Joe Rogan podcast. Check it out.
>> The Joe Rogan Experience.
>> TRAIN BY DAY. JOE ROGAN PODCAST BY
NIGHT. All day.
>> Do I sound okay? Check. Check. Check.
This is my normal complaint volume.
Right.
>> One of those one ear on, one ear off
guys.
>> Yeah. My right ear hurts a lot from
years of this and so I usually just
leave it off.
>> There's a volume adjuster thing, too. So
if it's too loud, you can turn it up or
turn it down.
>> You sound good. But no, it's just I have
a pain in my right ear, so I try not to
antagonize it.
>> And thank you very much for the gift,
ladies and gentlemen. Scott Horton gave
me a professorial pipe.
>> And like I was saying, Mezer uses a pipe
now because of you. Like he
>> I love that guy.
>> He's the best.
>> He's so funny, dude.
>> He's such a nut. When he
>> comes into the room, he just blows the
room away, dude. He's just a force in
there. It's incredible.
>> And he's a giant dude. So he like hovers
over you like, "Oh, you didn't know? You
don't know about this?" And then he just
hits you with 15 conspiracies in a row.
Rapid fire with
>> so good.
>> Yeah. With no breaks in between them.
>> So, uh, thanks for doing this, man.
>> Yeah. Thanks for having me.
>> We have a great mutual friend and Dave
Smith. He recommends you highly.
>> So, I'm glad we could finally do this.
>> I wish there was more going on in the
world right now we could talk about,
though. Just seems like
Vietnam or something, you know.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Some the old stuff back when
we didn't know any better.
>> It's kind of a mess.
>> Yeah. Um, I've seen you argue on
television like a thousand times.
>> Do you enjoy like that Pierce Morgan
type
>> chaos? No.
>> Yeah.
>> Um,
in fact, I just got back from England. I
got invited to do the Oxford debate,
which I lost on Ukraine. Um, but then I
invited myself on Pierce Morgan Live as
long as I was in town.
>> When you say you lost a debate, is that
because the people voted that were in
the audience? All those people with
Ukraine flags?
Well, they didn't have Ukraine flags
that time. I think someone showed an old
picture or something, but yeah, same
crowd.
>> So, what happened was, yeah, when they
leave, they either leave through the yes
door or the no door, and the yeses had
it, which was unbelievable to me, but uh
not that I did my very best job.
>> But on on Pierce Morgan, I was trying to
get myself just a interview so I could
just talk to him about some things. And
instead, they just prefer that format
where you got to mix it up with a guy,
which I can do that too, you know.
>> Yeah. Uh the interview thing is way
better. The the thing that he does
though is really good for engagement.
He's very smart. Yeah. Like Pierce has
done he's mastered it. He's taken like
the Jerry Springer type format and
thrown it into the world of politics and
and any other social issue that's going
on.
>> Yeah. But it is too like um years ago
the guy from anti-war.com can't be on
TV,
>> but we can be on his show. He doesn't
care. He's cool with I mean, I guess
same thing here
>> where it's that is a big change from how
things used to be. We just had this
whole separate conversation going on
below
>> the higher one where he has reach, you
know, up and down the chain, I guess, is
a way to put it.
>> Is he on TV or is it just
>> No, but he just has massive massive
viewership. So, it counts, I guess.
>> TVv is actually a hindrance now cuz the
only way people watch TV is clips that
someone takes and puts on X or YouTube.
That's it.
>> Or they just see it accidentally. It's
just on. and it happens to be on when
they're in the room or whatever. But
>> what a [ __ ] dying market. Like
imagine if you're in broadcast
television right now and you're just
thinking like, where am I? What am I
doing?
>> Like this is a bad format. You have to
break for commercials every seven
minutes. No conversation could ever get
into depth. There's executives in your
ear telling you what to say and what not
to say. They'll edit out anything that
they think is like controversial that's
going to [ __ ] with their sponsors or
[ __ ] with the government or [ __ ] with
>> whatever their narrative is.
>> It's just everything's changed. When I
first started doing podcasting, it was
the archives of the interviews for my
radio show and it was so important to me
that I'm on the radio because that's
real legitimacy. That means somebody
hired you. Somebody thought you were
good enough to be there. Whereas
podcasting any jerk can do from his
basement and it just doesn't count. And
then that just became not true. And I
kind of clung on to my radio show. I
actually gave up my last radio show on
KPFK in Los Angeles last year after I
mean where it didn't matter anymore
anyway. And podcasting has completely
changed the entire market, you know.
>> Do you know how many people were
listening to you actually on the radio
before you quit?
>> I think it's like probably
high thousands but not 10,000. You know,
KPFK in LA.
It's the most powerful FM transmitter
west of the Mississippi River. It's
grandfathered in at 115,000 watts. But
it's But the thing is about it too, and
it's always been like this, the the
programming on there is so inconsistent
that you're listening to Latina lesbians
one hour and then you're listening to
Crystal Worship and then you're
listening to hard-hitting news and then
you're listening to like leftist union
organizing or then just whatever. You
know what I mean? But it's just there's
no like real rhyme or reason to us. It's
hard to follow. You know
>> what kind of a channel is it?
>> Oh, it's um you know left of the dial um
at 90.7 FM. So it's, you know,
comparable to like KUT type. It's not
actual public radio, but it's no
commercials, all donations and
>> Oh, wow.
>> Yeah. I mean, they were good.
>> A regular radio show that's no
commercials and it's not public.
>> Yeah,
>> that's interesting.
>> Yeah, it's like um I don't know if co-op
still exists here in Austin. Um co-op
radio.
>> You must have made a lot of money from
that. You must be so rich from doing
that. Like a leftist radio with no no
ads at all, just donations. Boy, you
must be raking it in.
>> No, they never did pay me. But I looked
at it like they let me be on there for
14 15 years or something. And um you
know, like even when I was uh writing my
book about the Russia Ukraine stuff, I
would do my radio show once a week and I
was able to still cover what was going
on in Palestine. And in a way that I
felt like,
you know, in a, you know, something
meaningful that I can do even though my
attention was completely diverted
elsewhere. I still got all my guys from
the libertarian institute and
anti-war.com and I can interview them
once a week. And and then when I left
KPFK, I got some response. They're like,
"Oh no, where are you going?" kind of
thing. So I mean, some people were
caring for it at the time.
>> Did you let them know, hey, I have a
podcast. You could see them all. All
these episodes will be archived.
>> Yeah, I kind of always let them know
that. You know, I've done 6,200
something interviews since 2003 on my
various shows. So, I always try to
remind people to go check the archives
if they want for the full dose of that
stuff.
>> Before we get into any of these
subjects, like how did you get into
this?
>> Um, well, you know, in the 90s I was,
you know, when I was younger, I was much
more of like a new world order uh truth
through type and um but then I basically
dropped all that. I grew out of that.
How do you define new world order truth
or type like?
>> Okay. Well, I mean the new world order
conspiracy was that American foreign
policy ultimately is about building a
one world federal government under the
United Nations that would ultimately
dominate the United States. The John
Burch Society sort of idea of how and
and I uh I really like those guys. Um
and I believed that for a long time
really through Clinton and even the into
the beginning of W. Bush. But then I
could I finally realized with the way
that the Iraq war was prosecuted that
this is not about building up the UN
security council. We got the National
Security Council and Cheney and his
neocons and they have their own separate
policy that just disproves the that sort
of new world order theory and the
American and and in fact so what HW Bush
meant by that was just the era of the
American empire with no one to stop us
this time was all it was never to build
up the UN as the world government. And
it was to build up Washington DC as the
world government. And of course they've
been failing and failing at trying to
establish that ever since.
>> Yeah. Um so the conspiracy was that the
United Nation would would be the
government of the entire earth and that
all other governments would somehow or
another give up their power to the
United Nations for what reason?
>> Um cuz they're all in on it together in
secret. Whatever. That's the point is it
ain't right. It's not true.
>> Well, my my question would be like
>> too many people would have to Exactly.
Too many people have to sacrifice the
power they do have
>> exactly
>> to somebody else when they don't have to
>> money. Yeah.
>> That's the other thing. I mean, as soon
as you lose power, then you lose access
to insane amounts of wealth.
>> Yeah. So we don't want, you know,
obviously it's the ultimate nightmare
would be that you would have some kind
of one world government and then some
kind of totalitarian regime take power
with a monopoly on nukes and a monopoly
on police power and you know but that's
just a nightmare for centuries from now.
I mean that's just not going to happen
anytime soon at all. That's not what
it's
>> You don't think there's any push towards
centralizing things in that regard? Like
wasn't the World Health Organization
trying to push for something where the
entire world would have to respond to
their pandemic rules?
>> Well, look, so yes, there there's
always, you know, the widening and
deepening of the international law as
much as they can. At the end of the day,
there is no actual world state to
enforce that law other than just the
United States of America. But there is
no one world army, one world police
force to enforce these things. It's all
about coercing and cajoling governments
to go along and right which goes to show
I mean this is the whole thing about
when they talk about
>> you know what HW Bush meant when he
talked about the new world order is the
same thing that Joe Biden meant when he
would say the liberal rules-based
international order of just doing what
America says right that's what it is you
know it's a pseudo empire it's not
exactly the ex the same kind of empires
and you know colonialism that we've had
in the past but it's sort of a neoc
colonialism where if we can overthrow
your government with some money, then
we'll do that. A little bit of CIA help,
we'll do that. And if we have if we have
to bomb your capital city, we'll go for
that if we think so.
>> Yeah.
>> And it does go back really to the
Wolfowitz doctrine, you know, of various
degrees. But this is a reference to
right after the first Gulf War. Paul
Wolfitz at that time was the deputy
secretary of defense for policy.
and him and a couple other neocons,
Scooter Libby and Zme Khalilzad, they
wrote up this document called the
defense plan and guidance and it was
saying this is going to be you know the
posture for the postcold war era and the
post first Iraq war Gulf War era. Um,
and what it said was, "We're going to be
the most dominant power on every
continent anywhere in the world. And
we're not even going to tolerate any
other nation or alliance or group of
nations anywhere to try to join together
to balance against us. We will be
dominant everywhere. And we'll never let
anyone get that far ahead or at least
we're going to try to construct an order
where our power is essentially permanent
and they don't even try it." And so
that's what they've been trying to do
with expanding our footprint in the
Middle East, expanding our footprint
into Eastern Europe, and of course, you
know,
working hard at least on building their
alliances and or tightening them and
arming their alliances in Eastern Asia.
And it's, you know, under the theory
that if it's not us, it'll be somebody
else and it'll be so much worse. So we
have to stay and dominate everything
forever. But of course, you can look at
the debt and just see, well, we can't
afford it, so I don't know how anybody
else can. We certainly cannot afford to
keep doing this,
>> right? And if you look at Wolawitz, if
you see popa image of Paul Wolawitz, he
looks exactly like the kind of guy you
would expect to make something like the
Wolfwitz doctrine,
>> right? And by the way, they did rewrite
it because it was a scandal. It was
leaked to the New York Times. And so
they went back and rewrote it and they
just said, "Well, we'll bring our
friends, you know, from the
international institutions along to
>> that picture right there where your
cursor is. Right below right there." No,
to the right of that. That one.
>> Yeah, there you go.
>> Look at that. That looks like that
completely looks like the type of guy
that would do something like
>> So, listen. There's a there's a book
about the neoconservatives by Jacob Hill
Brun called They Knew They Were Right,
>> which is of course, right? Like, yeah,
these guys who have no idea what they're
doing
>> really. You know,
>> that's hilarious. Let me try this.
Doesn't fit right on my little head.
>> Like I said, you can [ __ ] with the
volume on that little knob and turn it
up and down. So, um, this was a this one
of the things that, um, when Coleman
Hughes and, um, our buddy Dave Smith got
into it with was about whether you
remember when, um, they brought up this
seven countries thing
>> that, you know, and he was saying that
there was no real proof that that
exists, that he didn't actually read it.
He was told that we were going to go
into seven countries. But, you know, I
was talking to Dave about this the other
day. He's like, I if you just look at
the fact that we did everything on that
list except Iran, every single one of
them took place except Iran. Like he's
like, I really want to go and do that
debate again and I can't get Coleman to
sit down with me.
>> Yeah. You know, yes. For people who are
interested in this subject, you know,
long term,
>> uh, there's no mystery about the
connection between the neoonservatives
doctrines and then the activities that
the W administration engaged in. Yeah.
>> You know, subsequent. I mean, what
happened was
>> you have, you know, Andrew Coburn, the
great journalist Andrew Coburn says that
the neoconservatives are a cross between
the Israel lobby and the
military-industrial complex. The fighter
bomber salesman needed eggheheads to
justify their policies. And the
neoconservatives
wanted to support Israel, wanted to
support American hijgemony and so took
all the military-industrial complex
money to build their think tanks to
create their consensus to build their
policy. You know, their own kind of
thousand little council on foreign
relations is to get what they want. And
then when you know the seven countries
thing is
>> so what we're talking about just to
clarify is Wesley Clark was given well
was he was on some television show. I
forget what the show was. Do you
remember?
>> There's two different statements. One of
them I know was with Amy Goodman from
Democracy Now.
>> That's right. Democracy Now.
>> And basically what he's talking about is
um
you know he says that a general or I'm
sorry a military officer of some rank
told then retired but still with access
former general Wesley Clark who had been
the supreme allied commander of NATO
forces in Europe under Bill Clinton did
the Kosovo War. So very prominent
four-star general and he said the way he
told the story was he told him hey you
know we're they're planning for a war
with Iraq and he said Iraq why and the
guy said I don't know and then the
second part of the story was he came
back a week later or something and the
same guy said there's this memo that has
the seven countries and they say they
want to take them all in five years so
they meaning the office of the secretary
of defense so that's Donald Rumsfeld
who's not a neoonservative he's his own
separate thing here. He's the secretary
of defense, but all of his guys, all of
his most important guys are
neoconservatives. So the deputy
secretary of defense is Paul Wolawitz.
The deputy secretary of defense for
intelligence is Steven Kimone. The
deputy secretary of defense for policy
is Douglas Fe. And then under him is
Abram Scholsky and Bill Ludy and all of
these guys uh Michael Rubin and others
who were all working on this project to
get us into Iraq. And this is the
neoonservative network of power. We got
Scooter Libby and um David Worms would
travel around from state to defense to
the vice president's office. But you got
Scooter Libby and John Hannah in the
vice president's office. You got Zia
Khalil Zod and Elliot Abrams on the
National Security Council, Robert Joseph
and and Steven Hadley and and uh Eric
Edelman. All of these guys were already
the network of guys who agreed with this
policy going back through the 1990s. It
was what they had founded the project
for a new American century on. And so
what they're saying is we should not
tolerate any and remember the time in in
the they this was the stated doctrine.
We will not tolerate the existence of
any Middle Eastern regime that supports
terrorism and supports terrorism can
mean anything, right? Like Abu Nidal
died in Iraq before the war even started
and was a washed up old terrorist from a
previous day. But like that's good
enough. Got muja cult kami terrorists
who've worked for us ever since. But at
that time was a good enough excuse to
invade Iraq. They would invoke that. And
so they made up that doctrine.
>> The mujaheden were in Iraq as well as
Afghanistan.
>> Well, this is a particular sect of
Mujaheden Cougs who were Iranian
communist cultists who were had left
Iran and gone to work for Saddam Hussein
and then were you know he supported
them. They had nothing to do with
anti-American terrorism at that time
except you know uh I guess committing it
when they had worked for Iran previously
during the Iranian revolution. But by I
mean by the time we invaded Iraq, Donald
Rumsfeld inherited them and they've
worked for American Israel ever since
then. They have a base in Albania now.
But they in other words though this
wasn't al Qaeda. This was not any real
excuse. They would just invoke the
doctrine of fighting terrorism in order
to check off this list of all of these
governments that they didn't like. And
coincidentally and incidentally and very
importantly of course is this was really
in many cases Israel's list of enemies
where if it was say Colon Powell which
is what people thought they were voting
for in the year 2000 by the way well I
don't know about this W. Bush but at
least Coen Powell will be up there we
can trust him. They all said if it had
been up to him, we would have done a
two-state solution in Palestine and
solved that issue and then we would have
had probably the most limited of wars
against al-Qaeda and Afghanistan and
that would have been it. The rest of it
would have been police andor special
forces action. There would have been no
invasion of Iraq, which he did lie us
into that war and he's responsible for
that. But that was not his policy. That
was the policy that came out of the vice
president's office and this
neoonservative set. And it's really, as
Dave Smith correctly says, it's all
based on the clean break doctrine, which
David Wormser and Richard Pearl, oh, I I
neglected to mention Richard Pearl and
his friends on the Defense Policy Board,
but um Pearl and David Worms had written
up this policy paper called A Clean
Break in 1996, and they wrote it for
Netanyahu when he was first prime
minister, the first time back then. And
what it said was instead of going along
with the Oslo peace process and making a
deal with the Palestinians, we should
just forget all that and just we'll have
peace through a position of strength and
total dominance over our neighbors. And
so but the problem of course is we and
and of course meaning continue to devour
Palestine, what's left, the 22% of
what's left of historic Palestine in the
West Bank and Gaza. But the problem is
we have Hezbala on our northern border
and Hezbala is backed by Iran by way of
Syria. So if you just picture the Middle
East, you know, um if you want you can
throw up a map uh and just kind of show
there's this arc of power from Thran in
Iran through Syria and to Hezbala, this
Shiite militia in southern Lebanon. Now,
Saddam Hussein was the Sunni roadblock
in that arc of power. But these guys are
stupid, the neoconservatives. They're as
stupid as they are arrogant and certain
in their policy. And they believed in
this hairbrain scheme essentially that
the Jordanians and the Turks would be
dominant in the new Saddam Hussein less
Iraq. and that even though it's a
supermajority Shiite Arab country, those
Shiites, they just love being told what
to do by either their original plan was
the Hasheite king, the cousin of the
king of Jordan, and then they threw that
out. And it was the guy who sold them
this line that this was possible in the
first place, an Iraqi exile. You might
remember from that time, Ahmed Chalabi,
the head of the Iraqi National Congress.
