like it was one thing for them to vote him in once he lost the popular vote. It's his accent of history. They voted him back in twice. He's threatening to invade us. He's tariffing us. He's not a reliable partner. Like, he's causing negative economic out, you know, a negative economic consequences for Canadians. We need to reevaluate our relationship with America going forward. There's no. Because there's none of the baggage, for good reason, because there's a lot of anti Semites out there spreading anti Semitism, like, their baggage around. Like saying this about Israel, that's saying, like, we need to reevaluate the relationship, but you don't. If you think about it from the concept of Mark Carney, nobody's saying to Mark Carney, like, you're an anti Americanite, you're racist against Americans. Obviously, there are complexities to all this, but that's what I'm saying. I'm just saying that I think that going forward, a Democratic nominee, for reasons of human rights, but also practicality and also reliability and for a bunch of other reasons, should look at Israel the same way that Mark Carney's looking at us.
- [50:02]
A
Full agree. All right, can we talk about JD Vance?
- [50:06]
C
We're not going to talk about Bondi at all. Are we going to get to Bondi?
- [50:08]
A
We'll get there.
- [50:09]
B
We'll.
- [50:09]
A
I'll give you a little bit of Bondi. But first, if you go through the deeply reported Haberman Swan piece, it looks to me like JD's fingerprints are all over it, because he is. He comes out as the one guy who kept saying, nope, shouldn't do this, don't do this, don't do it, don't do it, don't. Nope, don't.
- [50:35]
C
But he also said, I'll back you, sir. It's your decision.
- [50:37]
A
I'll back you, sir. And I mean, that's a couple questions, the first of which is, is that enough for him? So can he come out of this as the, I told him not to do it and he did it the wrong way. And I love Mr. Trump, but he's earned the benefit of the doubt, et cetera, et cetera. Is that enough for him?
- [51:02]
B
No, he can't do that. Especially if this ends right now. He's gonna.
- [51:07]
A
He's gonna have to say, we want.
- [51:09]
B
He's gonna have to say, I don't even know the fake news failing. New York Times said that. Like, I always trusted Mr. Trump's instinct. I told you he wasn't a stupid president like the past presidents. We had stupid presidents that got us stuck in these things. And Donald Trump's. I think he's gonna have to go fully lockstep. Like, to me, the leaking was either true or hedging.
- [51:31]
C
Yeah, Sarah, I mean, if Trump's dead, he can. Like, if Trump were to pass away, JD Vance could throw him under the bus, but he won't be able to do it as long as Trump is alive.
- [51:41]
A
As long as Trump is alive and has two thumbs.
- [51:44]
C
And this was the. My main takeaway from the Tucker thing is watching Tucker. Tucker's is using the fact that he does not have to stand by Trump during this to outflank JD Vance. I think quite obviously I watched that thing with Tucker did, and I thought, this guy is running for president.
- [52:01]
B
Yeah, the JD Hungry thing, I don't know. We already covered it. But I just. It's so outrageous. So it's so fucking outrageous that these people that they lectured us and they're with this patronizing nonsense and Davos and about how the, these, the, you know, pro democracy neocons and neoliberals tried to spread freedom throughout the world. That was so naive. And we should not be involved in this. We, you know, we should be letting other people do their business.
- [52:31]
A
Should be trying to spread authoritarianism throughout the world, Tim.
- [52:34]
B
That's what they're fucking doing. He's in there calling Trump on the phone and doing a cheer at the Orban rally in Hungary trying to.
- [52:43]
A
5,000 Hungarian patriots here for you, Mr. President. Do you see that?
- [52:47]
B
Yeah, I know. I watched it all. It's. It's sick. It's sick. And there is a normal, right kind of conservative, really, like, you know, classically, like the guy who's running against Orban is basically Orban from when he started. People who don't know or about like Orban was just like a basic center right European politician with a little bit of nationalist early. Yeah, yeah, right. But when he ran originally, he was kind of like a Boris Johnson type figure. And then like slowly he, you know, expanded into authoritarian monster who aligns with Putin. But like the guy who's replacing him is, is in that mold and he's winning in the polls. And so it's not like it's some anti American socialist or something that's running. Not that it would be better, but like, it's just important to understand that like looking at that option, like a basically conservative free market European candidate running against an authoritarian pro Putin candidate. We sent the vice president there to campaign for the pro Putin candidate because
- [53:51]
A
that's whose side we're on.
