The Anchormen Show with Matt Gaetz - The Anchormen Show with Matt Gaetz ｜ U.S. Supporting Israel： Robert Spencer & Dave Smith

00:00:00.000 Now, it's time for the Anchorman Podcast with Matt Gaetz and Dan Ball.

00:00:14.080 Good evening and welcome to the Anchorman Podcast powered by One America News. I'm Matt Gaetz,

00:00:18.400 host of the Matt Gaetz Show. We're every weeknight, 9 Eastern, 6 Pacific, and today we're doing

00:00:23.040 something a little bit different. We've partnered with Zero Hedge, a great website for their Zero

00:00:28.680 Hedge Debates. Zero Hedge Debates brings smart folks together to challenge conventional wisdom

00:00:33.380 and discuss the major policy questions of the day on digital platforms. Tonight, we ask this

00:00:38.960 question. Should the U.S. support Israel in taking out Iran's leadership? Taking the affirmative in

00:00:45.980 this debate is Robert Spencer, director of Jihad Watch. Taking the negative is Dave Smith, host of

00:00:51.900 Part of the Problem podcast. I'm former Congressman Matt Gaetz. I'll be your moderator. The Zero Hedge

00:00:57.060 Debates begin now. Each side is afforded a four-minute opening statement, and we begin with

00:01:02.640 Robert Spencer. Thanks, Matt. You know, obviously nobody wants to go to war with Iran. The problem

00:01:09.800 is, in all of these discussions that I'm seeing about this issue, nobody is actually talking about

00:01:16.880 the fact that not just one side gets to decide whether the war will begin or not. And it may well

00:01:24.180 be that Iran will attack the United States, and it won't be up to anyone whether we go in to fight 0.93

00:01:33.920 Iran or not. At the same time, nobody is envisioning the kind of quagmire that we had in Iraq and 0.97

00:01:42.480 Afghanistan. Nobody is talking about boots on the ground. There is talk about regime change,

00:01:49.340 but that's become a very charged term. It doesn't necessarily mean some sort of wrongheaded,

00:01:58.600 misguided, unfocused project to bring a political system to a people that doesn't want it or understand

00:02:06.900 it. And so what we have in this situation is quite different. The president, as a matter of fact,

00:02:13.680 just today said that he was talking to Tucker Carlson, and he said, are you okay with nuclear

00:02:21.220 weapons being in the hands of Iran? And Trump went on to say, and he sort of didn't like that.

00:02:26.400 And of course, nobody really likes that. And Trump said, if that's okay with you, you and I have a

00:02:34.500 difference. It's not just Israel that has said that the Islamic Republic of Iran is working on nuclear

00:02:42.260 weapons. This is something that has been abundantly established by investigations of the International

00:02:48.780 Atomic Energy Agency, which is, of course, an arm of the UN, works closely with several UN agencies.

00:02:58.360 And the UN is no friend of Israel. The UN, as a matter of fact, has a standing item. The UN Human Rights

00:03:05.000 Council has item seven on its agenda every time it meets to condemn alleged human rights abuses of

00:03:12.840 Israel. So the IAEA, working closely with the UN, is not likely to exaggerate an Iranian nuclear threat.

00:03:20.800 But the IAEA says that the Iranians are enriching uranium at a rate that is far beyond peaceful

00:03:27.660 purposes, and that this is indeed an imminent threat. And so I hope that the president doesn't have to strike in

00:03:37.380 Iran. I hope that it doesn't come to that. He's still talking today about bringing Iranians to Washington to

00:03:44.300 talk with him at the White House. And he's the great dealmaker. Maybe he can do it again. At the same time, it may

00:03:51.400 become, unfortunately, necessary for the real peace of the world to strike Iran's nuclear program in 0.98

00:04:00.320 tandem with Israel, and to take it out so that this regime cannot endanger the life of the world as it 0.92

00:04:08.320 has thus far in numerous ways. Now, this doesn't necessarily mean regime change. But if it did come

00:04:16.260 about, the first people who would welcome it would be the Iranians themselves, who have made it

00:04:22.240 abundantly clear that they hate this regime. In Afghanistan, they love the Taliban. In Iraq,

00:04:28.720 they couldn't wait to establish Sharia. In Iran, it's different. Thank you. Thank you very much, 0.91

00:04:34.500 Mr. Spencer. Dave Smith, take it away. I just, I'm honestly almost just in disbelief, almost over this

00:04:41.720 entire debate. I can't even believe that we're here in 2025, after just electing Donald Trump,

00:04:46.760 winning every swing state and the popular vote, that we're actually having 2003 all over again,

00:04:52.600 and with all of the same characteristics, just blatant lies, complete misrepresentation of the

00:04:57.740 evidence, a bunch of different fabricated justifications for the war that aren't even

00:05:02.580 coherent. The truth is that the many people, no one wants war with Iran are the first words we

00:05:10.680 hear. No one wants war with Iran. You sure about that? Iran has been on America's list of countries

00:05:16.840 to overthrow since at least 2001. We have a four-star general on the record who told us that he saw these

00:05:23.440 plans. George W. Bush put Iran on the axis of evil after 9-11, even though they had absolutely nothing 0.85

00:05:30.420 going to do with 9-11, he then invaded the two countries that touch it and destroyed the two 0.68

00:05:35.760 countries. And you're going to sit here and say no one desires war in Iran? If anybody who knows

00:05:41.620 anything about D.C. knows that there are very powerful forces, not a single honest Trumper, 0.59

00:05:47.420 MAGA person in America would say that there aren't powerful forces that have wanted war with Iran for

00:05:53.180 years. And the fact of the matter is that Iran does not have nuclear weapons. The director of

00:05:58.540 National Intelligence released her annual threat assessment two months ago. She reaffirmed it very

00:06:03.060 recently. There's just no evidence of it. And even as you quote the IAE, they came out and said

00:06:09.660 that Iran is not developing nuclear weapons. They have a latent nuclear deterrent. It was in no way

00:06:15.800 something that justified a first strike from Israel. And the idea that this regime change is going to be

00:06:21.340 different, well, why does it feel so similar already? It's based on a lie of a nuclear threat.

00:06:27.880 We're talking about liberating the people. I mean, I guess maybe one of the differences I spot,

00:06:33.060 Matt, I bet you would find this kind of funny, but the Israelis are posting pictures with the son of 1.00

00:06:38.260 the Shah. So I guess we're making the world safe for monarchy now. I guess we're in the business of 0.93

00:06:44.120 spreading monarchy to the Middle East. Well, I don't see any indication that that's going to work out

00:06:49.300 any better than spreading democracy worked. And either way, it's not America's business. We have to

00:06:54.400 appreciate, look, as you even mentioned there in your opening, it's like you lay out the argument.