They said, "Well, we'll just make him
the guy instead," which ended up not
happening. But that was their plan. And
they said the new Shiite dominated Iraq
will then the religious leaders in Iraq
will then force Hezbala to stop being
friends with Iran and start being
friends with Israel instead. And they'll
even build an oil pipeline to Hifa or
reopen the old British oil pipeline to
Hifa Israel. And they were sold this
bill of goods and they really believed
it. And so and you can find this on my
website scottorton.org. I have a clean
break, a new strategy for securing the
realm. And then the companion piece is
called Coping with Crumbling States, a
balance of power strategy for the
Levant. They're both by David Wormser,
signed off on by Richard Pearl. And then
they wrote a book where Worms wrote the
book and Richard Pearl wrote the
forward. It's called Tyranny's Ally.
America's failure to remove Saddam
Hussein. Get that? America's the ally of
Saddam just because we won't launch a
war to regime change him there right in
the title. and then based on the same
hairbrain scheme. And what's funny about
this is this guy David Wormser now tries
to defend himself and he did an
interview on a podcast not too long ago
with this uh born-again Christian about
September 11th and stuff and but he
talked about this and he's like yeah no
that's still right they'll do whatever
the hashemites tell them to do. Those
Shiites they just worship and revere
anyone who claims to have the blood of
the prophet. But if that was true, as
Dave Smith pointed out, well then how
come you can't just call the king of
Jordan right now and ask him to ask the
Ayatollah to knock it off? Call him and
ask have him ask Hezbala to stop being
friends with Iran? Why couldn't they
have just done that this whole time? Why
do you have to have a regime change in
Baghdad before you can make this magic
wish come true? And the whole thing is
completely stupid. And the Shiites do
revere some of the lineage of the family
of the prophet Muhammad. And but one,
it's not a magic spell of hypnosis and
total control over them. And two, that
has nothing to do with the Hashemites
who are Sunnis and a whole separate line
and are the British sock puppet kings of
Jordan who used to rule Iraq back 70
years ago or something, but have no
purchase there whatsoever. And of
course, what happened just real quick,
what happened then in the war was they
just empowered Iran. They didn't empower
Jordan and Turkey and America and Israel
over the Iraqis. They just gave Iran
even more power than they ever had
before. When it was all meant to screw
them over, it blew up in the American's
face.
>> This episode is brought to you by Zip
Recruiter. It's good to be passionate
about something. Exploring what
interests you adds more color to your
life. It makes it more fulfilling in a
way. And that's not just limited to your
personal life. If you run a business,
you know how much of a difference it can
make when the people on your team are
excited about what they're doing. And if
you don't, well, it's time to find out
with Zip Recruiter. Try it for free at
ziprecruiter.com/rogan.
It's been rated the number one hiring
site based on G2. And that's because Zip
Recruiter is always looking for ways to
improve the hiring process, including
its newest feature that lets you see the
most qualified and more importantly most
interested people for your role to make
sure they're some of the first you start
talking to. Find candidates who really
want your job on Zip Recruiter. Four out
of five employers who post on Zip
Recruiter get a quality candidate within
the first day. Try it for free at
ziprecruiter.comrogen.
That's ziprecruiter.comrogan.
Meet your match at zip reccruiter. Do
you think that that is because of total
incompetence and stupidity or do you
think that it was a scam and that they
were they kind of knew this was going to
happen in the first place, but what they
really wanted to do was sell a lot of
weapons, sell a lot of war, make a ton
of money. I mean, the amount of money
that was generated, how much money did
we spend on the Iraq war?
>> Oh, I mean, on Iraq alone, at least five
or seven trillion. I think it was
probably 10 trillion for the whole
terror war.
>> Let's stop and think about that. Five or
10 trillion. Let's just say five. Let's
be nice.
>> Yeah.
>> Where's that money going? How many
defense contractors were deeply enriched
by that? How many defense contractors
are involved in, you know, lobbyists,
policy, influencing change, influencing
certain actions? And why would they do
that? Why would they do that? Why would
they push a hairbrain scream? Is it
because of stupidity or is it because
they don't give a [ __ ] what the excuse
is? Let's get the party started.
>> I think
>> let's get some missiles. Let's get some
new planes.
>> Yeah. Okay. So,
>> boom boom. But, okay. So we can see
right in front of us right here where
Netanyahu convinced Trump this would be
easy and then it wasn't. And I think
that's the same thing here. Iraq was
supposed to be easy and it was easy
after all. Right? You send the Marines
to take Baghdad. They could take it. The
the the third infantry division and the
Marines were done regime changing the
place in what five weeks. But then it
was a matter of occupying the place and
the whole thing devolving into civil war
and all that. And I think well I'll put
it to you like this. in the clean break.
It might be in coping with crumbling
states, but it might even Yeah, I think
it's in coping with crumbling states,
which is the same thing.
>> Are we back?
>> Sorry about that. We had that stupid
glitch again.
>> Yeah, this is my
>> Did we Did we get a new computer?
>> I've done everything even. Yeah, I
talked to the company. They don't know
what's going on.
>> [ __ ]
>> Bummer.
>> Anyway,
>> I'm sorry. Let me uh
>> can I can I ask you this? Sure. So,
>> well, on the stupidity of the plan, I
think, look, plan A is it'll be fine,
and then plan B is, well, at least we
can make some money and and push this
thing on and let both sides fight and
weaken each other and these kinds of
attitudes for sure.
>> But that's the point. Like, did they
genuinely think that this plan would
work or was this plan just a feasible
excuse to talk them into getting the
party started? I I I have one good uh
argument in your favor there for sure,
which would be Senator Joe Biden at the
time insisted that we break Iraq into
three.
>> Our greatest president.
>> Yeah. Right there with the worst that
that that we draw these lines and
essentially enforce ethnic cleansing or
sectarian cleansing and create three
sort of many states within Iraq. And you
know, Anthony Blinkin was his right-hand
man then. And I mean that's who these
guys are is, you know, very very much I
mean uh Israel first, Israel instead
types.
>> Um there is something before the clean
break called the Od Yanan plan uh from I
believe 1981 which is a real riot to
read. It's this Israeli strategist
and the premise of the thing is that the
Soviet Union is certain to conquer the
entire planet. Talk about one world
government. We're about to have one
world communism, run out of Moscow, and
poor little Israel is going to be all
alone out here. So, we have no choice
but to smash every near Arab state into
as many waring tribal pieces as we
possibly can to weaken all of them
relative to us as this desperate
strategy. And of course, the Soviet
Union didn't exist anymore at all by the
end of the decade. But that was the
premise for the thing. And there's oh
and here's what I was going to say
before the glitch was there is a
statement in I think it's in coping with
crumbling states where he kind of says
yeah you know these states are pretty
artificial and without you know the
baist construct in Iraq and Syria you
would have these smaller tribal based
type units so then you know in other
words if you can't have a completely
compliant sock puppet there might as
well make them fight and and destroy
their countries. And that certainly
happened in the case of Iraq, certainly
happened in the case of Syria under
Obama as well where they just said,
"Look, if we can't get the al Qaeda guys
to sack Damascus and get rid of Assad,
at least we can just destroy the place."
>> Do you think there's a parallel in um
when we first went into Iraq like Desert
Storm? It was very easy, right?
Relatively,
minimal loss of American lives. And I
think everybody got a little cocky.
>> Oh, yeah. That absolutely was part of
that. Just like what we just saw with
Venezuela. It was so easy. And I mean,
people asked me right after Venezuela,
"What do you think this means for Iran?"
And I was like, "Bad news,
>> right?" Like, nobody thinks we're going
to go in there and kidnap the Ayatollah,
>> but if you can put eyeballs on them, you
can put a bomb on
>> they killed them. That's all you got to
do.
>> And that didn't even help.
>> Of course not.
>> It's like, and
>> is it true that whenever they've been
negotiating with someone, Israel kills
them?
>> I think that happened at least a couple
of times early in the war. Yeah. I mean,
that was what they said. In fact, was it
I forget if it was Vance or Trump who
said, "Well, we we can't say I think it
was Trump said, "We can't say who we're
negotiating with because they'll get
killed." And like, you're supposed to
think that what like hardliners in Iran
will kill them for trying to negotiate.
But no, this is the Israelis will kill
them. You know,
>> that is wild.
>> Yeah,
>> that's wild. It's wild that it's true.
Um,
one of the things that's not talked
about at all since Iran, I mean, rarely
talked about is Ukraine.
>> Yeah.
>> It's so strange how that kind of just
left people's consciousness.
>> It's like they now just concentrating
entirely on this Iran thing.
>> And the uh Ukraine thing is fascinating,
too, because it was one of the few wars
that I saw leftist support. It was very
interesting. It was like kind of right
after they put the masks and the
syringes down from their profiles. Then
it was Ukraine flags,
>> right? Mezer had a joke about that. Like
yeah, he starts out like hey invading
Ukraine is bad. Can't we all agree on
that? Like he really gives him like he
like leans on can't can't we all agree
that it's bad. He's like but it wasn't
cure for COVID. You got to admit, you
know. Um, and it was they just switched
from night to day on that. And then
yeah, the other thing and look, a big
part of that is Putin is a great standin
for Trump. If you're a angry liberal
something, you got to be angry at
something. And he represents now we're
the right
>> common turn and the Russians are the
more conservative Christian force. And
so like if not that Trump's a Christian,
but you know what I mean, and they're
anti-right everything that the Russians
are the right, not that the Ukrainians
are the left, but whatever. And Russia
is obviously the uh much larger country
and the one that invaded that crossed
the border first here and and and they
are the aggressor in the war. So, it's
as far as the narrative goes, it's easy
to justify sticking up for those, you
know, pluckucky defenders, which is, you
know, I was actually surprised,
but I shouldn't have been right when I
went to Oxford and lost that debate was
that was who was it wasn't not that they
were leftist, but they're liberals, you
know, or progressive type, you know,
college kids,
>> and they're just totally on the side of
Ukraine. And in fact, the question of
the debate was this house would rather
go to war with Russia than lose Ukraine.
And I thought that was just the most
ludicrous thing in the whole world.
That's not even debatable. They've got
Hbombs, 7,000 of them. We're not having
a war with Russia. I don't even know
what you're talking about this. And then
I should have made my case better
because they did not like me or my case
at all. They were so just staunchly for
Ukraine that they were willing to
support that that they think that
Britain should get into a war with
Russia over the Dawnbass, which is just
absurd. But I take responsibility for
not framing my argument well enough. I
just thought the question was so
ridiculous in the first place I would
barely have to make my case. I just
thought I'll just make a Hbomb joke and
that'll be the end of that. You know, I
said, "Haven't you ever seen Threads?
Have you ever seen Threads? It's like
the British version of The Day After
where Margaret Thatcher gets them nuked
in a war." It's like movie. Yeah.
remember the day after from 193 with
Steve Gutenberg and so this is the
Russians version from the same time
frame.
>> Oh,
>> and um
>> and I was like, "Haven't y'all seen
threads?" Which of course they haven't.
They're a bunch of little kids.
>> Well, they probably think it's that
social media app.
>> Yeah, right.
>> The Instagram one.
>> Yeah, exactly.
>> Um we should talk about like how this
whole thing got started in Ukraine
because most Americans don't even
realize that the United States kind of
overthrew the government there.
>> Yeah, absolutely. twice in 10 years.
>> Yeah.
>> In in the Orange Revolution of 2004 and
in uh 2014. And in fact, you know,
George Soros bragged that he had really
influenced the vote toward the
pro-Russian candidate in 1994. Um, you
know, back 10 years before that, he he
bragged about that in an interview with
um The New Yorker, Connie Brookke in the
New Yorker magazine. He said like real
estate investment trusts. I make it
happen with my investments, you know.
>> Um, and yeah,
>> and look, I mean, Russia and Ukraine
have a long and difficult history, but
the long and the short of it for our
purposes is that they wanted out at the
end of the Soviet Union. And in fact,
even embarrassingly for the Republicans,
George Bush Senior and his government
even intended the USSR to stay together.
They wanted not communism, but they
wanted Russia to be able to hang on to
Bellarus and Ukraine and at least some
of the stands. And but what happened was
really the Russians under Boris Yelen
overthrew the Soviet Union. The most
powerful member of the Soviet Union
overthrew what was left of it. And it
was actually in the aftermath of a
hardline commi coup in August of 1991
which failed. And so it was Boris
Yeltson who saved the day but then ended
up doing his own coup basically and just
destroying what was left of the USSR and
and kicking Mal Gorbachov out. So
>> So why did the United States um get
involved in Ukraine and why did they
stage a coup?
>> Yeah. Well, so it's been a contest for
dominance there ever since. Right. And
so back to the wolfawitz doctrine that
and and they talked about this in
rebuilding America's defenses the uh pac
strategy document from the 1990s 1998 I
guess um and I believe in in the defense
plan and guidance of that he wrote 1992
uh wolitz um that we got to expand NATO
into Eastern Europe and this is the
debate at the time was whether to
include Russia or not but but and in
fact in the 90s there were some people
expo who opposed expansion alto
together. But then there was another
school of thought that just said, "Well,
we'll expand, but we'll bring the
Russians in." But then they never did.
And so they ended up expanding the
military alliance up to Russia's border
in a threatening manner and in a way
that did not include them at all. And
they had alternatives like the
Partnership for Peace. And before that,
what we still have the OCE, the
Organization for Security or Yeah.
Security and Cooperation in Europe where
those had been brought up as
alternatives to NATO where NATO would be
more political. This is what James Baker
and uh under HWB Bush and Warren
Christopher under Bill Clinton had
promised the Russians that we're going
to make NATO a political organization
and we're going to have as a security
organization it'll be the OCE or the PFP
which will include you guys and which
was not true. They're basically you know
never really meant to live up to those
promises. So um it's not a perfect
analogy, but imagine if America had lost
the Cold War from all the spending in
the 1980s and then the Soviets had come
to dominate Western Europe and then they
started moving into the Caribbean and
then they started overthrowing the
government in Canada when they voted
wrong. And this is Ukraine is Russia's
Canada, right? Kazakhstan's their
Mexico. Ukraine's their Canada. It's
their most important neighboring state
other than maybe Barus, but same
difference here. And so, um,
>> that narrative gets lost here.
>> Yes, it does. And
>> it's weird because it's so obvious when
you lay it out like that and when you
look at the agreement that was made at
the fall of the Soviet Union that they
wouldn't push arms closer to the border
of Russia and yet they consistently did
that.
>> Absolutely. And by the way, so let's
talk about that for just a second
because people dispute that and say it's
not true, but it is true. And in fact,
HW Bush gave the first promise to
Gorbachev in Malta in December of 1989
that if you let the Eastern European
Warsaw packed states go, not the Soviet
republics, but the Warsaw packed states,
if you let them go, we promise not to
take advantage. Like full stop. That's
it. 100%. And then from there, and and I
cover all this in my book, Provoke. Um,
and I I it's even overkill on the
research because I wasn't sure where to
stop. So, it's all there for you where
it wasn't just on February the 9th. It
was all of these meetings over the
course of months where the Americans,
the British, and especially the Germans,
but with the Americans standing right
there in many cases too, affirmed to the
Russians, the Soviets, and then the
Russians over and over again that we are
not coming, we are not going to
integrate Poland, we're not going to
integrate Hungary, then Czechoslovakia,
which hadn't split apart yet. Um, and we
have no intention of doing that. And
that was, you know, came from Hans
Dietrich Genture, the foreign minister
of Great Britain, as well as Helmet
Cole, the chancellor, uh, Margaret
Thatcher, and John Major, the prime
ministers of England, and, um, Douglas
Herd, their foreign minister, and, um,
even Francois Midarand, the president of
France, and along with George Bush's
government over and over again promised
them that we're not going to do this.
And then they just went ahead anyway.
And the Clintons, uh, you know, went
along with it, too. And in fact in the
in the Clinton years one of the major
proponents of NATO expansion was a guy
named Strobe Talbot who originally
opposed it. And by the way so when all
of the anybody in that era whenever they
on on America's side or on the west side
whenever they opposed this it was always
for one reason. There was no like
variety of reasons. It was always one
reason. This is an unnecessary
provocation against the Russians. These
are our friends who just overthrew the
communists for us. So why would we pick
a fight with them? Why would we
disrespect them? We should be doing
everything we can to integrate them into
the west, into Europe, into everything.
