In this episode, we talk about the Iranian Foreign Minister's trip to Pakistan, the return of the U.S. Navy's minesweeping fleet to the Persian Gulf, and the Iran-Pakistan talks. We also hear from CNN's John DeKorte and the New York Times' Peter Bergen.
00:00:14.220Well, thanks for having me on, Anderson.
00:00:15.720Yeah, this is really kind of the worst time for this to happen
00:00:18.300because the Navy just retired its minesweeping fleet
00:00:21.180and is still building up its fleet of robotics minesweepers.
00:00:25.320So we're kind of at the low point right now in Navy minesweeping capacity.
00:00:28.580and that right now what the Navy's challenge is, is trying to get some initial ships in there to
00:00:33.720be able to start clearing mines because they moved everything out of the strait and out of
00:00:37.060the Persian Gulf at the start of the war. So now they're having to bring all of that back in
00:00:40.820and begin at least the slow process of using robots to search for mines along the transit
00:00:47.480lane in the strait so we can at least bring Navy ships in and out. I think that the Navy has largely
00:00:51.540done that part of it already. So is it clear how empowered the Iranian foreign minister is to
00:00:55.660actually negotiate on behalf of the Supreme Leader and the Revolutionary Guard commanders?
00:01:01.900He seems to have the authority of whoever in Iran is in control of sending him in a delegation
00:01:09.400to Pakistan to put the Iranians' position face-to-face to the Pakistani mediators here.
00:01:17.280His meeting with the army, the commander of the army, the field marshal here, Asim Manir,
00:01:24.440is meeting with the foreign minister, his meeting with the interior minister. These are the
00:01:28.620interlocutors that the parliamentary speaker, when he came here from Iran two weeks ago,
00:01:34.540that he met with. So the Pakistanis seem to be taking him as a person representing the Iranian
00:01:41.260position at the moment. And that's what he says is here to represent. I think that there's sort
00:01:46.540of some confusion that I think relates perhaps to sequencing. The Iranian foreign minister landed
00:01:51.820about five hours ago. He landed out at the VIP airport here, is having his meetings very close
00:01:59.100to that airport in the army headquarters, which is nearby. As we understand, those meetings have
00:02:03.740gone through the night about five hours now. His plane is still on the ground. But when he came in,
00:02:09.260he said he was coming here, and then he was going to go to Oman, and then he was going to go to
00:02:13.400Moscow. And it's not clear if the foreign minister spokesman is kind of making a message for public
00:02:21.500consumption, international consumption. But it's quite possible Iran's foreign minister is having
00:02:26.740a meeting here. He'll take off, leave the country and may circle back if all the meetings go well
00:02:32.780for that meeting with Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, potentially Sunday, potentially Monday.
00:02:37.640Blanche is saying he wants to move more efficiently. This is Michael Reddit from the New York Times.
00:02:42.940He's made very clear that he's going to move more efficiently on the targets more than Pam
00:02:47.340Bondi did. We'll put the list of targets up. I just have to ask you, is this normal? Because
00:02:54.180we cannot let the extraordinary become ordinary here. But perhaps I'm being hyperbolic. Is this
00:03:02.360normal? Oh, gosh, you're not being hyperbolic at all, Simone. This is the furthest thing from
00:03:07.720normal. This is the thing that I find myself having trouble communicating to the American
00:03:11.820public because it's so extraordinary. And you're right. We kind of get used to it after a while.
00:03:15.920But every single one of these cases is an outrage in the sense that they are built on thin evidence and they're being pushed through the Justice Department, often over the objections of career attorneys or they move the career attorneys aside who say, hey, there's no evidence here.
00:03:30.280And Todd Blanche, the thing about Todd Blanche is that he knows better.
00:03:33.200He was a respected prosecutor in the Southern District of New York for eight years until one day he left his private law firm and decided to go work for Donald Trump.
00:03:42.740And he's been making these kinds of compromises ever since.
00:03:46.640And, you know, he said the other day that Donald Trump has a right and a duty to tell the Justice Department which cases, which criminal cases to investigate and which targets to go after.
00:03:55.000That is the opposite of the way the Justice Department has run, particularly post-Watergate.
00:03:59.320But even before that, you didn't see this kind of blatant weaponization with the president saying, go investigate that person and find a crime.
00:04:06.240This is really bad. And it's not my opinion.
00:04:09.420This is the opinion of all kinds of current and former Justice Department officials and FBI agents that I talk to on a daily basis.
00:04:15.480They're horrified by what's going on here. And they're very concerned that we're only a year into this thing.
00:04:20.160There's three more years to go. They've moved aside thousands of attorneys and hundreds of FBI agents.
