Episode 5182: Destroying the Basic Apparatus Of Iran While The Regime Still Survives
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Summary
In this episode of the War Room, we discuss the crisis in Iran, the impending strike on Iran, and the current situation in the Middle East. We also discuss the current state of the Chinese economy and the future of the region.
Transcript
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this is the primal scream of a dying regime pray for our enemies because we're going to
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medieval on these people here's not got a free shot all these networks lying about the people
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the people have had a belly full of it i know you don't like hearing that i know you try to do
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everything in the world to stop that but you're not going to stop it it's going to happen and
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where do people like that go to share the big line mega media i wish in my soul i wish that any of
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these people had a conscience ask yourself what is my task and what is my purpose if that answer
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is to save my country this country will be saved war room here's your host stephen k bann
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it's uh monday uh second of march year of alert year of our lord 2026 the east room of the white
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house we're going to go to momentarily uh a ceremony uh for um the recipients of the congressional medal
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of honor president now we're hearing may actually talk to the press answer a few questions maybe do
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a spray maybe address the iranian people we're going to find that out as we go on our own neil
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mccabe is there we can't communicate because of just setting up um brandon weikert i got curb
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metals and we get kurt up in a second brandon um you kind of dropped a bombshell the president
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was saying four or five weeks and the question people are going to ask well hang on we have a
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one trillion dollar defense budget uh we got the greatest weapons manufacturing capability
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in the world uh second to none is this because we've been you sending weapons to ukraine is it
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the 12-day war for for israel and because so far the cc the chinese communist party and let me be
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brutally frank i don't the chinese communist party in venezuela and now in iran with their two of their
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biggest allies kind of look cucked i mean she i i don't i believe right now you're not even going to
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see a state visit in april i don't know how she saves face with his military and his people
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by having president trump but the conquering hero that's taken out maduro and now taking out the
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ayatollah which are the two those two combined i believe sir 80 or 90 percent of uh the chinese
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communist party energy uh output deal so what are you talking about that we're running out of weapons
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well i just want to correct you uh 15 percent of uh china's oil comes from iran and less than four
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percent came from venezuela uh 80 percent of iran's oil is sold to china uh but the chinese have been
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shifting uh significantly away from iran's oil over the last several weeks in fact two weeks ago the
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chinese bought more more oil from saudi arabia in the last three weeks uh than they have in the last
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year because they were anticipating the strikes uh i actually unfortunately say that i don't believe
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china is sitting cucked at all i think they are watching us deplete ourselves in real time and
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that's going to give them a lot of strategic leverage um and actually i i'm very concerned so
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you're right hold on hold it you mean you mean you mean you mean strategic leverage in uh the south
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china sea the streets of taiwan yes yes yes absolutely absolutely and i actually think the chinese and
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the russians are both counting down the days until the centcom aor's uh arsenal is depleted and we are
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forced to pull from indopaycom now look taiwan was expecting two years ago massive amounts of air
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defense systems and coastal defense batteries that biden had to pull out of taiwan and send to ukraine
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promising hey you'll get them in 2027 uh if this thing now trump expedited that it's supposed to be
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coming online to them sooner but if this thing goes on beyond this next weekend the americans are
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gonna have to pull those uh systems set for taiwan again only this time for iran so this is a this if
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trump can't get an off-ramp and i think you know you guys were talking about the four-week strategy i
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think the real reason he's got these off-ramps built in is because our logistics guys are sitting
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they're going we got to stretch a very finite amount of resources but just very basically this
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thing could be depleted by sunday monday of next week but if we don't get an off-ramp the president
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just said and look a lot of times he's uh doing misdirection plays because he doesn't want any
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enemy to have that but he said hey the the big wave hasn't come yet and uh and this is why we're
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talking about an off-ramp maybe discuss with after the big wave do you believe we have enough
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stocks and capacities to do a major what we call roman even more of a punitive strike than you've
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done now something because you said degrade i think the president of the united states wants to destroy
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the basic apparatus so how do you do that with with the logistics so he can either he can either keep
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doing this sort of delay strategy where we go in a little bit we pull back we reassess which will
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stretch out those logistics longer or if he's planning for one big one in the next 72 hours this could be
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like the battle of the bulge with us in the losing position we go in hard huts hope we can knock out
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all these guys the thing is the regime has survived now we've taken out 40 of their leaders we got the