And this is totally unnecessarily
antagonistic. That was the one and only
reason and it was brought up by a lot of
people including famously George Kennan
who had coined the containment policy
against the Soviet Union in the 1940s
and you know uh was had been ambassador
to Moscow and he was the one who said we
got to contain communism. Well, now he's
saying we should not be trying to
contain Russia when they didn't do
anything. And he said, in fact, in an
interview in the New York Times in 1998,
Kennan said, and he was the most highly
respected Russia expert out of all of
the old so-called foreign policy
graveyards, and he told Thomas Freeman
in the New York Times, he goes, "I'll
tell you exactly what's going to happen
here, okay? We're going to expand NATO
right up close to Russia, and we're
going to get a negative reaction from
the Russians. And then as soon as we do,
all of the people who are now telling us
that'll never happen. Don't worry about
it." Will then say, "Aha, see, that's
how the Russians are. That's why we have
to do this, which is exactly what they
say now. See, the Russians are coming.
That's why we need NATO more than ever
before when it was building up NATO more
than ever before was what created this
antagonistic relationship in the first
place. And then, you know, and I should
specify I am from Austin, Texas. I don't
have any connection to Russia
whatsoever. I don't give a damn about
Russia whatsoever. Has nothing to do
with favoring their side of the story or
whatever. This is like whatever. What
can I say? I reluctantly admit that and
I'm not saying this is a good enough
reason for war, but I'm saying that this
is true essentially in his declaration
of war when Putin said that basically we
tried independence. We tried letting
Ukraine be an independent country. But
it turns out that no, it just became a
colony of the United States of America.
It's totally controlled by America. So
well, but we're just not going to stand
for that, you know. So we're going to
intervene. We're going to do what we
have to do at least to mitigate that. If
America is still going to control Kiev,
then at the very least we're going to
control the Dawnbass and the south uh
southeastern coast here. And so I'm not
saying that's a good enough reason to do
what he did. But I'm saying that was
essentially true that America had, you
know, almost like it was a a British
colony, just had total sock puppets in
charge of that country. In fact, there's
a a clip that I quote extensively. It's
one of the only block quotes in my book
cuz I got rid of almost all of them for
space. But I I think I have the block
quote of Victoria Nuland testifying.
That's Robert Kagan's wife. Um very
important neoonservative worked in Dick
Cheny's office in the W. Bush years and
everything. Um helped you know cause all
this problem. And she goes on and on
describing the level of
what can you call that infiltration
essentially of the Ukrainian government
by the United States. That she says we
have our people, State Department people
and whoever working at every level of
the Ukrainian government throughout
their police services, throughout their
military, throughout their judicial
branch, throughout, you know, and and
out in the provinces and everywhere.
We're doing everything we can to control
everything that's going on in that
country. And you know the Wikileaks are
very uh beneficial on this story because
they show where the Americans understand
clearly by the Americans I mean
Washington, the State Department,
whatever these guys that um they know
good and well that Ukraine is deeply
divided especially politically on
questions like whether they should join
the NATO alliance or whether they rather
be closer to Russia, try to split the
difference and stay out of it or
anything like that. And so they say,
"Well, so we just have to push then.
We'll just have to spend tens of
millions of dollars on massive
propaganda campaigns and we'll just have
to make sure to support the candidates
that support us and our wishes." And
essentially it's America, you know, the
the book is called, sorry I keep
mentioning the book, but it's how
Washington provoked how Washington
started the new cold war with Russia and
the catastrophe in Ukraine. I'm not
blaming on Kiev. on blaming it on
essentially Bush Senior through Joe
Biden that they all of them had such a
ham-handed Russia policy that it led to
this. It's just fascinating that this
perspective is not being discussed or
wasn't being discussed when it was in
the news every day. When people were
talking about Russia and Ukraine, it was
always that Russia had done this
horrible thing and attacked Ukraine,
which was horrible,
>> of course,
>> but no one gave any background. No, no
one really talked about and make made
the comparison to imagine if the Soviet
Union or Russia rather took over Canada,
>> right?
>> You know, or was proxying Canada.
>> Yeah, exactly. Or if they went back at
all, they would go, well, you know, this
all started when Russia seized Crimea.
>> But of course, they seized Crimea as a
direct reaction to America overthrowing
the government and the so-called
revolution of dignity in February 2014.
And uh so then it's a complicated mess,
but Crimea happened after that. But they
just want to start history at places
where it's the most convenient for them.
>> And there's also the control of Ukraine
is also connected to resources, right? I
mean there's immense amounts of
minerals, natural gas, there's trillions
of dollars of that stuff there
>> that and this also connects Bisma to the
Biden administration, right?
>> Yes. So
like I would not buy anyone arguing that
these minerals or these resources are
somehow crucial for the United States of
America, for the American people, for
our betterment or anything like that.
only as Ross Perau called them the
special interests right Chevron wants
that oil and Cargill and Archer Daniels
Midland and Monsanto have investments in
those grains and so this is about them
but that isn't necessarily us you look
at you know whatever benefit they have
to our GMP or GDP is negligible
certainly not worth starting a war or
anything like that these are all the
free riders these are you know the
excuse makers for this kind of policy
but Essentially, I think what it really
is is just trying to keep Russia weak
and offbalance as much as possible. And
you know, like there's this um uh really
important Rand Corporation study that
was published in 2019. So the Rand
Corporation is a Pentagon sponsored
think tank, but it's out in Santa
Barbara. They put it in California so it
would be somehow a little bit less
political, a little insulated from East
Coast stuff and be able to come up with
their thing. But that's that's basically
who they are. So, of all the think
tanks, they're like the most directly
connected to the Pentagon itself. And
they came up with this thing. It's
called extending Russia. And by
extending Russia, they mean
overextending them. Mean, in other
words, how to provoke them into
overextending themselves
>> like during the Cold War.
>> Right. Exactly. So, what cause small
trouble for them in as many places as we
can just to bog them down with expenses
and commitments. So, we want to at that
time the the pipeline wasn't complete
yet. So we want to intervene with
sanctions whatever we can to disrupt the
Nordstream pipeline. They said maybe we
could try to overthrow the government of
Barus again which they actually did in
2020. Um they had done it before in 2005
and 2001 failed all three times. Um
which if they did that boy that might
lead right to a nuclear war right there.
You don't want to succeed in a
especially a bloody if it turned bloody
a coup in Barus. My god. Um but anyway
uh then they said we could increase uh
weapons to the jihadists in Syria. We
could try to overthrow the government of
Kazakhstan. We could increase support
for the uh Ukrainian military. And
what's interesting about this, so in
other words, see how they're saying do
all these things to essentially agitate
the Russians to keep them off balance,
to keep them bogged down, to keep them
spending money they can't afford to
spend, right? But then all throughout it
they have all these disclaimers where
they say, "Don't listen to us. If you do
this, it'd be terrible." Like if you
overthrow the government of Barus,
the Russians might just invade it
immediately and station nuclear weapons
there to make the point, right? if we
support the jihadists in Syria, they
could break out of the Idlib province
and sack Damascus and then we'd have an
al Qaeda government in Damascus, which
is of course exactly what happened at
the end of 24. They said we could
increase support for the what was then
the ongoing civil war that had broken
out after the revolution in 2014.
We could increase support for the
Ukrainian side of that or the Kiev side
of that war, but then that could provoke
the Russians into a full-scale invasion
of the country, which would of course be
terrible for Baroo, I mean for Ukraine
and terrible for the United States, a
massive expense for us, a humiliation
for as far as our international standing
and prestige and of course untold chaos
for the people of Ukraine. And so we
better be real careful about pursuing
these policies. And then I swear you
look at how Biden ran things and it was
like he got that memo just without any
of the disclaimers and they just went
ahead and did all of these things. And
in fact they were doing they were
messing around. It was actually the last
year of Trump that they uh tried to
overthrow Barus. Uh so that was
independent of of Biden's wishes that
was already going on. And then they were
messing around in Kazakhstan in January
of 22 right on the eve of war. right
when you might have hoped that the
entire, you know, pressure in Washington
was to try to figure out a way to avoid
war to prevent this from breaking out.
What kind of deal might we have to make
with Putin to try to prevent him from
invading Ukraine as they're threatening
to do? And we're building up their
forces in preparation for it. And then
what do they do? They support an armed
insurrection in Kazakhstan, which is
that's the big one right on Russia's
southern border there. Out of all the
stands, it's the most important one.
which is just madness. And it goes to
show that that's essentially what
they're up to when it comes to that is
just, you know, if we can't overthrow
Putin, we're going to still weaken him,
hem him in, surround him, agitate him,
and force him to make commitments. And
of course, this is what this is why the
war's been going on for four years.
America could tell Kiev under Biden or
under Trump that look, you guys are just
going to have to compromise here.
Obviously, you've lost, you know, all of
Luhansk and most of Donetsk and, you
know, at least half of Zaprosia and
Kursan. And so, just make a deal, figure
it out, and and we're not supporting you
anymore. Instead, what they say,
remember, they said over and over again,
we want to inflict a strategic defeat on
Russia. Russia might win the war or but
no, we promise they won't, but yeah, but
if it takes a long time, good. And in
fact, I have a collection of quotes in
the book where politicians and pundits
and all these people would say, and
maybe they still say this, "We're
getting such a good bang for our buck in
Ukraine." Because just think about it,
Russian soldiers are dying, but American
soldiers are not. So, all we got to do
is we just give them money and then they
go fight. And then sometimes they
wouldn't even make any reference to the
Ukrainian soldiers at all. Hundreds of
thousands of whom have been killed.
Hundreds of thousands who of whom have
been hor uh you know horrifically
maimed. Uh the a major part of this
country completely destroyed. Huge
segments of their population fleeing the
country as refugees many of whom to
never come home again. Right? A total
destabilization of their culture and
society in every way. And then but you
can tune in to Fox News or hell the
Democrats too talking about or maybe
worse that oh but we're getting such a
good bang for our buck because we're
killing Russians. We're sending them
home in body bags. We're sending them
home in coffins. We're even killing
their generals in the field. But none of
our guys are dying. He as though the
Ukrainians don't matter at all. And
that's the way they think of it. This is
inflicting costs on the Russians. Joe
Biden would say that over and over
again. It's almost like the underpants
gnomes thing with the first he steal the
underpants then question mark question
mark question mark and then profit not
really sure
>> I don't know what that is
>> oh and South Park the poor I think it's
butters the underpants gnomes are
stealing his underwear and they're
trying to explain how this is supposed
to work and they don't really have it
worked out what they're going to do with
the underpants but they're sure they're
going to make a lot of money in the end
and that's the same kind of thing here
where they skip the step about well is
this really weakening Russ uh Vladimir
Putin's regime or maybe it's
strengthening his regime is it, you
know, increasing American power and
influence in the region or in fact we're
shown as sort of a paper tiger ourselves
and we've done more than, you know, you
could have imagined to push Russia
towards China and toward the rest of
Eurasia. Um, you know, Joe Biden is
essentially deliberately trying to
prevent them from being part of European
civilization to and to emphasize their
turn to the east. That seems to me to be
a terrible mistake, you know, and I
think part of it is part of the longer
term cold war with China, too. And and
there you you hear them talk about this,
Joe. They'll say, you know, essentially
Russia's friends with China. So, there's
two things we can do there. And this is
what I think Trump would prefer to do
would be just make friends with Russia
and pull them away from China. Maybe
he's already decided it's too late for
that or he doesn't know how. Um, and
then the other side was no, lure Russia
into Eastern Europe. bog them down so
they're no use to China. Um, you know,
weaken their power, give inflict them on
them this strategic defeat in Ukraine so
that then they won't be as useful to
China in our cold war with them or
worse. And which I think is stupid and
didn't work. I think that was the the
choice that Joe Biden made and I think
it was totally wrong because it just
strengthened the relationship between
Russia and China. The Russians have a
huge new pipeline that they opened,
well, not that new, about 12 years ago
that they opened to China and they keep
adding to it. So, they're able to sell
all the hydrocarbons they want and the
Chinese will burn every hydrocarbon you
got. So, you know, they really don't
need Europe. You know, Joe Biden kicked
them out and basically solidified their
economic break with Europe uh totally
unnecessarily, but in a way that didn't
really hurt Russia. And the blowing up
of the Nordstream pipeline was a part of
this. This was the to disconnect their
oil supply or the natural gas supply to
Europe.
>> Yeah. In fact, more specifically, right,
it was to to make this break between to
solidify the break between Germany and
Russia. The previous German chancellor,
Angela Merkel, she had this project she
called Eurasian home. And and what she
was trying to do was balance American
and Russian interests in Europe. And
then they were closing down all their
nuclear stuff, all the green movement,
you know, environmental stuff. They
closed down all their nuclear in
Germany. And then the idea was, don't
worry, we're going to import all this
clean burning uh CH4 from the uh
Russians. And then but to the Americans,
this is the worst thing that could
happen would be an alliance or this
strengthening any any part of any
strengthening relationship or or budding
relationship between the Germans and the
Russians because with um you know German
manufacturing power and Russian raw
materials and both of their at least
potential military strength that if they
have an alliance and dominate Eastern
Europe, they can keep everybody else
out. And so I think that has always been
the British and the American fear there.
And you know there's um here in Austin
there's that sort of uh corporate CIA
Strat for run by this guy George
Freriedman.
>> What is it?
>> Strat for it stands for strategic
forecasting. They do dirty tricks. Yeah.
It's here in Austin. Oh no. They they do
some dirty tricks but I think
>> they mostly like do like you know pseudo
CIA briefings for corporations and
stuff. Let them know what's going on in
the world. That kind of thing. mostly
their emails got leaked on uh
wikileaks.org work uh years ago and you
know they're involved they're they're
close with some of these color-coded
revolutionaries and anyway I don't know
them or anything but their leader is a
guy named George Freriedman and I'll
give him credit I know he opposed Iraq
war I in 2003 because I heard him on the
radio back then but um I mean I'm not
vouching for the guy as like uh a good
guy or whatever but just to say he's
sort of like a realist school foreign
policy analyst type
>> um not too ideological or anything like
that and he gave a speech years ago
where he says and this is the key words
primordial fear. This is the primordial
fear of American you know imperial
policy planners is that you would have
an alliance between the Germans and the
Russians. And so anything that we can do
to prevent that we'll do. Now I don't
know exactly who blew up that pipeline
but I'm sure they had at least the
support of the United States. Seymour
Hirs has it that it was American
military guys who did it. Um which I
think I don't know. And then there's a
whole cover story about this yacht. And
then there's six different versions of
who rented this yacht and whether it was
used and whether it was robots or
whether it was divers or whatever. And
it's all meant to confuse and but this
episode is brought to you by Visible.
Ah, spring is in the air, which means
time for some spring cleaning. We're
cleaning out the garage and finally
tossing those mystery cords. But while
you're cleaning out your junk drawer,
take a look at your wireless bill. Don't
fall for wireless traps, tacked on fees,
confusing bills, and empty promises.
Join Visible and cut out the nonsense.
With Visible, you get unlimited 5G data
and hotspot on Verizon's network for one
flat cost. Just $25 a month, taxes and
fees included. It's everything you need
and nothing you don't. Plus, for a
limited time, new members can get the
Visible plan for just $20 a month for
one year using code fresh start. Refresh
your wireless with visible. Head to
visible.com to get started. Terms apply,
limited time offer, subject to change.
See visible.com for plan features and
network management details.
>> The bottom line is nobody wants to know,
right? Seymour Hirsh, what did he say
happened?
>> He said that it was um miners based out
of Pensacola, Florida. Meaning not
pickaxe miners or children, but meaning
divers that go down and disable sea
mines.
>> That that was their expertise. Those
were the guys that they sent to do it.
>> And that was in I think he did that in
the London Review books or something
like that.
>> Is is that disputed?
>> Yeah. um and including by people who
blame the Ukrainians and people who
blame
um I don't know like Polish or I guess
Polish uh groups or whatever. They had
all these different investigations that
all led different directions. I know
Jeremy I think Jeremy Scill had one
version of it and then James Bamford who
I really respect. He's the guy that
wrote all the books about the National
Security Agency over the years. um and
he had it that it was the Ukrainians and
they used robots to do it and he's you
know sused that out through documents
and stuff and decided that that must
have been what had happened and you know
there so I don't know there's there's
six different versions of it and I have
I'm not choosing which is the favorite
here but I think it's clearly was in
America's interest and and of course Joe
Biden and Victoria Nuland have both sort
of cheekily said we're not going to let
this proceed and if they do we we will
do whatever it takes to stop it and so
Evidently they did
>> and you could see how they would
consider that to be, you know, what they
would be trying to prevent would be this
strengthened relationship.
>> Gas going now. Is it just pouring right
into the ocean?
>> Well, eventually they capped it, but I
think it was the biggest release of
methane into the atmosphere ever. It was
a huge thing. It was a massive, if you
were a liberal, progressive, Democrat,
environmentalist type, that ought to be
like the most offensive thing you ever
heard of.
>> Yeah. That's way worse than cowbs.
>> Oh yeah.