00:04:26.360And they're continuing to work their will on this DOJ.
00:04:29.120interesting. If, in fact, because you're right, Anderson, Iran drew a very clear precondition.
00:04:34.040The U.S. has to lift the blockade of Iranian ports before they'll even have talks.
00:04:37.760If Iran is now coming to Pakistan and these talks happen, then they've blinked a little bit. And
00:04:42.600that's where that's that's actually fairly rare for the Iranians to do once they lay down a0.99
00:04:46.200precondition like that. So I think that's important to watch. Second is Pakistan, which which Beth1.00
00:04:51.640just mentioned. Look, oftentimes when you're dealing with a mediator, they really want this
00:04:55.760process to succeed. Pakistan has a lot on the line. I suspect they're putting some spin on the
00:05:00.980ball, Anderson, with both sides, suggesting maybe there's some progress when, in fact,
00:05:05.080the two sides might be quite far apart. It's very difficult when you're dealing with mediators. So
00:05:09.340hopefully there's a face-to-face here. The third point I would say, though, Anderson, is that the
00:05:14.460third aircraft carrier coming into the Middle East is significant. I've dealt with Middle East
00:05:18.740Polysphere a long time. Honestly, I've never seen that in my time. It goes all the way back to 2003.1.00
00:05:23.500that is an awful lot of firepower. And I think at least the U.S. is signaling that if there is not
00:05:30.300a diplomatic path here, that we are prepared to militarily perhaps take control of the Strait
00:05:36.060of Hormuz, which is a very difficult military mission. But that seems to be the signaling.
00:05:40.420You don't deploy a third aircraft carrier strike group, which comes with destroyers and submarines,
00:05:45.720unless you're pretty serious about perhaps an operation that can come. I hope it doesn't come
00:05:50.960to that. I hope the diplomas can get on track. But I share Beth's caution, and I'm not particularly
00:05:58.520optimistic here. You need to put the polls in some context. It's almost impossible in modern
00:06:04.660polling, given the ideological impulses of base voters, to get much lower than he is in terms of
00:06:11.520his unfavorable ratings, but also how unpopular he is when it comes to the economy, when it comes to
00:06:16.860inflation, even when it comes to the non-border enforcement part of immigration. He is very,
00:06:23.700very low, still has Republicans, most Republicans with him, but that's even sinking. And I think
00:06:29.360the biggest alarm for him and for Republicans is they look at the House map and it looks like
00:06:34.640almost impossible for them to keep control of the House. They look at the Senate and they start to
00:06:39.060look at states like Iowa, Ohio, Alaska, Texas, Maine, all which should be very, very winnable.
00:06:46.860maybe not even competitive. And they all look suddenly in danger. To me, the most interesting
00:06:52.720thing is talking to people around the president. Their language and body language has changed
00:06:58.780markedly in the last two months. They know they're in a huge hole and it's going to be really,
00:07:03.680really hard to get out of it. They don't even really defend it anymore. They understand
00:07:08.280that we're here by a series of choices that the president made by himself. How to prosecute this
00:07:15.260war was his choice. To do tariffs the way he did was his choice. To unleash ICE into neighborhoods
00:07:21.640before ICE was properly trained to do it was his choice. To then promote that in a very chest
00:07:28.840thumping type of way was his choice. And now Republicans are having to pay for that. And I
00:07:34.940don't think you're going to see Republicans in Congress necessarily turn on him in force. But
00:07:39.740I can tell you right now, there's a tremendous amount of pressure on the people around the
00:07:43.500president to change this cabinet to get some more people in here some fresh blood some clear
00:07:48.320thinking or they worry they're just going to get wiped out and as we're reporting this morning
00:07:52.340day one democrats will impeach him i don't think he cares that much he's been impeached before he'll
00:07:57.680survive it in the senate but that's the fate and he can he can ignore the subpoenas oh his friends
00:08:03.540and family can't all those companies can't like he's coming for a political hell and that's gonna
00:08:09.640be tough. This is the primal scream of a dying regime. Pray for our enemies because we're going
00:08:20.680medieval on these people. I got a free shot all these networks lying about the people. The people
00:08:27.820have had a belly full of it. I know you don't like hearing that. I know you try to do everything in
00:08:31.900the world to stop that but you're not going to stop it. It's going to happen. And where do people
00:08:35.320like that go to share the big line? MAGA Media. I wish in my soul, I wish that any of these people
00:08:43.140had a conscience. Ask yourself, what is my task and what is my purpose? If that answer is to save
00:08:50.820my country, this country will be saved. War Room. Here's your host, Stephen K. Band.0.62
00:08:58.260saturday 25 april year of our lord 2026 um seems to be some corn fusion about this uh about who
00:09:13.400are we actually negotiating with or is there negotiating negotiations um i do want do we
00:09:20.060have the clip can we play about the carrier battle of strike groups again let me i just want to make
00:09:24.280sure you get the buried lead out of our, there are two buried leads in the cold open. Number one
00:09:29.940is this, which we're going to play again. And then at the end, Jim Vanderhay over to Axios
00:09:36.340talking about that yesterday piece of the lead on Axios about how, what I've been warning about,
00:09:43.380the Democrats have a very organized, systematic way that they're going to destroy President Trump
00:09:49.580and the Trump movement once they take,
00:09:52.300if they are to take the House and the Senate,
00:22:06.520But we are where we are, and we got to cut our way through this, get through this, and
00:22:12.880make sure that we can get everybody back home and refocus on what we need to focus on, which
00:22:17.460is things like, oh, let me think, mass deportations, right?