00:06:58.820 Now we don't know what's going to happen. Look, America, the Israelis will sit here and say that 0.91

00:07:04.600 Iran attacked them on October 7th because it was their proxy that came and attacked them. Well, 0.99

00:07:11.020 by that same logic, is Israel not our proxy? I mean, that's exactly the relationship, but we

00:07:17.140 certainly fund and arm them. We're giving them intelligence cover. Evidently, Trump was negotiating

00:07:23.420 to distract them from this attack coming in. And yet we don't know now. We have, at least as of

00:07:29.240 2007, the Pentagon told George W. Bush that we do not have escalation dominance in a war with Iran,

00:07:35.360 meaning they can hit so many of our bases and our embassies in the region. It's a huge risk. And

00:07:40.700 what's going to happen then? You know, it's easy. They all start off, oh, there won't be troops on the

00:07:44.080 ground. It won't be one of the bad regime changes. It'll be a good one. What happens when a few

00:07:48.300 Americans get killed in this? You think Donald Trump's going to take that and not start bombing

00:07:52.580 the hell out of this country? This is so incredibly risky. And just to be clear here, and I'll end on

00:07:58.640 this, I just can't overstate this. When I say this is so incredibly risky, what we're risking is the

00:08:04.080 United States of America. And I don't just mean like because Iran could beat us in a conflict,

00:08:08.960 but honestly, ask yourself, let's say you're wrong. You know, I don't know where you stood on

00:08:14.000 all these last regime change wars, but I know that almost everybody who's trying to sell this

00:08:18.060 one was catastrophically wrong about all the last ones. What's the chance you're wrong here?

00:08:22.640 And when I say you're wrong, I mean that regime change doesn't work out well,

00:08:25.860 that actually it becomes a disaster, that actually, even though the people didn't like the government,

00:08:30.120 I don't know, this radical government that has ruled since 1979, with all of the most powerful

00:08:35.060 governments. Okay, I'll wrap up real quick. With all of the most powerful governments in the world

00:08:39.340 trying to overthrow them, they've still hung on. Who's to say that another radical group doesn't go

00:08:43.980 out there. And we're not in the position we were in 2003. We're $37 trillion in debt. Our country is

00:08:49.580 completely divided in a way we haven't been before. Donald Trump needs all the political

00:08:53.920 capital he can right now to get his immigration issues through, and that's all.

00:08:57.920 Okay, so Mr. Spencer, I want to pin you down on precisely the position you're taking here.

00:09:03.600 Do you believe that there is a basis right now? In your opening statement, you made a lot of

00:09:08.840 the characterizations about what could happen and predictions about potential developments

00:09:13.600 in the conflict. But right now, do you believe the United States should support Israel in taking

00:09:20.840 out Iran's leadership? And can you give me just a quick answer to that question?

00:09:26.340 Well, it depends on what you mean by support. You know, in World War II, Franklin Roosevelt did not

00:09:31.440 get the United States involved in the war until after Pearl Harbor. But he did everything he could

00:09:37.240 to help the British before that. There was the Lend-Lease program. There was the propaganda war.

00:09:43.000 There were all kinds of ways in which he was aiding the side of freedom against the Nazis before

00:09:50.600 Pearl Harbor. But he didn't get involved until Pearl Harbor. I think that's a perfectly... 0.55

00:09:56.240 So is that where you think the U.S. should be today? I just want to understand that for clarity,

00:09:59.860 the sake of your position, are you saying we should be in a Lend-Lease, provide weapons to Israel, 0.78

00:10:05.160 or do you believe the United States should directly be involved in striking assets in Iran?

00:10:12.120 Exactly what I'm saying. Okay. The idea that this is some sort of betrayal of MAGA,

00:10:17.740 as Dave was suggesting, is ignorant of the fact that Trump, in his escalator speech,

00:10:24.500 his first political speech announcing he was going to run for president in 2015, he says,

00:10:30.140 I'm not going to allow Iran to get nuclear weapons. Now, I don't know what people thought he meant by

00:10:34.980 that. He reiterated that many times over the years, and now he's saying the same thing. And you've got a

00:10:41.760 regime that actually has ordered its people every Friday in the mosques all over Iran, they have to 1.00

00:10:49.480 chant death to America as well as death to Israel. And it's important to note, this is not just 0.83

00:10:55.560 braggadocio or sloganeering. The Ayatollah Khamenei actually said not long ago that the situation

00:11:04.260 between America and Iran is this. This is November 1st, 2023. When you chant death to America, it's not

00:11:10.760 just a slogan, it's a policy. And it's a longstanding policy, in fact, because it goes back to 1979,

00:11:17.460 to the seizure of the embassy, the taking of the hostages, the taking of the CIA agent,

00:11:26.160 William F. Buckley, not the National Review guy, another one, who was-

00:11:30.940 Another CIA agent.

00:11:32.800 Yeah, well, you probably got a point there. But in any case, he was brutally tortured and murdered by

00:11:39.860 the Iranian regime in the 80s. Hezbollah is a wholly owned and operated subsidiary of the Islamic

00:11:44.760 Republic of Iran created by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. 1983, they killed 241

00:11:51.140 Marines in the barracks in Beirut. You've got just a couple of years ago, Tom Cotton asked Defense

00:11:59.740 Secretary Lloyd Austin, has Iran attacked any American interests, American bases in the last couple of

00:12:08.980 years. And if so, how many times? And Austin says, 83 times. And Cotton says, okay, how many times did the

00:12:18.120 U.S. respond? And he said four. So that's 79 unanswered attacks from a power that is chanting death to

00:12:26.360 America, saying it's a policy, not just a slogan. And that projects weakness. If you just let that keep

00:12:36.200 happening and never respond, then you are exactly the same thing that Dave is saying is going to

00:12:43.160 happen, but not in the way he envisions. You're going to lose the United States.

00:12:46.560 Dave Smith, your answer to Iran deserves it. 1.00

00:12:50.040 We're going to lose the United States. You're telling me that militarily Iran is going to take 0.99

00:12:58.100 out the United States of America? The idea is so preposterous. This is a country that does not

00:13:04.660 have an air force capable of delivering weapons to us. We're the most powerful country in the

00:13:09.220 history of the world. And this is a puny third world country, although compared to the other 1.00

00:13:14.160 puny third world countries we've been picking on, they're much, much tougher. But just think about 1.00

00:13:18.140 this, man. Everybody, the war fever and the drums are beating. Let calmer heads prevail for a second.

00:13:24.020 I just told you that after 9-11, the war, the war hungry George W. Bush put Iran on the list of axis of evil

00:13:33.660 and then invaded and destroyed their two next door neighboring countries. And your response was the kids 0.74

00:13:40.640 yell some chance. Therefore, they're threatening us. I mean, let's get real here.