>> Remember they were worried about cow
burps?
>> Yeah, that's centuries worth of cowbs,
man. Centuries worth.
>> Jesus. So the Kazakhstan Kazakhstan
thing I had never heard of. I I I hadn't
heard a peep about that. I had no idea
that we were meddling in Kaz Kazakhstan.
>> Yeah, it was one of those where much
like what just happened in Iran in
January where there's uh protest over
some economic policy. I think in that
case they had cut the gas ration or
something like that and and it's you
know it's a country that's divided by
ethnicity. Those borders are in all the
wrong places and whatever. So you have
sort of the ruling cast and the people
on the outs and whatever. So
>> you had a big protest movement and then
all of a sudden there's armed gangs of
guys killing cops, seizing police
stations, trying to seize airports and
and this kind of thing. And um and then
what happened was the Russians invaded.
They sent regular troops across. They
were asked by the government there to
come and intervene. And they sent
troops. They crushed the insurrection.
And then it was funny because Anthony
Blinken said, "Oh, there's a lesson.
When the Russians come, they don't ever
want to leave." And then the next day
they turned around and left. And then
they invaded Ukraine. They haven't left
there since. But um
>> so who were these insurrectionists?
>> I don't know. I mean, I think presumably
they worked for the CIA and probably the
Turks or something, you know? I don't
know.
>> Just smirks.
>> Yeah, them too.
>> Yeah. And so this whole thing was just
what you were saying earlier, just to
try to get Russia to be spread as thin
as possible, spend as much money as
possible, cause as many problems in as
many places as possible.
>> Yeah. And in fact, the same George
Freriedman from Stratfor I think it's in
that same speech or maybe a different uh
one where he says, "Yeah, when when Iran
is doing a little bit better, you hit
them. When Russia's doing better, you
hit them. when China's achieving a thing
or two, you hit them. You do whatever
you can to always be effing with
everybody all the time in order to, you
know, that's how to press your
advantage, which I think is totally just
short-sighted. It's high time
preference, you know, sort of government
thinking, right? That like, well, if we
can get away with this now, we should
without really thinking about the
long-term consequence. In fact, that was
one of the things that failed to impress
at Oxford that I brought up that that I
thought was crucial that is in my book
is Strobe Talbet, Bill Clinton's guy who
originally opposed NATO expansion and
then later championed it in 2018 when it
was the middle of the war, the the civil
war so-called with America supporting
Kiev and the Russians supporting the
so-called rebels on the other side. Um,
a New York Times reporter named Keith
Gesson went and interviewed Strobe
Talbot and
it just kind of went without saying that
like clearly what is going on here is
the project of NATO expansion has sort
of blown up and caused all these
problems. You know, what are we going to
do and and what do you think now pal? I
forgot exactly the way you phrase it but
it's sort of you know what do you have
to say for yourself strobe and so strobe
Thomas says well listen he goes when
you're in power you have one job and
that is to pursue your nation's national
interests and if you don't do that well
then you won't be in power very long so
that was what we had to do but then he
says now maybe should we have had a
higher wiser conception of our national
interest
maybe. In other words, at the time, what
they were thinking is we want Lockheed
dollars and we want Polish votes for
1996, Illinois's crucial swing state,
right? So, or was, I don't know if it
still is. Uh, so that's why we got to do
this because it's in America's national
interest that Bill Clinton get reelected
and we all get to keep our jobs. So,
we're going to we're going to make these
promises to these people and pursue this
policy for our narrow interests as
rulers of the empire. But then, if he
had had a higher, wiser conception of
America's national interest, he might
have thought, wow, are we scheduling a
military conflict with Russia for the
next century, maybe we shouldn't do
that. Maybe we should look at it like
actually nothing in the world is more
important than America continuing to get
along with the Russians. And again, when
the communists are long gone, so
whatever problem you have with these
guys, it ain't Stalinism and it ain't
evangelical Marxism at the point of a
rifle, right? I mean, this is just
whatever it is, we can deal with it. And
um and so no, they chose the lower
dumber conception of America's national
interest instead of the higher wiser one
and they blew it. You know,
>> is there anyone that's ever made the
argument to you like where you've had
these debates where you have a utopian
perspective on international relations
and that this libertarian ideology of
like staying out of people's business,
staying out of the what you'll do if you
don't [ __ ] with the Russians, you don't
keep them spending, you don't keep them
stretched out, they'll just amass more
and more power and then they'll start to
try to take over what was traditionally
the Soviet Union. What was it originally
the Soviet Union?
>> Yeah. You know, it it just so happens,
right, that America never leaves anybody
alone. So, we just don't have a
controlled experiment, right? We're
constantly provoking and everything that
we see them do is clearly a reaction.
And just like when we talk about
terrorism, again, I'm not in any way
justifying it, but I'm just saying we
have so much intervention preceding the
terrorism. You have to be able to
attribute that. Yes. But now, so how
would things be otherwise? For example,
if HW Bush had just said, "Okay, well,
we won the Cold War. Pat Buchanan's
right. Let's just come home and had
brought the empire home from Europe."
Then what would happen is the Germans
would have reunified and then they would
have joined into a new European Union
army with the British and the French and
probably the Poles. And then it would
have been on them to keep the peace
between each other, to police the
smaller countries in their region, and
hopefully strike a long-term security
partnership with the new red, white, and
blue Republican Russians. And you know,
if people want to say, but and in fact,
the other side in that debate at Oxford,
Daniel Frerieded said, "Yeah, but it was
Poland wanted to join our alliance. It's
not like we made them. They wanted to.
But the thing is, yeah, they might have
reason to fear Russia based on old
things, but the question is, why are we
obligated to be the guarantor of their
independence? It's it's too far from
here, and it's something that we're no
good at. We only cause problems and
something that
>> the other European states, who are all
Western Christian capitalist democracies
and friends of ours, that they can all
work together and solve on their own. I
mean when Germany reunified it's not
like the commies were taken over it was
the west that was dominant in the new
Germany right these are our pals there's
no reason a world that America should
have had to have well for example like a
big part part of the horrible war in the
Balkans was because of a contest for
power between America and Germany over
who's going to be dominant in the former
Yugoslavia. we should just let the
Germans have it or I mean not have it
and kill everybody or whatever, but God,
it could hardly have been worse than
what America helped to cause there by
trying to compete with the Germans for
dominance in a land that's quite
literally 6,000 miles from here.
>> But is the fear from the American side
that if you let other countries
consolidate power, if you let them grow
in influence without [ __ ] with them
and keeping them spread out like we're
doing with Russia,
>> Yeah. that they'll eventually get
stronger and then they'll become a real
problem and they keep them weak, keep
them distracted, keep them engaged in
this Ukraine conflict and Kazakhstan and
anything else you can cook up. Yeah.
>> And that keeps them down.
>> Well, it's like this. When it was the
Cold War against the comm Soviet Union,
I was a kid and it's I'm not an expert
on all of that history. I think there
were real questions about the dangers of
world communism at that time where at
least I'd be willing to hear you out.
But since the end of the cold war,
no, there's just no justification for it
because as Bill Hicks would say, right?
Like just spin the globe, man. There's
no countries out there, right? Every
power in Europe is our friend and no
threat to us and mean us no harm
whatsoever. There are no powers in in
Egypt, I mean, pardon me, in Africa that
count at all except for Egypt, which is
our friend. India will be a power in a
hundred years from now. Uh China is a
rising power but we've been their
friends for 50 years. Even when they
were still communists, Nixon went and
made friends with them in the early
1970s and then the Soviet Union. Yeah.
And then
>> but aren't they constantly infiltrating
our different universities and people
>> I ain't endorsing that. You can keep
them out. But
>> but Chinese infiltration is kind of
crazy like what they're what they're
doing in America. It's like if you're
saying they're our friends, you know,
the mayor of Arcadia just got busted.
>> She was a communist spy. She's a [ __ ]
mayor of a city in California.
>> I'm putting that on the FBI counter
intelligence division. That should have
never been allowed to happen in the
first place. Um, and no, I don't mean
that they're totally benign. But look, I
worst case scenario, China invades or
just surrounds and forcibly reintegrates
Taiwan. That doesn't mean they're going
to invade Korea. It doesn't mean they're
going to invade Japan or Australia or or
have the appetite to want to do that. I
think China is already a pretty
overextended empire and it's very poor
in many parts of it and they have
something is it 14 or 15 neighbors that
they got to deal with already. you know,
their their greatest ambition is to
build this um uh you know what, highway
and and and fiber optics and whatever
from Shanghai to Lisbon, right? This
what do they call it? The why am I
forgetting the name of the damn thing?
The the great uh the the great new
highway they're trying to build all the
way across Eurasia.
>> Um
>> they can't do that by intimidating
everyone and lording it over everyone.
They got to cut through Tajikistan. You
know, these are wild lands. They got to
make deals the whole way across if
they're going to do that. If you know,
they they're and and if you look at the
way they're building their empire so
far, it's all just briefcases,
you know,
>> right?
>> Governmentbacked businesses making deals
and buying up resources and stuff. But I
I I really don't think that Xiinping is
looking at George W. Bush and Barack
Obama and Donald Trump and Joe Biden and
going, "Yeah, that's what I want to do
for my country is blow my own brains out
trying to take over the whole rest of
the planet Earth."
>> Well, and you know, you know, just to
point to what you're saying is like
China's not invading anybody.
>> They're not.
>> They're not doing what we're doing.
>> And I'm not saying they're nice guys or
whatever, but they don't rule us and
they're no threat to North America. They
have no need to pick a fight with us.
People say, "Oh, you got all your
microchip factories on Taiwan." Well,
then move them to Austin. We've had
advanced micro devices here for 30 years
or whatever, 35 years, maybe more than
that. They can build that stuff here.
>> They can, but they tried. It's very
difficult. The thing about what they've
got going on in Taiwan, the reason why
Taiwan is the head of it is that they're
far more advanced than anybody else in
the world at doing it.
>> Bring them.
>> Yeah, you would have to. You That's a
lot.
>> I thought you were going to say it was
something special about the saltwater
over there or something.
>> No, no, no, no, no. They're just way
ahead of everybody else. I mean, in
fact, didn't Samsung try to do a chip
manufacturing plant in Texas, and I
think their yields were so poor, I I
don't know what the actual story with
that is. So,
I'm speaking way over my pay scale here,
but I think what it is is you have to
have like certain tolerances when you're
creating these chips, and they weren't
achieving what they were trying to
achieve despite spending an enormous
amount of money. So, it's not as simple
as build a plant, the schematics are
there, you just crank out chips. Like,
apparently these chips are super
complicated to make.
>> Sure.
>> Not worth it. No, not worth I'm not
saying it's worth harding, but I'm just
saying that this idea just move them to
Austin. I don't think it's that easy.
>> I think chip manufacturing is one of the
most complex technological challenges.
>> Yeah.
>> In 2026.
>> Yeah. I don't know. I mean, we've had um
I I don't know what all AMD does here,
but I'm pretty sure that that um them
and Samsung and others have, you know,
all the facilities they need here to
>> I don't want to.
>> That's quite true.
>> Or they should be able to
>> they maybe could with enough resources
and time and maybe stole all the [ __ ]
eggheheads from Taiwan and bring them
over here, all the geniuses that have
figured out how to make those chips.
>> Maybe. Maybe they wouldn't let them. But
what is what happened with the Samsung
chip factory?
>> It's not has it's never been fully open
and it's not done yet for
>> Okay.
>> But what was there was
>> I used to be a reneop at some pretty
fancy factories here, you know, back 25
years ago.
>> Oh, yeah. What kind of factories?
>> Uh I think it would have been AMD or
andor Samsung. some pretty fancy like uh
chip fabrication and stuff like that.
>> Well, let's ask perplexity. Let's ask
>> and I did have a job being a rent cop
because these skate parking garages at
work and do my homework at work. It was
great.
>> Yeah, easy job for the most part, right?
Just free time. Um let's ask perplexity.
Why are all the why are so many chip
manufacturers in Taiwan?
because I'm pretty sure there's
something about the advancements that
they've made in chip manufacturing that
no one's been able to replicate.
Otherwise, it doesn't make sense that
China wouldn't just make their own.
>> Yeah.
>> Like they're right there.
>> I read this thing not long ago about how
like with the China's AI stuff, they
figured out how to write their program
where they need much less computing
power to do the same kind of effort in
the way that they did it. So, they just
found their own workound.
>> You know what I mean?
>> Well, they also there's a lot of
espionage going on too. Yeah, probably
>> um a lot of the world's chip
manufacturers is in Taiwan because the
island deliberately built a specialized
ecosystem around contract chip
fabrication foundaries then compounded
that early lead with huge investment,
dense clustering of suppliers and talent
and strong government support over
several decades. So early strategic bet
on manufacturing
starting in the 1980s, Taiwan chose to
focus on precision manufacturing,
fabricating chips for others instead of
trying to build its own big consumer
tech brands. And then their dominance
and scale. Yeah. Founded in ' 87. Now
the world's leading contract TSMC,
the leading contract chip manufacturer
produces over half of the world's
advanced semiconductors and more than
90% of the most cuttingedge nodes.
because of advanced fabs. Uh because
advanced fabs cost tens of billions of
dollars and must run near full capacity
to be profitable. Only a few players can
keep up and Taiwan's leader kept pulling
ahead as others dropped out.
>> See, that's what I'm talking about. Like
I don't think it's easy.
>> The biggest thing was that the uh no
customers is what kept popping up here.
>> What is that?
>> No, there are no customers.
>> I mean the thing is at the same time
>> huge problem delays because there's no
one to buy them. But why not?
>> I don't mean to run capacity then it's a
lot probably
>> we got Samsung and Dell and AMD and IBM
here. I mean seems like they can invest
their own money and build their own
whatever they need to, right?
>> But just read what they said there about
the amount of money that's involved in
keeping it running. Like I think they're
so I think the idea about Taiwan and
again this is not really my area of
expertise. Not that I have any, but that
they're so far ahead that this process
that they bet on early on that they've
got their manufacturing to this point
where they've already invested this
enormous amount of money and the money
and they have to keep them running
constantly. I don't I don't I don't
think it's simple. I don't think it's
like car manufacturers.
>> And then no, by no customers, you mean
that essentially everybody who needs
these chips is already getting them from
Taiwan. There's not much more demand
than that.
>> Well, not necessarily. It could just
mean that they already have contracts
that they don't need them because
they've already, you know, made
commitments to Taiwan chip manufactur.
If if Beijing is a military threat to
Taiwan and these people would rather not
be under the rule of Beijing and the
Communist Party, then there's a pretty
big incentive for them to move to Texas.
>> There is. But again, what I'm saying is
I don't think it's a simple step. I
think I don't think it's just like move
here. I think it's an enormous
investment in capital like beyond normal
things. And then I think to keep them
running is an insane commitment. It's
very difficult. And again, if Samsung
doesn't have any
>> if right now they don't have any
customers, didn't they have an issue
with yields, though? Wasn't there an
issue with uh chips being made to
standard?
I think there was something else on top
of that.
>> I tried typing that in and out. I didn't
see anything, but they're trying to get
to two nanometer production. They
started on trials and then there's
rumors about why
they have not moved into mass production
and that's it's all these articles
you're saying.
>> Well, the Pentagon budget is a trillion
and a half this year. Let's just cut all
that.
>> Then we'll have plenty of capital freed
up to your microchip.
>> Cute. They're not going to do that.
>> Who needs a world empire? Hey, look, one
of the lessons of the war in Iran is the
empire is good for nothing anyway,
right? We have H bombs that are enough
to deter anyone from attacking us. But
America's military empire in the Middle
East is completely bankrupt, right? That
whole thing was a hollow bluff and the
Iranians just called it and we lost. I
mean, our bases have been evacuated.
They keep coming out. You I know you I
think you talked about this on your
show, right? How they were covering up
the satellite photos. They weren't
letting Americans have access to the
satellite photos when you could get them
online, whatever. Other countries had
them. And then you've had the New York
Times and I hate to cite CNN, but it was
a well sourced story where they got all
these great satellite photos and went
and showed how the Iranians reached out
and touched 18 bases from Irbul in
northern Iraq all the way down to Muscat
in Oman and took out all radar stations
and pitted our runways, hit refueling
tankers and Awax radar planes and took
out the entire not the entire but a huge
percentage of the uh overlapping radars
for the missile defense systems over
there. Left our allies in Saudi, Qatar,
UAE, Bahrain wide open. You know, our
our naval fifth fleet station at Bahrain
is destroyed and offline. I read this
thing said the Qataris, our our main air
base in the Middle East, the
headquarters of Central Command and our
main air base at Qatar. The Qataris made
a deal with Iran. Please stop hitting
us. And they promised to not allow
America to fly any sorties out of Qatar,
our main air base during that war. And
so, as Justin Logan from the Kato
Institute said, well, what good is a
military base that you can't fight a war
from? You know, it's just like that, I
know you've seen this, right? That um
that old meme that says, well, if Iran
doesn't want trouble with us, how come
they put their country so close to all
our military bases and it has all the
the map of all our bases in the region?
