00:10:17.220It was predictable, and no Catholic loves this, but you could see it coming, and it's
00:10:23.840hard to say that Trump is completely out of line because whenever he gets attacked, whether
00:10:29.820it's by a journalist or a talking head or a pope, he punches back, all right?
00:10:36.620You could definitely question the wisdom of doing this with, you know, President Trump
00:10:43.560leads a nation of 330 million people. Pope Leo leads about 1.4 billion Catholics across the
00:10:52.220world. But President Trump doesn't care. And he wouldn't even care if the majority of Americans
00:10:57.840were Catholic, which they're not. But this is what he does. You know, if he perceives you as
00:11:04.500coming at him, he will come at you. So he lashed out last night at the pontiff on Truth Social,
00:11:09.960writing in part, quote, Pope Leo is weak on crime and terrible for foreign policy. I mean,
00:11:15.420he's not a politician. OK, whatever. I don't want a pope, writes Trump, who criticizes the
00:11:19.540president of the United States because I'm doing exactly what I was elected in a landslide to do.
00:11:24.600Are you, Mr. President, were you elected to start another Middle East war? I don't think so.
00:11:30.540President Trump reiterating his criticism of the pope at Joint Base Andrews last night. Watch.
00:11:35.160I don't think he's doing a very good job. He likes crime, I guess. He hit us. Think of it.
00:11:42.980He's worried about fear. What about the fear when the ministers and the priests and all of those great people that were arrested during COVID,
00:11:54.560and in many cases they're outside 10 feet apart and they were arrested.
00:11:58.700So we don't like it. We don't like a pope that's going to say that it's OK to have a nuclear weapon.
00:12:05.160We don't want a pope that says crime is OK in our cities. I don't like it. I'm not a big fan of
00:12:11.120Pope Leo. He's a very liberal person and he's a man that doesn't believe in stopping crime.
00:12:17.680He's a man that doesn't think that we should be toying with a country that wants a nuclear
00:12:24.940weapon so they can blow up the world. I'm not I'm not a fan of Pope Leo.
00:12:30.440Now, it's not entirely clear what spurred Trump's wrath, but it does appear the president was made
00:12:35.140aware, in addition, I'm sure, of the recent criticism by the Pope, of a 60 Minutes report
00:12:40.040last night on the Pope's and the Catholic Church's opposition. First of all, yes to the Iran war,
00:12:46.660but to war in general? The Catholic Church has been pretty clear on that. No one's tried to
00:12:53.160sugarcoat the Catholic Church's opposition to war. They're pretty big on Jesus and his teachings,
00:13:00.000which do not include promotion of war. But here's a sample of what we saw in 60.
00:13:06.740This past week, he issued a rare condemnation of President Trump's threat to destroy
00:13:12.240Iranian civilization. The pope called it, quote, truly unacceptable.
00:13:17.980He also took the unusual step of issuing a call to action.
00:13:22.580contact the authorities, political leaders, congressmen, to ask them, tell them to work
00:13:30.220for peace and to reject war always. The Holy Father usually avoids calling out President
00:13:36.640Trump by name or any member of his administration. But in a Palm Sunday homily, he appeared to
00:13:43.600reference the religious language Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who is Christian but not Catholic,
00:13:52.780Blessed be the Lord, my rock, who trains my hands for war and my fingers for battle.
00:13:58.220Pope Leo warned that Jesus, quote, does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war.
00:14:06.040Okay, it is a little, it feels off that Pete Hexeth keeps praying at these briefings that
00:14:14.740he's doing as if it's all in the name of God, the bombing of Iran in which, you know, 170 young
00:14:22.440girls were killed. That's not in the name of God. Okay. Definitely not in the name of Jesus.
00:14:28.480I wish you would just check the Jesus talk, the God talk at the Pentagon briefings. All right.
00:14:35.700It's called the Department of War. I understand he has a job to do. It's not appropriate there.
00:14:40.820You pray on Sunday, pray every morning on your knees to God.
00:14:45.540But while you're updating us on the number you've killed, which necessarily has included some civilians, we don't don't don't mention Jesus.
00:14:55.940Don't talk about God. Don't act like he's sanctioning what you're doing.
00:14:59.740OK, and that leads me to President Trump's obvious misstep over the weekend.
00:15:06.620It wasn't the clap back at Pope Leo. I mean, I've been through this before. I was a Catholic back when he was attacking Pope Francis during his first run for office. And now it's Pope Leo. You just knew it was coming.
00:15:20.520It was like tick tock. You knew it was coming. But what we didn't know was coming was this absolutely absurd, offensive meme, AI generated version of a picture showing Donald Trump as Jesus.
00:15:40.480He tweeted this out, posted it on True Social.
00:15:44.300I'm sure you've seen it by now, but if you haven't for the listening audience, it is
00:15:47.440President Trump as Jesus with his hand on the head of a sick patient in bed and a demon
00:15:55.660behind him and a light glowing around him.
00:15:57.440It is obviously him purporting to be God.
00:16:03.740And it is blasphemous by any definition of that word.
00:16:08.760I actually just looked it up just to just to have it at the ready.
00:16:12.220I mean, blasphemy is irreverence towards sacred entities.
00:16:14.820But here's a here's a longer definition.
00:16:16.600The act of showing great disrespect, contempt or defiance toward God, sacred persons or holy things, insulting, mocking or slandering the divine.
00:18:00.320But the president is spiraling downward.
00:18:02.700in his poll numbers. He is on a downward spiral now. We'll talk about in a minute what's happening
00:18:09.580with the white working class. That's Trump's base. And he's now underwater with them. We saw one
00:18:17.400poll about seven to 10 days ago showing it. And now there's another. There's no question. He's
00:18:23.540collapsed now with the white working class. My friends, that's it. Other than Fox News boomers,1.00
00:18:30.200There's no one left. There's no one left in the original MAGA coalition. White working class.0.68
00:18:38.280I really look forward to the people who purport to speak for the white working class, people who have written whole books about the working class and what's important to them, people who have been ripping on the so-called podcast class for being critical of this war and how they're completely irrelevant and no one listens to them.
00:18:54.660I really look forward to those people updating their reporting to tell us what's actually happening among the Trump base now.
00:19:02.040Because they want him to focus on the economy, on inflation, not on Iran.
00:19:12.020They don't give two shits about the Strait of Hormuz, about Karg Island, about blockades in the Middle East.
00:19:18.940They care about their pocketbooks and being able to pay their mortgages and their grocery bills and their car payment without getting that sickening feeling in their stomach.
00:19:35.340You know, I was watching Tim Dillon over the weekend talking about the Melania piece that we talked about on Friday where she was like, we we had the same social circles and with Jeffrey Epstein in New York and Palm Beach.
00:19:48.940And he was making the point that, yes, she's trying to tell you she's rich and you're not.
00:19:52.560He was saying, you go to a party, it's your sister's, he said, your fat sister's retirement party.
00:21:16.060And you continue to ratchet up the rhetoric like saying you're going to do something like bomb Iran's desalinization plants, which he's doing again, raising that as though that would be an acceptable means of upping the ante if he doesn't get what he wants.
00:21:35.280So the president's on a downward spiral.
00:21:37.900And I think it's because he listened to the wrong person, Bibi Netanyahu.
00:21:42.740He believed his lies over the objections of the vice president, the secretary of state, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
00:21:48.820He knows that it's his decision that got us here based on faulty intelligence, which was manipulated by Netanyahu and was tried, who tried to sell it to president after president after president.
00:22:02.060Trump's just the first one who bought it.
00:22:04.240And so he's probably feeling embarrassed by that.
00:22:06.860He doesn't like being attacked by Pope Leo.
00:22:08.900I get that. But you don't. The answer is not to blaspheme an entire faith. The answer is never
00:22:16.200really to blaspheme an entire faith or double down on your attacks against Christians.
00:22:21.600So what happens now? Now we're blockading, which, by the way, military experts will tell you that
00:22:28.160is the effective equivalent of boots on the ground, like actually sending ships to blockade
00:22:34.620a body of water, or in this case, Iranian ports, so that they cannot enter or leave
00:22:40.380that body of water, which has been run by Iran and Oman forever. It's, you know, along their0.75
00:22:48.100boundaries. So what happens now? And what happens if a ship coming from China wants to port,
00:22:56.780you know, make port an Iranian port? What are we going to do? And where is this going? Are we in
00:23:03.960the middle of Professor Pape's escalation trap. Remember when he told us that? Not long ago.
00:23:10.880Here to react is Brandon Weikert. He's senior national security editor of 1945.com and host
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00:24:34.240Great to see you, Brandon. Thanks for coming back. So your take on the collapse of our 21 hours of
00:24:40.040talks and now the revised blockade, not just of the entire strait, but of the Iranian ports therein.