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ayatollah good on us but the regime has clearly been hardened to a degree where they can bring up new
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meat if you will but but but but i am hearing they haven't for opsec they haven't gone through all the
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details but it's just not 40 guys having the ayatollah having a picture they actually went much deeper
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into the no i know i know and and right right yes but i'm just saying the big the big ticket items
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we've gotten already and the regime is still not only popping off missiles but they're doing it in
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a very effective way to the point that the arabs are now complaining that the u.s is prioritizing
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defense of israel over the arab states where u.s bases are located which is actually causing a rift now
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uh in the arab u.s alliance which we need to be stronger than ever as we go forward here so there are a lot
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of complications here and with these depletion rates coming online i talked to a guy from this
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a retired missile defense agency guy uh who's saying that he thinks in the next 72 hours the
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entire situation is going to flip on its head uh because it's a race to depletion and we're going
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to be depleted faster race depletion or real quickly uh i want you to hang around uh i gotta bounce i gotta
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bounce man okay fine hang on hang on this answer centcom centcom has said uh that three f15 e echoes have uh
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were shot down by the kuwaitis on a friendly fire any details on that yeah so they all survived it
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was six pilots you know three pilots three wizos they all survived uh interestingly though when they
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let when they got on the ground with out of their ejection seats the people of kuwait were going to
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try to kill them uh and that is because there is a severe backlash among the allied populations in
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in the middle east against us wow brandon weiker we have a problem here yeah where do people go for
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your uh for all your information social media you can find me your great book on shadow war
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thank you sir yeah the shadow war at amazon you can find me at we the brandon on twitter x find me
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writing nat sec guy section on emerald.tv and senior national security editor at 1945 with my
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buddy harry kaziannis thank you sir appreciate you thank you steve keep up the good work thank you
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as long as i got the easiest job in the world i just cut the microphone on and bring guys like you
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that know what they're talking about kurt mills uh an update uh your thoughts so far he just told
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uh brett bear that it's the venezuelan model we've talked about that over the last uh two days
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saturday and sunday um he's told uh you know pete hexa said hey it could be four or five weeks
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could be longer could be shorter we're not going to tip our hand eric prince was on here talk
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as discussed the roman punitive model you're going and hit hard you shatter it until you find
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somebody that you can find that's uh appropriate you think to run the deal and then you make sure
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that they're installed and uh and then you move out your thoughts on all this sir yeah not to directly
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contradict the president or far be it for me to contradict eric prince i think either model um is
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not exactly going to be apropos here um the carthage model of course you know they salted the earth i
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mean we're nowhere near that with the iranians i mean we haven't collapsed the regime and that's
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why the administration is all over the place on whether or not regime changes the goal the regime
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remains in charge uh they have decapitated uh alay khamenei um but i mean frankly behind the scenes
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it was unclear whether or not alay khamenei was frankly frankly a net plus for the functioning of
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the regime he was very old um it's like any like large company a lot of times you know the 90 year
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old ceo is not exactly making it work super well there it may very well be that the successors
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are frankly more vicious more able um there could be opportunity though um because they could be
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more pragmatic uh understand the u.s system better um it's it's entirely unclear um as towards uh you
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know the approach here can we just replicate venezuela i don't think so it's a lot further away
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and iran is uh i don't say like much more of a real country uh but much more of a real state
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um it has a serious military um it can uh impose uh reprisals as it's doing now across the gulf and
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in israel and unfortunately uh to our assets in the region um and i think uh finally uh the main
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thrust here is that it is a fearsome regime that is going to fight for its own survival they're not
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even taking per multiple reporting they're not taking the american calls it's very possible it's
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going on in a deep back channel um but i mean the the reality is a lot of times the deep back channel
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uh is run by the cia and the cia is run by john grantcliffe who presumably uh opposes any discussion
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with the iranians and so i think we're in uh we're immediately in a quagmire and i think the
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president's best option is to acknowledge the sunk cost fallacy which is we've only been involved in
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this in 48 to 72 hours there's very little cost of getting out just now imagine if the kaiser in world
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war one had just left in august uh he would have still been the kaiser um they've talked about and
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the the word is that the the degradation of this is much deeper and for opsec they they haven't they