But the thing is what Donald Trump I
guess didn't understand was that those
were a trip wire that were essentially
we were making our own guys hostages of
Iran to prevent war. Those bases were
preventing war because it should have
been out of the question that we would
attack Iran because all those bases
would be up for grabs against them.
>> So how do how are they so poorly
defended? That's what I don't
understand. Like how is it so easy for
Iran to attack these bases? And did they
have any for knowledge of this? Did they
understand?
>> Oh, yeah. So, why they were so poorly
defended? That's got to be political
decision-making among the brass, right,
about like, well, we don't want to admit
that we need these fortifications in the
first place maybe or just the other
general said don't, so we don't want to
fight with him about it for office
politics reasons or what. Like, I don't
underestimation. It's not a gross
underestimation.
>> It can't be because listen, I'll tell
you, man. Um, in January of 2007,
the chiefs took W. Bush down to the tank
in the basement of the Pentagon and they
told him, "Look, we'll do your Iraq
surge where we increase the war in Iraq,
but we really don't want to go to Iran."
And they told him the reason why not is
because the Iranians have escalation
dominance, or at least we won't have it.
That I I shouldn't have said. I was
overstating it. We will not have
escalation dominance there. And that
means that, you know, is a Pentagon term
for if we're going to get into a fight,
we don't want to fight at all unless we
know we're going to control every stage
of that conflict. And in the case of say
invading Iraq, there's nothing Saddam
Hussein can do about it. Right? As Paul
Wolit said, Iraq is doable. In the case
of Iran, they have most importantly of
all a short and medium-range missile
force that we cannot defend from. Now,
we can defend from it some. We have our
Patriot missiles and our other type of
interceptors, but they can pour on
volume that there is no magic Star Wars
shield that can protect from. And we had
at that time a more than 100 thousand
guys in Iraq, 50,000 in Afghanistan and
then plus still as we still do um tens
of thousands air force and army in
Kuwait, air force and army in Saudi
Arabia, air force in Qatar, navy at
Bahrain, uh I guess air force and army
in in UAE, and I didn't know in Oman,
but yeah, of course in Oman they had,
you know, some naval presence there as
well. So, and they knew then that all of
that stuff will be up for grabs and then
the straight of horror moose will also
be at risk. And in fact, it's true. Um,
in at anti-war.com, you can find in the
archives there, I wrote an article in
August of 2005
called Who's Behind the Coming War with
Iran? And I say in there they can close
the straight and they can inflict
economic damage, drive the cost of a
barrel of oil up above $200 a barrel and
all of that. So there were people a lot
smarter than me who were writing about
that at the time that I was interviewing
on my show at the time who were just
saying look we can start a war with Iran
but we don't really have a good way to
finish one. And so, and we talk about
the nuclear program and how unnecessary
all this was in a sec, too. But point
being that you want to do a regime
change, as you just said, you kill the
Ayatollah, it doesn't do any good. They
have a new Ayatollah. You can kill the
whole ruling council that appoints the
Ayatollah, but then they'll just appoint
a new ruling council. So, then you can
dump in the 802nd Airborne Division, but
they can't occupy and control Thrron.
There's no good land route to invade the
country. They have two massive mountain
ranges. And one of the most preposterous
narratives was like getting the people
to rise.
>> Oh, yeah. We're going to arm up some
Kurds.
>> Yeah. Well, not just the Kurds. They
were trying to get the just the Iranian
civilians.
>> Yeah.
>> With no arms.
>> Yep. And they'll talk about, you know,
arming the Kurds and arming the
Belookis, which I don't know if there
are other factions, but that seems to be
a direct reference to groups like
Jandala, who the Obama and the Obama
administration and the Israelis both
backed about 15 years ago, who were bin
Laden head choppers, suicide bomber
guys. They were, you know, no different
from al-Qaeda or ISIS. And they, you
know, John Bolton on Pierce Morgan, uh,
that the same show that I was on was
saying, "Yeah, we could arm up the
Belookis." And the stuff is crazy. I
actually wrote in that article at that
time the neocons's daydream that if we
just start the war then the people will
rise up and create a new pro-American
government there. But that's crazy to
bet on that. There's no reason to
believe that. And so and there's video
of me in 2010 warning the same thing.
And I'm not claiming any great insight.
I didn't go to college, man. I just, you
know, I'm interested in this stuff and I
I you know have a show where I was
interviewing all these experts about it
at the time and it was just complete
consensus. everybody knew they can reach
out and and boy over 20 years I must
have said this a thousand times they can
not only hit all of our uh military
stuff in Iraq and Kuwait and Bahrain and
Qatar etc Saudi etc but a trillion
dollars of economic targets all up and
down that Gulf which is exactly what
they did. They hit refineries, they hit
chemical plants, they hit not just at
the straight of Horamuz they hit
American oil tankers up near Kuwait just
to show that like we pone this entire
thing now. So, back to my original point
when I got on this tangent was that
America's conventional military empire
is bankrupt that Donald Trump just blew
his big bluff that we're the big player
in the region. We're actually not in the
region. We're here. The region is over
there and the entire, you know, threat
of our dominance over there is basically
called. I mean obviously we still have
aircraft carriers and planes and bombs
and even nukes and all that but can the
leaders in Bahrain in Qatar and UAE and
Saudi rely on America to defend them
>> right
>> or they got to come up with their own
different policy now?
>> Haven't we also used up like twothirds
of our Patriot missile supply?
>> Oh yes I don't know the exact
percentages but a lot. And they they're
admitting now that the Iranians still
have 70 75% of all their missiles and
launchers. All that stuff about we
decimated everything they had was all
just
>> they're admitting that. Who's admitting
that?
>> Government officials talking to the New
York Times and the Washington Post in
the last three days. Yeah.
>> Oh, I hadn't I 70 75% they got all their
launchers, all their missiles. They they
dug out missiles that had been buried.
They refurbished some and finished some
that were on the assembly line. That was
what they told the post. They were
finishing some that had been on the
assembly line that they went ahead and
restarted up again. And don't they have
some crazy like missile elevator system
where they're they're buried deep
underground and
>> I don't know how it works exactly but
yeah they and and even they have
apparently like the factories are buried
deep underground as well and just
dispersed throughout the country and so
>> they've been preparing for something
like this for a long time.
>> Yeah.
>> And so these bases that we had are all
of them nonfunctional all the ones that
have been hit?
>> I don't think so. Uh, I don't know the
exact extent of that, but as far as
their usefulness over the long term,
they might as well have just been
abandoned at this point.
>> So, let's uh see like what the
conventional news says. Like
>> New York Times and CNN have two big
profiles on this. I don't know off the
top of my head better stuff than that.
The CNN was one Oh, and NBC also had had
one within the the CNN and the NBC are
within the last couple of weeks. The New
York Times is about six weeks old,
maybe. One of the things that disturbed
me to no end, and we talked about this a
couple times, the podcast, was um there
was uh one of the guys who was over
there who uh attended a uh a briefing
and they were told that
this is bringing about Armageddon and
that Trump was anointed by Jesus Christ
and that this war in Iran was going to
cause Jesus to return and that this was
actually being to a bunch of military
people that were having a war
debriefing,
>> man.
>> And and then the guy had a whoever this
officer was that was tell talking about
this said that the guy had a giant smile
on his face when he was telling this
which made it all the more creepy.
>> Oh, good. The end of the world. We
Nobody wants to die alone, right, Joe?
>> But they were saying they that there's a
faction in the military that is these
religious fundamentalists that actually
believe that it's bringing about Jesus's
return.
>> So, look, there's a guy named um
>> commander claimed Trump was anointed by
Jesus to cause Armageddon to justify
Iran strikes.
>> So, there's a guy named Mikey Weinstein.
>> This is But look at Let's just go over
this real quick because this is so crazy
because this go up to the top, please.
Right there. So, no, with the top. So,
it's where it says who it was. So, it's
a military commander uh told a group of
non-commissioned officers that President
Donald Trump anointed by Jesus to light
the signal fire in Iran to cause
Armageddon and mark his return to Earth.
>> Yeah. And then that's that's Mikey
Weinstein right there, the Military
Religious Freedom Foundation. He was I
believe he was an Air Force officer,
maybe as an army officer, and then he
created this group to advocate against
this kind of stuff in the military. And
I it's been a long time since I spoke to
him, but he was saying to me years ago
that it's especially in the highest
ranks of the air force, the highest
ranks of the air force. They really
believe this stuff. It is time to bring
on the apocalypse. And it's a good thing
that they are the ones in charge of the
nukes so that they can use them
according to the divine plan and this
kind of thing. It is scary stuff.
>> People need to know this. Go back to
that, please, because there's one quote
that that's below that. This is uh this
is so fascinating. He urged us to tell
our troops that this was all part of
God's divine plan. And he specifically
referenced numerous citations out of the
book of Revelations referring to
Armageddon and the imminent return of
Jesus Christ. Can you imagine if you're
over there, you already think the war is
sketchy, like why the [ __ ] are we doing
this? And then this guy comes down,
you're like, oh my god, we're cooked.
>> This a big part of how they justified
Iraq. I mean, there's so many Protestant
ministers out there who told their
people that this is the Bible. Get it?
Middle East, year 2000, sort ofish. Um,
this is how you're going to get raptured
up to heaven in your body and all you
have to do is support this aggressive
war and all this magic stuff is going to
come true. And in fact, this is why
there's such a massive crash in
evangelical support for Israel and these
kind of foreign policies now is because
people just don't believe that anymore
because that's what the Left Behind
series at Walmart said 25 years ago and
then it never happened. It didn't come
true. Speaking of the one world
government and all this stuff, where's
Satan? Where's the deal? Instead, it's
just Obama and Trump, you know.
>> So, how do you think we got talked into
this Iran thing? Cuz JD Vance very
against it. A lot of people Tulsi
Gabbard very against it. So, what the
[ __ ] happened?
>> I think that Netanyahu essentially, you
know, all this talk about um
four-dimensional chess and whatever. I
think what it is is it's just checkers,
right? is Netanyahu goes, "Listen,
for Iran, for Iran to have a civilian
nuclear program, come on, that's just
cover for really a weapons program. It's
just a stage in a weapons program. We
know eventually they're going to make
nukes and then they're going to attack
Israel with them. And we also know that
um and and you already said that you're
not going to let them have nukes." Well,
having a nuclear program at all is
having nukes. Same difference. And you
already agreed to that, right? Right.
Okay. Well, and they won't give up
enrichment. So, what do we do? We got to
attack. It's just like Obama's red line
on the fake chemical weapons scare in
Syria there that once you agree to this
thing, now it's written in stone. And
now, like, we got you on this
technicality. Double jump. You already
agreed with the stupid things I said and
so now you have to do the thing that I
said. And then Trump goes, "Okay." And
then plus on top of that, just the
flattery. And like, you know, honestly,
this is the most obvious thing. back
when he was on Twitter in his first
term. I used to tweet at him and I would
say wealth, strength, gold, get out of
Afghanistan,
height, power, and like just tell him
like things that he likes, right, with
get out of Afghanistan in the middle.
And so this is what Netanyahu does is he
goes, "Listen, you're greater than
Abraham Lincoln. You're greater than
George Washington. You're a world
historical figure. You're sure to go to
heaven now. You're like, "If FDR had
done the right thing and invaded Germany
in 1935 and prevented that whole thing
from ever happening."
>> Well, you're just guessing that this is
how he talked to, right?
>> Kind of. But
>> wouldn't it be awesome?
>> Because he repeats a lot of it. Oh, it
would. It would be great. But he repeats
so much of it back that I think that
like, yeah, you could pretty much tell
this is what they're saying to him and
then this is what he's responding is
>> Obama wasn't man enough to do it. George
Bush wasn't man enough to do it. He
knows what has to be done. He's willing
to do it. And he's ill-informed enough
to believe that it makes any sense that
if you just bomb their nuclear program
that somehow it'll go away. If you just
hit them hard enough, then eventually
they'll just do what you say. It doesn't
work like that. It often times does not
work like that. And with these guys,
they've made it clear that we're not
making bombs, but we absolutely reserve
our right to enrich uranium for peaceful
purposes. And we will suffer your air
strikes. we will not give up that right
and so that's it and and they've been
completely clear about the that this
entire time but Netanyahu convinced him
right this is why he also believed that
the straight of Hormuse was not at risk
because Netanyahu convinced him once we
hit him once he killed Ayatollah the
whole thing's going to fall apart there
will be no one too close to Straight of
Hormuse because we'll have already won
by then
>> but what do you think happens if Iran
does get nuclear weapons
>> probably
um the other states in the region will
you know Daryl Cooper who's my partner
on our show provoked and I know good uh
friend of yours
>> I love Daryl
>> he he is so great and he's awesome
>> and he was pointing out
>> that guy gets boy does he get [ __ ]
misrepresented on
>> Oh he does
>> oh my god he does oh my god
>> heroic guy man um
>> very [ __ ] smart and if you listen to
fear and loathing in the new Jerusalem
anybody who listens to that and thinks
that guy's anti-semitic is [ __ ] crazy
>> you're crazy all that stuff is just so
balanced,
>> out of context. It's it's so balanced
and so objective and you know his
perspective on it and just people take
that one thing that he said uh about um
[ __ ]
Churchill the thing that he said about
Churchill being the real villain he's
being provocative right and what he's
trying to say is that Churchill by
imposing those embargos essentially was
starving them and was was keeping
resources from getting to Germany and he
forced Hitler's hand to do what he did.
It's not excusing him. It's not like
saying Hitler wasn't a [ __ ] evil
[ __ ] It's not It's not like saying he
he Hitler is a good guy. Winston
Churchill is the bad guy. That's not
what he was saying at all. But he was
saying Winston Churchill also a bad guy,
>> right?
>> Also wanted to attack Soviet Union right
after they were done with the war. And
he was actually he even introduced the
subject by saying to Tucker that you
know I like to pick on my friend Joo
who's very waspy and I like to yeah
>> pick on him and joke with him that you
know Churchill was the real bad guy
whatever cuz he wouldn't accept
>> you know peace for an answer. He had to
finish the regime change no matter what
even if it took America doing it for him
and whatever. And then his point about
he never even finished the point about
the people starving in the camps. He was
totally taken out of context to mean
that the only people who died in the
Holocaust, all that happened was the
Germans didn't care enough to feed them
well enough or something. But that was
not what he was saying at all. He was
essentially arguing that even if you
were some kind of German apologist, even
you would have to admit that every
single soul they took possession of,
they took responsibility for. And if
people are starving to death by the
millions in their camps, then nobody
could deny that, right? And then he
didn't even discuss the rest of the
Holocaust. His point had nothing to do
with like trying to diminish the rest of
it or discount the rest of it or
anything like that. He was just saying,
you know, arguing even the devil's
advocate would have to admit so much of
the case on the face of it. And then
there he was segueing right into a point
about Gaza and how the Israelis, Gaza is
not a country. Gaza is an Indian
reservation. They were already whooped
and conquered and besieged. And so you
take control of people like that, then
you're responsible to make sure that
they're fed and that they're not
starving to death in this, you know,
under your captivity, which was the
point that he was making. So it ended up
being, you know, half half of a thing
ingested and and and half explained
about Church Hill and then a point about
the war in the East that was totally and
I think in some cases honestly
misinterpreted. But but what's dishonest
is people pretending like he didn't
explain himself on the record over and
over and over clarifying what he meant
by all that stuff.
>> And that's the problem with video clips.
clips are a real problem because you
lose the context of the entire
conversation. You get one person's point
where they might be steelmanning
something else or they might be like
trying to be provocative or or whatever
it is. But to me, it's always very
fascinating that this one war is beyond
debate. Like there's no room for any
discussions of what might be true, what
might not be true. I don't think there's
a single [ __ ] moment in human history
where we have gotten a completely
objective, 100% accurate representation
of why the war started, what were the
factors, what were the motivations. We
could go all the way back to Smemedley
Butler and Smemedley Butler's War as a
racket, which I always point up because
here's a guy in 1933
that was realizing he was a major
general realizing at the end of his
tenure like holy [ __ ] what did I do? I
thought that I was doing this to to make
the world safer and really I was making
it better for bankers, better for all
these interests to go in and control
resources or do whatever the [ __ ] they
were actually doing. And
you can talk about that, but if you get
into discussions about World War II and
anything involving the Nazis, anything
involving the Holocaust, any all of a
sudden anti-Semitic gets thrown around.
All of a sudden, you're you're a bad
person.
>> Yeah. As he says, it's, you know, a huge
part of our civic religion basically. um
you know where like George Washington
and even Abraham Lincoln and all that
stuff is too long ago where it's really
Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman and
Dwight Eisenhower are the founding
fathers of the American empire and their
great project the greatest generation
and all of those things that was you
know that's that's how we know that
that's who we are. I mean my grandfather
was in that war and my great uncle was
you know death marched by the Japanese
in that war and stuff like a lot of
people have uh connections to that.
That's,
as Bill Crystal and his friends would
say, this is how you build national
greatness. You need big projects that we
can all do together. And World War II is
the biggest project of all. So, it's the
kind of thing that that people don't
really want to question.
>> It's also, we should point out that they
were bankrolling Smmedley Butler, trying
to get him to overthrow the [ __ ]
government. They were trying
>> He refused to do it.