00:22:22.040And maybe not spending $1.5 trillion on our military.
00:22:26.760That really helps the Saudis and Europe, all that.
00:22:30.500Let them pay for it. And as we talk about and get set for for looks like a military operation to open up Hormuz since the blockade is working and putting young American citizens, men and women in harm's way.0.97
00:22:46.200We got to get those Arab princelings up. I'm tired of hearing about these guys throwing big parties on, you know, when Qatar and UAE and all these guys are throwing big parties on White House correspondents.0.94
00:24:39.980So what has to happen, of course, is that the costs to Beijing are considerable, but they're not sufficient yet.
00:24:47.140We need to ensure that Xi Jinping recognizes that the longer this war goes on, the higher costs he's going to have to pay, whether the issue linkage or whether it's in terms of oil and coming out of the Hormuz, but also from the Gulf shakedoms, right, from other states as well.
00:25:09.200We're going to have to start increasing the cost to Xi Jinping to get him to apply greater pressure to Tehran, to use his might to ensure that Tehran is getting a message from everybody that this war has to end.0.54
00:25:26.740They're going to have to yield on enrichment, and they're going to have to yield on the strait.0.68
00:25:31.120I don't think that's going to happen without having the war restarting, this conflict restarting.
00:25:39.200uh because uh the iranians are not yet um well there are two issues there one who rules in iran
00:25:45.840right who rules in tehran is a key part of that but um we haven't broken the wheel yet uh it0.76
00:25:54.320doesn't it doesn't matter it doesn't matter who they're all bad guys they're all theocrats
00:26:00.240some are worse than others no moderates but they still report they need to be armed and they need
00:26:05.280cash money they get armed by uh in the overland route through the chinese and we caught that
00:26:11.280vessel the other day out there and they take cash by selling oil to the chinese communist party is
00:26:15.540that not uh so let's as napoleon said you got a problem you can't fix scale up the problem and
00:26:21.020deal with it there this is the scale up the problem they've shifted the center of gravity
00:26:25.120of the battle they have the initiative they have the initiative in this war this unfortunate
00:26:29.620statement of fact but that's reality they have the initiative and now they're jerking us around0.76
00:26:55.820I mean, it's the kabuki dance about Islamabad has got to end.0.71
00:27:02.980They're not serious yet, and they're not going to be serious until they're really feeling it from Beijing and they're really feeling it kinetically from the U.S.
00:27:12.540Your point about other pathways, air routes into Iran, the land routes into Iran, too, are going to have to be watched very closely as well.
00:27:24.420But my sense is that this is going to continue, that the conflict is going to continue, Steve.0.98
00:31:17.420You've got to figure out how to get it to a place that we can come home.
00:31:21.640And I think that may revolve around Hormuz.
00:31:26.420Tej Gill, there'll be guys like you that'll get sent in.
00:31:30.040And it won't be the princelings. And by the way, how does that sit with you, Tej, knowing you spent 16 tours in places, bad neighborhoods like that?
00:31:37.280The Qataris are over here partying, whining and dining.1.00
00:31:40.440Thousands of people going to their eve of the White House Correspondents dinner.1.00
00:31:45.360So all the people attacking Trump all day long are partying with them over there.
00:31:48.820And let me be blunt, a bunch of Republicans are there partying with them.
00:31:52.500What guys like you are on those Navy vessels getting ready to go in.