00:13:46.460 Well, I want to talk about that threat real quick, Dave Smith, because we saw the house chairman of the

00:13:51.080 Foreign Affairs Committee say in an interview recently that however we confront Iran today,

00:13:56.820 it is at least confronting an Iran without a nuclear weapon. And as messy and as bad as all 0.98

00:14:03.600 those rough outcomes you described, the argument just that I'm presenting to you is, well, we eventually

00:14:09.620 have to confront Iran. So better to do it now than later. Your response, and then we'll go to Mr. Spencer. 0.99

00:14:14.840 It's just absolutely ridiculous. And like I said, all of the intelligence indicates that they're not

00:14:19.260 trying to get a nuclear weapon anyway. So this is all like, it's all just begging the question.

00:14:23.860 It's like, you have to, you have to like demonstrate that they are actually attempting

00:14:27.540 to get a nuclear weapon before you can just make that call. But you know, as, as the great Scott

00:14:31.840 Horton said the other day, um, you know, uh, um, Truman did not start a war with the Soviets because

00:14:39.500 they were developing a nuke and Johnson didn't start a war with the Chinese communists because they 0.89

00:14:44.800 were developing a nuke. And this idea that therefore it's okay to just launch a war of

00:14:49.840 aggression because somebody else is developing a nuke. And the wildest thing about it, Matt,

00:14:54.520 as you know, as everybody listening, I imagine knows there is one country in the middle East

00:15:00.120 who has secretly developed nuclear weapons and is not a member of the non-proliferation treaty.

00:15:04.520 And that's Israel. I mean, the nerve of them to launch a war on these grounds,

00:15:09.260 Iran is in the non-proliferation treaty and is not developing nuclear weapons and doesn't have

00:15:14.120 nuclear weapons. Israel does and lies to the world about it. And this is their justification 0.97

00:15:18.780 for, for launching a war that they want to drag America into. I mean, wake up people.

00:15:24.440 Robert, is it hypocritical for Israel to try to draw America into a war over a secret nuclear 0.65

00:15:29.920 weapons program when Israel has a secret nuclear weapons program?

00:15:33.560 No, it certainly isn't. But the, we got to cover some other issues here, Dave, you know,

00:15:39.680 you're setting up some very big straw men when I list the several, but not all of the attacks by

00:15:47.140 the Islamic Republic of Iran on the United States. And you respond by saying, and you say, because

00:15:52.240 some kids did something that we should nuke, we should attack them.

00:15:57.060 Well, no, no, I will actually, I actually, I want to get Dave's answer to that because that was an 0.78

00:16:00.620 argument. Here's how the argument is often presented. When has, when has appeasement ever

00:16:06.000 worked at deterring Iran? Robert laid out a series of aggressive actions from Iran. They're all 1.00

00:16:11.940 accurate, by the way. So, so when has appeasement ever made them, them more conciliatory? Because

00:16:17.380 we've tried appeasement a few times and we, those events have occurred nonetheless.

00:16:21.980 Well, yeah, but what events are we even talking about here? Like I'd highly encourage people to go

00:16:26.360 through and read Enough Already by Scott Horton, where he goes through in details with all the sources

00:16:31.280 and footnotes there. You can look through them for yourself as I have, that so many of the

00:16:35.080 accusations of Iran developing those roadside bombs during the insurgency in Iraq were complete

00:16:42.520 nonsense. They were lies, just like all the other lies. What about the launches on our bases that

00:16:46.320 Robert mentioned? The launch, what specific attack are you talking about? In Northern Iraq. We had,

00:16:51.400 we had American con, we had an American contractor killed without Americans wounded severely because

00:16:56.680 right, right, right. So when, so again, though, it's like you frame this as attacking the United States

00:17:01.220 of America, when in reality, what you're talking about is the United States of America illegally,

00:17:06.180 aggressively invading their neighboring country, handing half the country to them and their 1.00

00:17:10.820 influence. Huh? I mean, Iran also invaded Iraq, so they can't exactly get it. No, they're the last 0.91

00:17:15.720 people to get it. No, Saddam Hussein, Saddam Hussein started that war and the U.S. backed him.

00:17:19.480 Yeah, no, it was, I mean, look, that was a war of great tragedy. I guess I'll allow Robert to get in

00:17:25.740 here. And, you know, Robert, is there a point you want to make about, you know, these, of these events

00:17:31.120 of being insufficiently linked to the decisions of the, of the Iranian regime?

00:17:37.120 I'm not sure I understand the question. What do you mean these events being insufficiently?

00:17:40.780 Well, you list out all these things that you say Iran was involved in. We know that, that a lot of

00:17:46.640 those were carried out through Iranian proxy forces. I think the point Dave is making is that-

00:17:52.220 Proxy forces? No, see, but this is the thing, Matt. They say, if any Shiite with a rifle shoots 0.97

00:17:56.340 anyone, that counts as someone that, that Iran attacked America. And it's just nonsense. We don't 0.93

00:18:01.560 hold this standard. We don't hold this standard with anybody else. We don't say that, like, if

00:18:05.780 America sold weapons to some group, that then they are our proxy now. And if they attack someone

00:18:11.400 else with those weapons, that's America attacking them. Yes, we invaded Iraq and we

00:18:16.240 overthrew the government, which was the minority of the country, right? There was a Sunni minority 1.00

00:18:23.140 with a Shiite majority. We overthrew the government and forced democracy on them. And then a civil 0.98

00:18:28.260 war broke out. And yes, the Shiites with guns were shooting at our guys. Robert, your response? 0.92

00:18:33.140 This is not a matter of some Shiite with a rifle and we say, oh, it's an Iranian proxy. Hamas is a 0.97

00:18:39.100 Sunni group, as a matter of fact, but it's funded. 93% of its funding, $350 million, comes from the

00:18:45.160 Islamic Republic of Iran. Hezbollah was created by the Islamic Republic of Iran. For more than 20 years,

00:18:54.800 Bashar al-Assad was a client who depended upon the Shiite clergy in Iran to certify that the Alawites

00:19:02.720 were bona fide Muslims so that he could stay in power in Syria. He was totally beholden as a result 0.99

00:19:08.680 to the Iranian regime. He was a client of the Iranian regime. And, you know, you also say, well,

00:19:15.060 the IEAA said that they're not getting nuclear weapons. As a matter of fact, in a May 31st,

00:19:19.960 2025 report, which is what? Almost three weeks ago. Oh, this must be outdated. Iran has significantly 1.00

00:19:27.060 increased production and accumulation of highly enriched uranium, the only non-nuclear weapon

00:19:32.780 state to produce such nuclear material. This is a matter of serious concern. And the IAEA also said

00:19:39.160 that they've accumulated 881 pounds of uranium, enriched to 60%, which far exceeds what is needed

00:19:45.700 for civilian energy production and is close to weapons-grade material. So you've got-

00:19:50.580 Yeah, I know. Now read the conclusion. Now read the conclusion of the latest report. Read it.