>> Yeah. Yeah. They marked up Capitol Hill
with the documents and Yeah. and showed
him. Yeah. They were trying to get him
to throw a military coup on the United
States government and take it over.
>> Yep. I mean, you thought FDR was bad.
These guys wanted to overthrow him. He
wasn't, you know. Isn't that crazy?
Wrong faction, I guess.
>> Um, but um, look, I'm not an expert on,
and I've only read a few books about the
Second World War, and you'd have to read
hundreds to really know what you're
talking about on that one. But I can
tell you that Pat Buchanan's great book,
Church Hill, Hitler and the Unnecessary
War, that Pat knew that everybody was
going to try to smear him and everyone
was going to attack him and nobody
wanted to hear his version of how this
all happened. So he only quotes the
highest level, most credentialed English
historians from Cambridge and Oxford.
And so he's not relying on the German
point of view whatsoever. He's quoting
only these English historians saying,
"Here's how the idiot Neville
Chamberlain and Winston Churchill
essentially fumbled into this war,
screwed up, and got us into this war
that was way worse than we ever could
have hoped. They ended up turning Poland
over to the commies at the end anyway
and all of that." And is really honestly
is what I think it is is a decent take
on World War II without all that
religiosity that you're referring to
there. And just take a cold look at it.
You know, like they say that W. Bush,
he's the Winston Churchill of the 21st
century. And I'm like, you know what?
Maybe that's right. And maybe Winston
Churchill was really just the George W.
Bush of the 20th century. It's just
you're supposed to never admit that or
talk about
>> Winston Churchill's Dick Cheney.
>> Oh, yeah. That's a good question. I
don't know.
>> Dick Cheney, that was Boy, that guy, he
had no pulse for a while.
>> Yeah.
>> You know, is that not in the Bible or
something?
>> Yeah, it should be. the [ __ ] guy who
once wore who uh is giving no bid
contract contracts to the company that
he was the [ __ ] CEO of where they're
going over there and fixing for billions
of dollars [ __ ] that we blew up
>> and this guy doesn't even have a pulse.
>> I know we fake heart.
>> He lives so long too. Like only the good
die young kind of thing.
>> I mean how many people dropped dead
after CO of heart attacks that were
young and healthy and this [ __ ] guy
keep on trucking. Yeah.
>> Remember when he shot his friend in the
face and his friend apologized?
>> Yeah.
>> Yep. He [ __ ] they were they were
doing which is one of the most uh very
I I'd say it's one of the hardest to u
argue in support of type of hunts. It's
called a canned hunt. Do you know what
it is?
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
>> Okay. say what it is that they just
release
>> like in Gaza
>> ah very similar they just well this is
you know birds they just release these
birds from a cage literally and they fly
and then they shoot him out of the sky
and even then he blasts his friend and
then he would
>> drinking and hunting
>> well allegedly so he wouldn't do any
interviews or anything wouldn't talk to
anybody for like 24 hours and so he had
to sober up or you know allegedly or
whatever and then his friend was like
a mild minor misunderstanding Got a few
pellets in my face. What the [ __ ]
>> I'm very sorry if this reflected
negatively on the vice president.
>> My fault for putting my face there. I
don't know.
>> Isn't that amazing? No lawsuit, no
nothing. Your friend shoots you in the
face, no worries.
>> And what angle exactly did he get shot
that he was okay after that?
>> Well, you the thing about it is it's
birdshot. Just birdshot. Yeah.
>> And um if you birdshot spreads, right?
And depending upon the distance and how
far he was away from him, he could have
just got clipped with a most likely
that's what happened cuz I think he was
70.
>> You know, if you're 70, you get shot in
the face with a shotgun. Usually that's
a wrap.
>> So I I think he just got clipped with a
couple of pellets and you know
>> Yeah.
>> He probably should have just shut the
[ __ ] up and not reported it,
>> right?
>> I don't know how it even got out.
>> He must have had to go to the hospital.
>> Yeah. He say I [ __ ] up. I dropped my
gun and it went off.
>> Oh yeah.
>> Yeah. You don't [ __ ]
>> The vice president shot me. I mean,
>> don't tell the newspaper I said that.
>> If that was my friend, you know, I would
probably say, "Let's let it go. Let's
Let's figure this out. We have to go to
the [ __ ] press."
>> Yeah.
>> Come on, bro.
>> There's a guy both hammered.
>> Killed and wounded a lot of people,
that's for sure. Mostly vicariously, but
not always.
>> Well, I mean, there's a special place in
hell.
>> He's there already.
>> It's just we was so weird that that
worked, you know, just all of it. the no
bid contracts, the the fact that he was
essentially running and he remember when
he was in a bunker and Bush was running
around like where's he's in a bunker
somewhere like why is he in a bunker
like what do what the [ __ ] that whole
war was so weird
>> it was to pretend that there's a threat
that there was an ongoing threat when
there wasn't
>> I had a bit about it in my act is like
that the elites really have no idea how
dumb people are and the only way to find
out how dumb people are is make a dumb
guy president
>> and that that's what they did And then
when we went into a war with Iran or
with Iraq rather like how how did we how
did we justify that and they bought
that? What the [ __ ] And then the bit
was like he won again,
>> right? Yeah. Elected on that. Yeah.
>> And then I go there's someone sitting in
the back of the room going I think we
can go dumber.
>> That was that was the idea of the bit is
that this is the only way to find out
how dumb we are.
like that um Kurt Vonagget story
Harrison Burggeron where there's like
the ruling elite but the president I
think is the president in the movie of
is Tim Curry or something he's just a
total like buffoon and they just the the
real power is all behind the throne
running things you know
>> well my favorite movie about that is
Doctor Strange Love cuz it's like
because it's kind of humorous and you
know it's but the whole thing is like oh
my god I think when you see this Pete
Hex thing where these guys are talking
about this and this
>> commander is saying that it's all to
bring about Armageddon. It's this is
right out of Doctor Strange love.
>> Yeah. Oh, you can tell and this is one
of the most dispiriting things, right,
is when you can tell a lot of times when
these people are talking that wow,
they're he's really not lying. He really
thinks that that stupid lie is true and
he's telling us what he thinks is true.
like, you know, depending on their tone
and the way they explain it is sometimes
like even with Donald Trump, like it's
possible he's even talked himself or
allowed himself to be talked into
believing that they really were making
nuclear weapons and that then they were
going to use them on us. I mean, that
might just be this dumbest lie and he
knows it,
>> right? But if they did have nuclear
weapons, it would be a giant problem cuz
the Iranian government, just look what
they've done to their people. Executed
protesters, they they've done some wild
[ __ ]
>> N I don't know.
>> You don't think that's a big deal? what
they've done to their protesters.
>> In fact, that's why we got off on uh on
Martyr Maid there a minute ago was
because on our show he was saying right
now through their conventional power and
especially because W. Bush gave their
best friends Baghdad. Iran is by far the
dominant power in the region
conventionally speaking other than us.
If they rush to an atom bomb, say to
somehow deter us, which I don't think
that would work. I think we just attack
them if they really did it. we just
attack them again. Um, but if they did
somehow get an atomic bomb, well then
that would then incentivize all of the
other powers, I mean, or other states on
the GCC there, Saudi and Qatar and
Bahrain and UAE to get their own nukes.
And at that point, Iran's entire
strategic advantage is canceled because
now they got nukes too. And so now
nobody has a strategic advantage.
>> But no one can do to them what happened
to them now if they had nukes. Like this
was the argument for Ukraine not include
them. That would include them being able
to deliver them to the United States as
well. And I think you see it's like
this. Here's how it worked. Okay, the
Iranians, they're members of the
non-prololiferation treaty going way
back and they had a safeguarded civilian
nuclear program where the IAA could
verify they're not diverting their
nuclear material.
>> How could they have verified this?
>> They have their bases all underground. I
mean,
>> no, no, no. Because all that stuff was
open and declared and and safeguarded by
the IAEA. So, they're enriching at two
major facilities at Fordo and Natants.
And then they followed the uranium from
womb to tomb, from the mine through the
conversion process.
>> But how much oversight do they have of
this? I mean, how much of it could be
done in secrecy?
>> It was very robust up until, you know,
last June. They were pro proving the
negative there.
>> Can I pause you there? Because they
didn't know that the Iranians had the
capacity to to they they sent one 4,000
km, right? The Diego Garcia attack.
>> Yeah. The missile. So those missiles had
a far greater range than anything that
they had declared.
>> Actually, not quite because well, first
of all, that's the missile stuff is
totally separate from their safeguards
going with the IAEA. They had nothing to
do with that. But as far as the
missiles, the only limit on their
missile range previously was a political
limit and
>> it wasn't a capability.
>> That's right. So they had
>> So it wasn't that they stated that all
we have is this.
they only previously but then in October
of
I'm pretty sure it was last October in
the aftermath of the June war and so
then in October of 25 the Ayatollah
announced we're lifting our limit on the
range of our missiles
>> and they said that publicly that they
were doing that and so and that was as a
result again of this provocation of the
war last June
>> and that's still separate from the
nuclear stuff though but go ahead
>> it was I'm sorry so it wasn't a
capability thing it was just a an
agreement Although they don't have the
capability to launch a three-stage
intercontinental ballistic missile to
the United States of America, they can
hit Israel, but they can do that with an
intermediate range missile.
>> But if they're cooperating with China,
and China has that capability,
>> because Bill Clinton gave it to him.
Yeah.
>> Yikes.
>> Jesus. Why do you do that?
>> I love this story. For the money. Um, if
if you remember the scandal of 96 and
all the Chinese money in his campaign in
'96, they spent all their money hyping
or all the media attention hyping up
Charlie Tree and Johnny Chung who were
like low-level fundraisers who didn't
have anything to do with anything. And
then they framed an entirely innocent
Taiwanese scientist named Wenho Lee. And
the evil FBI persecuted poor Wenho Lee.
And it was this huge distraction from
what really happened, which was this
Chinese Indonesian um billionaire named
Riyadi who was directly tied to Chinese
intelligence. He got his guy John Wong
appointed to the commerce department
where he was put in charge of licensing
missile technology transfers to China
and they took that authority away from
state and defense and gave it to
commerce and then John Wong was the guy
who got to rubber stamp those missile uh
technology transfers. So then Hughes
Aircraft and Laurel Corporation then
sent their very best three-stage rocket
technology to China.
>> Oh jeez.
>> Cuz it's cheaper to have them launch the
satellites, you know.
>> So they were not, I don't think, able to
deliver hydrogen bombs to the United
States before that. And they were able
to cuz I mean for a few hundred,000 or
maybe a couple of million dollars or
whatever, they were able to buy this
from Bill Clinton.
>> Jesus Christ.
>> I know. Crazy. But no, you're right that
look, could China could could Iran with
Chinese help or whatever someday be able
to deliver a war here? Yes. However,
uh the much better solution to that
certainly would have been we I know we
can't go back, but certainly would have
been just normalizing relations with
Iran and just dealing with them. The
reality was Iran's position was not that
they were racing to a nuke. Their
position was they had this safeguarded
program where again the IAEA is
essentially proving the negative. We
know where all their uranium is. It's
right where it's supposed to be and they
haven't taken it and diverted it yet. We
know how much they're enriching and we
know where it all goes. And so
there so then Israel would say America
they're making nukes if they have a
nuclear program at all. This is the same
during W. Bush, during Obama. This is
true under MER as well as under
Netanyahu um who's been in charge almost
the entire time since Obama. Um and the
policy was from the Israelis. America
bombed them. They got a civilian program
and you know that's just cover for
they're going to make nukes someday and
they're going to use them on us. So just
go ahead and let's get them now. Then
America would say no we're not doing
that. This is under W. Bush again under
Obama
um under Trump won and under Biden. No,
we're not going to just start a war, but
we will warn the Iranians. Don't you
break out and try to make a nuke now
because if you do, then we will attack
you and we'll bomb your Manhattan
project before you can complete it and
before you can get an atom bomb, we'll
see you then. And then the Iranians
would say, "We're not making nukes, so
don't attack us." And then the heavy
implication was if you attack us then we
might make nukes. So they had a latent
deterrent, right? A half-ass nuclear
weapons deterrent. They proved that they
had mastered the fuel cycle that they
could enrich uranium if they wanted to
up to weapons grade. They never did. But
they said they were essentially saying
we have a revolver in one pocket and
bullets in the other. Let's not escalate
this. And that could have and should
have stood. Except this is what this is
the answer to your question about how do
they get us into this? because Netanyahu
convinced Trump to change that line and
to adopt the Israeli line. That for them
to have a civilian nuclear program at
all is equivalent to the exact same
thing as them making nuclear weapons and
we're just not going to allow that.
So, how much
understanding do we have of their
capabilities? And how do we have that
understanding? Like, how much do we know
about their enrichment program? How much
do we know about whether or not they're
capable of making a weapon? Because
haven't they stated recently that they
are capable of making a nuclear weapon?
>> Well, do you think that's
>> that was not a threat? I think what in
fact if I if I know the statement that
you're talking about, they were saying,
"Look, we're not making nukes." And the
proof that we're not is the fact that we
know how to, we could, and we're still
not. And you can see all this time they
mastered the fuel cycle back in 2006.
Once you
>> Okay, so it's like this and and they
have been set back on this. They got
their facility blown up last June. But
essentially you have remember yellow
cake. Don't drop that [ __ ]
>> Um you have that refined yellow cake is
refined uranium ore. Then you convert
that to uranium hexafflloride gas and
that's the stuff that you inject into
the centrifuges. Then you have what's
called a cascade of centrifuges. a whole
bunch of them all connected together
with tubes. And then you spin the the
uranium hexafflloride gas in the
centrifuges and you spin the U238 which
is heavier out and away from the 235
which is the sweet stuff. And the more
you enrich it then um the more capable
it is of being used for nukes. Well is
one way to put it but so they would they
need like 3.6% U235 for their
electricity program. They need 20% U235
for targets for their medical isotope
reactors for like cancer treatment
radiation or like that radioactive die
that they put in people for to see your
circulatory system and stuff. But then
to make weapons grade uranium, you need
typically above 90% pure uranium 235. In
any case, once you spin it through the
centrifuges to whatever stage of purity,
then you got to convert it back into a
metal again, whether you're going to
make fuel rods or whether you're going
to try to make a bomb warhead out of it.
So under the Obama deal of 2015, the
JCPOA, it was really just an extra layer
on top of the non-prololiferation treaty
and on top of the safeguards agreement
that we already had. But the way that
was worked out was a big part of it was
that they would scale back their
capability to enrich by shutting down I
think it was twothirds of their
centrifuges at Natans and then at Fordo
they would change it from a a production
facility to just a research facility and
then whatever stockpile of uranium they
came up with would be transferred out of
the country to Russia and they would
turn it into fuel rods and send it back.
That way they had no stockpile that they
could just quickly reintroduce into the
centrifuges and enrich to a higher
grade. They'd have to basically start at
nothing again. And so under the theory
and the way the scientists worked it out
that if they withdrew from the treaty,
kicked the inspectors out of the country
and said we are now making atom bombs,
it would take them a year to enrich
enough uranium at weapons grade to make
one bomb out of it. Then on top of that,
you have to have the actual experts who
know how to machine it into the exact uh
specifications as and how to detonate it
and everything else. And the the simpler
the nuke, the harder it is to deliver.
So typically like the Hiroshima bomb was
a gun type nuke where you just shoot one
uranium pit into the other one and which
they didn't even test. The Trinity test
was the Nagasaki bomb basically. They
knew it would work, but it's essentially
a very heavy bomb and very difficult to
deliver. And virtually all
miniaturaturized
um implosion bombs in the world that can
ever be married to a missile, they're
virtually all made out of plutonium. And
they don't have a plutonium route to the
bomb because under the Obama deal, they
poured concrete into the rock that's
ark, which was supposed to be a heavy
water reactor, which can produce weapons
grade plutonium as waste. But they
poured concrete into that thing and shut
it down completely before it was even
open. Their reactor that they do have
operating is at Bucher and it's a
lightwater reactor which means that it
is possible for it to produce weapons
grade plutonium as waste but it's much
more difficult. They would have to shut
it off all the time to harvest the stuff
out of there and all of that. Under
inspections they can't do that.
>> So this is all monitored.
>> This is all monitor. It's like if you
had a gun shop and you have a ATF cop
sitting at the bar stool. Well, unless
he was Fast and Furious smuggling your
guns to cartels, but assuming not that,
but like assuming he was just a regular
cop. Like, you can't accuse me of
selling illegal laser rifles from my gun
shop when I've got a cop sitting right
here. And that's the deal here is
they've got inspectors throughout the
place. And then what happened was, so we
had that perfect Mexican standoff,
right? Where is Israel saying bomb them,
they're making nukes. We say no, we
won't bomb them, but we will if they do.
And them saying don't bomb us cuz we're
not. Then Trump called their bluff last
June. Really Netanyahu did and then
Trump jumped in the thing and they
really did set their nuclear program
back quite a bit. Now I don't think
there's any proof that they destroyed
the centrifuges at Natans and Fordo.