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haven't said that uh i take it you're hearing differently that the regime and of course trita
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parsi and yourself both said they're not going to surrender and they're not going to surrender
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through negotiations because these guys if they surrender it's a if they capitulate
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they'll be overthrown by their people and they're not going to let their people turn on them because
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they understand that that's a they'll be graveyard dead shortly and president trump has reiterated that
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and reiterate that in fact we know that tom cotton and general raisin kane are in the east room right
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now they're in the audience we're hearing that the president may even say a few words directly to
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the iranian people to kick off this uh medal of honor uh ceremony uh your thoughts on that do you
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think you think he's done enough you're saying we're well short of is that the president right
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there let's cut right to the east room president united states
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oh general king is he going to say anything i'm sorry don't want my glasses on
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there we go okay they're mulling there's milling around smartly as we say in the military
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military so uh your thoughts on that kurt mills yeah i mean look i think top line uh you know
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with to kane this is hegsaf's choice um this is who he wanted to install in that position and i think
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very notably he comes from the air force and i think we are seeing potentially the limitations of
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air power here there are military assessments uh all over the place um but i would flag why do you
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see hang on why do you see why do you see the limitations of air power we're only
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we're less than 72 hours into this exercise well if the goal is regime change it's never been done
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by air power alone right i mean i mean it did but did but let's let's go to that pete hex has said
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very specifically today there's not regime change now the president may have implied something else
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in his discussions but what pete was and we love pete right uh pete was uh pete was pretty adamant
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this is not regime change yet the regime is being changed i think it was the way he phrased it right
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yeah it's a little bit like the mike davis character who was on your show earlier who said
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there was a difference between doing war and making war or something like this i'm not sure that's how
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verbs work but like i mean i i think this is this distinction without a difference um the reality is
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the administration is obviously flirtatious with regime change policy i don't think they've decided
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i think they're open to it like if they knock out the regime uh quote unquote and then the people
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spontaneously rise up and install a jeffersonian democracy in tehran they're happy with it
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um i don't think that's going to happen but but that's not going to happen that's not going to
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happen these people are not jeffersonian democrats i keep saying their parents their parents and their
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grandparents are the ones that threw out the shah throughout the united states with no ceremony
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and beg for they begged for islamic republic they kind of got what they wanted they wanted sir
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correct yeah no listen to what the actual regime is saying i mean you should always listen to your
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antagonist your adversaries you should take you should study them very hard what the regime is
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actually saying on the airwaves on uh middle eastern tv at this point they are saying that
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look the regime has supporters among basically their baby boomers and older uh because they
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remember the anti-american rhetoric that installed the islamic republic in the 70s they are seeing
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this actually as an opportunity to remind uh their younger residents who were more pro-american
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the dangers of the quote great satan right and so they're actually using this as a chance to
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galvanize among a new generation of leadership they'll be hostile to the u.s from the perspective
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of an american foreign policy this is a cataclysm uh we are creating uh a more radicalized uh potentially
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more formidable islamic republic we are not defanging it okay hang on for one second there's a report that
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qatar has just shot down two iranian jets we're going to confirm that remember qatar when we went over there
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there in 17 qatar was kind of the uh the the the hidden partner of the persians and iranians in fact
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they still share some working big working relationship in those gas fields anyway reporting that qatar has
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taken down two iranian jets we're gonna take a short commercial break the president united states is going
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to join some of the senior military commanders for a medal of honor ceremony in the east room our own
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neil mccabe is there real america's voice of course we can't talk to any of the uh reporters as is
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appropriate take a short commercial break we've got a packed show so stick around a new year means new
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to qualify up to a ten thousand dollar rebate here's your host steven k bann
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okay i've got my glasses on now so i can actually see who's coming into the east room or not we're going
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to go cut there in a moment for the commander in chief president united states treat a parsi treat
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i want you to stick around because i want to get some detailed analysis of you but quickly there's
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some rumor going around that the president may actually address directly use this occasion to
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directly address for a couple of minutes the iranian people what do you think would be uh for the from