00:24:47.140And I'm getting ready to drop a deep dive on the economic situation as well at
00:24:51.840NatSecGuy at Emerald.tv. It'll be dropping in the next 24 hours. Basically, the entire
00:24:59.360situation that we are facing is a disaster of our own making. We are now escalating. You were right
00:25:07.760to bring up Dr. Pape's theory on escalation trap. The United States is choosing rather than
00:25:14.840de-escalate, we are choosing to escalate. Now, I was initially surprised that the president wanted
00:25:19.800to do a counter blockade, which is what this is. We're blockading their blockade of the Strait of
00:25:27.080Hormuz. And the reason I'm surprised he's doing that is, first of all, you're right, it has the
00:25:31.540same impact as does landing forces on a place like Karg Island in terms of the international legal
00:25:38.240scenario. It's an act of war under international law. But second of all, and this is very key,
00:25:44.280blockade is a protracted engagement it basically it's all the worst aspects in terms of the
00:25:51.300economic and political fallout from saying landing troops or or even doing an even bigger air war
00:25:57.560but it has none of the immediate uh positive effects there's no positive effects that will
00:26:02.740come out of this because as you rightly note this thing is going to that now involve us potentially
00:26:08.220stopping uh the the cargo ships and container ships of other countries uh and uh notably china
00:26:16.720now i just want to say something right here i don't believe for a second that the united states
00:26:21.860navy will in fact stop chinese-owned vessels uh from transiting the strait of hormuz from picking
00:26:29.140up oil that the iranians have produced for china uh and leaving the strait of hormuz i think there's
00:27:05.400Well, they might be able to stop the vessels from crossing the Strait of Hormuz in terms of just not letting them through.0.52
00:27:12.460But I really am suspicious that we're seriously going to board a Japanese vessel.0.99
00:27:18.760We know the Japanese paid the toll, right?0.97
00:27:20.700I seriously doubt and, you know, past his prologue here, the Americans, when we were doing our blockade of Venezuela in January, there was an opportunity we had to seize a Panama flagged Hong Kong owned container ship.
00:27:39.180And ultimately, the president told the Navy, don't touch it, because, of course, he's trying to get a deal with Xi Jinping on the larger trade formulation.
00:27:47.920So ultimately, I have a deep suspicion that when it comes to a country like China or an ally like Japan, I'm very skeptical the president will honestly do that.
00:27:59.500And if he did that, particularly to China, not only would he lose any ability to get
00:28:04.120a deal with China on these other outstanding issues, but now we're talking about a real
00:28:09.220world war potentiality here, because now we're going after truly, directly, Chinese trade
00:28:16.100with Iran and the greater Middle East, which the Chinese military-
00:28:19.760Okay, but let me ask you, Brandon, so what we have here, so there's two things.
00:28:23.980there's president trump well centcom narrowing the blockade that trump announced yesterday
00:28:30.600trump said the whole straight yeah centcom this morning said no the iranian ports yeah and in
00:28:35.240clarifying centcom said centcom forces will begin implementing a blockade of all maritime traffic
00:28:42.580entering and exiting iranian ports the blockade will be enforced impartially against vessels
00:28:49.440of all nations entering or departing Iranian ports
00:29:43.980you know, make port at an Iranian port.
00:29:45.920pull in i guess i'm not a boater my husband is pull in at an iranian port we're we're not going0.83
00:29:51.460to stop them i don't think but we're going to stop like i said we're going to stop what like
00:29:55.900the spanish ship i don't like any other ship we're just going to start choosing yeah we might
00:29:59.960start enforcing it on for instance i mean you're already seeing we're having this fallout with
00:30:04.400spain uh over you know related separate issue though um and uh the president is already going
00:30:11.800hard after spain telling the chinese don't you dare continue doing trade with spain because of
00:30:17.160these other issues we're having with them over their support for nato or lack thereof over their
00:30:22.220support or lack thereof for the iran war and some other trade issues with spain so i could foresee
00:30:28.080the president to make a point goes after one of our nominal allies like spain stops their ships
00:30:34.460I would be very surprised if the president actually goes ahead with stopping a Chinese flagged vessel.
00:30:44.700I really don't think he's going to do that.0.83
00:30:47.280I think there'll be he'll let it pass.
00:30:49.560They'll probably try to cover the incident up, not let it get out publicly that it happened.0.50
00:30:53.560But I deeply suspicious because ultimately, let's face it, if the president really does this and he starts stopping up Chinese flows, which, OK,
00:31:03.560it might have a temporary hit on the Chinese economy. But ultimately, we know that China has
00:31:10.480had ample time to prepare themselves for such a contingency. So the entire idea that we attacked0.88
00:31:16.980Iran to harm Chinese energy access, it hasn't really panned out that way. The Chinese have had
00:31:24.240time to build up their own strategic reserve. They've had time to diversify their own assets.
00:31:29.760They're increasing what they're bringing in from nearby Russia.
00:31:33.300They're getting it from elsewhere, the energy sources.
00:31:35.980And then what we're finding out is that after 15 or 10 years of developing their alternative energy structure, their infrastructure, it turns out the Chinese are actually well positioned to lead the pivot that the left has always wanted in America.
00:31:50.540But the Chinese might actually lead the pivot to renewable alternative energy sources because they spent the last decade building up their infrastructure to prepare for this very eventuality where the Americans might try to blockade their access to energy.
00:32:04.080So I'm skeptical the impact will be the desired impact by Trump, which is to hurt China economically and energy-wise.
00:32:12.520I don't think that will happen anyway.
00:32:14.240And I also think, again, the president has to get a deal with China on these other outstanding trade issues.
00:32:20.600There will be no deal if we start interfering in their flow of goods.
00:33:48.240It gets harder to get out of. And once we cross into the next phase of ground operations, oh, my goodness gracious, Megan.
00:33:56.020And you've seen already how we reacted when we lost 13 dead in the extraction from Afghanistan and all that motion that was brought out.
00:34:06.900Imagine you have 100 dead paratroopers coming into CARG or 100 dead Marines going on the beach.0.52
00:34:14.300That 36 percent is going to be extremely committed more than ever, because that 36 percent that supports the war, they're going to think in their minds, they're dying for me.
00:34:29.980So right now, Brandon, we don't have boots on the ground, but we are getting closer with this blockade.
00:34:34.780The only thing I will will say that that gives me a glimmer of hope in this is that clearly whatever the president ordered two weekends ago with the, you know, whatever the supposed rescue of the airmen in the heart of Iran near Isfahan, one of the suspected nuclear weapons sites, whatever happened went so badly that the U.S. military, we were able to get our people out of there.
00:35:00.080But it was a very tense situation. There seemed to be a moment where the president had a moment of clarity. Like, I can't I can't go forward with this. And he can you elaborate on that? Because there's a question about whether and told the full and just to be that rescue of the two pilots.
00:35:15.220Yeah. And just to be clear, I have no idea for sure what happened. We live in the most censorious age imaginable. So getting getting the truth out is very difficult. But I believe we probably did save our pilot. And that was this weapons officer from the downed F-15 Strike Eagle.
00:35:32.080I don't know if we did it on the day that the situation in Isfahan happened.
00:36:24.660But if you do look at the way they arrayed those forces
00:36:28.520and the kind of, you know, the kind of troops we brought in, the numbers of equipment and whatnot,
00:36:33.800it certainly didn't seem like only a rescue mission.
00:36:36.840If you were going to do a uranium hunt, you would need to land those transport planes on a site near the suspected WMD site.
00:36:45.400You would then need to flow in more forces.
00:36:47.960That's exactly how it played out in two weekends ago outside of Isfahan.
00:36:53.720Again, my understanding is despite the loss of the equipment, we got everybody out.
00:36:58.140and it was okay but what i'm getting at here is there was a moment it seemed like where the
00:37:02.900president kind of came out of his stupor and said oh i can't i can't land guys that's when you had
00:37:08.020the context of we're going to talk about ceasefire ceasefire obviously didn't go well i thought for
00:37:13.520sure after the ceasefire collapse trump was going to order troops somewhere into iran but the fact
00:37:19.080is he pulled the blockade out the counter blockade which is bad but it actually indicates to me that
00:37:25.020there is a lot of hesitation on his part to actually follow through on deploying troops,
00:37:30.880I think, because he knows this thing could go upside down fast. So what that means is we're
00:37:35.060going to have to endure a counter blockade. Yes. And the counter blockade, though.
00:37:38.780That's one blessing in this whole thing is that every representation that Netanyahu has made to
00:37:42.740him continues to fall apart. And I think the president is starting to distrust his partner
00:37:47.800and realize he's been misled and that it's not going to be anywhere near as easy as Netanyahu
00:37:53.100who suggested it would be and he's starting to get more cautious as he sees how unpopular this
00:37:57.100war is over here not just with the left but with the right yeah yeah and my hope is that maybe if
00:38:03.200this i mean the counter blockade is going to do a lot of economic damage to us uh but my hope is0.93
00:38:08.420is that in a few weeks the president realizes i can't possibly stop chinese ships without this0.75
00:38:13.820becoming a world war possibly it's no benefit to the american people it's certainly no benefit
00:38:19.180politically for trump and the republicans hopefully at that point there's some kind of an
00:38:23.900off-ramp uh but i think he's going to go through this counter blockade partly to satisfy you know
00:38:29.840whatever he's doing with netanyahu to show hey i'm still engaged but ultimately it's not going
00:38:34.880to have the impact they think it will uh partly because there's i don't see how they're going to
00:38:39.600enforce this blockade on the chinese and if they do well the chinese are going to do something
00:38:44.700They're not going to just not do anything. They're going to respond in some way. And I would just also point out, we now know that the Israelis were bombing over a week ago. They were bombing in Iran in their airstrikes, a very key railway that has since been rebuilt, I'm told. But that railway connected Iran to China. It was through their Belt and Road Initiative. That's a key strategic linkage over land to Beijing for Tehran.0.94
00:39:11.460It is not inconceivable that if we did really make this blockade serious, the Iranians would likely find a way to transport their energy supplies over land into Central Asia, into China, and the Chinese would continue flowing in their weapons and material to help Iran better resist us.0.51
00:39:30.640Okay. Now we're getting too deep in the weeds, but I got it. I got it. But as far as the economic consequences to Americans, we played the one Eric Bolling soundbite on $110 oil, which translates into increased energy prices from gas and diesel and beyond here in America.0.78
00:39:53.520He was predicting five to six percent inflation possible.