00:31:56.140yeah they should be over there they should be on the front lines um i think i think reopening
00:32:02.840the strait is going to be a tough task getting all the mines out and then there are there's
00:32:08.560hypersonic missiles and caves all along those cliffs on the persian gulf and then you know
00:32:13.580you have the iranian drones the shaheed drones so if we can figure out figure out a way to defeat
00:32:19.180the drones and uh basically we we have two options you know either militarily bomb them0.98
00:32:25.700back to the stone age into submission if they submit or you know continue with these peace0.53
00:32:32.060talks and i think try to make a deal but you got two options either to get to she and beijing and0.80
00:32:37.600say we got cut this crap out you need to put some pressure on these guys and stop it and we'll work0.94
00:32:43.020to open the straits because you're the one bitching and moaning about it or we got to go in0.98
00:32:47.220yeah i think it's going to be those are the two things and i hope we don't have to do the latter
00:32:52.320yeah i think i think it'll be a tough tasking that uh straight tough back open not impossible
00:32:58.800but tough i think you know because we're gonna have to demine it that's that's a big thing and
00:33:02.560then they're gonna have drones and hypersonic missiles playing around while we're demining it
00:33:06.860so either like i said either bomb them back into submission which who knows how long that'll take
00:33:13.220or if because all they have to do is survive and they've created basically a subterranean country0.76
00:33:18.160over there with huge ammunition depots and they have factories underground so bomb them into
00:33:23.800submission or make a deal i think that's it tase you've made me need a big pot of coffee as soon
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00:34:26.800five-star reviews is that correct people just gotta go read the reviews yep just one more time
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00:34:40.900use promo code war room when you check out and you get 20 off your entire order and if you order
00:34:46.020more than 80 you get free shipping yeah wow thank you brother appreciate you tase for getting up
00:34:51.880this morning being on with us thank you steve thank you for having me on gets us jacked up
00:34:57.360early in the morning, the 5 a.m. hour.
00:35:02.080Joe Allen, there's a huge event taking place this week
00:35:05.340in a special session being called by Ron DeSantis for the redistricting,
00:35:08.820and that's going to be a flat-out fight, dogfight.
00:35:11.840Also, the Commonwealth Virginia folks will cover it on Monday
00:35:14.920at their Supreme Court, I think appellate court right now.
00:35:17.980I'm not sure it's at the Supreme Court.
00:35:23.600However, he's got two things in the special session,
00:35:26.760or at least two. The other is this bill, the AI bill. This morning, Wall Street Journal's
00:35:32.180reporting certain staff over the White House are not happy with that, and they're fighting
00:35:36.940nonstop to restrict these bills. We're forced to have these, Joe Allen, because of the simple
00:35:46.300fact that they haven't put forward a regulatory apparatus yet, a regulatory proposal that has
00:35:52.800even a modicum of a chance to support people have to understand and they should understand
00:35:56.76085 percent of their followers of our political muscle here hates totally unregulated ai correct
00:36:04.540i mean you you you've now dedicated your life to this sir yeah the polling shows across the board
00:36:11.180the american public is very very uneasy about ai to say the least depending on the poll you'll
00:36:18.160either find a large minority or a majority that are absolutely put out with it. They want nothing
00:36:24.120to do with it. It goes from education to culture. It goes to economics. So the voters are absolutely
00:36:31.360on the side of those trying to, at the very least, regulate AI, if not restrict AI. But,
00:36:37.680you know, as we've reported, as Elizabeth Mitchell of Daily Signal has been reporting
00:36:43.740for some time amazing uh the white house is basically making every effort to nuke state
00:36:50.300level ai bills from orbit and this happened in florida this happened in utah it's happening in
00:36:56.140nebraska tennessee missouri as the wall street journal reported so the white house and the
00:37:04.060advisors driving this are absolutely pushing an agenda that is emanating out of silicon valley
00:37:11.580emanating out of wealth. They are relying on these massive war chests, these super PACs,
00:37:18.600to support their side of the argument, which is basically AI should be unregulated or the
00:37:23.840regulation should be tailored as lightly as possible. It should be a light touch approach.