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the iranian people's perspective what could the commander in chief our president united states say to them
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sir i gotta tell you steve i find this really hard uh because the most likely thing he's going to say
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to them is that they should rise up and overthrow uh the government and that essentially he has paved
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the way for them to do so that is much much easier said than done so i'm not so sure that message any
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variation of it really would land particularly well because last time he did encourage them to go out
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several thousands of them were killed uh and we see already now that even under the 24 hour in which
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perhaps there was a window after uh the supreme leader had been killed we didn't see any mass
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mobilization or anything that suggested that the organization why is why is that why why is that tell
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our audience why do you think that is and why do you think they're not prepared not enough has been
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done tell us why they didn't rise up initially in mass and what needs to be done to get them to rise up sir
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a couple of things first of all they were the protests were clamped down on so brutally in
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january that while it created even more anger at the same time it was also very clear that it really
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scared people it was also quite scary to a lot of people who were out there protesting legitimately
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because they really detested regime that they also were scared by seeing that there were elements
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inside the country that was using the protest to uh forment violence to burn mosques burned
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banks police stations fire trucks etc and they were not really ready for that type of a civil war type
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of a situation the regime still has the monopoly on force they are the ones who are armed they are the
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ones who are in control they in my view do not have the support of more than 15 perhaps 20 of the
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population but 20 of the population is still 18 million people that is not an insignificant number so
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this is not a type of a scenario as it was in libya or in iraq in which you know all power is with one
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single person within this regime and everyone else is essentially against them this is much much more
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complicated trita the president twice when he's done these videos has gone out of his way to tell the
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army apparatus and the police apparatus and a lot of the people not just simply the rgrc but everybody in
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everybody in law enforcement and in in any type of service that you have an opportunity here we will
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give you complete and total immunity if you essentially surrender or come to us or come
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to our side or come to the side of the iranian people but if you're part of these guys that are
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putting it down like so viciously back in january he's blunt you will die uh is that you believe that
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having is that having any impact at all we have seen no signs at all that that has had any impact
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and again part of the reason why it doesn't or it doesn't at least so far is because a people don't
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trust trump after seeing twice now in the midst of negotiations him uh ordering military force you know
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why would anyone in that system believe that if they defect they will be safe you're asking them to
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put a tremendous amount of faith in a promise of a person that they have no reason to trust and i'm
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not saying that the u.s has any reason to trust the iranians either but bottom line is the experience
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of the last couple of years uh has not convinced anyone on that side apparently that this is a
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promise uh worth banking on secondly the remaining people that support this regime who are in the irgc
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they're the most hardcore supporters of the ideals of this revolution which in their view is about
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resisting uh subjugation and surrender to the united states and to western powers in general
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the idea that they would give up the idea that surrender is something that they would contemplate
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rather than thinking that fighting until they die is a more worthy way of going out particularly when
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they cannot trust that surrender again i think creates a situation in which it is much more likely
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that they will stay and fight rather than surrender and again if this um um theory had worked we would
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not be in this situation in the first place because after having moved one third of the u.s navy to
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the persian gulf they should have surrendered and clearly they did it uh he just told brett bear
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because he's been doing a series you know jonathan carl you got jake tapper now break but he just told
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brett bear i i'm i'm my concept here is the venezuelan model okay which is they they were obviously having
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discussions with venezuela beforehand the people that are in charge today and they took out the leader and
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his wife and kind of a a decapitation what do you interpret as someone that's obviously uh you've
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worked uh as uh with the persians you were with president obama doing the deal is that resonating
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you think of any command structure that's left or is a possibility for us to have a basically a
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punitive strike have a new group come on board uh maybe that some people have relationships with and
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turn it over to them in 72 hours i don't think so i could go back to what i said earlier on take a
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look at what happened in venezuela it was a very effective way of taking out that element of the
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leadership and getting the rest of the leadership to stay in power but what did that leadership do