00:39:56.720Here's another one from Bowling responding to a Mark Levin claim that, you know, the economic effects on Americans.
00:40:03.100It's just going to be a short time thing, just short term here.
00:44:13.520Doing something about the inflation, doing something about healthcare, doing something
00:44:17.360about the enormous cost that they're facing.
00:44:18.760And not only is he not, but he's doing something that's going to worsen all of those problems, which brings me to the polling that I mentioned.
00:44:26.860This one just came out from CBS News slash YouGov, and it shows, first of all, they ask Trump's handling of the situation with Iran.
00:46:54.500What you really hear is they had to crank up the Kid Rock soundtrack to muffle the fact that there weren't that many applause, there weren't that many cheers, people weren't going nuts, and you could hear some boos.
00:47:14.780I don't know why we cut it without the music, but that's what happened, trust me.
00:47:18.520It's not overwhelming boos, it's just the absence of overwhelming people going nuts.
00:47:24.000It's not working for him. The people in that room know what I'm talking about without me telling you the numbers. They feel it. There's an anger. There's a disapproval about his focus nonstop on Israel instead of Iowa.
00:48:05.120They're already baked into the cake to mix metaphors here.
00:48:07.840And ultimately, I think that we are now on an irreversible course to a some kind of economic downturn going forward into the midterms, which, of course, will have negative consequences for the president's party, which the president is not necessarily on the ballot, literally, but his policies are.
00:48:29.440And if he loses the majorities in Congress and the Senate, what will happen is in very short order, the Democrats will move to impeach.
00:48:37.840And they're not just going to move to impeach against him, which might be more difficult than it sounds. They're going to move to go after people like Pete Hegseth. They're going to claim that he committed. They've already been saying this, that there have been war crimes committed. They're going to, at the very least, completely gut the administration with endless investigations that will slow down their ability to actually focus on things like affordability and to address the concerns of the MAGA base.
00:49:02.420So that's where this is headed because of the decision to attack Iran, which, again, I'm still, as an analyst, very confused what the logic was, why we had to go in on February 28th the way we did.
00:49:15.960That argument has never been properly presented to the American people.
00:49:19.880And I would argue the alleged intelligence that was used was never adequately vetted by our intelligence people.
00:49:26.040We were simply handed something by Israel.
00:53:22.220Brandon Weikert is back with me now. So where we left off was, why was J.D. Vance picked to go try
00:53:29.800to negotiate a peace deal that you and many others believe had zero chance of actually being agreed
00:53:36.900upon? Yeah, I think this is partly to diminish the vice president in the eyes of the world.
00:53:44.560Um, you know, there's a running joke that, uh, you know, whenever he, he meets with the, you know,
00:53:50.260the Pope, there's, there's memes about that. There's these memes about how he's basically
00:53:54.640has the opposite of the Midas touch. And so this is another thing to add to that growing set of
00:54:00.200memes. It's unfair. I think what they're saying about him, but ultimately perception is power.
00:54:05.860The president and his team understand that. And I think the, I think there are people around the
00:54:10.460president maybe the president himself who didn't like that the vice president was um clearly not
00:54:16.640on board i mean the vice president was dutiful you know he was doing what the the the president
00:54:21.220asked he wasn't publicly disagreeing etc he was very you know he was he was very almost obsequious
00:54:27.120to the president in public when it came to the matter of the iran war which we all know he did
00:54:31.520not support so i think that um basically the president and his team did to jd vance that which
00:54:38.480president bush and george w bush and his team did to colin powell when they made colin powell who
00:54:43.880did not support the iraq war go before the u.n and make the case for the iraq war and that has
00:54:50.080forever been just ask retired colonel lawrence wilkerson who worked as the chief of staff for
00:54:54.980powell that was something that dogged powell for the remainder of his life was the fact that he
00:54:59.300or when joe biden took kamala harris and made her the border that's right that's right yes and so
00:55:04.520this is a common tactic because because brendan what what was impossible about the terms like
00:55:09.560to me i read the what what nbc news what fox news is reporting were the actual terms that we demanded
00:55:16.580and i thought my first reaction was of course you're never going to agree to any this is never
00:55:21.120this is a non-starter they can't enrich uranium at all and i think a lot of our listeners are like
00:55:26.920well why would we want to allow them to enrich uranium we all know what they're going to do with
00:55:30.760enriched uranium but that actually is an impossible deal term can you explain why yeah well basically
00:55:36.260the irani first of all the iranians have escalation dominance they've proven that this entire war the
00:55:41.720fact that we even decided to talk to them with about a ceasefire or that we we haven't until0.98
00:55:46.920the last 48 hours attempted to put our ships into the strait of hormuz indicates that the iranians
00:55:53.300are not as defeated as the secretary of war has been claiming it's just not the reality they they
00:55:59.680are able to meet us on every escalation rung and they're able to give as good as they've gotten
00:56:05.580and uh so the idea that we were going to be able to go in with a set of demands like get rid of
00:56:11.200uranium enrichment uh was a non-starter especially because for the regime in iran and i don't want
00:56:16.940them to have nukes either i think this is that's a horrible outcome but it's going to happen now
00:56:21.120no matter what the iranian regime has wedded itself to the idea that it has to at least possess
00:56:27.600the capability to enrich to weapons-grade uranium as a sign of deterrence against the U.S. and Israel
00:56:35.240and also as a symbol of legitimacy. And I would remind everybody that in 2003, there were many
00:56:41.640people who believed Saddam actually had WMDs, nuclear weapons, because he was telling the world0.56
00:56:47.300he had them. And the reason he was saying that was because he didn't want to appear as weak,
00:56:52.300because if you're weak in that part of the world, you lose legitimacy and you're ripe to be
00:56:56.940overthrown ironically of course it ended in his overthrow anyway but the point is
00:57:00.880in Iran something similar there's a similar calculus so unless we're going0.56
00:57:04.740to so decisively defeat them in combat which we haven't and we probably won't
00:57:09.000then that means they're not going to come can you know in a conciliatory
00:57:13.080manner they're going to come and meet with us as wanting to be seen as equals
00:57:17.880we cannot demand they give up something like uranium enrichment because it for
00:57:22.380them is essential to their vision of being seen as legitimate in the region and powerful and having
00:57:28.760a deterrent against us. Otherwise, you wind up like Gaddafi getting dragged through the streets
00:57:34.100in Libya because you're no threat. They know you have no nuclear weapon. And the next thing you
00:57:39.700know, you're getting sodomized and murdered in the street. That's not what they want. And yet
00:57:46.020they basically want to suggest they've got the power to go nuclear and you shouldn't mess with
00:57:51.440them. Officially, they're saying they want the ability to enrich uranium for a nuclear energy
00:57:56.200program. But there's no way, given the success they've had in dragging this war on, in controlling
00:58:02.620the strait, in imposing political costs on President Trump, that they're coming in there
00:58:07.500tailed between the legs, which is how President Trump is describing, you know, what he thinks
00:58:12.280they ought to be doing. Like he thinks we've won and they should just be surrendering. And you need
00:58:17.560look no further than his main outlet, his number one favorite broadcaster, Mark Levin,
00:58:22.640to understand that. Here's a bit of what Levin was saying on Saturday night about how this thing
00:58:29.280should end. Sat 8. I have in front of me, though, you know, the Potsdam Declaration, July 1945. I
00:58:36.580wasn't even going to mention this, but I have it. And then we have the instrument of surrender by
00:58:41.380the Japanese, September 2nd, 1945. And in order to implement the Potsdam Declaration and get them0.68
00:58:47.800to surrender to the terms that the Allies wanted, we dropped two atomic bombs. Now, I'm not
00:58:54.540encouraging it. I'm asking about the law. Is that legal today under the law of the war or not? I
00:59:01.380think it would be very helpful to go back and read the terms of surrender for the Japanese,
00:59:06.020for our envoys to read it because the Japanese were dug in, even after the dropping of two
00:59:11.820atomic bombs. And it took a lot of pressure, even after that, to get them to surrender.