00:19:55.680 Read the whole thing. You want to read it right now, on the air? Let's read the conclusion.

00:20:00.600 Oh, the conclusion takes back that they're enriching uranium at 60%? Come on.

00:20:05.780 No, no, no. See, this is how they're selling this lie, Matt. Yes, nobody's arguing that they're

00:20:11.080 enriching at 60%. They've gone up to the level of having a latent nuclear deterrent. They are not

00:20:16.080 the first country who's ever done this. And yes, that is true. It is higher than what they need

00:20:21.120 for their civilian energy need. It's not aggressive. Hold on. Do you believe,

00:20:25.040 Dave, do you believe that enrichment to that degree ought to be deterred or allowed?

00:20:30.040 Listen, I think, again, these questions are, I don't like the spread of nuclear weapons at all.

00:20:36.620 And I don't, sure, should they be deterred? I think there would be a great way to deter them

00:20:40.740 by making a deal. I think that would be very possible. I think the Iranians have demonstrated

00:20:44.920 that they want to make a deal. Donald Trump seemed to be signaling he wanted to make a deal. It's

00:20:49.540 kind of unclear now what his true intent was. But then they threw in the idea that you have to get

00:20:54.720 rid of all your centrifuges and all your uranium. And then the Iranians weren't going to go along 1.00

00:20:59.060 with that. And so, yeah, I think a reasonable deal could be struck here where Iran doesn't get 0.93

00:21:03.440 nuclear weapons. But even if they had them, that doesn't mean we should launch a regime change war

00:21:07.820 there now. This is just madness. There's no concrete plan. You have no plan for who the new leader is

00:21:13.780 going to be. You have no plan how to avoid it. We're going to get to that. We're going to get

00:21:16.580 to that. But I want to stay on the on the nuclear development real quick. Robert, Robert, you said

00:21:20.860 in your opening statement, I wrote down the words precisely, that Iran was working on nuclear weapons.

00:21:27.040 And that struck me as a broad statement. So I want to pin this down. How close does a country have to

00:21:33.460 be a hostile country to nuclear weapons and their ambitions or their hopes or their works to justify a

00:21:40.300 regime change war? Well, look, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, president of Iran from 1989 to 1997,

00:21:47.980 December 2001, he says that if a day comes when the world of Islam is duly equipped with the arms that

00:21:55.620 Israel has in possession, which, of course, he was referring to a nuke, then the application of an 0.56

00:22:01.720 atomic bomb would not leave anything in Israel. But the same thing would just produce damages in the

00:22:07.960 Muslim world. So Rafsanjani was saying, we can destroy Israel completely, and retaliatory fire

00:22:14.200 would only harm us to a certain extent, but not completely. So he was obviously thinking about

00:22:21.180 an aggressive war of destruction of Israel. As Khamenei said on May 17th, a month ago,

00:22:28.360 the Zionist regime, which is the dangerous and lethal cancerous tumor of this region, 1.00

00:22:32.980 must undoubtedly be removed, and it will be. This cancerous tumor language is a recurring theme 0.97

00:22:39.900 in Iranian rhetoric. It goes back to Khamenei. So is that rhetoric sufficient? Are you taking

00:22:44.380 the position in this debate that one's rhetoric can rise to a point around destruction and nuclear

00:22:50.340 annihilation to justify a regime change war? Or do there have to be other actions that bring you there?

00:22:56.280 There have to be other actions, and there are. We have the enrichment of uranium beyond the need for,

00:23:03.100 but beyond what is needed for civilian purposes. So you already have that.

00:23:07.020 So is that it? Is that the answer? Once a country starts enriching uranium beyond civilian purposes,

00:23:12.240 if they're a hostile country, that justifies regime change?

00:23:15.360 Well, Matt, you didn't get my whole statement, because I didn't say we should go in.

00:23:20.820 We should enable Israel in any way that they need. And if a regime change happens,

00:23:28.300 we should support it. The crown prince, this is a very different situation from Iraq and Afghanistan.

00:23:33.700 In Afghanistan, it was a total mess from the beginning. It was wrongly conceived, 0.89

00:23:38.300 wrongly executed, wrongly concluded. I wrote a book about it, Who Lost Afghanistan? In Iran,

00:23:44.460 it's a very different situation, because you've got people who remember growing up

00:23:49.140 in a secular Western-style republic. They remember life outside an Islamic regime. 0.92

00:23:56.780 I was 17 when the Islamic revolution happened. There are plenty of people who are my age in Iran

00:24:01.900 and who have told their kids about what life was like before the Islamic revolution.

00:24:07.200 And these people have a leader. The crown prince is ready. He has offered to come in

00:24:14.600 and be a caretaker, ruler, and establish a constitutional republic, or whatever the Iranian

00:24:20.820 people decide. There was nobody like that in Iran. What do you think the odds are of a

00:24:24.800 constitutional republic emerging in Iran? Do you think they're better than 50 percent, 0.64

00:24:29.140 Robert? What was that? Yeah, and I'll go to Dave with the same question. We're going to ask

00:24:33.340 this question. What do you think the percentage chances that a constitutional republic emerges out of

00:24:38.020 regime change in Iran? Give a number percentage to that, Robert. Probably 30 or 40. I want Dave's

00:24:45.040 response, too. You laid out the argument. Dave Smith got just the opposite situation from Saddam Hussein 0.80

00:24:50.720 and the toppling of Saddam, because Saddam was already a secular ruler. And there were a lot of

00:24:56.640 people who thought he is not legitimate because he doesn't rule by Islamic law. And when he was toppled,

00:25:02.480 then they saw their chance, and they established ISIS and implemented Islamic law in the Sunni regions.

00:25:09.160 And in Iran, it's just the opposite. Did you know that there was a survey a couple years ago

00:25:14.780 of the Iranian people who were supposed to be 99 percent... Yeah, okay. We're going to get... 1.00

00:25:19.000 Hold on. We're going to get to where the Iranian people are in a moment. 1.00

00:25:21.500 Only 40... Hold on. But before we get to the Iranian people, I want to get to this notion of what the 0.71

00:25:27.940 government looks like. You've presented this concept that there is a crown prince ready to come in and

00:25:33.320 rule the country, and you say 30, 40 percent that would go well. Dave Smith, I'm guessing you don't

00:25:38.360 agree. Yeah. I mean, look, let me just say, I just want to respond to a couple of things there,

00:25:43.600 and then I will answer that, whatever percentage I would give it. First of all, again, just going to

00:25:49.240 this, like, the idea that you're even going to say the chants or the rhetoric... I mean,

00:25:54.460 how many American politicians have said, like, the craziest things, including John McCain and

00:26:01.080 Hillary Clinton talking about wiping Iran off the face of the map herself, right? I forget her exact

00:26:06.500 words, but it was something like that. John McCain constantly saying it. Donald Trump in tweets and

00:26:11.460 in all types of bravado talk has made all types of comments about violence like you've never seen

00:26:16.360 before, but nobody takes that as a serious policy. Like, we really just... You know what I'm saying?

