The latest update on the latest cease-fire between Iran and Israel and the United States, and how it affects President Trump's approval rating. Plus, we're joined by comedian Dave Smith to discuss the latest in the Iran crisis.
00:03:00.320He seems to have taken the off ramp or desires to take the off ramp that essentially the Iranians allowed by doing what they did after Soleimani was struck again by striking back.
00:03:13.120But not really striking back and giving America advanced warning and making sure, you know, essentially Iran is in this obvious position where they're like, we can't look like we're doing nothing in response to this to our own people.
00:03:26.360We don't want to fight for obvious reasons.
00:03:29.420And so Donald Trump wants to be taking this off ramp.
00:03:32.280Now he seems to be frustrated with that Benjamin Netanyahu.
00:03:34.660And many of the Hawks never wanted an off ramp.
00:03:37.020And as you know, well, this has always been about regime change for them.
00:03:40.480So I would be thrilled if this is the end of it.
00:03:45.080But at the same time, I do think it's a moment.
00:03:48.400Like, let's just say this sticks and this is the end of the immediate conflict right now.
00:03:52.340It is a moment for Americans to kind of reevaluate a lot of things here.
00:03:57.140Because, number one, I think that the Hawks' foundational claim to this entire issue, which I would argue is every bit as phony as their claims for all of the other wars in the last 25 years.
00:04:14.320But the foundational claim about Iran has been that, like, Iran cannot be allowed to get a nuclear weapon.
00:04:20.400And this is something, obviously, that Donald Trump has bought into very much, too.
00:04:24.380But this claim kind of relies on an argument that Iran is so uniquely crazy and evil that if they got a nuclear weapon, they'll just use it.
00:04:51.160Right now, you know, Putin and Xi and a lot of bad people have nuclear weapons.
00:04:56.960And the idea that Iran is so uniquely evil because they just don't care about their own survival, that claim seems to really be falling apart.
00:05:05.460I mean, Iran, if Iran wanted to, they could have killed a lot more people.
00:05:08.880And they didn't for the reason that they do care about their self-preservation.
00:05:12.160They would much rather rule their country than be violently deposed.
00:05:25.520Oh, it's I mean, look, I think this is totally phony.
00:05:28.580I mean, all look, all of the intelligence, all of the intelligence until the day after Israel started bombing them was that there are nowhere.
00:05:37.700And even Benjamin Netanyahu, who is the most, you know, has the longest track record of predicting how close Iran is to a nuclear weapon and is always wrong.
00:05:47.380He said in his interview with Brett Baier, maybe a year, maybe 13 months.
00:05:51.400Then all of a sudden, the next day, Tulsi Gabbard comes out and completely contradicts her testimony and the DNI annual threat assessment that both said that Iran does not have nuclear weapons and is not pursuing nuclear weapons.
00:06:03.260So, yes, I think that was what did she say specifically?
00:06:07.740Something they could be weeks, no intelligence report or anything like that, but that they could be weeks away from getting a nuclear weapon.
00:06:15.460The fact is that this is going nuclear and the best person at breaking this down, of course, is Scott Horton.
00:06:23.100But this is something there was a focus group test in 1990 where they decided that, like, you know, the whole like the whole idea of going in there to, like, liberate people, like like using that as a justification for for war.
00:06:37.140Or, you know, we got to drive Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait to put the king back in power.
00:06:43.420That didn't really resonate with the American people.
00:06:47.900And it's not a coincidence that that threat has been used both in the war in Iraq and in the propaganda for this war.
00:06:54.220But listen, so Muammar Gaddafi got rid of his nuclear program and they still went in and overthrew him.
00:06:59.540That's never really what this has been about.
00:07:01.240And as I bring up all the time, whether you look at the clean break doctrine or you look at Wesley General Wesley Clark's comments about the seven countries in five years, the game here has always been to have regime change against all of the the states that are hostile to Israel.
00:07:17.920That's been what these guys have been fighting for forever.
00:07:20.520And I just think it's it's a real moment for Americans to wake up and go, look, what did we just do?
00:07:25.520We just we just launched a war against a country that hadn't attacked us, that hadn't that wasn't an imminent threat that did that is not poses no real threat to the United States of America.