They're deep underground under granite
and very hard to get at. But they got
the elevator shafts and they got the air
shafts and they if anybody was working
down there, they were buried alive. The
Iranians were incentivized to move giant
boulders in front of the doors to
protect them from missiles and attack
and stuff like that. But so um all the
reporting is that the Natansen Fordo
facilities are essentially just frozen
right now. There's nothing going on
there. There's open source reporting
from last November and then there was a
report of a in the newspapers just two
weeks ago or maybe three um based on
classified information that there is
nothing going on there. They um
>> you know what my deep concern is?
>> Okay.
>> No one said what you said to the
president.
>> Yeah. See that's right. Not not only
that, you're right
>> that the people, these elected officials
and these appointed officials that get
into positions around him, they don't
know this,
>> right?
>> Which is crazy,
>> dude. I'll tell you what, that New York
Times article, did you read that one
where Netanyahu came and they sat across
from each other at the table like this
instead of Trump sitting at the head of
the table and Netanyahu gave him the
whole presentation about how easy the
war would be? Um, so as soon as he left,
then they said, everyone else at the
table said, "Don't listen to him, boss.
He's he's blowing smoke, man. That this
is going to be so easy." Now, they
didn't really tell him, "Don't do it,
but they told him, "Don't trust
Netanyahu and that it'll be a snap the
way that he promises and all that." But
then, and look, it's Maggie Haberman and
them at the New York Times. I mean, it
seemed like a very well-reported story
from, you know, the principles are
talking to her about this stuff. Um,
>> well, this is what Joe Kenna said as
well, right?
>> Yeah. So they they go around the table
and
Rubio has his say, the vice president
has his say, the chairman of the joint
chiefs of staff and whoever. But none,
as you just said, none of them say what
I just said, right?
>> And it really is
it's like a it's like four or five dudes
in a room who may or may not know very
much about this really and and and
talking about it and none of them man
enough to say like, "Mr. president
permission to speak freely here. Sir,
don't make this mistake, buddy. You know
what I mean? Seems that they don't know
as much as you know about it.
>> I think they probably don't,
>> which is wild.
>> I've been at this for a long time.
>> But that is wild. That is really crazy
that you'd be in a position of making
these decisions without having this
understanding of the fact that they're
not even really capable right now of
making nuclear weapons. If any of them
were capable of really knowing about it
like this, it would be Rubio or Vance or
hell Kane too, the chairman of the joint
chiefs of staff. He all of these guys
should have been able to say to the
president, this is an illusory threat,
sir. Really not wasn't Vance not there
while this was going on.
>> He was not there for the Netanyahu part.
But then he came in later, which he was
in Azerbaijan prepared for the war,
right? Was where he was is why he was
late. Wasn't Azarbaijan, didn't they
have some sort of a peace agreement with
Armenia
>> um
>> at the time and both of them?
>> Oh, I don't know. I had missed that
then. You're right. Then I didn't know
that.
>> He visited both of them and that's one
of the reasons why he couldn't come
back.
>> Okay. I visit as preparation for the war
with Iran.
>> If you visit Azarbaian, you also have to
visit Armenia. Otherwise, it would cause
some sort of an international conflict.
>> Yeah. because we support the hereditary
dictatorship in Azerbaijan because they
help us run the oil pipelines west
instead of north through Russia.
>> But it was also because they had made
some sort of a peace agreement. Correct.
Didn't Armenia make a
>> possibly? I mean, they're they're
they're fighting over or the the the
contest was over whether Armenia is
going to open this corridor across
Armenia to an Azerba or
>> could you enclave on the Turkish border?
Okay. France uh met in Baku. JD Vance
and uh how do you say his name? Ali
uh met in Baku to discuss the
implementation of historic August 8th
White House peace summit and reaffirm
their shared commitment to regional
peace, security and prosperity. Leaders
signed the US Azarbaian strategic
partnership charter which will
strengthen bilateral relations between
our countries. The United States remains
committed to working with Azabaijan to
unlock the great potential of the South
Caucus region. So it was a peace summit
and so he met with Azarian and he also
had to meet with Armenia as well. This
was February 10th. So this is right
before the war.
>> Okay.
>> So yeah,
>> I guess I thought he was like just
tipping them off. We're on your southern
border in a week or two.
>> I'm pretty sure that the reason for this
was that he had to meet with both of
them. So he could not be there. So if I
was JD Vance and I knew or rather if I
was Netanyahu and I knew that JD Vance
was really not into this war and didn't
want to be a part of it at all, I would
probably try to
>> time it for them.
>> What a good time. You can't even come
back.
>> Yeah, that makes sense.
>> The article here.
>> What does it say?
>> That he was not
>> ah the gathering had been deliberately
small to guard against leaks. Other top
cabinet secretaries had no idea it was
happening. Also absent was vice
president JD Vance who was in Azerbaijan
and the meeting had been scheduled on
such short notice that he was unable to
make it back in time. Now, if I was
Netanyahu and I knew that JD Vance is
gonna be in a baron,
>> you know, I don't really, you know, try
to spend too much time on the symbolism
of things, you know, leave that to the
symbol minded, right? As Carlin said,
>> symbolminded.
>> But like, isn't it meaningful that this
is the situation room? The president's
supposed to sit at the head of the
table. Instead, Netanyahu sat there and
Trump sat here
>> opposite him and let him run the thing
as an equal. instead of
>> Why do you think that is? Why do you
think they have that kind of influence?
>> I really don't know. I mean, they've
been friends for a very long time. All
the speculation about him being
compromised, I mean, it's very possible,
but unknowable, really, right?
>> Netanyahu would do that. I mean, he he
brought up Monica Lewinsky to to Bill
Clinton.
>> Did he?
>> Oh, yeah. You know, we're tapping your
phone, homeboy. We got you on tape. You
better let Jonathan Pard out of prison.
And then Bill Clinton refused to do it
because George Tennant and the whole top
tier of the CIA were going to resign
over it if he did it. So he didn't do
it. It was Trump that let Pard out. And
now Pard is running to the right of
Netanyahu. He's now announced that he's
running for the Knesset over there.
>> So the reason why the Monica Lewinsky
scandal went public?
>> No, cuz No, no, no.
>> Right.
>> Netanyahu said to have offered Lewinsky
tapes for Pard. Oh, they had tapes.
What do you mean? They had like
recordings where you were It may have
been after the scandal had broken, but
they had him on tape with her because
the only tapes were her on the phone
with Linda Trip that Linda Trip had
recorded, but they had him on the phone
with her.
>> I forgot her name. You know, the story
is um the first time Bill Clinton met
Netanyahu in 1996,
they were in the room for half an hour
or something and when they came out,
Clinton was just completely exasperated
and says, "Who the f does this guy think
he is? Who's the superpower and who's
the client state?" Because Netanyahu had
just told him like, "Look here, Butler.
Here's your orders for half an hour."
Just barked commands at Bill Clinton in
a way that he was just like, "I can't
believe this guy." Wow.
>> It's hard to feel sorry for him. In
fact, here's one, too. Barack Obama was
caught on a hot mic. This is the only
time I've ever been sympathetic with
Barack Obama. He was caught on a hot mic
talking to the president of France. And
he goes, "Oh, man. You think you hate
him? I got to deal with him every day."
>> And that was about Netanyahu.
>> About Netanyahu.
>> Well, wasn't there an issue with JFK and
Israel over their ability to acquire
nuclear weapons?
>> Yes. He was demanding inspections of
Deona, their nuclear facility there.
>> To this day, they don't officially have
nuclear weapons.
>> Correct. And the reason for that is
because it's illegal for America to give
aid to a nuclear weapons state that
refuses to sign the non-prololiferation
treaty. And so, and they don't want to
do that. In fact, they did proliferate
nuclear weapons to South Africa who gave
them up before the change after
aparttheid. Um, but if if they're
if they openly possess nuclear weapons,
then I mean, hell, it should already be
illegal because everybody already knows.
But the Glenn Simington law says that
you can't give aid, military aid to a
nuclear weapons state that won't sign
the NPT. That's America's treaty that we
force the whole world to accept. And
which, by the way, is in terrible
jeopardy now, right? Because, you know,
um, Saddam Hussein goes, "Look, my hands
are up. I got nothing." and they invaded
him. Anyway, the North Koreans armed up
with NES. The Libyans said, "Well, look,
we have some centrifuge material, but we
have no operational program, but you can
have our junk." They killed him.
And then the Iranians said, "Look, we
can make nukes, but we're not making
nukes, so leave us alone already." And
then we kill them.
So America is the great destroyer of
America's non-prololiferation treaty
that we foisted on the world by which
the non-uclear weapon state promise the
non-uclear weapons states promise never
to get them and the nuclear weapons
states promise never to share them.
>> So and that's all in jeopardy now that
may not even exist anymore. The polls
are talking about getting their own
nukes now because of Trump's pivot away
from Europe in the middle of a war that
America helped cause over there.
Jesus. So, Israel officially doesn't
have nukes.
>> Officially, they don't, but everybody
knows that they have at least 200. And
in fact, I have that personally from
Morai Venunu, who is the Israeli
whistleblower who went to prison. They
kidnapped him in a honey trap plot, I
think, in in England or in Italy
>> with chicks. With chicks, they went to
get him laid and they kidnapped him and
they held him in solitary confinement
for like 25 years or something. But he
gave the whole story to the Sunday
Times, the London Times, and they
published it back in I'm going to say '
86.
And then um what happened was he was on
Twitter. He may still be on Twitter. Um
but um I had an anecdote from Daniel
Ellsberg, the great uh whistleblower of
the Pentagon Papers and who was a friend
of mine for a long time. He died a
couple years ago now, but um he had an
anecdote about Venounu that turned out
was incorrect. But I asked Venunu, "Is
this correct?" And then he said, "No,
it's just like I told the Sunday Times
back then." And that was that they had
200 atom bombs by the time that he
squealled on them. And we know from
Grant F. Smith's research, he got this
through some foyer documents. Um he's
from the Institute for Research, Middle
Eastern Policy, really great researcher
on this. And he showed that they had at
least been researching hydrogen bombs,
the big ones, although there's no proof
that they ever actually made Hbombs. I
don't think it's been reported that
they've made him, but they at least were
looking into how to
>> Jeez. And this was part of the conflict
that JFK had with Israel.
>> Yes. And trying to register
what was then I think the American
Jewish Council, I believe is what it was
called, the predecessor to Apac as a
foreign as foreign agents. And then they
dissolved it and created Apac instead, I
guess, is the long and the short of
that. how they got around that and there
were people whacked,
>> you know, and it was,
>> you know, I don't know, man. Honestly,
like I told you, I was more of a
conspiracy theorist in the 90s, but I
never did all read into JFK because
there's just a hundred books about it
and 100 different theories. And I'm just
not sure if LBJ hired French hitmen to
do it or if the Israelis got James Jesus
Angleton to do it or if Alan Dulles got
some Cubans to do it or what the hell,
right? Like, I don't know. And so I'm I
really get, you know, I'm uh I don't I
don't think I ever really could figure
it out. So,
>> well, no one really
speculation, but Oliver Stone,
>> there are a lot of people with Yeah. You
know what's funny about that? And I
think he even admitted this at one
point, man. You watch the whole movie
JFK. Oh god. You watch the whole movie
JFK
>> and I'm sorry, man.
>> No worries. It's just Dr. Pepper. I like
a little stains on this table.
>> There you go.
>> Makes it live. In the edit later, we'll
just clip to Joe and back.
>> No, we'll just show the Dr. Pepper. Why
Dr. Pepper? Why you so into Dr. Pepper?
He I should tell everybody he brought a
whole cooler filled with Dr. Pepper.
>> I got to have Dr. Pepper, man, for my
work here. Um, no, the um the uh you
watch the whole movie JFK, right? It's
got every theory under the sun in there.
And then as soon as it's over, it says,
"Produced by Arnan Milchan, who is an
Israeli spy and who helped Benjamin
Netanyahu steal cryons, which are an
essential part of these nuclear trigger,
transfer their weapons. That's who
produced the movie."
>> And so then someone asked Oliver Stone
like, "Hey man, an Israeli spy produced
your movie where you point the finger at
everyone except maybe the Israelis.
What's about that?" And he's like, "Wow,
you're right." Right. I I forgot exactly
how he says it, but he acknowledges that
you know what, like it could have been
even that my own film was part of a puta
on there.
>> Well, especially when you consider the
fact that his own film was made in what,
the '9s?
>> Yeah, it came out in like 91, I think.
>> Right. 90.
>> So, back then, he probably didn't know
as much as he knows.
>> Yeah. Probably never even heard the
angle that it would have been the
Israelis. But, of course, you know, LBJ
was very close to the Zionist and even
had a MSAD agent for a girlfriend. and
I'm sorry I forget her name, but one of
his mistresses was a MSAD agent and then
>> he he completely reversed all those
policies as soon as he was in power. But
of course, same thing with Vietnam. He
reversed
>> well or at least released any skepticism
about Vietnam and said, "Let's go ahead
and escalate there and all that." So,
>> like I say, that one's it's too muddy
for me to try to wait through and and
figure out exactly who pulled the
trigger on that one.
>> Crazy.
the not so secret life of uh Matilda. Is
that how you say her name? Matilda Crim.
That was his Israeli spy girlfriend.
>> Uh yeah, I believe that's her.
>> She looks like a dirty guy.
>> Good old Phil Weiss. I love that guy.
He's a great guy. That's a mande.net is
a great website for anti-ionist.
>> The no daylight policy, the US alignment
with the Israeli government. So
obviously today in Trump's deference to
Netanyahu was born under Matilda Crim's
dear friend Lynden Johnson. In the
feverish weeks surrounding the 1967 war,
Crim, who had once immigrated to Israel,
and her husband Arthur, a leading
fundraiser, were continually at
Johnson's side and advised him on what
to say publicly. I mean, you got to give
it up to a country the size of Rhode
Island that has that kind of [ __ ]
pull.
>> They got their priorities straight.
That's for sure.
>> Kind of amazing that they've been doing
this since the 60s and before.
>> Yep.
>> I mean
>> I mean they threatened Harry Truman.
They bribed him and they also threatened
him. They sent his his daughter's memoir
said the Zionist sent letter bombs to
the White House
>> and they'd stop at nothing to get their
state
>> Truman.
>> Yeah.
>> Wow.
>> And and they paid for his re-election,
too. In fact, um there's a great scholar
named um John B. Judas uh Jud Dis. and
he wrote a book about this
>> name.
>> Uh yeah, I kind of if you mispronounce
it, you know, he actually also wrote, as
long as I'm talking about him, he wrote
a great article for foreign affairs in
1995 about the neoonservatives called
from Troskyism to anacronism. And it was
about how now that the Cold War is over,
who needs these crazy hawks anymore,
right? And then these are the guys who
took us who launched the Iraq war, you
know, a few years later, seven years
later or whatever. He was he was saying
they're a spent force. They should be by
now because they had been Troskyite
communists and then had moved to the
right for the militarism and stuff. But
he wrote a book about how Truman did
this and and I think that was part of it
was this intimidation campaign. And it
was his own daughter that in her book in
her memoir said that they sent letter
bombs to the White House
>> to intimidate and they also paid for his
elections. It was you know carrot and
stick kind of a thing. And then yeah,
look, if you ran the Israeli Foreign
Ministry, you only have one priority in
the world that outranks every other
priority by a million billion, and that
is your relationship with the United
States of America. How friendly is the
president? How friendly is the Senate?
What do we got to do to make sure that
everything stays in line? It's
everything to them.
>> So, let me ask you this. How what do you
think happens with Iran now? Like, how
does this play out if you had to
speculate?
>> Well, I'll tell you that. First of all,
they're more likely to go ahead and try
to break out and make an atom bomb now
than ever before. Although I'm not
necessarily predicting that. I think,
you know, Trump has proven by calling
their bluff on their latent deterrent.
He has proven he's willing to bomb them.
If they really break out and try to make
a nuclear weapon, it's almost impossible
that they could do that without us
knowing. And then this president, and I
think the next one, too, would be
willing to go back to war over it. as
Barack Obama promised, he would
absolutely launch a war against Iran if
they broke out and tried to make an atom
bomb. And you know, he did an interview
with Jeffrey Goldberg in the Atlantic
called as president, I don't bluff,
where he's essentially begging Jeffrey
Goldberg to tell Netanyahu and them, I
really, really mean it. If they try to
make a nuke, I will bomb them, but just
let me try to solve this another way.
So, I think that promise stands. This is
same as W. Bush, same as Obama, same as
Biden. And I think that will continue to
last into the next presidency. And if
the Iranians are smart, what they'll do
is they'll hold the same posture they've
had, which is we're not giving up
enrichment. We're not giving up our
capability to make a bomb one day, but
we're never going to call it that. And
just don't do this to us anymore. and
try to bet on the fact that Trump's only
got three years left and the next
presidents won't be so belligerent and
they won't call the bluff and and and go
ahead and launch another war unless they
break out and try to make a nuke. And as
Darl was saying, they're so much more
powerful than all their neighbors
conventionally, they really have no need
to make a nuclear bomb. And they can, I
think, successfully deter Israel even
with their conventional missile force.
And we saw them just absolutely blast
the crap out of Tel Aviv.
>> Yeah.
>> So
>> very under reportported, right?