00:26:21.640 Like, nobody takes that as a serious policy until the other night when he tweeted for everyone to

00:26:25.620 evacuate Tehran. Now, that's, like, a real type threat, but for us to even be talking about, 0.79

00:26:30.700 like, they holler this or they chant that is just completely beside the point. Again, this is

00:26:35.320 weapons of mass destruction all over again. All the intelligence says they don't have a bomb.

00:26:40.100 Our own CIA said that since 2007, they've made the political decision not to acquire a bomb.

00:26:46.700 We just got that reaffirmed with more intelligence last week. There was another report that said the

00:26:52.220 same thing. So that's number one. After this, look, I'll concede this. I don't know, by the way,

00:26:57.860 exactly what the percentage would be. I tend... My gut instinct is it's much, much lower than that,

00:27:02.740 and I do find it to be such an unbelievable insult. I just can't even believe we're having this debate

00:27:07.420 that we start the terror war to get al-Qaeda, and then it turns into spread democracy. And at this point

00:27:13.740 in it, Matt, 25 years later, you understand, we got to support the al-Qaeda guy who just took over

00:27:18.760 Syria, and now we got to spread monarchy to Iran. It's just such an insult to the intelligence of 0.84

00:27:24.380 the American people. But I will say this. I'll grant you... I'll maybe meet you in the middle here,

00:27:29.060 and I think maybe we could have some agreement on this area. I will grant you that perhaps it is true

00:27:34.720 what you're saying, and some of the other hawks say as well, that Iran is a better candidate

00:27:38.360 for regime change. Perhaps the odds are a little higher that it would work out than it would in

00:27:43.760 Iraq. I'd probably put the odds at like, say, 1% in Iraq and like 5% here, but whatever. Let's say

00:27:49.700 the odds are higher. The flip side to that is that Iran is also tougher. This is a country three times 0.65

00:27:55.480 the size of Iraq. This is a government who has maintained power and much more tight control over

00:28:00.140 their country. They're a bigger economy. They have a much more sophisticated military. They have an

00:28:04.960 ability... Look, even what we've just seen in Israel already. See, we're used to picking on real puny 1.00

00:28:09.160 third world countries, so we're not used to this. But they just hit Israel back and killed some people 0.99

00:28:13.100 there. Now, I don't know how much they have in the tank, but they certainly at least have a little

00:28:17.520 bit more than this, and they can touch perhaps us or Israel. And then the other thing is the terrain

00:28:22.960 there is much harder to fight on. And then the other thing is that if your percentage doesn't work

00:28:27.620 out and one of these maniacs seizes control of the government, and it's a much worse situation than

00:28:32.380 that, you've got to consider the potential that we're getting dragged into something catastrophic

00:28:36.640 here that's going to cost another $2 trillion and get another 500,000 people killed. And so,

00:28:41.860 I don't know. Do you guys, after the last 25 years, not have any sense of concern about this,

00:28:46.840 of taking this risk right now? Well, let me posit the argument, Dave.

00:28:50.200 You made it a 40% chance. Yeah, hold on, hold on, Dave. Dave, I want to push back on this because

00:28:55.400 I've heard this argument as well. Well, us striking Iran doesn't really bring us to that level of 0.63

00:29:02.340 entanglement and involvement that mirrors Iraq or Afghanistan or even Libya. This can be more akin

00:29:08.820 to the Soleimani strike. A lot of the people I like and listen to, like Rand Paul, were critical

00:29:14.880 of the Soleimani strike, but it didn't drag us into extended conflict with Iran. It reset deterrence and

00:29:21.580 everyone rolled on their way for a few years. Do you think, Dave Smith, that there's any validity to

00:29:26.980 the argument that this can be a kind of one and done, go strike some nuclear facilities, fly home, and then

00:29:33.680 hope that it doesn't go beyond that?

00:29:36.360 Well, I certainly hope so. And I certainly hope Donald Trump, President Trump, comes to his senses

00:29:41.060 and, you know what I mean, pulls back from this. I think that hopefully at this point he still could do that.

00:29:47.640 I don't see any signal that that is the case. And I think that we should be honest with ourselves and

00:29:52.260 make no mistake about this, that this is a regime change war already, and that that has been Israel's 0.96

00:29:57.840 goal here the entire time. They've admitted it in their own words over and over and over again.

00:30:03.340 Netanyahu has testified before Congress and urged us to go overthrow the government in Iran. This is

00:30:08.880 their goal. They know that they don't have nuclear weapons. This is all the culmination of the clean

00:30:14.000 break strategy. General Wesley Clark told us there were seven countries they wanted to take out, and

00:30:18.720 this is the seventh one. They're going in to take this country out. Like, I don't know how anybody can

00:30:23.260 even argue with this at this point. And so that's why the argument here is, what are we getting

00:30:28.000 ourselves into? And how risky is another regime change war for a country that poses absolutely no

00:30:33.120 threat to us? This is a country that, again, there is no need for us to do this. This is a complete and

00:30:39.100 obvious war of aggression by Israel with American assistance and a war of choice. We simply don't

00:30:45.320 have to. Look, Benjamin Netanyahu has been telling me since I was seven years old that Iran is one to

00:30:52.020 three years away. Hey, guys, do you think he got it wrong when he said that for the last 30 plus years?

00:30:58.660 Or was he lying? Or was he lying so that America would go overthrow the government he wants overthrown?

00:31:05.340 I think we have some of that. I'd like to I'd like to get Robert's response to some of those claims by

00:31:11.120 by the current prime minister who had been in and out of Israel's government for quite some time. Let's go

00:31:16.560 ahead and play that clip. If not stopped, Iran could produce a nuclear weapon in a very short time. It could 0.95

00:31:23.180 be a year. It could be within a few months. They have the wherewithal, the stored up preserved knowledge

00:31:30.480 to make a bomb very quickly if they wanted to do it. Iran is so dangerous. Weeks away from having the 1.00

00:31:37.680 fissile material for an entire arsenal of nuclear bombs. They're very close. They're six months away

00:31:43.960 from being about 90 percent of having the rich uranium for an atom bomb. Iran is gearing up to have to 0.94

00:31:49.880 produce 25 bombs, atomic bombs a year, 250 bombs in a decade. Ladies and gentlemen, time is running out.