00:07:38.880And then when when our president, after blundering and getting us into this mess, makes the heroic decision to end the thing, what does Netanyahu do?
00:07:51.980I mean, like, why why would we put ourselves in this position where we're we're allowing a country to constantly be pressuring us into another war that almost everybody knows would be a catastrophe if we were to go through?
00:08:06.320Like, does anyone not think that Benjamin Netanyahu wants us to continue this war and have a regime change there?
00:08:30.980And one of the arguments I heard as to why Iran does want to enrich uranium and does want to produce a nuke is because Gaddafi agrees to give up his nukes and they go in and they kill him.
00:08:40.820And so the argument then is the Iranians are like, your word means nothing.
00:08:44.400If we abandon our efforts, you're going to come in for regime change.
00:08:49.020So it actually what I think a lot of people made the argument and it makes sense.
00:08:53.280They were pursuing this because of the threat of regime change.
00:08:56.460Well, we're certainly our actions both in Libya and now just our actions over the last week do nothing but incentivize them to want to get a nuclear weapon, which is, you know, when you think about it, it's just like the most counter.
00:09:13.260And then you pursue the policy that is most likely to make this a self-fulfilling prophecy or something like that.
00:09:20.140But at least where we were before the war and now we'll have to see, you know, a lot of this depends on what happens next.
00:09:26.580But at least before the war, what Iran was trying to do was to negotiate America back into the JCPOA.
00:09:34.460And if and it was Donald Trump who allowed the hawks to put the poison pill in the negotiations that they had to give up all your all enrichment and their civilian nuclear program, which is something they just weren't going to do and isn't really a very reasonable ask.
00:09:49.440But we look, they have an inspections regime that's inspecting the nuclear sites there and around.
00:09:54.020And so, look, it just seems to me that what they wanted, the most reasonable explanation is that they wanted to have essentially a latent nuclear deterrent.
00:10:03.280And then they wanted to have a negotiated, a negotiation chip in the negotiations.
00:10:09.040So they wanted to have something that they could negotiate away in exchange for reducing sanctions or something like that.
00:10:15.020So this morning I wake up to Donald Trump dropping an F-bomb over Israel and Iran, violating the ceasefire.
00:10:22.580But Trump was actually much more stern with Israel, saying that the moment they announced this, Israel goes and drops bombs, the likes of which he's never seen.
00:10:31.380Iran fires one rocket that hits nothing.
00:10:33.940And now Israel is prepared to do this launch.
00:10:40.760An hour and a half later, it was reported that Israel did strike a radar station in Iran, seemingly in defiance of what Trump instructed them to do.
00:10:55.400Is he going to try and pull the OK, I'm yeah, Netanyahu kind of just spat in my face, but I don't want this war to break out.
00:11:03.280Or does he hold a grudge against Israel for basically spitting in his face?
00:11:07.680Well, you know, I what Donald Trump has already put up with from Netanyahu and still just been his number one supporter is pretty remarkable.
00:11:18.920I mean, Netanyahu, as you remember well, Tim, came out and stabbed Donald Trump in the back after the 2020 election.
00:11:25.780After Donald Trump had done everything for Netanyahu, everything, moving the embassy to Jerusalem, getting us out of the JCPOA, of course, because we could have avoided this entire thing.
00:11:36.500But for Netanyahu, Donald Trump decided to pull out of it.
00:11:39.620And you remember back in real quick, the JCPOA, that's the Iranian nuclear deal.
00:11:43.340That's the Iran nuclear deal that that Obama got us into with is with the Europeans and the Iranians.
00:11:49.320And Donald Trump, if you remember, this was Donald Trump really upset the Hawks in 2016 when he had he had.
00:11:57.700I forget exactly what he said, but this is when Donald Trump was very new, when he first started running for president.
00:12:02.000And people asked him, how does he feel?
00:12:03.600Someone asked him, like, how does he feel about Israel, Palestine?
00:12:05.760And he said, we should be neutral and we should stay out of it.
00:12:09.180And that is, you know, to to Mark Levin and Ben Shapiro, that's basically like saying Adolf Hitler was a great guy and we should do what he said all over again.
00:12:18.180Like, it's like the worst thing you could say.
00:12:19.920They're going to clip you for saying that.