00:37:28.060On the other hand, you have the state level approach and the municipal approach against
00:37:32.320the data centers in which when you hear the citizenry out, the citizenry either wants
00:37:37.640restriction or in the case of, for instance, the data centers, a total ban, at least in their
00:37:42.720communities? What where do we stand? Because they've taken a couple of shots and now Sachs
00:37:49.940is gone. Where do we actually stand with trying to have a coming together on some sort of
00:37:56.060regulatory apparatus at the federal level? I do agree. What you don't want is 50 different
00:38:02.100regulations or regulatory apparatuses in the 50 states. But the states and particularly
00:38:07.580guys like DeSantis, who's not a guy that fools around, right? You can see on this redistricting,0.75
00:38:13.640Ron DeSantis is a very serious guy, terrible presidential candidate, made a huge mistake
00:38:18.620in trying to primary President Trump, but I think a solid governor. And he knows the priorities are
00:38:23.960obviously it's better to have a federal apparatus, a federal, some sort of federal regulation
00:38:30.080framework, but there's no meeting in the middle. They continue to try to jam this thing where
00:38:36.060there's essentially no regulation whatsoever the kids all the stuff's put back on the parents
00:38:41.160it's just not going to work they had three epic fails these aren't small fails these are epic
00:38:46.100fails to try to do this are they learning as you're dealing in this and dealing particularly
00:38:51.100in this city they're setting up packs and things like that to try to discipline people
00:38:55.120and get buy votes but is there any any idea now that sacks is gone that andreason or carp or the
00:39:03.440these guys are listening to anybody well they seem to be listening to the investors and the
00:39:09.680executives but you know with sacks gone the big question is who the next ais are will be and there
00:39:16.500are a lot of names floating around is it's going to be carp that's what i hear uh and if so then
00:39:21.800you can that's not that's not an upgrade no by that no means whatsoever adds the surveillance
00:39:27.560state does it not that's certainly his interest and he's going to be you can bet serving the
00:39:31.820interest of those allies he has among the tech oligarchs. He'll probably try to push aside
00:39:36.560people, perhaps people like Dario Amadei at Anthropic. But, you know, who knows? The partnership
00:39:43.020between Palantir and Anthropic is clear with the Maven smart system. So it's actually an open
00:39:48.680question, but you can be sure of this. Karp is not going to be sympathetic to those who want to
00:39:52.680restrict or ban AI or any kind of downstream effects of AI. Doesn't Mythos review and the way
00:39:59.340it kind of came onto the scene out of nowhere, prove our point that there has to be some sort
00:40:04.800of like atomic energy commission as it was new. There has to be something because you're going
00:40:08.700to continue. This is not the last time it's going to happen. It's the first time you're
00:40:12.140going to see an acceleration of that. Yeah, I think I actually think that the the whole gamut
00:40:16.480from municipal, from local to state level to federal is going to be necessary. I mean,
00:40:21.560these state laws are going to remain in effect unless you have federal legislation that preempts
00:40:27.380So that whole patchwork, so to speak, I think is actually going to be really important because it's going to speak to local and regional communities as opposed to this one overarching federal thing.
00:40:37.360But in regard to something like Anthropic and Mythos, you know, you've got this massive neural network, this large language model that was designed to code and is capable of finding vulnerabilities and exploiting those vulnerabilities across the board.
00:40:53.460Now, Anthropic made the decision not to release it except to certain corporations like NVIDIA, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services.
00:41:01.120But in the future, you don't have that.
00:41:02.580I feel so great. Those are the guys I would want to really.
00:41:05.740And they were hacked. Reportedly, they were hacked and hackers had access to mythos for some length of time.
00:41:11.900So I think that it is reasonable if you can staff an agency like the Department of Energy with AI experts who understand the technology and work with people who have worked in surveillance and monitoring and regulation of nuclear material.
00:41:26.220And the reason for the audience, the reason you do it through the Department of Energy, they control the weapons labs or what we call the national labs.
00:41:33.780And the national labs, the weapons labs are central to this entire evolution of this, correct?
00:41:39.060Yes. And then you have other proposals, like we reported with Sam Altman and OpenAI. They would prefer that it's the Center for AI Standards and Innovation, Casey, which is, as we talked about then, kind of a nascent organization. And so perhaps, pure speculation, but perhaps Altman and the fellows at OpenAI are eyeing that agency because it would be easier to control.
00:42:02.780OK, when we come back, I'm going to ask the question now. I'll give you a second to chew on it. You just said preemption. They are still pushing. You say there's going to be a patchwork or some sort of ecosystem of various state regulations and local municipal regulations.
00:42:18.480But they're driving force and focus in the in the in the reason for the Wall Street Journal.
00:42:25.000They lead to the Wall Street Journal is that they are pushing still a total preemption where they get some something passed up here that preempts that and makes the federal law the supremacy.
00:42:38.800It's supreme to everything else. That's their goal.
00:42:41.460OK, take a short break here. Joanne is going to stick with us.1.00
00:42:45.660Also, we're going to get Mike Lindell, another situation up in Minnesota,
00:42:49.540where the public schools are offering, they won't put the Ten Commandments up,
00:42:54.540and they will never put a cross up, but guess what?
00:42:56.740They're going to set aside space in public schools in Minnesota for Muslim prayer rooms, believe it or not.