00:31:58.200 Iran will be capable of producing alone without importing anything nuclear bombs within three to

00:32:04.440 five years. You're joining us in the zero hedge debates. We're here with Robert Spencer, director

00:32:09.520 of Jihad Watch and Dave Smith, host of Part of the Problem. So the question to you, Robert, does the

00:32:14.340 prime minister have any credibility? Yeah, absolutely. Because the fact is that it's not just either he's

00:32:21.120 right and obviously he was wrong or he's lying. There's a third choice. And the third choice revolves around

00:32:27.360 the fact that there have been numerous strange, mysterious accidents that befell Iranian nuclear

00:32:32.260 scientists, computer foul-ups in Iranian nuclear facilities. A lot of this has been blamed on Mossad.

00:32:39.880 Mossad, of course, has not taken any explicit credit for it. But it is altogether possible that the Iranian

00:32:47.840 nuclear adventure has been stymied at several points by the Israelis, and that is why the 1.00

00:32:57.520 timetable... Why not just keep doing that?

00:33:00.320 I'm sorry. Instead of a regime-change war, why don't we just keep doing those things? Those sound great.

00:33:05.140 That would be great. If it can be handled that way, then I'm all for it.

00:33:08.880 See, I don't understand...

00:33:10.880 Straw men, because I'm not talking about... 1.00

00:33:14.040 Straw men? 0.99

00:33:15.440 Dude, this is...

00:33:16.880 Yeah, it's a straw man to say... 0.69

00:33:19.400 Okay, this is the most dishonest...

00:33:21.740 ...we have to send American troops to Iran, because that is not what I'm arguing, and that is not...

00:33:26.200 There is no reason...

00:33:27.140 Yes, no, I'm not saying...

00:33:28.580 Hold on, Dave. Hold on, Dave.

00:33:29.400 Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.

00:33:30.340 It's unnecessary at this point.

00:33:31.660 Yeah, I want to clarify your argument, Robert. You're saying that you're not advocating the

00:33:35.720 position that we ought to deploy troops to the streets of Tehran today, but are you sensitive

00:33:40.640 to the argument that our involvement in Syria, where a lot of Americans were mangled, killed,

00:33:48.220 that that began with 40 military advisors? Do you worry about America's history of slow walking

00:33:55.280 or sleepwalking into some of these wars?

00:33:57.780 Yeah, except for one thing, and that is that Trump is aware of this. Trump, for all the rhetoric

00:34:02.720 that's been going on the last few days, is not George W. Bush. Lessons have been learned

00:34:07.840 from Iraq and Afghanistan. Remember his devastating exchange with Jeb Bush back in 2015, I guess it was.

00:34:15.560 And the fact is that Trump has been consistent all through these years of saying he's not going to

00:34:20.280 allow Iran to get nukes, while at the same time rightly excoriating the Bush administration

00:34:27.000 and Obama as well for engaging in this pointless and fruitless mission creep and nation building.

00:34:33.640 And so why is it impossible to believe that he intends to take out Iran's nuclear program

00:34:40.800 or is willing to do so if it comes to that? But that does not mean that he's going to go in

00:34:46.500 with some Bushian adventure and try to give democracy to the Iranians.

00:34:51.320 Well, Robert, how do we stop Israel from a decapitation campaign if we're bombing nuclear 0.92

00:34:57.400 facilities? What's the leverage we have over them at that point?

00:35:01.500 Well, OK, if Israel undertakes a decapitation campaign, you've also got to reckon with the 0.84

00:35:07.020 possibility that the Iranian people might undertake a decapitation campaign. You know that it was 0.99

00:35:12.900 several years ago now, as a matter of fact, a full soccer stadium, looks like 50,000, 70,000 people

00:35:19.040 in Iran was chanting, long live Reza Shah, who was the father of the deposed Shah of Iran. He was the

00:35:26.000 Shah in the 1930s. And that kind of open defiance of the Islamic regime and disgust with the Islamic 0.99

00:35:32.780 regime also combined with the fact that, as I was trying to say before, that so many Iranians,

00:35:39.260 where it's officially 90% Shiite Muslim and 95 to 99% Muslim in general, and actually only 40% of

00:35:48.140 Iranians now identify as Muslims, is an indication of the deep disgust that the Iranian people 1.00

00:35:54.060 themselves have for this regime. There was nothing like that in Iraq or Afghanistan. And both of those

00:36:01.320 were wrongheaded and stupid from the beginning. This is a very different situation with a very 1.00

00:36:08.260 different president. And the idea that he's just going to blunder into making all the same mistakes

00:36:13.660 that George W. Bush, who he knows was a fool and has said was a fool, made, there's just no reason 1.00

00:36:20.500 to assume that. 1.00

00:36:21.580 I certainly hope so. There is the argument that we've heard in other campaigns in Afghanistan and

00:36:29.200 Iraq that we would be greeted as liberators. And it seems Robert's making that argument now. Dave

00:36:34.180 Smith, do you see any challenges with that?

00:36:37.160 Well, let me just, I got to respond to a bunch of this stuff. But yeah, of course,

00:36:39.960 there's a million challenges with that. But number one, I wasn't straw man in your position.

00:36:44.800 I didn't claim that your position is to send boots on the ground. That's what a straw man would be.

00:36:49.400 What I said is that your position has an unacceptable risk of being dragged into a situation where we

00:36:55.120 have boots on the ground. So it's not a straw man of your issue. But I just can't believe like the

00:36:59.740 hardest pivot I ever saw in my life from you watching that video of Netanyahu to basically saying,

00:37:05.680 a couple of scientists dropped dead. And so I could imagine a world where they would have had

00:37:10.280 nuclear weapons. He said, with certainty, there's six months away from being at 90%, just bald face

00:37:16.160 lies. And then by the way, I mean, just Matt, as basic human beings watching this here, you're

00:37:20.760 telling me that by the, by the 19th time you've gotten it wrong. You don't go now, granted, I have

00:37:26.380 been wrong about this 18 times in a row, but no, with certainty, he says there's six months away.

00:37:32.080 And any, every honest human being knows he was lying to try to lure America into a regime change

00:37:39.620 that he wanted. And why on earth should we do it on behalf of it? It's just so crazy. I just

00:37:45.220 couldn't believe that you completely got away from that. Um, it's, it's like right there in front of

00:37:49.780 you that the lies are being told. It's the same thing over and over again. I'm sorry. What did you,

00:37:54.880 what question did you want me to answer, Matt? Well, I, I think you got somewhere around there.