- [53:53]
B
Right?
- [53:54]
A
That's whose side America is on. We're on Putin's side. So can I just put a quarter in the machine for each of you on what you believe the near and medium term political fallout from the war will be? If. I mean, let's just pretend for a minute that where we are now at 8:42 on April 7th is roughly where the war ends. There'll be fits and starts and, you know, go forward a little backward, but basically the contours of what we see now are, are how it ends. If that's the case, what is the political fallout look like in, like, short term meaning, like four months, three months, and long term meaning, take me through the end of November election. So, like, on the other side of
- [54:47]
C
November, this is just my broadest point, which is with two and a half years left and Netanyahu feeling like, like this is not the outcome that they want, like they haven't gotten anything. And so I, I just don't think it's over. I, I don't. And I think that, I think that you're gonna see if right now Trump is going to be equal parts, I think, humiliated. And I don't know how the, how do the hawks who, how, how do, how does Mark Levin feel about the US Just sort of walking away? How does anybody who has an actual understanding of the.
- [55:27]
B
They're going to pretend to like it because they think that they can just do what they did again in another year. Right. Like that they gained some ground 12 months ago. They gained some ground this time. That's probably what they'll do.
- [55:38]
C
But that's what's, that's what's interesting, right, is it's not like Trump leaves this to somebody else a year from now, like he will, we will be back here again, is my ultimate point. And that's why it feels like tariffs. It feels like we're going to go through now a cycle of Iran.
- [55:51]
B
My political take on this is it's really incumbent on the economic stuff, and I don't think anybody really knows. Right. Like, are things back to normal by Labor Day? No, probably not. Right. You know, what are the other, you know, ramifications of. Because it isn't even just gas prices. Right. Like, you know, airline fuel, it's, or fuel prices broadly. Other chemical plants were hit across commodities.
- [56:21]
A
Aluminum.
- [56:22]
B
Right, Right. Yeah. So we just don't know, you know, so if, if it gets back to, by Labor Day, something even in the ballpark of where we were a month ago, you know, and there's no real recession, it's a really annoying summer, gas prices wise, I think we probably end up kind of back in the ballpark of where we were politically a month ago, which is still a big Democratic landslide election. But maybe, you know, but maybe not.
- [56:50]
A
Like, you think Trump is able to recover some ground?
- [56:53]
B
Yeah, yeah. The wheels don't totally fall off, I think. I mean, you know, if that's what happens, like, if it's a Venezuela situation, because people don't give a fuck about foreign policy. Right. They care about domestic policy. There's some people that have now jumped off the ship, some MAGA people that are lost. Right. For good. There are some working class people that went for Trump that are like, this is crazy. I'm still paying higher gas prices. I'm gone. Right. So he's lost some ground, but he can also regain some of it. Because people are like, okay, well, if
- [57:26]
A
there's stability, gas is only 330 of a gallon. And isn't that so much better than when it was 450?
- [57:33]
B
Right. People can't remember. Yeah. So I bet again. And I think it's still a big political loss at the midterms. I think that's baked in now. It's just the scale of the loss, I think was really dependent by how much the economy continues to crumble. And I don't think we'd know exactly the answer to that yet. That's.
- [57:52]
A
How long do we wait before doing Cuba? A week? Two weeks? A month?
- [57:59]
B
I think that Fourth of July sounds like a good time to take over.
- [58:03]
A
Oh, maybe while the cage match is going.
- [58:08]
B
I think they might.
- [58:12]
A
That's true.
- [58:12]
B
Yeah. I'll give you 4th of July for Cuba. But he's definitely gonna try to do
- [58:15]
C
it and they're gonna. But they have to take a break here. I can't imagine. I mean, unless.
- [58:20]
A
Unless they don't have to invade Cuba. I mean, Cuba's falling apart or they. We are doing an oil embargo on Cuba and it is. The whole country is like in shambles.
- [58:29]
C
Yeah. Although, I mean, if he feels under siege after this tactical error and feels like he needs to do like a Venezuela, like a smash and grab job to feel big and tough again and try to put this in the rear view mirror, I could see him doing it.
- [58:43]
A
Yeah. I mean, that's what I think is likely to happen because I think he probably has some people in the Cuban regime who. Or, you know, around the Cuban regime who could be good. Little Del C. Rodriguez is for him. And, you know, it'll make Marco super happy. All right, Sarah, can you give us the last word from our final sponsor? And then I'm going to let you cook on Pam Bondi.