00:59:19.600Wow. They had an absolute lunatic as their ruler who would, there was no amount of Japanese0.97
00:59:26.680sacrifice that would ever have satisfied him. He didn't care. It took two nuclear bombs. And even
00:59:31.000then there was a question but that why is he even bringing that up if he's not advocating it well
00:59:36.840and that's a great question i don't obviously he's implying that this is where it needs to go
00:59:41.460and just to be clear um there's a lot of debate among real historians today as to whether those
00:59:48.820two nuclear bomb drops actually ended the war or if it was really the threat of the soviet red army
00:59:57.000By this point in the war, the Soviet Red Army had defeated the Nazis, and they were repositioning Zhukov's famous forces that defeated Hitler.
01:00:06.260They were sending them back to the Eastern Front to basically take on the Japanese.0.81
01:00:10.960They wanted to invade northern Japan and do to Japan what they did to Germany, split it in half between us and them.0.71
01:00:17.420And we dropped the bombs partly to get out ahead of the Soviet invasion.
01:00:21.480But the real question always was, did Hirohito, the Japanese ruler, did he surrender because of the bomb blasts?
01:00:29.780Did he surrender after the second one because of that one?0.74
01:00:32.160Or was it because he realized if I don't surrender to the Americans and give everything to them, the Soviets are coming in and I'm more frightened of them than I am of the Americans.0.67
01:00:40.840And so there was the one-two punch.0.52
01:01:02.840Right. Of course, of course, yes. The Iranians have effectively been able to meet us at every turn.
01:01:09.980This is a professional military. You know, you have to give a little bit of kudos here because everybody, I think, thought that the military was going to be like the Iraqi military,
01:01:19.160He was going to fold upon first contact, but that has not been the case.
01:01:22.720This is a very, these guys are cool as cucumbers, and they were ready, and they were prepared for what we were going to throw at them.
01:01:30.100They anticipated every move so far, which is why you're seeing the president having these outbursts.
01:01:35.760You know, well, we're going to maybe annihilate the entire civilization.
01:01:39.680That's not what an American president talks like.
01:01:42.980he's talking like that because he's frustrated because the iranians are not complying with how
01:01:48.200he thought things were going to play out and when it comes to the the negotiations the same thing
01:01:52.560the iranians came in with their set of demands we had our set of demands and the problem the
01:01:57.100iranians had is they said the americans added the new demands that these were never originally
01:02:01.740discussed and furthermore the iranians made it clear the only way they were meeting with us was
01:02:06.200based upon their 10 points not ours and the iranians were surprised that we even met with
01:02:11.400them because they were not offering to meet meet us and talk about you know enrichment they wanted
01:02:16.180to talk about their 10 points only we said okay it was never going to work it was this is what i
01:02:22.200was saying at the time there's no way there's no uh stasis in the in the argument which again
01:02:29.520makes you wonder why the vice president who is leading all polls right now to be the next
01:02:35.880Republican nominee for president was sent over there as a person for the negotiations. Yeah. I
01:02:42.220mean, it doesn't make any sense otherwise. He's yes, he was a detractor on the war. But what we
01:02:48.180didn't go over there really hoping to end this that not with those points, not with you can't
01:02:52.840do any uranium enrichment and you have to give us all the previously enriched uranium that's buried
01:03:00.200deep in those sites that we hit. That's another one of our our must haves. And reportedly,
01:03:05.240president trump said don't negotiate on anything like these are the points this is what we want
01:03:08.620total surrender thanks to his friend mark levin so not surprisingly i'm surprised it took 21 hours
01:03:14.500that's all i i'm surprised i think not surprised i think that that indicates that i think the vice
01:03:19.640president was very genuine in trying to figure out a way to make it work but he was obviously
01:03:24.220being overruled by the president and we know that he was talking constantly with the israeli prime
01:03:29.580minister um which you know on one hand you say well we know that from the israeli prime minister
01:03:34.480That's right. Who said that J.D. Vance, our vice president, was calling him repeatedly to report to me. Right. He said, as they do every day, his two, you know, what he thinks are his two puppets at the top of the United States government. The way he spoke of our president and our vice president was actually deeply offensive. Yeah. And but but does it reveal a fundamental truth about who's actually calling the shots here?
01:03:57.900Well, I think it reveals the exposure that the entire Republican Party in particular has to this particular ally. Again, they are partners with us in this war, so on some level there's going to have to be coordination between us and them just because of the nature of the conflict.
01:04:16.100But the question is, why are we calling every day? Why is it like how they're describing it? That is not the norm. And there does need to be a greater understanding that, yes, we have shared interests right now, but there are real differences in what we're trying to achieve and what they're trying to achieve.
01:04:34.760Yes. And the fact that we don't partner with somebody in a war, you don't like go in jointly holding hands and pretends one thing to have an ally in a war.
01:04:43.060It's quite another to launch it jointly and pretend that you're equal partners.
01:04:45.980Here's exactly what Netanyahu said, quote, J.D. Vance reported to me in detail, as this administration does every day about the development of the negotiations.
01:04:55.480Well, good for you. But J.D. Vance reportedly called Netanyahu from his plane after leaving Islamabad. And reportedly, J.D. Vance called President Trump multiple times during the negotiations. It wasn't that J.D. was empowered, according to the reports. It was President Trump at every turn saying, no, no, no. He wants what he wants.
01:05:21.020So President Trump calls into Maria Bartiromo's show yesterday and once again goes to the we might bomb their desalinization plants.
01:05:31.980Now, it is one thing, and I've defended the president on this.0.82
01:05:35.180If you want to talk about bombing some of the electric plants, if they're dual use, if you can make a good faith argument that they're being used to fuel the military, that you can at least make the argument that this is not civilian infrastructure, that's a war crime.
01:05:49.560But you cannot say that about water plants that are keeping the Iranian people alive.
01:05:57.380Not the Iranian government, not the Iranian military, the Iranian people alive.0.67
01:12:17.980The president knows it's nonsense. So does the Republican base.
01:12:20.980So much of that gains traction on social media.
01:12:24.560What do you do to stop terrible narratives like that from taking hold and changing people's minds and informing their thought about things?
01:12:34.280I mean, obviously, I think that the algorithmic disconnect is quite real.
01:12:37.360You see it particularly on X, but you also see it on TikTok and other social media.
01:14:04.820I just pulled a couple of the headlines.
01:14:06.340We've been talking about this for weeks.
01:14:08.020March 2nd, The Guardian, U.S. strikes on Iran triggered by Israel's plan to launch attack, Rubio says.
01:14:13.640We all remember the Secretary of State and the Speaker of the House saying we did it because of Israel.
01:14:18.160OK, April 7th. And their defenders would say the timing of it was because of Israel, the timing of it.
01:14:24.540It was well beyond the timing. Benjamin Netanyahu went to the White House seven times this past year to try to convince President Trump that this was the right move.
01:14:32.800There was an in-depth April 7th piece in The New York Times, how Trump took the U.S. to war with Iran.
01:14:38.020In the Situation Room on February 11th, Mr. Netanyahu made a hard sell, suggesting that Iran was ripe for regime change going on from there.
01:14:46.960March 3rd, Axios exclusive, the Trump-Netanyahu call that changed the Middle East.
01:14:52.260Last Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called President Trump with a stunning tip.
01:14:56.520Iran's supreme leader and his top advisers were all set to meet at one location in Tehran on Saturday morning.
01:15:02.380It answers the question that lawmakers, MAGA skeptics, and world leaders have all been asking since Saturday.
01:15:07.400Why now? They go on from there. March 20th, Washington Post, Netanyahu's months-long campaign to convince Trump to attack Iran, and so on and so forth.
01:15:16.720We could be here all day doing the headlines of how it was indeed at Israel's behest, Ben, and literally no one other than crazed neocons who are Israel firsters are even questioning that at this point.
01:15:32.760No, it's true. And again, you're right to point out Rubio's comments on Capitol Hill right after the war began. I mean, he said that's what we did. Remember, Trump has said repeatedly over the last three weeks, or I guess more than that now, he's said repeatedly that, you know, if I didn't act, there would be no Israel, which clearly that's again, the Israeli line is that they are one heartbeat away from an Iranian nuclear holocaust.
01:15:57.740And again, I can understand where the Israelis are coming from, but I don't think it's that dire yet.
01:16:02.920And I think there was plenty of time for us to do something other than starting a catastrophic war that neither we nor the Israelis are now winning.
01:16:12.020You know, there was a thousand other things that we could have done and tried before going into war, not just negotiations.0.61
01:16:18.260We could have enhanced the Abraham Accords.
01:16:20.840We could have brought the Israelis closer together with the Arab states and told them we are not starting a war.0.85
01:16:25.460We're going to do a containment strategy like we did to the Soviet Union.
01:16:28.660There are dozens and dozens of alternatives that would have been less costly and less damaging to the United States than what we're doing now.0.84
01:16:36.700And what you're what you're highlighting here, Megan, is the truth.0.55
01:16:40.200And they don't like the truth, which is, yes, we did this because we were helping Israel.
01:16:45.240But ultimately, it's not helping Israel any more than it's helping us.
01:16:49.160In fact, Israel is now seeing severe economic damage.
01:16:52.940They're seeing severe political fallout.
01:16:54.960The first day of the courts in Israel resuming normal functions was a week ago or last week.