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they completely surrendered trump issued that tweet and say in which he said that he's now running the
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country one of the first things venezuela did under this new variation of the regime they started
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selling oil to israel so the surrender option for or the defection option for these people essentially
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means that they would be completely subjugated and they would have to do and agree to policies that they
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have fought their entire lives against so it is is just inconceivable for me to see that there would
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be anyone defecting from within that system if that is the outcome if that is what trump is looking for
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and so far every time he says venezuela that is what he is saying to them that it would be that
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type of subjugation and then iran would have a foreign policy that would be much more similar to
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that of the uae completely catering to the israelis so if it was something else if he was uh offering a
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different type of relationship that would be more even between the united states and iran um then perhaps
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you could get people to defect but if the defection then automatically leads to them surrendering to
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policy that they have fought their entire lives against i just don't find that being a uh something
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that would attract the critical mass of defections that are needed trita hang on for a second uh thank
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you so much for that i want to go to joe allen uh joe uh we just had brandon weicker on here about
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depletion of our weapon systems particularly the weapons the actual missiles were dropping but
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even a deeper concern right now it's total confusion on artificial intelligence which is so central now
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to our weapon systems what is going on i'm hearing claude is dropped they can't get access to certain
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things walk through exactly where we stand with artificial intelligence and its ability to be applied
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to the battlefield like now well steve the confusion really arises from a problem we've dealt with for the
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the last five years that's just how to disentangle the imagination that people have of what artificial
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intelligence is and can do and the reality which is constantly changing with each new advancement
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as far as claude or open ai's gpt or google's gemini any of these the capabilities are quite limited
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in a battlefield scenario the best that you're going to get out of something like claude which is a large
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language model is it's going to be able to scrape over classified documents classified information
00:24:38.200
and organize it for intel agents or anyone else that's working with that information one of the problems
00:24:45.560
is that as it advances it allows for things like mass surveillance it allows for possibly in the future
00:24:54.200
something like autonomous weapons control this was at the heart of the conflict between pete
00:24:59.880
hegseth at the department of war and dario amadei at anthropic so i think a real way of looking at what ai
00:25:09.560
as far as large language models is doing is just think of it as a tool that intel agents or other
00:25:17.160
military personnel are using to organize information and even something as mundane as say writing emails
00:25:24.760
or to bounce ideas off of it in a kind of war gaming scenario that being said the capabilities are
00:25:31.320
increasing every week so the reason that pete hegseth is so intent on having access to something like
00:25:40.840
claude or having access to something like gpt and unfettered access is surely in anticipation that
00:25:49.480
even with the limitations now that those limitations are going to shrink day by day
00:25:54.680
and that the increased capabilities of these systems will prove that as we've been told over
00:26:00.840
and over and over again ai will be decisive in warfare one other point to make steve is that
00:26:07.240
these large language models are just one type of many different types of ai systems or algorithmic
00:26:13.000
systems so you have tons of systems that are used for detecting incoming fire you have tons of systems
00:26:19.400
that are used for autonomous response to the incoming incoming fire you have tons of different systems of
00:26:25.800
like perception and control that are used for drones and in the near future swarms and swarms of swarms
00:26:34.680
of drones these are all very different from something like claude or something like gpt but gpt claude any
00:26:44.520
of these large language models as they get quote unquote smarter are going to be able to direct to to sense
00:26:52.360
what the drones are sensing and to direct these drones this is also an intended use and so you could
00:26:58.760
in the future maybe the near future have a system like claude or a system like gpt that is in control
00:27:06.200
of other systems like drone systems it's very complicated but one thing to emphasize is that
00:27:12.920
these systems aren't like traditional computer programs you don't simply put an input in it and a
00:27:19.800
predictable output comes out the other end because they're in non-deterministic they make their own
00:27:27.000
decisions that's why it's so dangerous this is the anthropic department of war uh split uh joe real
00:27:34.360
quickly because we may go to the white house coming back where are you going to be your new uh entity
00:27:39.320
that you're launching and where are you going to be in uh in uh florida tomorrow we're going to be on
00:27:45.400
the capital steps in tallahassee florida noon war room posse come out the website is humansfirst.com
00:27:53.720
full schedule there go to my web go to my x at joe b-o-t-x-y-z pinned at the top full schedule
00:28:01.880
that's humansfirst.com and then of course georgia tech on friday and first baptist church dallas on
00:28:08.760
sunday thank you very much steve we're unleashing joe allen go across the country in this crusade
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momentarily we'll be going to the white house we understand the president's going to say but have
00:31:41.160
some appropriate remarks and maybe directly address uh the people in uh in iran or the persians uh trita
00:31:49.000
i know you got to bounce uh just give us your summary of the thoughts of he is to talk to the
00:31:53.000
people in iran what do you think would be the most effective thing you could say
00:31:57.880
i gotta be frank with you steve i think the most important thing you should do is to talk to the
00:32:01.320
american people and find an off-ramp out of this i think he thought that this was going to be quick
00:32:06.440
this was going to be like venezuela by sunday evening he would have this wrapped up it would
00:32:10.360
be glorious by monday morning when uh markets open this would all be gone and it would have
00:32:15.720
no impact it's not turning out that way the iranian strategy is to prolong this war to expand this war
00:32:21.960
and their calculation is that they're going to try to inflict as much damage on the us as possible