- [59:05]
C
Yeah. If you don't let me do this Bondi stuff, man, I'm going to let you. All right. This ad is from Upwork. Scaling a business takes the right expertise at the right time. Upwork helps growing teams quickly Bring in specialized freelancers so you can move faster and take the business to the next level. See what they did there. Upwork is a one stop platform to find, hire and pay expert freelancers across web and software development, data and analytics, marketing, business operations and more. Upwork helps you grow your business by giving you fast access to specialized talent across 125 plus categories so you can fill skill gaps, launch projects faster and scale support up or down without committing to full time headcount. Anybody who runs a small business knows how critical this type of help can be. You can browse profiles, review past work and get help scoping the role so you can hire confidence and hire with confidence and get started quickly. With Business plus you can access the top 1% of talent on Upwork and with AI powered shortlisting you can get matched to the right freelancer in under six hours. No endless searching required. Visit Upwork.com right now and post your job for free. That is Upwork.com to connect with top talent ready to help your business grow. That's up w o r k.com Upwork Upwork.com thank you Upwork Quieres Mejor Internet Cox Internet de tresintas megas tiene las
- [60:32]
B
velocidades rapidas e comfiables que buscas perfecto
- [60:35]
C
para streaming e gaming y TRA bajardes de casa.
- [60:43]
A
De wifi y guarantia deprecio de dos
- [60:45]
C
anos entutlan nues pere
- [60:52]
B
unlimited.
- [60:58]
A
Sarah, the floor is yours.
- [61:00]
C
I only want to say one thing on Pam Bondi which is I have been thinking for months wondering why do they keep trying to get all of this voter data right? Why did Pam Bondi send told like why was Tulsi Gabbard sent to Fulton County? Why does she keep going and like trying to figure out these election was stolen things and now, now it makes perfect sense. This is how she was trying to stay in it with Trump, that Trump had started to sour on her and so she started leaning into the election interference stuff in order to try and stay in his good graces. And I gotta tell you that is just ever so slightly reassuring to me because it I keep thinking like there's some plan, like there's something they're going to do with all this. Now of course there still is, right? Like Trump is looking for reasons to sow doubt so we can nationalize elections. They are trying to hoover up their data. He does. You know he tried to do this executive order the other day where he was saying I'm going to decide who Gets to vote. You know, it is part of his getting rid of mail in voting. But what the DOJ was doing now suddenly is clear to me. That was the only point I wanted to make.
- [62:14]
B
I want to talk about Cassidy.
- [62:15]
A
Okay, I was going to ask you about that. Please.
- [62:19]
B
I mean, the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ is investigating Cassidy Hutchinson over alleged perjury. Perjury. Like, I mean, just think about the level of lies that these people have told when they go to Congress. Noem Bondi herself, just blatant lies up in cash Patel, about the people that they fired and the laws that they've broken as they've tried to dismantle the government. And they're trying to go after Cassidy Hutchison using the power of the government based on this idea that when she said that, somebody told her. Was it the ketchup thing? I forget which one it was, that somebody told her that Trump was so mad he threw the ketchup or that Trump, I think maybe. No, it was in the car. It was the car.
- [63:06]
C
It was putting the arm around like, that.
- [63:08]
B
He.
- [63:09]
C
He physically was, like, doing something to the driver from the back seat.
- [63:12]
B
Yeah, someone told her that that happened, and they're saying it didn't happen. And so now the doj, Civil Rights Division is going to go after her. The Civil Rights Division, you know, the people.
- [63:24]
A
She's very clear.
- [63:25]
B
Kkk.
- [63:26]
A
She was very clear that she didn't say that she saw this happen. She said, this other guy told me this.