01:17:01.480And the first thing they did was continue the indictment and investigation into Netanyahu for corruption charges.
01:17:06.800So this is not benefiting anybody in Israel.
01:17:10.520So even even the idea that we had to do this for Israel, it's clearly not panning out for any of the neocons who supported it.
01:17:17.820This is a terrible, disastrous conflict, and it needs to end now, like right now.
01:17:26.380Not only are we seeing the inflated prices of gasoline and diesel fuel, but the actual prices will follow, as they always do.
01:17:35.080And you heard our discussion at the beginning of the hour, and Eric Bolling's predictions could be up to 5%, 6% by the summer.
01:17:41.680But we're losing politically, which is what had yours truly up in arms when this thing first started, because I saw it, I knew it, I understood.
01:17:50.940We were already precariously perched to lose the House and possibly, possibly to keep an eye on the Senate.
01:17:58.280And now it's getting worse by the day.
01:18:00.060Just today, Cook Political Report has moved three races closer to the Dems in the Senate races.
01:18:10.300The Democrats have to keep Michigan, Georgia and New Hampshire and also flip one other House, one other Senate seat in order to take control of the Senate.
01:18:18.880They need four net seats in the Senate, which is a tall order and still is not the best outcome to bet on.
01:18:25.520If you're putting money on it, you'd still have to vote on the Republicans keeping the Senate.
01:18:47.660All right. So think about those those first states that I said, Michigan, Georgia, New Hampshire, that the Democrats have to keep. Georgia was a toss up. Now it leans dem. North Carolina was a toss up. Now today it leans dem.
01:19:10.160Okay, so that's bad. That's at least two of the ones that the Democrats have to keep that are now going more and more Democrat. They're looking more and more Democrat and like the Republicans cannot flip them. And Ohio was, leans R, now it's toss up. North Carolina was toss up, now it leans D.
01:19:32.220um all these alaska was solid red now it leans are uh nebraska is now potentially in play um it
01:19:43.920too was moved from solidly red uh over to leans are every single movement in all of some seven
01:19:51.260senate races that we're watching every single one has been moved closer to the the democrats
01:19:57.220winning it, Brandon. I mean, this is, if any of this actually winds up manifesting in November,
01:20:02.200it will be catastrophic for the future of the Republican party. If you look at the lineup of
01:20:07.260states that are up in 28 for Republicans, it's, it's far worse. Like Republicans are projected
01:20:13.580to lose more seats in 28, far more than they are. They have more risk in 28 than they do in 26.
01:20:18.880So 26 should be a year in which they lose maybe one, you know, God forbid two, but you're talking
01:20:24.420about four now they've lost control of the senate and then it doesn't get better two years later
01:20:29.700right and now we're diminishing the heir apparent jd vance with these failed negotiations and
01:20:35.000there's a lot of political fallback from that so we're already damaging the the the likely next
01:20:40.160heir apparent as well for 28 i would just say i live in florida there were two special elections
01:20:44.940in the last month uh one of which for the mar-a-lago district uh the republicans were
01:20:49.940supposed to win that they lost significantly and the reason they lost it had nothing to do with
01:20:55.140you know anything other than the fact that there are double the amount of republican or just about
01:21:00.600double the amount of republican registered voters here than there are democrats in the state of
01:21:05.320florida and yet the democrats outvoted the republicans they're having presidential
01:21:10.860turnout levels in their primaries in their special elections so far and the republicans are i think
01:21:18.820the republicans are heartbroken right now i think the republicans really are hurt emotionally they
01:21:25.820are trying to process psychologically and that is having a dispiriting effect on demoralizing
01:21:32.100the vote and that's why you're not seeing the turnout even in solidly red states like my own
01:21:36.720state of florida uh megan they're and this is going to keep playing out the longer the economy0.91
01:21:42.020collapses and the harder things get for average americans because a lot of maga voters are looking
01:21:46.980around going, what did we do it all for? And not only that, you have the fact that this MAGA movement
01:21:52.740has been with us for 10 years. So it's been a decade since Trump first came down the golden
01:21:57.520escalator and was the guy for the Republican Party. So there's already the movement getting
01:22:03.380a little long in the tooth. You've got to constantly reinvigorate it. We're not reinvigorating it. You
01:22:08.780mentioned the youth vote. Last year at this time, we were talking about how the youth vote was
01:22:14.720pivoting away from the democrats at least a sizable portion were and come coming on with
01:22:19.640the republican party now it looks like those numbers have completely reversed because if
01:22:24.100you're a young person in america it's very hard for you to make it it's it's darn nearly near
01:22:29.700impossible and that's if you're even with you're doing everything you're supposed to be doing
01:22:33.820having a job putting your money you know in where you're supposed to and playing the game the way
01:22:38.140that your parents and grandparents did um unfortunately it no longer passes muster
01:22:43.120anymore you can't get ahead so all of these things are compounding and you throw in the war which is
01:22:48.080causing all of these dislocations throughout the economy it's not going to translate to a win for
01:22:53.940the republicans at this point in november and if they don't win again i think that's the end of the
01:22:59.240trump presidency whether he's removed from office or not that's the end he's going to become a lame
01:23:03.600duck overnight yes he will uh that's how i feel extremely disappointed i'm i'm really genuinely
01:23:11.280sad about it i like i kind of can't believe he did it i can't believe yeah the betrayal of starting
01:23:18.600a middle east war like the one thing you really believed he would never do and he did it and now
01:23:24.600we're stuck in it and the escalation trap manifests bit by bit because among other reasons we have this
01:23:31.000partner who won't let us out continues to bomb lebanon to the point where iran isn't willing to
01:23:37.800settle, create new terms where we have to have zero uranium enrichment, which was never a thing.
01:23:44.640And we now, OK, now we're going to take over the Strait of Hormuz or at least the Iranian
01:23:49.280ports in it. And what does that mean for us and our other allies of ours, you know, who now we're
01:23:53.880going to be confronting on the high seas or at the ports? It's just every day it's more bad news.
01:23:59.680And the electoral chances that we're hoping for as people who lean right get diminished and
01:24:06.580dwindled, the American people, the base. I mean, that white working class number is just so0.95
01:24:10.840alarming. But Brandon, I feel as they do. Like, I love the President Trump agenda domestically.1.00
01:24:17.400I want him to come back and do it. I want him to be focused on us. I don't hate President Trump.
01:24:23.740I haven't really turned on President Trump. I'm very against this war. And I hate the way it's
01:24:29.300being conducted. And I don't like the way he's talking. I don't like the way he's, like I said,
01:24:34.900like a cornered animal lashing out at like possibly striking the desalinization plants,1.00
01:24:41.080wiping out civilization in Iran tonight. That stuff's crazy. The depiction of himself as God,0.96
01:24:47.140which is what his detractors are already saying about him. He's not God and he can't act like God
01:24:52.020and to stop trying to pretend he is God. And guess what just happens? I mean, he did something he
01:24:56.520never does. He deleted that post of himself clearly as Jesus. And Brandon, he's now spinning
01:26:00.260as a Red Cross worker there, which we support.
01:26:02.400and uh only the fake news could come up with that one so i i had uh i just heard about it
01:26:09.960and i said how did they come up with that it's supposed to be me as a doctor making people
01:26:15.600better and i do make people better i make people a lot better as an example uh the 11 000 i
01:26:22.440understand your husband's going through treatment yes sir yes sir he's going through some very
01:26:27.620serious cancer treatment. So this goes a long way. Yes, sir. It sure does.
01:26:33.880Okay. That's just, okay. By the way, Trump didn't personally do the artwork. He posted it. He
01:26:39.740reposted somebody else's handiwork. Why did we have to have a Satan behind you if you were a
01:26:46.020doctor? Why is someone praying at your right wrist? Why is there a glowing white light in
01:26:51.140your left hand. Why do you have the robes of a Jesus-like figure and not a doctor's coat on?
01:26:58.160It's just, I'm sorry, Brent. This is the stuff I can't stand. And then we get lied to about it.
01:27:03.380It's an obvious, obvious lie. I'm just glad he took it down,
01:27:07.220to be honest with you. Because it was very offensive in more than one way.
01:27:13.520But I can't comment on what he was thinking. I don't know how you could think that was a
01:27:19.000first aid worker but you know and then the demon i didn't see i didn't notice that when i saw the
01:27:24.180picture so um it could be that it was ai that it looks like that's an ai generated image maybe he
01:27:29.660tweaked it in i don't know uh but but the point is i don't care that he tweaked it i just care
01:27:34.520that he tweeted it out at the same time he's attacking no i agree the pope you know it's
01:27:39.760very obvious and he's under criticism by many saying who do you think you are you think you're
01:27:43.440god and this is trump's way of being like you know what yeah how you like me now well that's
01:27:48.120certainly his personality. My hope is that Russ Vaught, who is, you know, in the administration,
01:27:52.920I know him to be a believer. My hope is that maybe he's the one that kind of quietly asked
01:27:57.840the president. I don't know. I have no inside information, but I, you know, I do know he's a
01:28:02.000believer. And so I hope that maybe this could, this could lead to some ministering, uh, getting
01:28:07.420the, getting the proper word in front of the president rather than Paula White's word. Um,
01:28:11.720but, uh, you know, we'll see. She's a crazy ass advisor of his that she's a lunatic.1.00
01:28:16.180Well, she's definitely, I would argue she's heretical, that's for sure.0.99
01:28:20.600I don't think there's any truth biblically there, and I'll pray for her as well.0.79
01:28:25.080But, you know, I do think the president is, as the kids say, spiraling, and I think he's doing that because I think he realizes he's in a pickle.