>> And and I think
>> you know they should not have killed the
conservative old Ayatollah, right? And
they kill him and apparently like the
the new Ayatollah, his son. They killed
his mother and sister and or mother and
wife and baby. I mean that's the new
Ayatollah over there is, you know, he's
got to be more radical than his father.
He's got to be angrier at us than his
father ever was. And
>> so what is the pathway to resolution?
>> Well, this is it's so unfortunate
because honestly um you know, whatever.
Maybe some genius at some think tank has
a better idea. But I really think that
the thing to do is just quit. The thing
to do is for America to just come home,
for Trump to say, "Look, I won." Yeah,
but we don't really need these bases
over there. The American people don't
need to dominate the Middle East. We're
not worried about the Soviet Union
invading Iran and dominating the Gulf
anymore. So, forget the Carter Doctrine.
Let's just come home. And I think if we
do that, we we bring all of our ships
home, all of our planes, all of our
base, just close them all up and come
home. Then that shifts the entire burden
on to Iran that they still have to deal
with the rest of Eurasia. We're not the
one dependent on their hydrocarbon
exports. Everybody else is. So, are they
going to now levy attacks to get through
the straight of Hormuz? Absolutely. But
too bad. shouldn't have started this war
then. Nothing we can do about that now.
Willie Nelson said, you know, so like
the way going forward is and by the way
like in in Panama they tax um ships
going through the smith there through
the Panama Canal. The Indonesians I
believe it is tax people going through
some of the bottlenecks in the Indies.
And so it's not entirely unheard of
that, you know, the the dominant power
there is going to uh levy a fee on
people coming in and out of there. But
again, too late. Too bad. I mean,
America already we had the exactly what
Marco Rubio says he wants now. We had on
February the 27th and then they launched
this war on the 28th, which by the way
was the anniversary of the Waco raid.
This is a pretty ugly time to start an
aggressive war. And in fact, as long as
I'm on that, and I know you know this,
but it's really worth dwelling on that
they killed not just one, but two girls
schools in their initial assault. They
killed in one building they killedund
and I think 73 or 74 uh almost all
little girls. And then in the other one
was 20 more. and with and with that was
an experimental new Lockheed missile
that fires tungsten pellets out the
front before it detonates uh or as it
detonates uh in a creative new way to
cut people to shreds. And the thing is
about that is as um there's this great
media critic um named Adam Johnson who
pointed out this is equivalent to the
Oklahoma City bombing which you know for
young people uh Oklahoma was 9/11 before
9/11 right it was massive and never mind
there was a bunch of FBI informants who
did it and got away with it. That's
another interview Joe but but it was
another interview and that's a deep one.
>> Yeah it is.
I'm here for you, buddy. But yeah, but
but they killed 167 people were killed
in that thing and it was just the
ugliest damn thing. And it included like
20 kids in the daycare there, right?
That was the cover of Newsweek was a
firefighter holding a dead baby. It's
the worst thing. This is the most
traumatic thing for this country. And in
the heartland of Oklahoma City and all
that. Well, that's what America did to
Iran. Only the entire building full of
kids. All 167 of them, a few teachers,
but virtually all of them little girls
and another school down the street too
or relatively nearby where they at the
volleyball game where they killed even
more. So now think about the Pearl
Harbor attack which Donald Trump himself
compared it to Pearl Harbor. Out of
context, but still it was a sneak
surprise attack in the middle of
negotiations on behalf of a foreign
country over a lie
and then they killed a bunch of kids.
It's like imagine if at Pearl Harbor if
our story of Pearl Harbor was that they
sank all our heroes and drown them down
in their ships in the hul stuck in their
holes down there. But also they wiped
out schools full of 180 little girls,
the children of those sailors who drown
at Pearl Harbor. Oh, and also they
killed FDR that same day, too. Oh, and
also is a Catholic country and he's also
the Pope.
Imagine how we would react to that.
Imagine what our story of Pearl Harbor
to this day would be. I'll tell you what
our story of of World War II would be.
It would be that we kept nuking them
till they were all dead
is what our story of World War II would
be if that's how they had done us at
Pearl Harbor.
It's just somehow we just don't really
think of it in that context. But we
should if that had happened to us again
just like we, you know, we did a little
on Ukraine there and the way America
just absolutely pushes their luck. If
Russia overthrew the government of
Canada twice in 10 years because they
kept voting wrong, we would invade
Canada and nuke Moscow. And in fact,
when you bring up the analogy, it's
completely absurd, right? How ridiculous
is it that the Russians would dare try
to overthrow the regime in Ottawa? That
they would dare threaten to try to kick
us out of our bases in Alaska or any of
these kinds of things. That they would
go to war with the people of Vancouver
who refused to accept the new Ku Huna.
It's comic book crazy. They wouldn't
dare. But we do that to them, you know,
and we act like as as Dr. Paul said, if
we go around the world killing people
like this, bombing people like this, and
we think that we can just get away with
it and not have to suffer the blowback,
then we do that at our own peril. And he
was speaking for the government as a
member of Congress at the time that
we're putting the American people in
danger by acting this way. It's
completely crazy. You know the remember
the the um the Shiite fatwa that the old
Ayatollah the Ayatollah before last last
uh Kmeni put on Salman Rushi the author
of the book the satanic verses where
people and people have tried to kill him
numerous times including got his eyeball
in one case um we have had a real
problem with bin Laden jihadi terrorism
over the time we have not had the
Shiites we have not had the Ayatollah
sistani in Iraq or the Ayatollahe
declare that all good believers should
attack the West. Now they could do that.
That's the kind of fire that we're
playing with. It's extremely dangerous.
I mean, Bin Laden didn't even really
have a religious rank. He was just a
rich guy who he had earned respect
because he was wounded in battle and
stuff. He had money and and influence.
But if the Ayatollah Sistani put out a
full jihad, which I'm not saying he
would do that. I don't I don't have any
real reason to believe that he would go
that far. but he's been willing to stand
up to the United States numerous times,
especially during the war um in you know
the last couple of wars over there. And
so, and remember what happened the night
that they started this war on the
February the 28th, the next day on
Saturday the 29th or was it I think it
was Friday was the 28th and it was like
late in the night they started the war
and then Saturday I believe was the 29th
and a an American uh immigrant from
Sierra Leon here in Austin took an AR-15
put on a shirt with the Ayatollah and an
Iranian flag on it. I didn't even know
they had Shiites in Sierra Leone, Joe.
But I guess they do. And he went down to
Sixth Street and he shot 18 people. He
killed three and wounded 15 people in an
immediate blowback terrorist attack.
Call it backdraft. I I coined the phrase
in my book that and if blowback means
long-term consequences from secret
foreign policies that the American
people then don't understand and are
left up to false explanations or left
susceptible to false explanations. Well,
then backdraft terrorism is when the
consequences of your overt foreign
policies just blow up right in your
face. And you know, frankly, like those
three people were crucified for Israel,
for their sins, for for and 15 more
wounded. I don't know how terribly
wounded. For all I know, people are
still in the hospital over that thing.
And that was a immediate blowback
terrorist attack from this war just
right away. And and it's the kind of
danger that our government is continues
to put us in through these interventions
over there. at some point, you know, all
the sort of um hypotheticals about,
yeah, but what if Russia took over the
world or what if China did if it wasn't
us or whatever, those have got to just
kind of fall away, you know, by the way.
Like there's no real reason to fear that
in the first place. But also, who in the
hell are we to stop it at this point,
right? Another South Park reference when
Cartman is so scared by the Chinese
display at the Olympics ceremony, he
gets all paranoid that China's coming
for us. So he recruits Butters to come
with him to fight and keep all the
Chinese away. And then over and over
again throughout the episode, Butters
keeps like closing his eyes and shooting
some guy accidentally in the dick just
over and over again. And then by the end
of the episode, Cartman says, "You know
what? Just forget it. Okay, if that's
the best you can do, Butters, let's just
stop. We're just going around. We're
This is not working. Our intervention,
it's just not."
>> What do you predict is going to happen
with Iran?
>> I don't know. I'm really worried. I
mean, I try not to take Trump too
seriously when he's, you know, or too
literally when he's being hyperbolic,
but he has threatened to nuke them over
and over again. Including just the other
day, he said the country is going to
have a glow around it, you know, when
I'm done with them or whatever.
>> I mean, I No, no, I don't. I'm not
predicting that. But I think it's it's
symbolic, right, of his frustration. He
absolutely just should not have done
this. and now he has no good way out of
it, right? He could just declare victory
and it would be fine by me. In fact,
there was a story in the Jerusalem Post
um
the end of April, I think I think it was
like April 28th about how Trump ordered
the intelligence agencies to do an
estimate about what would happen if I
just walked away, right? And then
they're looking into it. Well, just how
bad will Iran exploit the new vacuum
that we've created and the power and
influence that we're handing to them?
How bad will it really be? Because he
has no options to fix it. He just
doesn't. You want a regime change in
Tyrron, you can drop a hydrogen bomb on
the capital city and kill 10 million
people and then claim the desolation is
peace. Or you can just forget it. And
like, man, you know what? We're all
tough and badass enough to kill all
these people. We should be tough enough
to admit when we screwed up. Then look
at Afghanistan. We stayed for 20 years
because Washington couldn't admit that
we can't win this war. There's only one
way to tame the poshunes and that is
kill them all. And we're not willing to
do that. So what are we doing? We're
just losing slowly. And then what they
do, they finally admitted it. They
finally just said, "Fine, I guess we
lost and left. That's what we got to do
here, but sooner is better." Do you
think that it's possible that this war
will go on to the end of his regime and
then whoever comes into power in 2028
then gets out?
>> God, I hope not. I I can't imagine
what's going to happen if this thing
keeps on for three years. You know, this
is a real flaw in our system, quite
frankly, is like if we had a parliament,
we could just vote no confidence in this
guy and put a new guy in there whose
fault this isn't and try to get him to
resolve it. Instead, all we can do is
wait 3 years, wait for him to kill over
of a heart attack or wait for his own
cabinet to overthrow him in the name of
him being, you know, too demented to
continue, which is not going to happen.
Um, you know, that 25th Amendment, they
always invoke that like they could do a
coup against him for being a Russian
agent or whatever back in his first
term. They can't do that.
>> Yeah. If they didn't do it with Biden,
he would have to be completely off his
rocker and to to a degree where his own
cabinet is going to agree to overthrow
him, which I just think is virtually
impossible. So,
the good news is, right, is that he's he
could just flip-flop on anything, right?
He can just change his mind about
anything. In fact, when he announced the
ceasefire, he said, "We're going to
we're going to negotiate based on Iran's
11-point proposal." Like, okay, man.
Fine. Right? go from unconditional
surrender to surrendering
unconditionally. Like call it whatever
you want. And and he is good at that.
You could call that a gift if you want
to politically that he can just pretend
like yeah, no, I meant to do that.
>> So what is the holdup? Like what what
are they disagreeing on?
>> Well, he's got to deal with Netanyahu,
right? The Master Blaster thing, you
know, from Thunderdome on his back
shouting in his ear what he's got to do
and what he's got to not do. in the 60
Minutes interview,
uh, he tells the the U, Major Garrett
that, you know, uh, we're not done. The
war is not over until we get that
uranium. And Garrett says, well, how are
we going to get it? He says, Trump
promised me he wants to get it. He's
going to get it. And and of course, they
have this. Ever since they announced the
ceasefire, the Israelis immediately
escalated their bombing campaign in
Lebanon just to destroy the ceasefire.
This is what prompted Tucker Carlson to
say that Trump has clearly been somehow
enslaved by Netanyahu, that he's willing
to put up with that. As Bill Clinton
said again, who's the superpower and
who's the client state?
>> How is it that we have a ceasefire deal
and then you can come and veto it like
this and then not be chastised and not
told to get back in your corner, we're
handling this? And and I really just
don't know the answer to that. Some
people speculate that it's blackmail or
it's just the bribery or he's just into
it that he just, you know, he wants to
be great. He wants to have a legacy.
This is I really should study more about
this, but this is a part of libertarian
economic theory called public choice
theory and which is kind of a clunky
name, but it just means that the public
choices are still made by private
individuals and they're acting based on
what's good for them rather than what's
good for the country. like strobe
Talbot, we need those locked dollars. We
need those Polish votes. So, we do a
policy that ultimately is bad for the
country even though it's good for the
Democrats at the time. And same thing
here. What's good for the country is to
just come home. But, and you can hear
this just built in. People don't even
question. It's just built in, of course,
to every single discussion about this.
How are we going to do this in a way
that it looks good enough for Trump that
he's willing to accept his defeat here,
right? How can we spin it for him? How
big of a gold medal do we have to give
him? How big of a tick ticker tape
parade do we have to give him? How firm
of a pat on the back and a
congratulations do we have to give him
for him to decide that it's okay to come
home? Otherwise, and without looking
like too much of a jerk himself for what
he's done here and then and having to
live with it for three years, the
aftermath of however it works out with
Iran newly dominant. And so again, Bush
put Iran up two pegs in Baghdad. Obama
put them up two pegs by building the
caliphate and then helping them destroy
it again. Um and then of course Al Qaeda
rules Damascus now. So that's a big hit
against them. But uh what what Donald
Trump has done with this war is about at
least equivalent to what W. Bush did in
terms of enhancing Iranian power in the
region. It's like the guy in the
football gr in the football game grabs
the ball and then runs the wrong
direction and scores the goal for the
other team.
>> Do you really think it's that bad?
>> Oh, it's absolutely. I mean, look,
before
>> despite the destruction of their new
>> Absolutely. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Because I mean, it's just as simple as
this, right? On February the 27th, the
Gulf was open for business and the
illusion of American conventional air
and naval power kept it that way and
nobody questioned it. It's America's
dominated order. Yes, Iran has Iraq and
they have Hezbollah in southern Lebanon,
but hell, we even got Sunnis ruling in
Damascus now. And so the GCC and
including Jordan and Turkey and Israel,
this is America's empire in the Middle
East. on February 29th, 30th. I mean,
well, no, sorry, there is no uh one leap
here. On March 1st, 2nd, 3rd this year,
all that was over. I mean, Daryl Cooper
again is, you know, we do this show
provoked every Friday night. And he
said, "Listen, I'm hearing from my
friends in the Pentagon." This was one
week into the war. He goes, "I'm hearing
from my friends. This war is not going
well. They're hitting all our bases.
They've killed a couple of our guys and
they're hitting our runways and hitting
our radars and hitting our planes and we
knew it then. Right then, just and I'm
sorry, man. It's just true. Told you so.
For 20 years, all of our assets in the
Gulf are up for grabs. They can reach
out and touch us there and there ain't a
damn thing that we can do about it, you
know, and it just absolutely is true.
>> Scott, you're a real bummer, but thank
you.
>> It's a lot of fun, isn't it? talking to
me.
>> D, it is it's uh it's good to get your
perspective and I really wish someone
had had your perspective before this all
got started. At least an understanding
of the uh ability to enrich the uranium
and turn it into an actual weapon. But
thank you very much. Um tell everybody
about your shows, where people could
find them, where people could find you.
>> Absolutely. So, I do the Scott Horton
Show, which is my interview show, and
Provoked with Daryl Cooper. And um I
>> Where can people get those?
>> Uh on here on the YouTubes and on
Spotify and all those things. And then
um I have uh I'm the editorial director
of anti-war.com. I'm the director of the
Libertarian Institute. That's
libertarianstitute.org.
And for the deep deep dive and the the
deep background on all this stuff, I
have the Scott Horton Academy of Foreign
Policy and Freedom at scott
hortonacademy.com. And oh, you know what
I have here? If I can just show my books
real quick.
If I can find the zipper on this thing.
Got these for you here. Got Fool's Aaron
on Afghanistan,
enough already on the war on terrorism
and provoked on Russia and Ukraine.
>> Boy, those are some fat ass books, dude.
You do a lot of work.
>> I do. I have a lot of jobs. I work real
hard on this stuff. Um, and these have
been very wellreceived. You know, I'm uh
I basically my job is I was inspired by
Bill Hicks like this when I was a young
kid. There's a great interview of Bill
Hicks on Raw Time, which was the heavy
metal show on the Access Channel here in
town. And I think this probably not too
long before he died. And this is of
course the days before the internet and
everything. um where he talks about the
importance of seeing people get up there
and tell the truth and not be afraid to
tell the truth and set the example for
other people. And you know at that time
it was like to have a guy like him, a
comedian able to tell the truth on a
platform where other people could hear
it was just so exciting to even it was
like just breaking through this this you
know impenetrable force field. And then
he was just saying he says, "Well, well,
if that guy can do it, well then maybe I
can do it and I'll get up there and I'll
say what I think is true, too." And then
that kind of deal. And so I've been more
or less following that same path since
then.
>> Well, thank you for all this because the
amount of work that's involved in
putting together these books and all the
interviews and all the podcasts you've
done. For most people to occupy their
mind with the kind of information that's
in yours, it's got to be very troubling.
It's probably not so much fun. And uh
it's also very important for people like
me who haven't done that work to to have
access to it and get an understanding of
it. So thank you.
>> Cool.
>> Thank you very much for having me. It's
been great.
>> We'll do it again, Scott.
>> All right. Bye everybody.