00:37:58.960 I'm going to ask you this question. Some say that the modern nature of warfare, Dave is such that

00:38:04.160 everyone kind of has their proxy forces, right? The, a lot of the Sunni monarchies had their

00:38:09.340 proxy forces in ISIS. Uh, we've heard Robert talk about Iran's proxy forces. And so sometimes the

00:38:15.600 neocons make this argument, well, America needs a proxy force and we've been paying for Israel for so 0.94

00:38:20.960 long. Why not just use Israel to do America's dirty work and give us plausible deniability. 0.86

00:38:27.020 They get the return rockets instead of us. Actually, America first would mean giving Israel the 0.98

00:38:33.380 weapons so that they could execute this campaign with great effectiveness.

00:38:38.020 Well, there's, it's, it's not a war that's in America's interest. So I don't see what the,

00:38:43.020 and, and a belief we've had plenty of proxies. I mean, half the, half the, um, the world is American

00:38:49.360 sock puppets. All right. We're, we, we prop up Jordan and Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates 0.92

00:38:56.200 and Egypt and Israel. And I mean, you know, yeah. Okay. It's the, the common theme amongst

00:39:02.600 the countries that people are always advocating regime change against is that they're the few

00:39:07.240 ones that aren't American sock puppets. So I don't even know what people are talking about,

00:39:11.560 man. And this whole thing, all this whole experiment of America being super involved in

00:39:16.240 the middle East, it is, it, listen, it's like, I can't even believe people can argue for this

00:39:20.240 anymore. What is it brought us? It's bankrupted the country. We got thousands of our bravest young

00:39:25.880 boys who have been, who have been killed tens of thousands of them who have been maimed and injured

00:39:30.620 tens more thousands who have blown their brains out in the aftermath of these wars. And we're sitting

00:39:35.660 here talking about again, what, whether we're going to launch an illegal aggressive war of choice or

00:39:43.340 help the Israelis launch an illegal aggressive war of choice. This is, I don't know. This is absolute

00:39:48.880 madness. There is no, we don't need to do this. And if you want to look there and say, look,

00:39:53.940 you know, the argument that, well, Donald Trump said some good stuff about it back then. So there

00:39:57.920 it's like, yeah, Donald Trump just demanded a complete surrender, dude. I don't know. It's not

00:40:02.720 looking like he's, he's pursuing that policy. And I think we should be trying to do everything in our

00:40:07.160 power to urge him to, to get back to the, you know, his previous position, by the way, that was kind of

00:40:12.840 my point when I said that he was betraying MAGA, whatever MAGA means to you. The point is that he's

00:40:17.940 gotten away from that great stuff he was saying, and now he's demanding a complete surrender. Sir,

00:40:22.200 you demand complete surrenders from nations you are at war with. What are we doing here?

00:40:27.980 Yeah. I want to talk about the cost of that war with Robert. One of the things that has given a lot

00:40:34.440 of millennials resentment over the regime change wars in the Middle East of yesteryear is the cost.

00:40:39.460 And so I wondered if you'd given any thought to like, what's an amount of money that is worth it to

00:40:45.840 the, to the American taxpayer to cause a regime change in Iraq? I'm sorry.

00:40:50.420 Well, there's no doubt that this is a big thing that has been not paid sufficient attention to.

00:40:56.880 The fact is that Osama bin Laden actually launched the 9-11 attacks in order to cripple America 0.51

00:41:02.900 economically. And that was why he chose the target of the World Trade Center, thinking that it was the

00:41:08.900 center of the economic activity of the United States. And so there, and there's no doubt that

00:41:15.280 he had tremendous success with this. And the American economy has suffered tremendously in all

00:41:22.080 kinds of ways from the war on terror, so-called, which was wrongly conceived and wrongly pursued from

00:41:31.020 the beginning. But on the other hand, you have to balance economic considerations against considerations

00:41:38.900 of survival. And Dave was saying, are we going to go to war for Israel because Netanyahu wants us to go

00:41:44.860 to war? Even if Netanyahu and Israel didn't exist, you have a regime that, as I showed earlier, has 0.70

00:41:52.200 repeatedly attacked the United States, is on a war footing with the United States, has been since 1979,

00:41:58.540 has incredibly hostile stances toward American policies, has kidnapped Americans, tortured

00:42:08.460 Americans, killed Americans. Meanwhile, the rhetoric, yes, is frankly about destroying America.

00:42:17.480 And this is something that the- But how much money, Robert? Is it worth a trillion dollars?

00:42:22.520 ...to assassinate Trump? And so- We got it. Oh, come on.

00:42:25.740 We've heard- No, no. We've heard you lay out the list of criticisms. The question is,

00:42:30.860 what is it worth financially to you? Well, survival is worth a lot to me, yeah.

00:42:36.340 Do you think that toppling the Iranian regime is necessary for American survival? 0.88

00:42:41.240 If they attack, if they have a nuclear weapon and they are attacking Americans- 0.52

00:42:46.620 But just as you find them now, as you find them today, however that is,

00:42:50.260 do you think it's worth a trillion dollars in U.S. spending to change the regime there?

00:42:55.540 To change? You mean just like willy-nilly, out of the blue, with them just minding their own business?

00:42:59.660 That's not the situation that we're in. Well, no, I didn't say that. I said,

00:43:02.820 in the situation you find it now. Not an idyllic situation or not a catastrophic situation.

00:43:08.700 I do not think that the United States should act right now to either attack Iran or change the regime in Iran.

00:43:17.160 If Israel acts, we should support them. 0.83

00:43:20.060 With how much money?

00:43:21.540 Iran could well attack. And if Iran attacks, we should be prepared to defend ourselves. 0.98

00:43:27.040 Is there any limit on the amount of money, resources, or material you would give Israel in this battle?

00:43:32.280 Well, you know, the money is very bad because the people in Washington behave as if the money never runs out.

00:43:42.200 And so I'm not really in favor of giving out money in general.

00:43:47.660 But when you are coming to issues of survival of the United States, then you're going to have to shell out.

00:43:55.280 At the same time, we have tremendous economic problems in the United States that I believe ought to be addressed and foreign aid ought to be stopped.

00:44:04.020 Are you actually making the argument that this is a war of our survival, that we won't survive if Israel doesn't overthrow the Iranian government?

00:44:13.340 No, that's not what I'm saying at all.

00:44:16.100 So how is this a war of survival for us?

00:44:18.000 If they attack the United States, it's a very different situation.

00:44:21.540 Can I just say, when you say attack the United States, I'm sorry, I don't mean to interrupt, just a clarifying question.

00:44:28.420 I just want to ask you a clarifying question because I just don't.

00:44:30.580 When you say the United States of America, we might be talking about different things.

00:44:33.580 Like I'm talking about the geographic area between Mexico and Canada, like the middle section of North America.

00:44:38.880 When you say they've attacked the United States of America, when has Iran attacked the United States of America?

00:44:42.720 Well, if you limit it to that, then you can talk about the assassination attempt on Maseh al-Najjad, the Iranian dissident in New York a few years back.