01:28:35.720And, again, it's a disaster of his own making, but there is an off-ramp still.
01:28:41.220The president can still say, okay, so he's going to do the blockade.
01:28:46.180I think he's going to follow through on some level in terms of putting the ships out there
01:28:50.420and threatening everybody. But he could, at the end of the day, he could say, okay,
01:28:54.180I've done the blockade for a week. I'm good. We're good. We're going to, we're going to deescalate
01:28:57.960now. He basically can still deescalate and tell the, the local parties, Israel and the Arab States,
01:29:04.460you guys are going to have to figure it out. Now we've done everything we can to stymie and
01:29:09.980contain the Iranians. And we're going to have to work out a new deal. If I were him again,1.00
01:29:14.780I would pivot. I would try to get the Russians who are partners with the Iranians, but also want to do business deals with the United States. There is a chance here he could go to Moscow and flip the whole script and say, I'm going to use the Russians to get a deal on the Iranian problem. I'm going to use the Russians to get a deal on the European problem. I'm going to use the Russians to get a deal on the problems with North Korea and China.
01:29:38.760There is still a pathway forward. It doesn't seem clear, but it's there. But he's got to feel his way out of this. And if he at the end of the blockade, the counter blockade, if he is convinced to land troops, then it's all over. Then we're truly in, you know, we're not in a regional war. We're probably in the very, very deep, you know, World War Three, because it's going to suck the oxygen out of everything. It's going to become all consuming.
01:30:04.920So my hope is that the president, he's obviously going to do the counter blockade for a period of time.
01:30:10.060My hope is he doesn't really do it seriously.
01:30:12.580And then he just says, OK, I'm going to Moscow.
01:32:21.200Well, I think in terms of Cuba, I think the Russians would be willing to let that go the way we want it to go or the way Trump wants it to go if he can seriously sit down with them and be genuine about, yes, I'm going to work with you to get a deal to end all of these crises across Eurasia very quickly.
01:32:41.360uh cuba is seen as peripheral to russia i think and therefore i don't believe that the russians
01:32:48.860would use cuba as anything other than a cat's paw to give us headaches because we're giving them
01:32:53.420headaches so if we could kind of mutually de-escalate i think the russians would say
01:32:57.960okay the western hemisphere is your sphere we're going to have our sphere and you know in our part0.95
01:33:02.740of the world and we're going to let the chinese carve out some sphere for themselves and this is0.95
01:33:07.220new world order going forward one of of spheres of influence where we mind our own backyards more0.98
01:33:12.660than we mind the backyards and front yards of others the don roe the don roe doctrine and this
01:33:17.860is something you know i was very loud and proud about that i thought this is where we were going
01:33:22.340which is why i was so angry about the middle east excursion because it's become more than
01:33:26.660an excursion obviously it's it's real it's it's a quagmire and um so i do think there is a pathway
01:33:33.300forward even with the cuban issue but if we continue to escalate in iran like i'm fearful
01:33:39.580of doing then yes the russians the turks are now sending a nuclear ship to give energy nuclear power
01:33:46.600to cuba which is directly against what the united states wants turkey's a nato ally the reason
01:33:52.680they're doing this i think is because they want israel to be reined in and we won't rein israel
01:33:58.200in and so they're sending this ship to cuba to try to complicate our lives and say hey if you
01:34:03.800don't take care of this problem in our backyard we're going to mess around with problems in your
01:34:07.800backyard and so this is all leverage getting to try to get us to do what probably should be the
01:34:13.680right thing which is we de-escalate in these other parts of the world which is what trump said he
01:34:17.780wanted to do when he was elected the second time around he wanted to focus on the the don row
01:34:22.500doctrine. No one cares about the Straits of Hormuz. I certainly don't. People are worried
01:34:27.960about themselves. This should be somebody else's problem. Brandon, thank you so much. It's always
01:34:33.580great to get your POV. We'd love talking to you. Brandon Weikert, everybody. Yeah, we'll do it
01:34:37.840again soon. There's a lot more going on in the news today. You know, it's like every time you
01:34:42.200think you're going to talk about other stuff besides Iran, it dominates the headlines because
01:34:46.540it's a war. It's a war that we've involved ourselves with. We've launched and we are
01:34:51.260involved in, and we can't seem to think of a great way to get ourselves out of it. It's not
01:34:56.060going to be, quote, surrender by the Iranians. It's not. They haven't lost. Surrender is what
01:35:02.260you do when you've lost. They haven't. Just because there are navies at the bottom of the
01:35:06.940ocean, which Trump keeps mentioning, he's very proud of the fact that 156 ships or however many
01:35:10.920it was, that's not. They've figured out, thanks to this war, that they have a weapon far more
01:35:17.420powerful than ships or planes. They have control over the Strait of Hormuz. And it's a massive
01:35:24.160economic weapon that has effectively brought us to our knees. We haven't been able to figure out
01:35:29.600how to take that weapon away from them. Now we're at the point of having to send these destroyers
01:35:34.200over into the strait and threaten our allies. You better not come into these ports or else
01:35:39.280if you pay the toll, you're going to get it. Why are we threatening our allies? I thought this was
01:35:43.880about Iran. They've managed to spread it beyond just them, which is a win for them. They have0.86
01:35:50.620leverage, not a whole of it. We were still the strongest, powerful, most powerful military in
01:35:55.940the world. I'm sure ultimately they would like to negotiate a stopping to the bombing, but we don't
01:36:03.540have all the cards like Trump is pretending we do. And we cannot go over there and effectively
01:36:08.200demand the equivalent of, quote, surrender, no uranium enrichment, period, and go down in the
01:36:15.060bottom of these three sites we bombed to smithereens in June and find the enriched uranium
01:36:20.240and turn it over to us, something Trump himself told us was not really possible about two weeks
01:36:25.220ago, that we'd see it via satellite, that it's all buried. This is another Israeli dream.0.96
01:36:32.440Now, the stuff about, hey, you know, you need to stop interfering with Israel and other allies in the region.0.94
01:36:40.000Yeah, we can get we can get them to agree to that.
01:41:33.260I now have my very own channel on Sirius XM.
01:41:36.420It's called the Megan Kelly Channel, and it is where you will hear the truth unfiltered, with no agenda, and no apologies.
01:41:42.580Along with the Megan Kelly Show, you're going to hear from people like Mark Halperin, Link Lauren, Maureen Callahan, Emily Jashinsky, Jesse Kelly, Real Clear Politics, and many more.
01:41:51.540It's bold, no BS news, only on the Megan Kelly Channel, Sirius XM 111, and on the Sirius XM app.
01:41:58.980okay we've got to get into this walwell situation this is i mean boy he was quickly dispatched of
01:42:10.220i mean it was like they decided he needed to go and he went it was just a pile on from all corners
01:42:19.220and of course queen pelosi said he had to go and that was the end of him boy when she turns on you
01:42:24.120You're done. Stick a fork in you. Here's what happened. He was in the second position. Steve Hilton, our old pal from Fox News, 14.7 percent. He's been leading. Swalwell right behind him, 13.7. This guy, Chad Bianco, in 13. So right behind Swalwell.
01:42:40.380So really, like two of the top three in California for this gubernatorial race are Republicans, which is extraordinary.
01:42:46.480But that doesn't mean they're going to win because there are one, two, three of the top five, three are Democrats and all have double digit support.
01:43:00.940So if you look at it, that's, you know, some 35 percent supporting Democrats and some 25 percent supporting Republicans of this of this electorate.
01:43:14.060And then I don't know where the other percentages are, I guess, just divvied up amongst the smaller, lesser candidates who have no chance.
01:43:20.460So two of those are going to move on to the general election.
01:43:23.180And when it's a head to head Republican to Democrat, I think we all know what the state of California is going to do.
01:43:28.580unfortunately. I'd love to see Steve Hilton win this thing, would absolutely love, but
01:43:33.580they have no Republicans in national office in California. So what's the reason for that?