00:12:39.620And then Benjamin Netanyahu, Benjamin Netanyahu congratulated Joe Biden on winning the presidential election before our media was even calling the election.
00:12:48.180For Joe Biden, when it was still very contested before the court cases, before any of that.
00:13:12.020If you remember, Tim, way, way, way, way back 72 hours ago, everybody on Twitter, all the hawks were lecturing me about how Israel doesn't even need America's help.
00:13:32.200But it turns out, actually, they can't do that.
00:13:34.060They couldn't they couldn't keep their war in Gaza, their destruction of Gaza going for another two months without Americans supplying the munitions and intelligence.
00:13:42.760So the thing is, they they always rely on us and then they spit in the faces of the American presidents and every single one of them just takes it and keeps moving forward and keep supporting them.
00:14:05.480Well, I mean, it wasn't quite what he did to Zelensky, but it was it was pretty angry.
00:14:10.040I could you know, there's an argument on the Zelensky thing, but to to he's being asked by these reporters and you can tell the moment where he just he broke and he said, you know what?
00:14:22.600We've got two countries and he says, I don't thought they're doing.
00:14:27.180I mean, the story is the expletive of Trump.
00:14:29.780I actually see I'm actually kind of happy right now, to be honest.
00:14:34.880I'm not a fan of U.S. intervention in foreign countries because you are dropping a match onto a powder keg.
00:14:40.880You can make all the arguments for look, I if they when they come out and they say that there's 60 percent enriched uranium can be used for dirty bombs.
00:14:49.440It can be used for weapons, all that stuff.
00:14:58.700You may be talking about a cure that's worse than the disease.
00:15:01.660That being said, if the ceasefire holds and now Trump has a grudge against Netanyahu and this and this puts a barrier between the U.S. relations with Israel in such a way that Trump is basically like you've betrayed us too many times.
00:15:17.800Not you know, I know a lot of people are going to take that one too seriously.
00:15:20.920No, I mean, like Trump's going to have a personal grudge over Netanyahu dropping a bomb when he said not to do it, putting him at risk and making him look like a chump.
00:15:28.360Now, this could actually hopefully bring Trump back to a place where he's like, I don't want to be involved in their problems anymore because they're going to screw us over.
00:15:54.000I hope I hope that's what what comes of all of this.
00:15:56.740The you know, the reason why I'm kind of skeptical about that is that look, don't I mean, Donald Trump just you can call it the 12 day war.
00:16:07.280And if it ends at 12 days, that's great.
00:16:09.720But he just launched a war of aggression on behalf of a foreign country that literally I hope everybody really appreciates this.
00:16:17.420This is a tremendous irony of this whole situation is that what stopped this from being a catastrophe was Iranian restraint around shows not to kill Americans.
00:16:30.060Like that's he put the he put American soldiers in that position where it was the decision of the Iranians to give advance notice so that we could clear people out of there and didn't kill people.
00:16:41.440But, you know, Israelis died in this thing and civilians, Israeli civilians died in this thing.
00:17:03.100And it's not even look, obviously, like as you've known me for years, Tim, like I'm a real non interventionist and I have a very strict standard for when I think war is morally acceptable.
00:17:15.300But even if you were going to argue like for a war of choice, for a preemptive, aggressive war of choice right now, we are thirty seven trillion dollars in debt.
00:17:39.040We don't really know how many people came in under Joe Biden.
00:17:41.460And now Donald Trump is trying to, in the weeks leading up to this, trying to implement his number one policy priority, which is deportations.
00:17:50.460There are protests in the streets against him.
00:17:52.520He needs all the political capital he can for that.
00:17:54.980We've got 100,000 plus ODs every year.
00:19:16.840The U.S. government, after putting Iran on the axis of evil after 9-11, even though they had nothing to do with 9-11, we invaded their two neighboring countries, like the two countries that touch Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan.
00:19:32.400If you could picture the map in your head on either side of Iran, we invaded and destroyed both of those countries.
00:19:38.760They know who they're messing with here.
00:21:10.500You know, you know, a lot of people made a big deal that I did say that I regretted it the other day.
00:21:18.880You know, look, if I voting to me, I have a different like kind of theory of voting than most people do.
00:21:25.200I think it's kind of like, look, either Kamala Harris or Donald Trump was going to be president.