00:32:27.160
because they believe that's the only way that there could be a durable ceasefire afterwards
00:32:31.720
meaning that it has to be so costly that no one wants to go back to this war
00:32:35.640
their conclusion from the previous war is that they prematurely agreed to a ceasefire they went
00:32:41.640
for a ceasefire after 12 days and then six seven months later israel is back pushing the united
00:32:47.240
states to go into this war so if there's going to be a ceasefire again they're going to probably
00:32:51.320
try to make sure that it's as costly as possible before they agree to it this means that this can
00:32:56.120
drag out way longer than what president trump has said about four weeks and i think that's
00:33:01.080
something that he just came up with i think he wanted it to be much shorter than that
00:33:04.440
and this could very easily then end up into a scenario that starts looking like an endless war
00:33:09.080
and we saw earlier today that there's this opening of the door for ground troops this is all starting
00:33:14.200
to look like a disaster an off-ramp and a speech to the american people is what is needed at this point
00:33:19.480
trita where do people go and uh to get your analysis and assessments over the quincy institute
00:33:23.800
your social media they can go to my twitter which is tparsi or go to the quincy institute's website which is
00:33:30.840
quincy inst.org thank you sir appreciate you thanks so much for having me brian thank you brian kennedy
00:33:38.440
uh knowing you as i know you i think you may have a different framing and a different perspective is
00:33:45.080
the reason we have you on here your thoughts are uh well thank you steve um we have no indication
00:33:51.320
whatsoever that the president thought this was going to be a quick couple day war and it was going to be in
00:33:56.840
and out they've done months and months of planning they've done they've moved a third of the navy over
00:34:03.160
there um i'm persuaded that the president sees this as part of world war three he's going to do
00:34:11.400
what it takes to make sure that iran does not have the capability of hurting the united states in the
00:34:17.240
region i don't think there was any indication that this was going to be quick when he says he wants to
00:34:22.760
have been a venezuelan style uh outcome he means a regime of the iranian people in the case of
00:34:30.840
venezuelans the venezuelan people who are running the place it's not our job to liberate the iranian
1.00
00:34:37.960
people if they do that great and and i agree with some of your earlier guests that's not an easy thing
00:34:43.480
to achieve the uh the iranian people are not jeffersonian democrats they practically invented
00:34:49.800
slavishness in so many ways they're not going to become a democratic regime in probably my lifetime
0.99
00:34:58.680
if that ever happens it will be because they decide that's what should happen the job of
00:35:03.880
president trump has been to make sure that they cannot cause harm to the united states this is not
00:35:09.640
going to be an easy thing we may run out of munitions good we'll make more munitions that's difficult
00:35:15.400
our defense industry is not quite up to speed on so many things but they should be working around
00:35:20.920
the clock to make sure that we have the munitions we need to defend the united states and so i think
00:35:27.720
in a way take a deep breath not you but you know anybody who's opposed to all this and just take this
00:35:33.240
for what it is part of the three that is playing out today that will over time accrue benefits to the
00:35:40.600
united states that's what president trump has articulated i'm gonna get uh captain finnell sent
00:35:46.440
me an amazing piece about this was the opening salvo in the indo-pacific age in the end of the
00:35:52.120
pacific war this is much more about that part of the eurasian landmass and all about the chinese
00:35:56.920
communist party but we'll do that at another time uh while i have you before we go to the to the east room
00:36:03.480
you wrote a brilliant piece and to me this is a priority um you wrote an incredible piece as only
00:36:11.640
you can about why you make the argument the president of the united states has to nationalize the elections
00:36:18.040
in 2026 brian kennedy can you walk me through a few points before we go to the east room yes um again
00:36:24.680
we're at war and when you're in a war you can't rely on a voting system that could any way be compromised and
00:36:33.480
because it's compromised undermine the authenticity of the election uh in this piece i argue that we
00:36:40.200
ought to uh ban the voting machines the electronic voting machines in part because they use chinese
1.00
00:36:46.680
hardware uh most most almost every single system we have uh operating in the united states even those
00:36:54.040
that are made in the united states use chinese hardware uh meaning uh computer chips what have you
00:37:01.320
that could easily compromise the system the democrats in in years past themselves were very concerned
00:37:09.480
about the ability of the machines to be compromised after they stole the 2020 election
00:37:14.520
that narrative went away uh so i'm encouraging the president because of the potential for foreign
00:37:19.960
interference to ban the voting machines once he does that you're going to have to have a nationwide
00:37:25.800
system where we use paper ballots voter id everything when do we need okay just logis just logistic this
00:37:33.080
thing's up on the blaze i want to thank the blaze for putting up uh brian kennedy's magnificent piece
00:37:38.120
and if mo and grace and uh elizabeth can push it out to everybody we need people to read it we're gonna
00:37:43.080
have you back on but just because i got to go to the east room here president's a couple minutes
00:37:46.600
going away brian let's let's say we assume let's say you're right there's no doubt just the logistics of
00:37:53.080
that one is the president of the united states if you were counseling him you would say hey your
00:37:58.040
drop dead date to announce this so we can get all the logistics done because it's a massive logistics
00:38:03.080
exercise when do you what's what's the kill date that on this side of it we can do it on that side of
00:38:09.160
it's too late i don't want to say it's already too late it's a massive logistical undertaking i would
00:38:16.920
do it this week there's talk of this eo executive order being on the president's desk already
00:38:22.840
he needs to sign it this week and get talk about that give me a minute give me a minute on that eo
00:38:27.800
because the save america act is not going to get passed at least not on capitol hill they're in a
00:38:32.200
firestorm they're going to try to drag trump over the coals today on the war powers act uh so that's
00:38:37.560
not even the students not going to address it the executive order what do you know about it and what
00:38:41.560
does it need to say about this specific part of nationalizing the elections as a national security
00:38:47.560
effort it says most of most of the right things but it leaves in the hand the current executive
00:38:54.680
order will ban most of the electronic voting but not all of the electronic voting uh it does much of
00:39:02.280
the right thing steve but we cannot leave any of the machines or tabulators or what have you
00:39:07.400
we can't leave any of that in place it is mostly pretty pretty good and pretty sound what i don't
00:39:13.400
what what's going to have to happen though is that states are going to have to sign some kind of consent
00:39:18.520
decree where they agree to follow a system in their state imagine the state of of california for instance
00:39:27.160
yeah they're going to have to sign an agreement they're going to have paper ballots counted by human
00:39:32.360
beings voter id etc i guess they're going to cut the money off yeah we're going to cut the money off i
00:39:37.480