01:43:42.200They vote blue there. They do it just as soon as they breathe the air, they vote blue. But I guess
01:43:47.960they decided they didn't want to take any chances that the top two, because the runoff will be
01:43:53.300between the top two, no matter who they are, even if they're both Republicans. They wanted to make
01:43:58.220sure that it was a Democrat that was in there. So that means somebody's got to go. And it looked
01:44:03.400like Swalwell was the most vulnerable. And I guess now they want all the support to go either
01:44:07.400to Steyer or Katie Porter. Word on the street is it's Steyer who they want. Katie's got her own
01:44:14.340issues. Get the fuck out of the shot. She doesn't control her temper well. Personally, I'd like to1.00
01:44:23.880see her get it. If it has to be somebody other than a Republican, I'm for Katie Porter. I would
01:44:29.360like to cover that for four years. I bet she'd give us a lot of content, but that's just the
01:44:33.940news person in me talking. Okay. So let's just talk about how they took him down. It's actually
01:44:40.400fascinating. Like clearly this guy's disgusting and very creepy, really gross. But whether he
01:44:49.540actually raped a woman is a different question entirely. So it looks like there are about four
01:44:56.020accusers, but there could be much, much more. I have no idea. There's like, it seems to be women
01:45:00.160coming out of the woodwork right now. He is married. He's 38 years old. Is he 38 now? Or
01:45:05.380was that when he allegedly raped the woman? Um, okay. When he allegedly raped this woman,
01:45:11.640it was 2019. So what, six, seven years ago? Okay, he's 45 now. By the way, today's April 13th,
01:45:22.3002026, and it is Strudwick's birthday. Just as an aside, happy birthday, Strud. He's finally
01:45:28.780becoming the old dog we really hoped he would be. No evidence of that aging or mellowing,
01:45:35.540really, in our daily routine. Pretty sure yesterday he ate some sort of an animal
01:45:39.560and was on some natural high as a result of it,
01:45:41.960a squirrel maybe, I don't know, a bird,
01:45:44.240possibly a rabbit because we let him outside for a while
01:45:46.600and he came in like he had like cocaine bear.
01:46:07.220and then another which had clearly been ready to go1.00
01:46:09.180at CNN because they already had these women like on the record. And in one case in shadow on camera
01:46:16.040telling their stories, the same woman is at the heart of both pieces. The CNN piece has three
01:46:21.800other women who back it up with also gross accounts, but not as disturbing as woman number1.00
01:46:27.100one. And she's the star of the San Francisco Chronicle piece as well. So this woman, um,
01:46:33.680says, hold on, I want to get, I'm going to get into the specifics with you. Standby. She says0.94
01:46:42.160that, okay, here it is. She's a former junior staffer on his team. You know, he's a House of
01:46:54.280Representatives member that she was a junior staffer working for him. And she was just 21
01:46:59.580years old in 2019 and he was 38 and he was married and he's got kids too. And she claims that they
01:47:07.160had at least two physical interludes. It sounds like there may have been more, but two that she
01:47:13.000is deeming non-consensual. It sounds like due to extreme intoxication on her part in which she was
01:47:19.480unable to provide consent. Now in both her allegations and those of another woman, there's
01:47:25.840like a strong implication, though nothing explicit about, you know, maybe a possible date rape
01:47:31.680situation, like a drug. They talk about how they were drinking with him, and then suddenly they
01:47:36.800blacked out and don't remember anything until the next day. But they both admit to being heavily
01:47:41.980intoxicated, so it's not clear. And they certainly don't explicitly say, I think I was given, you
01:47:48.420know, slipped a mickey by this guy. So it's just, to me, in reading the reports, and I think to many
01:47:53.100others. There was like, are they trying to suggest that? I unclear. I think not, not explicitly, but
01:47:58.660keep an open mind to that coming out as an allegation later because the foundation has
01:48:04.400been laid. She says that the two began messaging each other on Snapchat when she was working for
01:48:11.720him. He began, she says he was the first to make sexual comments and he sent her photos of his
01:48:19.280penis and of him shirtless, as one does when one is the boss of young 21-year-old girls
01:48:26.160in one's congressional office. He also asked her to send him photos of herself, including nudes,
01:48:32.380which she did, as one does when one is a junior staffer working for a congressman and he asks you
01:48:38.440for nudes. Of course, you strip down and send them. No one behaved well here. She said she0.66
01:48:46.020found his attention flattering and she also felt nervous because he was her boss. Yes, which would
01:48:53.160lead most people to try to get out of the awkward situation deftly, politely, laughing it off, but
01:49:00.940not to take off one's clothes and send the nudes. So this gal has got a lot of explaining to do and0.95
01:49:06.580just really a lot of self-reflection on her own behavior. Her mother told CNN that her daughter
01:49:12.320told the mother some months later that Swalwell had been communicating with her over Snapchat,
01:49:17.840and the mother and her husband found that inappropriate, but she did not tell her parents
01:49:22.780at the time that the messages were sexual because the messages on Snapchat were automatically
01:49:27.200deleted. She has no screenshots of the exchanges. Now, I'm just going to say that is a little
01:49:33.540suspicious because I'm going to say if you are a young person on Snapchat and your boss,
01:49:39.200who's a U.S. congressman, sends you a dick pic. You get a friend to like photograph it over your
01:49:46.480shoulder, but it's possible you didn't have that at the ready when the picture came in,
01:49:51.700when the Snapchat came in. I don't, I don't know. I'm kind of wondering why there's no evidence of
01:49:57.900it, but he's disgusting and this seems to be a pattern for him. So I give her the benefit of
01:50:02.420a doubt, not him. So CNN does an on-camera interview with this accuser, this junior staffer
01:50:10.440who was 21 at the time they began these nude pictures. And she explains the first exchange
01:50:20.560that they had that led No Place Good. She says she was driving to an event. That was her job
01:50:28.660to drive him around and here's where it went from there. Take a listen. It was in 2019. I was again
01:50:34.840driving him to an event. This was my job and you were 21 years old and I was 21 years old. We see
01:50:39.440some sort of parking lot and he says to pull over. He pulls out his penis and instructs me to give him0.88
01:50:46.080oral sex. And I started to, again, I felt incredibly uncomfortable and I stopped and I
01:50:55.280said to him, this feels really uncomfortable and anyone could see us right now. And he said to me,
01:51:02.820you're right. It's probably not good for a congressman to be caught with his pants down.
01:51:06.220Did he ask you to send him lewd photos? Yes. And did he ever send lewd photos? Yes. He would send
01:51:12.320short Snapchat videos of him rubbing his penis through his pants while on the airplane.
01:51:20.920The staffer says she liked Swalwell's attention at first and nervously went along with it, which included sending back nude photos of herself.
01:51:33.760It's obviously technically sexual harassment because she was a subordinate to him in his office and he was taking advantage of his power over her and asking her to submit to a sexual relationship.
01:55:19.180There are plenty of scheming young women for whom it is wanted.
01:55:22.840And that is at the heart of figuring out some of these allegations, right?
01:55:26.080So it's like you cannot just go with 20-year age difference and he's the superior in the workplace setting without asking that other question, was it unwanted?
01:59:31.600that it's not the behavior of somebody
01:59:34.100who had felt raped by this man against her will
01:59:38.220while passed out and unconscious, right?
01:59:42.360That it was more a case of maybe Sunday morning regrets
01:59:45.180than it was of a sexual assault victim.
01:59:48.320I don't know what the truth is, people. I have no idea. He's gross. That's the minimum. Just trying not to get ahead of my skis because he's a Democrat we can't stand.
02:00:00.720Okay, so let's fast forward to 2024. They stayed in touch over the years. He was giving her recommendations. They continued with the texting. Don't know the nature of it.
02:00:09.160But here comes 2024 in April when the former staffer is now 25 and Swalwell was invited to speak at a gala in New York City that she attended.
02:00:19.500The woman said she decided to get drinks with Swalwell because he was a powerful person in her field.
02:00:25.500Now, I'm just going to say if I felt raped by somebody, I wouldn't go for drinks with them.
02:00:30.640So I think there's an implicit admission here that that first encounter did not amount to rape in her head.
02:00:36.200She thought maybe things got out of hand.
02:00:38.220clearly she had moved past it because she went for drinks with him. And not just did she go for
02:00:43.200drinks with him, she made it happen. She says that, uh, the two got drinks at Swalwell's hotel
02:00:50.300and a nearby ball bar and Swalwell was totally professional. Okay. So they got drinks at his
02:00:56.540hotel and a nearby bar. He was totally professional. And then she says she had sent Swalwell a
02:01:04.620Snapchat message inviting him to get another drink. So I'm not sure the sequence of the events
02:01:10.480that night, but clearly she reached out to him and asked him to have drinks with her after he
02:01:16.240had been totally professional around her. This is after the alleged night of being blacked out drunk
02:01:22.380where he took advantage of her, according to her. I'm sorry, but like, that's a devastating fact.
02:01:28.280If you were to bring this case into a court of law, um, they, they did go out for another drink
02:01:35.600and I guess he came and picked her up in a car. He put his hand on her leg. I said, no funny
02:01:41.760business. Like, that's not what this is. She remembered. And he was like, okay, but then over
02:01:46.620drinks, he told the former staffer, he'd been obsessed with her. He'd never cheated on his
02:01:51.300wife except with her. Oh my God, this poor girl, she's young. She doesn't look like that is such1.00
02:01:55.820an obvious lie. And now we know that it's a lie. This was 2024. All these women coming out saying
02:02:01.2602021. He was doing this shit with them. It's 2024. I'm like, I'm sorry for the wife, but it
02:02:06.840appears he is a serial prolific cheater. He denies the allegations. And this poor young girl. Oh my
02:02:14.500God. You're my first. My wife doesn't understand me. Ladies, do not believe that bullshit, no
02:02:20.840matter who spins it to you. These are what we call lies that you should resist. Okay. So you're just1.00
02:02:28.540so hot. You're so hot. And you're the only one I've ever cheated on. Then she says again, I guess
02:02:34.120I liked the attention. This is a dynamic that continues to pop up in this young woman's life.