00:21:30.240And I do, you know, you'll have to wait till the end of the four years.
00:21:34.580And if this is the end of this war, then overall right now, I'd probably say, yeah, we're still better off that Trump's in there than if Kamala Harris was in there.
00:21:45.260Now, I just have whatever I have is not that much influence, but I got an audience and a show or whatever.
00:21:51.900And so when he goes to make a catastrophic decision like this, I'm going to use, you know, the the most influence I can to be like, no, screw you.
00:22:02.180People who voted for you will turn on you over doing this.
00:22:04.880And I think that a lot of people, because Donald Trump is so enormously popular with with Republicans and just is the most like popular political figure in the country.
00:22:16.100So many people and for understandable reasons that they they won't criticize him.
00:22:21.700They'll criticize everyone else around him, but they won't criticize him.
00:22:25.320And that's just to me, like to me, that's the role Tucker Carlson is supposed to play.
00:22:30.640Tucker Carlson is supposed to keep his influence with Donald Trump.
00:22:44.540So my job is to tell the truth and go, hey, no, this is a this is a horrible decision for a president to make.
00:22:50.980And look, if that had happened, if Iran had killed some Americans and then Donald Trump had to do a full regime change war or something like that,
00:22:58.760then that probably would have been worse than even what Kamala Harris would have been, which would have been a disaster also.
00:23:56.540I think if it was Kamala Harris, we'd be escalating every step of the way right now.
00:24:00.780And it's not because of her, but it's because what she represents, the Democratic uniparty machine that has wanted boots on the ground in Tehran for decades now.
00:24:10.940Trump made the mistake of bringing on Bolton in the first place.
00:24:13.400But he's one of these guys and you can see it from Hillary Clinton to the rest of the D.C. war apparatus.
00:24:19.020Bolton said in Trump's first term, this time next year, we'll be celebrating in Tehran.
00:26:21.640So at this point, yeah, let's let's really hope that Trump walks away from this thing.
00:26:26.300And let's really hope that maybe a lot of people learned a bit of a lesson by just seeing even even seeing today how much the hawks are turning on Donald Trump.
00:26:36.720And like there's a real asymmetry to this here, right, because people could say, oh, hey, Dave, you turned on Donald Trump just last week.
00:26:44.320And now the hawks are turning on him this week.
00:26:45.960So you all turn on Donald Trump if you don't get your way.
00:26:48.420But the fact is that I turned on Donald Trump because a war with Iran could be a catastrophe for the United States of America.
00:26:56.600And they're turning on Donald Trump because the regime change would be good for Israel and they don't care if it would be a disaster for America.
00:27:04.920I'm hoping that, you know, Trump met with Bannon.
00:27:07.780He had a phone call with Tucker Carlson.
00:27:10.000Tucker says he apologized because he pushed a little too hard.
00:27:12.920I'm hoping that Trump had this conversation.
00:27:14.720They they spoke to him and they said, here are the potential risks.
00:27:19.080Here's what you're getting yourself into.
00:27:20.780And then he was like, I'm going to go middle of the road on this one because Trump just wants everyone to love him.
00:27:26.140I'm hoping what happens now is he sees how much of a hassle it is and how damaging domestically it is to get in the middle of a foreign conflict,
00:27:35.720especially considering Netanyahu bombed that radar station after Trump said, don't do it.
00:27:39.620I'm hoping the end result is that Trump leaves this saying it's not worth the effort.
00:27:45.760I don't want to be involved in these things.
00:27:47.300Everybody's pissed at me no matter what what what I do.
00:27:49.740So maybe just don't get involved at all and let the angry people be angry.
00:27:54.820If he had focused solely on the domestic issue and his domestic agenda and we weren't having this conversation.
00:28:01.860The Hawks would be hawking and begging him to do it.
00:28:04.920The people who voted for him wouldn't be complaining about it.
00:28:07.540Trump would have no flack in any direction.
00:28:10.420And he'd be carrying out his agenda, which has has has been improving his polls.
00:28:14.280So, yeah, hopefully that's the lesson he gets and he carries it out.
00:28:17.740Well, that's right, because because the Trump agenda has always been popular.