- [63:33]
B
Yeah, right. And that's it. And this poor woman now, but, like, really young, young woman, when it happened six years ago now, like, was the assistant to Mark Meadows. That was her job. Like, all these cowards, all these men that were around Trump that knew he was lying, that we learned through the January 6th committee, knew that he was. That he had lost his mind, knew that it was wrong, knew that he had no chance to stay in power. They all bought the ticket, went along for the ride, and did, you know, tried to call Ivanka or whatever to get him to talk to their dad off the ledge as rioters are beating cops. And it fell to our colleague, relatively new Sarah Matthews and Alyssa Farah and Cassidy Hutchison, like three varying degrees young women, the beginning of their careers. Cassidy's the youngest, I think, and, you know, she testifies the truth to the best of her ability. And now the US Government is using our tax dollars to go after her to try to ruin her life. When I. It's just. It's just fucking sick. It's like really sick what they're doing. And I don't know. I think that I don't exactly know where everything falls on who we impeach first or investigate first when you take back power. But I think going after investigating the investigators is a pretty good start because this DOJ has been totally out of control and going after political foes who did nothing,
- [65:13]
A
it's horrible. It's absolutely horrible. I just want to. Somebody just popped up on my screen. I want to. I'm just going to rewind before I get us out of here. Our conversation about the current government of Israel doing a disservice to Israel's long term interests. I think at least in regards to its relationship with America. Story out from Pew right now. Americans views of Israel, some varied to somewhat unfavorable, is now up to 60%.
- [65:49]
C
I saw this earlier and it is, it's a lot of Democrats and independents but it is, they are the where it is with independence. And this is, you know I don't want to get into the whole thing about what's his name but this the
- [66:07]
B
idea that I want to do an episode about other people. I think that the Democrats should condemn. You know there's some members of the K hive. Sorry,
- [66:16]
C
why. Why the K House?
- [66:18]
B
I'm joking, joking. I've seen there are other influencers out there. We could go through all of everybody's history.
- [66:23]
C
Yeah, well obviously like we we on here for people who've never heard of me before who now suddenly have they have no idea what my views on any of this stuff are. Right. They took the one conversation with Tim. But the idea that the though our long term relationship with Israel and oh this is what I was this was about Democrats. They are going to have to have a conversation. They are not going to be able to. I don't think it needs to involve you know but like they're going to have to come out and deal with this because the extent to which Democrats have decided they are out on Israel in a way that is much has been increased dramatically by this war. Like this is and I wonder if this should if what if like what Netanyahu was thinking was the public opinion, our public opinion prospects in America are on a downward spiral and this might be the last chance that we have anybody who's going to be willing to do anything for us to this extent. And so they tried to get Donald Trump while they could because the public opinion is turning so fast. I mean the drop is really dramatic.
- [67:33]
B
Yeah. And it should be. People should be mad about the way that Israel has engaged in our politics and the way that they've conducted their actions in Gaza and in the west bank and elsewhere. So I'll say this, the one area where I am somewhat sympathetic to pro Israel folks who blanch at this and say that, well, it's after October 7th, blah, blah, blah, and we get singled out. The negative opinion of the UAE and Saudi should be just as high as Israel. I mean, honestly, we should be reassessing our relationship with all these fucking countries. I said this to David Frum when I had him on the podium.
- [68:13]
A
Opinion of America should be just as high.
- [68:15]
B
Yeah, sure. And opinions of America should be going down as well. But I just mean that going forward, we're America, so we can't really reassess our relationship with ourselves, but there should be a reassessment of the relationship with a lot of the countries in the region. And who knows, we might be renegotiating that from a weaker standpoint now that Iran is going to have control of 24 moves when they have that. But that was the point of becoming energy independent originally. And the idea that we should be losing American lives and hurting the economic well being of Americans because Jared Kushner's sugar daddy MBS and Don Trump jr's business partner in UAE and Trump's buddy BB want us doing their dirty work over there. Fuck all of them all. That's where I'm at.
- [69:03]
A
I love that for you guys. Good show. Long show. Exciting conclusion to this season of Iran war. Join us early next season for maybe a little more. Iran War or Cuba. We'll see. Everybody else will see you soon. Hit like hit. Subscribe, follow the channel and maybe even, maybe even come read my newsletter. I think people would have been pretty, pretty well prepared for all this stuff had they been reading the Triad.
- [69:33]
B
It's a great newsletter. Go read it. Sarah reads it.
- [69:36]
C
It's my favorite one every day.
- [69:37]
A
Yeah. Did you read today's? No, that was 0.0%.
- [69:43]
B
If you're a dork out there, you should read. I did. I did. Did read it today. I did. And it was long. But I learned a lot. I learned about fiat currency. Did you know what year we changed to fiat currency? I do now. And you would know if you read the Triad. So go subscribe.
- [70:01]
A
Deep cuts from Bretton Woods, y'. All.
- [70:04]
C
I looked at that one today and said bye. Not today, Satan.
- [70:08]
B
Bye, everybody.