02:02:40.180She likes the attention and she drinks far too much. And that my friend is a dangerous combination0.97
02:02:45.260in a young woman. It definitely does not allow you to later go back and say something was1.00
02:02:49.580non-consensual when it was consensual, and I really hope that's not what she's doing here.
02:02:55.380But you have to control your own drinking when this appears to be a pattern for you. You,
02:03:01.520you are responsible for your drinking. Now, if there's a possibility of a date rape drug,0.97
02:03:09.900that's a different story. Again, unclear. She says, as the night progressed,
02:03:16.020the two went to another bar. I don't know how many bars they went to together and continued drinking.
02:03:22.760She said she was, quote, heavily intoxicated and doesn't remember leaving the bar. The next thing
02:03:29.220the former staffer remembered, she was in bed with Swalwell in his hotel room and he was having sex
02:03:35.100with her, she said. She said she remembers flashes of that evening, of him on top of me, of me pushing
02:03:42.060him off of him grabbing me. I was pushing him off saying no, she said. He didn't stop. Now it's very
02:03:50.700convenient that she doesn't remember a thing except for the one sliver in time in which she
02:03:55.860said no and pushed him off and he wouldn't. I mean, like that's very convenient. She doesn't
02:04:03.800remember a thing, doesn't remember leaving the bar, doesn't remember the actual sex, but does
02:04:08.000remember saying no. That's what she claims. Pushing him off of me, saying no. He didn't
02:04:15.280stop. Sorry, Deb, do we have this described in Assad? Let's listen. I decided to ask him to meet
02:04:22.560me for a drink. And I did this because I was so far removed from what had happened in 2019.
02:04:29.380I felt safe because I was established. I had a partner. I felt more secure that I could have a
02:04:41.860strictly professional relationship with this person. After that bar closed, we went to another.
02:04:46.680I went to the bathroom and I don't remember anything after that. You don't remember anything?
02:04:52.320I remember the next day, I can see flashes of that evening of him on top of me, me pushing him off, him grabbing me.
02:05:04.680It was a lot more aggressive. It was aggressive.
02:05:44.340She says she thought she could keep it strictly professional,
02:05:47.040but she got falled down drunk with him and then went back to his hotel.
02:05:50.540This is like, I mean, I'm not trying to defend Eric Swalwell, trust me, but ladies, we need to be responsible for our own decisions.
02:06:03.560Strictly professional does not include going to multiple bars with someone you've already gotten fall-down, blackout drunk with who took advantage of you, according to you, when you were 21 and he was your boss.
02:06:19.280Strictly professional is I'm not going to drink with you because we work together and there's a massive age difference and a history.
02:06:27.480Strictly professional is I'm not going in a car alone with you.
02:06:31.140When I have a partner, which she also reveals to CNN, that by this point she's got a boyfriend.
02:06:37.960OK, like it's not a great idea to go alone in the car of somebody with whom you've already had sex in the past, whose behavior you don't trust while you're fall down, blackout drunk.
02:06:52.000I don't think my partner would appreciate me behaving that way.
02:06:56.840I'm just like women, the days of just being able to make terrible decisions one after the other and then blame everything that happens after you make them on a man are over.
02:07:57.660But she does go on to say she had cuts and bruises on her body.
02:08:01.320She could see bruises where his hand had been on her ribcage, on her legs, and near my thighs.
02:08:05.680I would like to know where the pictures are of that, because I guarantee you any woman who woke up after an interlude with a congressman who had already allegedly sexually assaulted them and suddenly finds bruises all over her, like in a handprint, would 100% photograph that.
02:15:45.480The woman said she then ended up in his hotel room without any memory of how she got there.
02:15:51.020So, again, are they implying date rape drug or is this just a pattern of women making terrible decisions of getting blackout drunk and then going back to this guy's hotel rooms?
02:15:59.880She said her memory of what happened in his hotel room is a blur.
02:16:03.520She wound up leaving the hotel at 541 a.m., according to a screenshot of an Uber receipt.
02:16:08.500The next day, Swalwell sent her disappearing iPhone voice messages saying he wanted to ensure that his wife did not find out.
02:16:15.900She felt emotionally vulnerable, distraught in the following weeks, telling her mom about a month after what had happened, later telling two close friends.
02:16:27.720She said she told Swalwell that she felt really disgusted and ashamed about what had happened, but he continued contacting her, including offering to use his position to help her renew her passport or saying he could write her a letter of recommendation for her law school applications.
02:16:43.080i'd like to see her responses to those did you take the application did you ask him for them
02:16:51.160did you did you take the help renewing your passport like i just don't think you can have
02:17:00.040it both ways you just i i was i had my partner and i loved him and i didn't want to be in that
02:17:06.380bar and the only reason i didn't leave was because it was awkward and i really just wanted to talk
02:17:10.820about his wife and children. But after our alleged encounter, which I have no memory of,
02:17:16.040but definitely wasn't consensual because I was blacked out, I got his help with passports and
02:17:20.400law school applications and definitely stayed in touch with him via text. I just like,
02:17:24.160these are not great facts. A few days before he announced his gubernatorial bid in November,
02:17:29.200he asked her, he texted her asking how she was. Obviously he's getting nervous. She's going to
02:17:33.560come forward. According to screenshots she provided, um, she responded, all you did was
02:17:38.980harm me, she says. He writes back, I won't bother you again. Sorry. The woman said she then continued
02:17:44.760to stay in touch with him after that, exchanging some friendly messages in what she likened to
02:17:50.140Stockholm syndrome. In the cease and desist letter to the woman, Swalwell's lawyer argued that some
02:17:57.740of these text messages, including one in which she said, you would be an amazing governor,
02:18:03.060raised doubt about her account. Indeed. We can't keep doing this, just running to,
02:18:11.660he's gross, we want the Democrat out, and therefore we accept everything without questioning
02:18:17.000whether it actually was a rape, a non-consensual sexual encounter,
02:18:24.480a Me Too sexual harassment situation. Number three is an unnamed accuser who works in marketing,
02:18:33.060says Swalwell first reached out to her on Twitter in April of 2021. Remember when he was only
02:18:38.580cheating with the one girl when she was in her late twenties after she liked several of his
02:18:43.660tweets. Then they began messaging on Snapchat. Conversation became flirty and sexual. After
02:18:49.220about a month, he often requested swimsuit or nude photos of the woman, which she sometimes sent.
02:18:55.940I mean, I've never sent a nude photo in my life, nor would I, upon request, even from my husband.
02:19:04.300Okay, like, this is not a good idea, but she sent them.
02:19:08.820He sent her several videos of his penis, which she did not ask for.
02:19:12.920Well, I'm a little less offended than the headlines would have led me to be,
02:19:16.900because you sent nudes of yourself, sister.
02:19:19.900Like, if you're sending nude photos to him, he can send you a dick pic, solicited or not.
02:28:07.940They knew if this came out in a general
02:28:10.040in which it was Swalwell versus Hilton, they'd be effed.
02:28:13.700So they clearly knifed him before that point.
02:28:16.820This is my speculation, but it's obvious. So who which one did it? Who did it? Who knew and kept it quiet? Because all this time they've known, in my humble opinion, allegedly, reportedly, he's been a U.S. congressman. Why is he fit to be a U.S. congressman, but not the California governor? Would any would someone like to let me know? Because these alleged sins were all committed in that role.
02:28:41.260And by the way, it's just breaking now that there will be an ethics probe by the House Committee on Ethics over these accusations.
02:28:47.360The committee has begun an investigation and will gather additional information regarding the allegations that he violated the code of official conduct or any law, announced the panel just moments ago.
02:28:58.660So why can he be a congressman? Because he hasn't resigned from that, but not the governor of California. Seriously.
02:29:04.260Why are you ethical enough to be a congressman, but not the governor?
02:29:07.720So clearly, I believe this was released on him to get him out of that gubernatorial race because he was likely to be the top dem and they couldn't have it and they couldn't have this come out after it was a one on one against him between him and probably Hilton.
02:29:23.720And so I'd love to know exactly how this went down and who knew and why they didn't say anything, because their hands are dirty, too.
02:29:29.580I mean, when did you know? Did you know in 2024? Because that's when woman number one says the second sexual assault happened.
02:29:35.040Why didn't you come forward before that?
02:30:04.740How many people have been running cover for this guy?
02:30:07.640Because whether he committed a sexual assault or not, he's been, he's obviously behaved like a disgusting pervert who has no business whatsoever being U.S. congressman, never mind governor.
02:30:16.660So who knew and how long and why didn't they tell us?
02:30:21.280There are questions about his pal Ruben Gallego, who is with him in some of these videos of him online as a friend, as a supporter, like to know what he knew and when.
02:30:33.240The ethics probe should go beyond just Swalwell
02:30:35.960to find out who knew and why they didn't come forward.1.00
02:30:41.020Not the women themselves, but the media and Democrat elites.0.97
02:30:45.160Nancy, Nancy, when did you find out?0.82