In today’s news…the bad news is that Trump’s potty mouth overflowed as he threatened to “beat the f*cking sh*t’ out of Iran.” The good news is that Trump appears to have defecated in his pants at Lindsey Graham’s funeral…which might conceivably render him slightly less full of sh*t.

Below is a transcript of last night’s Press TV interview. Listen to the whole thing in the audio podcast file at the top of my Substack post, or watch the two-minute highlight video above.

Press TV: Well, it’s 6 p.m. here in Tehran and time for the news review. Welcome. Now, let me give you a recap of what’s been happening and what we’re going to talk about. We have been watching Iran, what another Iran is saying, as long asU.S. aggression against Iran’s civil infrastructures Iran will retaliate. And that’s what Iran has done. And the continuation of that, IRGC hit U.S. Air Base and headquarters in Jordan. And now Mr. Trump is going mad and saying that I’m going to hit Iran hard again. Of course, it’s not the first time this has been going on. Iran is also asserting its control over the Strait of Hormuz and IRGC Navy, the Iranian Army. They are both asserting their control there. And almost every day they are stopping a number of ships that have been trying to cross the Strait without Iran’s authorization.

And of course the same talks are ongoing between Iran and the two coastal states to come up with a certain mechanism for arrangements of transit. So this is what we are going to talk about. Allow me to introduce my guests. In our studio in Tehran, we have Khomeira Ahad. And also we have Kevin Barrett joining us from Saidia in Morocco.

Okay, let’s begin with Tehran, if you allow me, Kevin, so that Khomeira will just bring us some information and give us some more details regarding the goings on recently. Khomeira, do you think this is going to further escalate? Or is it going to come down? Because, if you remember the way Mr. Trump usually puts it whenever he says he’s going to do something big time and then the next day or five minutes later he changes his mind, he said let’s turn to the negotiating table.

Khomeira Ahad: No, but I think that it is going to escalate. And the things which we have been seeing in the last few months point to that, that there will be escalation again . We know that in the last 24 hours, the IRGC has pounded American bases in Jordan, and ballistic missiles have been fired. The IRGC has been quite clear in saying that as long as unlawful hostile actions are carried against the Islamic Republic of Iran, and as long as the threats continue against Iran, retaliation will follow. And that is what we saw in the last 24 hours.

And now we are seeing again very inflammatory rhetoric fromTrump. He has said in the last couple of hours that he’s going to again hit Iran very badly. And that’s not something new, as you already mentioned. In the last few months, if not a year or two, we have been seeing Trump again and again issuing this type of inflammatory rhetoric. And Iran has said as long as this inflammatory rhetoric continues, these types of threats continue, the American side will face retaliation from Iran. As a result of these threats, we are also seeing an effect on the world markets. According to reports, the Brent oil prices have again risen. And if the escalation continues, then we are going to see a huge effect on the global markets.

Press TV: Great. Okay. Turn to Morocco now. Kevin, good to have you with us. So how do you look at things? Where is this leading?

Kevin Barrett: Well, people have remarked on the parallels between Trump’s repeated threats and then his equally delusional claims that he’s been negotiating with imaginary Iranians. “It is very close to an agreement.” He typically issues the threats usually towards the end of the week so that the weekend will come and they won’t disrupt the markets too much. And then he usually says he’s been negotiating with his imaginary Iranian friends and is close to a deal on Monday to try to calm the markets leading into the week. But this time he is ranting and raving with his bizarre extreme threats in the middle of the week.

So who knows what that means? I don’t think that even Trump’s psychiatrist knows what Trump is really thinking. So rather than worrying about Trump’s psychology, which is pretty much a case for a whole team of psychiatrists specializing in narcissism and psychopathy, I think we should look at what’s actually going on on the ground, where the military shipments are going, and so on. And then, of course, what’s really going on with the energy trade, energy markets. In other words, the real-world factors here. And those real-world factors are that Trump and his administration are caught in what Robert Pape calls an escalation trap.

They can’t get anything even remotely close to what they want. They have no idea really what they’re doing. They took Netanyahu’s advice and got into this ill-advised war, imagining that their goal was to somehow magically regime-change Iran and turn it into a Zionist colony. And that, of course, was never going to happen. And now they’re stuck with Iran inevitably coming out of this war stronger than it was before. And so they don’t want to accept that, but they have no answer for it.

And the dynamics here, yes, the Americans are sending more material to the region, which means probable escalation. But what can they do? They’ve already bombed the targets they can bomb. Iran still has a lot more targets left for its missiles. The Americans have used up most of their standoff munitions, and the military is screaming at Trump that “it’s dangerously low. If China tries anything, we can’t do anything.” And so on. And so the overall situation right now is Groundhog Day. Trump is screaming and yelling again. He may do some more bombings. Iran has escalation dominance and will answer them. And we’re going to be back to square one until the Americans finally honor the MOU.

Press TV: Speaking of energy markets that you also mentioned and rising oil prices and difficulties, you know, being actually a cause for many people, not only in the region, but maybe elsewhere across the planet. Trump is saying that Iran is doing this. This is collective punishment. But Hormuz did not used to be like this. It was calm. So who caused this? I mean, who’s to blame for this? Iran or President Trump’s policies and warmongering?

Khomeira Ahad: You’re absolutely right about people saying that Hormuz was not like this and countries saying that it was all calm. Yeah, absolutely. It was all calm. The vessels were passing through the Strait of Hormuz without any effect. Iran was providing security without being paid. But who started it is the question which requires being pondered upon. And the answer is, it is America and Israel whose attack led to what we are seeing now, to what the world economy is facing the brunt of. And because of the aggression that was started by the United States and Israel on 28th February, Iran had to retaliate in this way.

We have been seeing in the last few months, starting from the last year in June and continuing till now, what type of aggression has been exercised by America and Israel. The leader of the Islamic revolution, the martyred leader, was even assassinated. Hospitals attacked, schools attacked, 168 young children, primary schoolchildren killed in Minab. The list continues. The aggression: bridges, civilian infrastructure destroyed. And the world, apart from taking notice of what is being done to Iran, is talking about Iran restricting the passage shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.

All the international laws have been violated by the United States and Israel, and this happened amidst negotiation. The first 12-day war, which happened last year in June, took place when Iran was undergoing negotiations with America, and it was the fifth or sixth round of negotiations. Next was the 40-day war, which started on 28th February with the assassination of the leader of the Islamic revolution. It happened when the third round of negotiations were taking place. And even the Omani foreign minister said that Iran was giving lots of concessions.

So taking that near history into consideration, we know what type of aggression is going against Iran for the last few months. We have seen in the last few months how it has played out positively for Iran. And it is because of the Strait of Hormuz that Trump was forced to come to the negotiating table, though he again violated the negotiation, which is his modus operandi. But he was forced to stop his aggression against Iran or restrict his aggression against Iran because it was having an effect on world economy and he could not control the world economy, the rising prices, even in the American mainland. So the Strait of Hormuz is the only option helping Iran prevent further aggression.

Press TV: Right. Okay, Kevin, yesterday we had Netanyahu’s visit to the US. What was he whispering in Trump’s ears? He said he has had the best meeting ever with Trump. What is it that could be probably asking President Trump to ...