00:28:22.460Yeah, even even when people like personally have issues with Donald Trump, which there are always a lot of voters out there who are like,
00:28:29.280I don't like the way he's always calling people names and I don't like the way he does this and I don't like all the stunts.
00:28:34.200But the agenda of bringing back jobs to America and not having de facto open borders where we don't even know who's in our country and not getting not getting into any more of these stupid wars and improving the economy.
00:28:47.660And, you know, more energy and more like all of this is wildly popular because like, why wouldn't it be who's against any of that, you know, except for like deranged, you know, like progressives or something who's against any of that.
00:29:01.200And so, yeah, hopefully, hopefully he can pivot away from this and pivot away from these entangling wars and get back to the what the whole mission was about.
00:29:10.980Right. The whole Donald Trump presidency was about. We're not doing the neocon stuff anymore.
00:29:15.360We're doing America first stuff now. Hopefully that's where we go in the future.
00:29:19.360I agree. And I do think that whatever Trump decides to do, his his core base, those who will defend him no matter what, will defend him.
00:29:27.940If Trump came out and said. I don't want to be involved in any more of this, so we are ending our involvement in this, then you're going to see the most prominent Trump voices cheering for that decision.
00:29:40.780And of course, we would as well. So I hope that's the route he takes. But we are going to we are at a time.
00:29:45.380So, Dave, where can people find you? Oh, my show is a part of the problem.
00:29:50.160Part of the problem dot com is where you can go for that.
00:29:52.640Thank you, Tim. It was good to see you, brother. Likewise. Likewise.
00:29:54.740I appreciate you coming on and talking about how you feel about things. And we'll we'll see you next time.
00:30:01.640Of course, that was Dave Smith. He's a comedian. Thanks, guys.
00:30:07.200And it's contentious. You know, we I get flack. I get I know exactly, you know, what happens.
00:30:14.780Look, the point of doing these interviews is largely to interview the subject.
00:30:19.520It's not the same as IRL, where we have a little bit more debate, more conversation.
00:30:23.080This is we're doing these things digitally.
00:30:26.020The you know. And so some people have argued that when I had, say, Laura Loomer on or Rand Paul, I should have specifically pushed back in certain areas.
00:30:34.140I do my best to try to ask what I think.
00:30:35.920I try and if you know, if I disagree, I disagree with Dave on the issue of the nuclear enrichment.
00:30:41.340That's why I brought it up. The reports suggest that they do have the capability.
00:30:44.860I don't know if they're going to make a nuke, but they do have enriched uranium.
00:30:47.260I think everyone agrees with that. But I think it's important to, you know, hear those voices.
00:30:52.340We had Laura Loomer on the other day where she explained the people that were going after Trump.
00:30:56.560And she was very critical of a lot of people. I try to I try to do my best and make sure that we're getting an understanding of that as best as we can.
00:31:03.500So I do appreciate it. And I consider Dave a friend. He's a good dude.
00:31:06.620And I do. I lean towards the anti-intervention side.
00:31:10.220I'm very happy with Trump right now. I think he's done a remarkable job.
00:31:14.200I loved seeing the exasperation, not to be a dick, but to see that he's realizing a juice ain't worth the squeeze.
00:31:21.880And I hope that he starts to see that you're not going to please these people and it's going to it's going to be a powder keg for bigger conflict.
00:31:27.760Get back to the domestic issue and the American people will support you.
00:31:31.220So with that being said, let's get this raid underway for our friend Russell Brand, who should be he's gearing up right now.
00:31:37.940So we'll we'll send you all on your way. Smash the like button. Share the show with everyone.
00:31:42.960You know, you can follow me on X and Instagram at Timcast. Thank you guys so much for for tuning in and hanging out.
00:31:48.980The raid is currently underway. I think the best is yet to come.
00:31:53.860I trust that Trump is trying to do the right thing and I trust that sometimes he will make mistakes.
00:31:59.140But I think he's got I still consider to be the best president of my lifetime.
00:32:03.560And I've not experienced anyone better. Anyone. And I mean it. And I mean it.
00:32:10.360I said it to him and I'll say it again. I don't agree with this. I don't expect to agree with everything he does.
00:32:14.380But he's done a bang up job so far and I hope he continues it.
00:32:17.140Thanks for hanging out, everybody. And we will see you all tonight.