guess right well one of two things could happen either we're going to with mike johnson and john
00:39:44.200
thune again not not the strongest of reads here but they're going to have to say if you don't follow
00:39:50.440
this system we're not going to see sit those members of congress or the senate that get elected
00:39:56.040
it's pure and simple stop stop right there that's no that's not desirable that's not that's going
00:40:02.360
viral that's going that's not desirable let me let me say that's not desirable okay all because a
00:40:10.360
third of the country would not have be represented the more commonsensical thing is to have a federal
00:40:15.560
system where either you you nationalize the national guard or federalize the national guard in each
00:40:21.400
state to oversee this but they have to consent to some kind of some kind of system where they
00:40:27.560
actually carry out the paper ballots and the voter id and the hand counting either we're going to take
00:40:33.480
this seriously or we're not or not yes and you're thinking serious where do people go to get it where's
00:40:38.760
social media we got to bounce to go to the white house uh where they go uh it's on the blaze.com uh
00:40:45.160
uh i'm at i'm at x uh i'm brian t kennedy one uh it's i put it up on there it's uh brian t kennedy
00:40:54.760
on um get her in true social thank you thank you sir appreciate you forego though we got kurt mills
00:41:00.200
kurt what do you think trita parsi said hey you don't need to talk to the iranian people you need
00:41:04.280
to talk to the american people if you're advising the president united states right now before he walks
00:41:08.440
out what is your guidance and what you think he should say to the american people sir
00:41:12.760
he should explain a clear rationale about why they did this um address the potential and i think
00:41:21.560
clear contradictions by other administration officials and hill hawks and neoconservatives
00:41:26.040
and the israelis our partners over there and then additionally he should explain the path to an off-ramp
00:41:32.600
and how this is going to be a quick military exercise frankly and that we are going uh to leave
00:41:38.520
i think he should additionally very importantly and most importantly speak to the anxieties within
00:41:44.440
his own base and within the broad swath tens of millions of americans who gave this guy a chance
00:41:49.880
because he was a different type of republican opposed to regime change war opposed endless wars and
00:41:55.320
opposed to the middle eastern expansion uh imperial project and i think he should explain why this is
00:42:00.920
different and why he's not going to be george w bush i think he should address it directly i don't think
00:42:05.560
he should take for granted his supporters and i think he should explain uh why this is not a bad
00:42:11.320
deja vu trip to 2006. what about he's said over and over again he's decapitated the regime from the
00:42:18.360
senior level from ayatollah the 40 top guys like ninajad and others right we understand it goes much
00:42:26.120
deeper you know don't you believe he has don't you believe he's gone a long way to taking out the bad
00:42:31.080
guys and that there is some you know this roman punitive uh punch that you can do and then toss
00:42:37.240
it to who's left and just just go or you don't believe that because are you saying tom cotton and
00:42:41.640
lindsey graham are pitching something else on capitol hill i think clearly tom cotton and lindsey graham
00:42:46.840
are pitching something else on on capitol hill i think basically uh they're selling him a bill of
00:42:51.320
goods the president has bought some of the items on the menu but not all of the items on the menu
00:42:56.440
lindsey graham and tom cotton are old guard 2000s george w bush era neoconservatives they are taking
00:43:03.400
what they can get uh from this uh uh from this president and they're frankly they're driving him
00:43:08.760
as uh pjr work the late great pjr work said they're driving the president like a rented car
00:43:14.200
they're going to move on from him whenever he leaves the scene and they're going to continue their
00:43:17.720
ideology into the 2030s if they're unfortunately still in government um i think to the question of
00:43:23.160
decapitation uh within the iranian government yeah they removed the head of state uh ali khamenei
00:43:30.520
but as mentioned earlier in the segment there is an entire apparatus beneath them and i do have to
00:43:34.920
flag the pentagon did a 500 million dollar war game on this in 2002 granted a lot of things have changed
00:43:41.080
the tactics have changed but strategically they identified one key part of what this would look
00:43:46.200
like which is that the iranians would be extremely resilient to leadership decapitation strikes
00:43:52.120
that they would they would just go next man up as you would say and uh they would prepare from there
00:43:57.640
and additionally to an extent uh like a lot of modern societies iran has lapsed into gerontocracy uh
00:44:04.840
if you remove the gerontocrats you're just installing younger potentially more able more vicious uh
0.98
00:44:10.600
successors now there's also opportunity there maybe they're these are people that will understand the
00:44:15.000
u.s system and negotiate more um pragmatically than their predecessors but i don't fail to see how this is
00:44:21.320
actually going to collapse the regime i think uh the u.s needs to be moved moved towards number one
00:44:27.080
telling israel no this will never stop unless the president tells netanyahu that he's out on this for
00:44:33.880
the rest of his term uh what do you mean by that i mean because isn't part of the part of the off-ramp
00:44:41.160
as you hit them you've done as much regime change as you can you toss the keys and then you tell israel
0.70
00:44:46.520
hey if you want to continue on you you guys go for it i mean we can't we should not try to control
00:44:51.720
them if they want to go for it as long as we're not involved do you have any problem with that
00:44:57.240
it's just not what the israeli policy is it's just not what netanyahu's policy is i mean this
00:45:01.080
this goes back you know jack masovic has mentioned it earlier i think he did a documentary or something
00:45:05.160
on it but the clean break memo authored on june 1st uh 1996 so 30 years ago this year um argued that
00:45:12.840
the u.s and israel should ally to quote break uh different countries in the middle east and quote
00:45:20.360
secure the realm what is securing the realm is greater israel um i think you know it's not as if
00:45:26.520
uh the u.s was totally naive they thought this would work they thought that the u.s and that national
00:45:30.840
interests and israeli national interests were potentially the same but it's not it makes
00:45:34.520
sense and for a certainty it's really hard cut cut cut hang on one second we're going to the uh east uh room
00:46:00.840
ladies and gentlemen please bow with me as i ask god's blessings upon this ceremony almighty god
00:46:12.520
your steady hand has guided this republic for nearly 250 years from its birth in the wilderness to this
00:46:21.800
very hour we come to you now with grateful hearts we assemble here today to honor men
00:46:30.680
who when the test came were steadfast and unmovable we thank you for the unyielding conviction of master
00:46:40.040
sergeant roderick edmunds who looked evil in the eyes and did not flinch and we thank you for the
00:46:49.080
battlefield grit of command sergeant major terry richardson courage that saved lives in vietnam
00:46:56.680
and courage that stands before us today and lord we thank you for staff sergeant michael ollis who in a
00:47:06.600
final selfless act made his own body a shield for a friend bless the family and friends of these great men of
00:47:17.160
honor oh lord and forbid that we leave this place as mere admirers of their heroic deeds plant in our hearts
00:47:27.080
a measure of their courage that we might prove worthy of the freedom for which they and generations before