00:44:54.080 You can talk about the attack on the, I believe it was a Saudi diplomat in a restaurant in Washington a few years before that.

00:45:02.360 You can talk about-

00:45:03.140 Yeah, they made claims.

00:45:04.280 Did they ever even demonstrate that that was Iran?

00:45:06.900 What's that? 0.95

00:45:07.400 That is, oh, that is such nonsense, dude.

00:45:09.960 There is no proof that Iran was trying. 0.58

00:45:12.160 You're telling me Iran was trying to assassinate Donald Trump?

00:45:15.460 Matt, Gates, you know the man, okay?

00:45:17.480 You're telling me Donald Trump, they tried to assassinate him, and Donald Trump's response was to negotiate?

00:45:23.440 His response was to negotiate with the-

00:45:25.400 I'm going to say this.

00:45:26.380 Manhattan federal prosecutors in November 24 charged Farhad Shaqiri with plotting to kill Trump before the election at the behest of the Iranian government and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

00:45:39.520 They ordered an operative to assassinate Trump.

00:45:42.420 His name is Farhad Shaqiri.

00:45:44.320 You can look him up.

00:45:45.140 He's been charged.

00:45:46.840 I don't think Manhattan federal-

00:45:47.940 Well, Robert, Robert, Robert, absolutely no proof.

00:45:50.880 Did we also have sort of a revenge plot in the Iraq war on an assassination attempt?

00:45:59.620 As I recall, you know, there was this belief that an individual had motivated an assassination attempt against George H.W. Bush, and that that was something that inspired his son- 0.63

00:46:11.880 Saddam, right? 0.67

00:46:12.480 Saddam was supposed to have done that, and so W. wanted to do it.

00:46:15.980 But this, you know, because-

00:46:17.300 Is that similar to you?

00:46:18.200 That he's Trump, once again.

00:46:20.800 And so, look, also, there have been the fact that the Iranian leadership has said that they want to assassinate Trump.

00:46:28.320 Not Spencer, not Benjamin Netanyahu, but the Amir Ali Hajizadeh, who was the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Aerospace Force 2023, says, 0.92

00:46:39.940 Allah willing, we're looking to kill Trump and Pompeo, and military commanders who issued the order to kill Soleimani should be killed. 0.91

00:46:48.200 Awful Byte News Agency, January 23rd, 2021. 0.98

00:46:52.040 The Supreme Leader's website posted a photo montage of Trump playing golf under the shadow of a drone with calls to avenge the death of Soleimani.

00:47:02.760 Sir, how are you possibly not advocating that we declare war on Iran right now? 0.86

00:47:08.480 How is Donald Trump such a wimp that his response to this, they're trying to murder him, and his response was to negotiate?

00:47:16.020 So how, you should, you should support America declaring war on Iran right now. 0.91

00:47:20.720 Everybody should.

00:47:21.500 They tried to murder the president, right?

00:47:23.080 I don't buy it, because the fact is that Trump is a man who makes deals.

00:47:27.980 He sees, he's, for all the talk about him being a narcissistic, egomaniac, or whatever, he is actually extremely pragmatic.

00:47:37.000 All right, all right, hold on, hold on, hold on, let me get in here for just a moment.

00:47:40.260 And so he understands there are more important considerations at play here.

00:47:45.520 If he can pacify this situation with the deal, he's willing to do it.

00:47:49.540 But I saw the video of Trump being killed by the drone that the Supreme Leader posted.

00:47:56.020 You can't tell me it was fabricated.

00:47:57.780 It was right there on his own.

00:48:00.160 We are out of time, but I do want to get a final word from each of you.

00:48:06.600 I'm going to give you each about a one-minute closing statement.

00:48:09.240 We'll begin with Dave Smith.

00:48:11.880 Yeah, I mean, again, as I was getting at there, Iran has never attacked the United States of America.

00:48:17.940 And this is just like 2003 all over again.

00:48:20.640 All this war propaganda, I get all these lies will fade away.

00:48:24.860 Every single war starts this way.

00:48:27.180 You remember at the beginning of the Ukraine war when there was the ghost of Kiev and the war was going to be fought with sanctions alone and that was going to drive the Russians out.

00:48:35.620 You remember how the Afghan army was going to hold the country together.

00:48:39.300 They told us that for 20 years.

00:48:40.980 You remember when the surge was going to work in 2007 and Dick Cheney said the insurgencies and its final throes.

00:48:47.060 And then it just went on for years and years and years and hundreds of thousands of more people died.

00:48:52.220 You remember when they said mission accomplished.

00:48:53.920 You remember when they said they had weapons of mass destruction.

00:48:55.800 It's all the same thing again.

00:48:57.840 This is so naked right in front of all of us.

00:49:00.480 We are choosing to engage in another aggressive war of choice to overthrow another regime in the Middle East.

00:49:09.020 That's what's going on right now.

00:49:10.560 And it is absolute madness for anybody to support this.

00:49:14.340 It's just the last thing that the United States of America needs.

00:49:17.860 And all of this hyperbole about how we will be finished is absurd.

00:49:22.580 Robert Spencer, your final word.

00:49:24.800 Yeah, once again, this is a straw man because this is not what I'm saying.

00:49:29.520 I'm not in favor of a war of choice for regime change in the Middle East.

00:49:33.440 I'm saying that Iran poses a very real threat. 1.00

00:49:36.580 It is a nuclear threat.

00:49:38.020 This is abundantly documented by the IAEA and others.

00:49:41.660 The foreign minister of France recently was talking about how Iran poses an imminent threat.

00:49:47.000 He doesn't have any reason to be in the pocket of Israel. 0.93

00:49:51.880 As a matter of fact, the French government under Macron has been quite hostile to Israel.

00:49:56.040 And so the idea that this is some kind of war for Israel in a repeat of 2003 is completely out of focus.

00:50:02.880 Trump, above all, has learned the lessons of 2003 and the drastic mistakes of Iraq and Afghanistan.

00:50:11.600 We're not talking about boots on the ground.

00:50:14.440 If regime change does come in Iran, it's most likely to come from the Iranian people themselves.

00:50:20.020 And we should be supporting them wholeheartedly in every way that we possibly can.

00:50:25.900 Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch.

00:50:28.140 Dave Smith is host of Part of the Problem podcast.

00:50:31.360 Zero Hedge puts on these debates as their Zero Hedge debates.

00:50:35.200 I'm Matt Gaetz, host of The Matt Gaetz Show on One America News.

00:50:37.880 Thank you all for joining us now.

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The Anchormen Show with Matt Gaetz - June 19, 2025

The Anchormen Show with Matt Gaetz ｜ U.S. Supporting Israel： Robert Spencer & Dave Smith

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