00:47:35.720
them defended lord now let the light of liberty continue to shine on our great nation we pray in the strong
00:47:46.520
name of the one who guides us this will defend amen
00:47:51.960
thank you very much chaplain green wonderful job appreciate it and thank everybody for
00:48:17.640
so before we begin this important ceremony and there's no ceremony that can be much more important
00:48:23.640
than this let me provide a brief update on operation epic fury today the united states military
00:48:32.520
continues to carry out large-scale combat operations in iran to eliminate the grave threats posed to america by this
00:48:41.400
terrible terrorist regime following our obliteration of iran's nuclear program in operation midnight hammer
0.82
00:48:51.800
a short while ago we warned iran not to make any attempt to rebuild at a different location because
00:48:59.160
they were unable to use the ones that we so powerfully blew up but they ignored those warnings and
00:49:06.520
refused to cease their pursuit of nuclear weapons in addition the regime's conventional ballistic missile
00:49:13.240
program was growing rapidly and dramatically and this posed a very clear colossal threat to america and
00:49:20.200
our forces stationed overseas the regime already had missiles capable of hitting europe
00:49:26.040
and our bases both local and overseas and would soon have had missiles capable of reaching
00:49:33.560
our beautiful america the purpose of this fast-growing missile program was to shield their nuclear
00:49:39.960
weapon development and make it extraordinarily difficult for anyone to stop them from making these highly
00:49:46.040
forbidden by us nuclear weapons we were the ones that were complaining we were the ones that wanted it
00:49:53.800
stopped but everybody was behind us they just didn't have the courage to say so
00:50:00.040
an iranian regime armed with long-range missiles and nuclear weapons would be an intolerable threat
0.65
00:50:06.840
to the middle east but also to the american people our country itself
00:50:13.800
would be under threat and it was very nearly under threat
00:50:17.000
i was very proud to have knocked out the iran nuclear deal by president barack hussein obama that
00:50:24.680
was a horrible horrible dangerous document they would have had nuclear weapons
00:50:30.440
three years ago and they would have used them but i'll not let that happen
00:50:36.760
for almost 47 years this regime has been attacking the united states and killing americans every time you see
0.95
00:50:44.680
someone with missing arms and legs or a face that's been absolutely shattered violently it was almost
00:50:51.960
certainly caused by an iran roadside bomb they were put there by general soleimani who was the
00:51:03.160
father of the roadside bomb very proudly he thought but i terminated him in
00:51:09.160
in my first term this was our last best chance to strike what we're doing right now and eliminate the
00:51:18.280
intolerable threats posed by this sick and sinister machine regime and they are indeed sick and sinister
00:51:27.240
our objectives are clear first we're destroying our ends missile capabilities and you see that happening
00:51:34.760
on an hourly basis and their capacity to produce brand new ones and pretty good ones they make
00:51:41.400
second we're annihilating their navy we've knocked out already 10 ships
00:51:47.480
they're at the bottom of the sea third we're ensuring that the world's number one sponsor of terror
1.00
00:51:54.520
through a weapon never going to have a nuclear weapon i said that from the beginning they're never going to
00:51:58.680
have a nuclear weapon they were on the road to getting one legitimately through a deal that was signed
00:52:06.520
foolishly by our country and finally we're ensuring that the iranian regime cannot continue to arm fund and
00:52:15.400
direct terrorist armies outside of their borders and we thought we had a deal but then they backed out
00:52:22.920
and they came back that you can't deal with these people you got to do it the right way today we grieve
00:52:30.200
for the four heroic american service members who have been killed in action and send our love and support
00:52:37.240
to their families in their memory we continue this mission with ferocious unyielding resolve to crush the
00:52:45.160
threat this terrorist regime a threat indeed it is we have the strongest and most powerful
00:52:52.680
by far military in the world and we will easily prevail we're already substantially ahead of our
00:53:03.720
time projections but whatever the time is it's okay whatever it takes we will always
00:53:10.200
and we have from right from the beginning we projected four to five weeks but we have capability to go
00:53:18.440
far longer than that we'll do it whatever somebody said today they said oh well the president wants
00:53:24.360
to do it really quickly after that he'll get bored i don't get bored there's nothing boring about this
00:53:29.960
do you agree with that pete i don't think there's anything mr general i think there's nothing boring
00:53:35.000
about it somebody actually said from the media i think he'll get bored after about a week or two no we
00:53:41.400
don't get bored i never get bored if i got bored i wouldn't be standing here right now i guarantee you that
00:53:47.160
to go through what i had to go through we also projected four weeks to terminate
00:53:54.600
a military leadership and as you know that was done in about an hour so we're
00:53:58.680
ahead of schedule there by a lot but please join me in thanking every american service member who
00:54:05.560
bravely is standing in harm's way they really are incredible and i just want to thank you we have
00:54:10.680
a lot of them right here thank you very much thank you
00:54:26.600
thank you everybody we have a lot of great service members here with us too in this beautiful
00:54:32.040
building isn't it beautiful we're adding on to the building a little bit we're improving the building
00:54:38.280
see that nice drape when that comes down right now you see a very very deep hole
00:54:44.280
but in about a year and a half from now you're going to see a very very beautiful building
00:54:48.680
and there's your entrance to it right there in fact it looks so nice i don't think i'll even i
00:54:52.520
think i'll save money on the doors because it can't get more beautiful than that i picked those drapes in
00:54:58.360
my first term i always like gold but i think we can save a lot of money i just saved i just saved
00:55:05.720
curtains but uh and it will be it'll be spectacular be the most beautiful ball i believe it because i
00:55:12.760
built many a ballroom i believe it's going to be the most beautiful ballroom anywhere in the world and
00:55:17.880
when you hear all that hammering out there you know why the first lady is not thrilled exactly
0.83
00:55:23.480
she said will the pile drivers ever stop you know they go from six in the morning
00:55:27.960
till 11 30 in the evening can you imagine here you know what to me that's a beautiful sound she
00:55:35.560
doesn't like it i love it you know what to me other than here because we're donating it not a
00:55:41.240
penny to the taxpayer it'll be under budget ahead of schedule it'll be 400 million or less most people
00:55:49.400
say 400 million or more no it'll be less but uh when i hear that sound that beautiful sound behind me
00:55:56.440
it means money so i like it but my wife isn't thrilled it's getting crazy it'll i said don't
00:56:02.600
worry about it we'll be all finished up in a few months but now for the reason that we're gathered
00:56:08.680
this morning to recognize the unsurpassed courage of three really incredible american heroes one living
00:56:15.720
and two no longer with us so together we recognize the exceptional valor of master sergeant roderick
00:56:27.080
edmonds and maybe i could ask your families to stand because they're beautiful families i got do you owe
00:56:32.280
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