Ep. 1922 - ＂I Got Him First＂ Trump's War In Iran Explained In 5 Mins
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Summary
There's a lot of Iran to talk about, and we're going to cover it all. Michael talks about the Iran strikes, Shia LaBeouf's great interview, and what it means for the future of the Middle East.
Transcript
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The United States has launched a preemptive war in the Middle East based on the threat
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of weapons of mass destruction and the desire to liberate a people from a regime that we wish
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to change in a country whose name starts with the letters I-R-A. And then one more.
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Does that sound familiar? Are you having deja vu? Yes. Hold on. Two things here and they
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kind of oppose each other. But let's just get this straight right off the bat. Yes. It seems
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crazy that the president who ran specifically against the Bush era regime change wars is now
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launching perhaps the biggest Middle East regime change war that we've ever seen. Yes. Right off
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the bat. That's crazy. Here's the second part, though. The craziest part of all of it
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is that this time it might actually work. I'm Michael Knowles. This is The Michael Knowles Show.
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Welcome back to the show. There's a lot of Iran to talk about. A lot of Iran. We're going to be
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running. We're at the end of this show. You'll say, I ran a marathon today talking about this
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conflict. However, I hope we have time to get to Shia LaBeouf's great interview. One of the
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greatest interviews I've ever seen in which he talks about his faith, what he would say if he
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I want to get into what happened in Iran. I want to get into the political calculation leading up to it.
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I want to get into the three different camps that you can find yourself in. People seem to think
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there are only two camps, pro-war in Iran, anti-war. I think there are really three,
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and I think it tells you a lot about Trump's thinking. I want to get into the grand strategy
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of it all. Were we dragged into this war? Did we lead this war? What's this war even for?
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Is it about regime change? Is it about nukes? Is it about freedom? Is it about American interest?
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I want to get into all of that. However, the first thing I have to touch on
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is the liberal media's reaction. Because the US and Israel launched the strikes on Saturday.
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Friday night, no, I guess it would be early Saturday morning, Iran. But we wake up in
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the United States on Saturday, this has happened. And it worked. It took out the whole top of the
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Iranian regime, including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. People are saying Ayatollah Khomeini,
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like the first supreme leader of Iran, but it's Khomeini. Even I mispronounce it,
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and I've been saying this name for many years. Khomeini, Khomeini, whatever. Doesn't really
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matter now. We're not going to be talking about him too much longer. Anyway, here is what the
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Washington Post said in their obituary of the Iranian supreme leader. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,
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Iran's supreme leader, is dead at 86. Hold on, let me get to the, hold on. No, it's not the first
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part. Here it is. With his bushy white beard and easy smile, Ayatollah Khomeini cut a more avuncular
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figure in public than his perpetually scowling but much more revered mentor. And he was known
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to be fond of Persian poetry and classic Western novels, especially Victor Hugo's Les Miserables.
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They will never outdo this one. We thought that the liberal media, I think it was the Washington
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Post actually, had reached the peak when the leader of ISIS was killed, and they referred to
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him as an austere religious scholar. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, an austere religious scholar,
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was struck down today. But this, this beats that one by a country mile. With his bushy beard and easy
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smile, they turned the Ayatollah into jihad Santa Claus. It's unbelievable. Bushy beard,
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easy smile. Oh, that affable Ayatollah. He was avuncular, wasn't he? That's a great word. I do
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love the word avuncular. He was avuncular, and he loved Persian poetry, and he loved Victor Hugo's
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Les Miserables. There were actually these tweets from the Ayatollah. I guess, I don't know if the
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Ayatollah really was much of a reader, but he certainly presented himself as a reader.
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And there were all of these tweets going around of all the books he'd read. One of them going
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around yesterday was that he had read Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose. So I remember one
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time I read The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco, and I thought, okay, well, now I can confirm two
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bad things have happened to this man in his life. But that novel's not good. That's a bad novel.
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And Les Miserables, okay, anyway, I don't think those are the salient facts about the Ayatollah's
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life. He is not Jihad Santa Claus. He was the leader of a nation that from its inception,
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from the beginning of the regime, had been opposed to the United States. The regime begins
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by taking American hostages, by overthrowing the American ally, the Shah, and then taking American
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hostages. And they have been declaring jihad against the United States for the 49 or so,
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49, 46 years of its existence. So Trump launches Operation Epic Fury. He alerted the nation. Here's
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Over the past 36 hours, the United States and its partners have launched Operation Epic Fury,
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one of the largest, most complex, most overwhelming military offensives the world has ever seen.
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Nobody's seen anything like it. We have hit hundreds of targets in Iran, including Revolutionary Guard
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facilities, Iranian air defense systems. Just now, it was announced that we knocked out nine ships plus
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their naval building, all in a matter of literally minutes. Iran's formerly supreme leader, Ayatollah
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Khamenei, is dead. This wretched and vile man died like the blood of hundreds and even thousands
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of Americans on his hands and was responsible for the slaughter of countless thousands of innocent
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people all across many countries. The entire military command is gone as well.
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Okay. So there are three camps on war with Iran. People have been debating this for a long time.
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And I have been making the case chiefly that probably we should not go to war with Iran,
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that probably the reward was not worth the cost. However, we have to be very clear about the camps here.
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Because there are arguments that can be made that cover multiple camps. The three camps, as I see it,
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are the peaceniks, who are just simply opposed to war. No more war ever again. The peaceniks used to be
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chiefly on the left. In recent years, you've seen a lot of them on the new right as well.
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You then have the idealists, the idealists, the neocons, the hawks, who have basically never seen
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an adversarial country they didn't want to bomb. The kind of people who believe not only should we
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intervene in pursuit of American interest, but we should intervene in pursuit of American ideals.
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We need to spread democracy all around the world. And maybe that will have good practical effects
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in the end. But ideologically, we cannot tolerate totalitarianism or authoritarianism or anything
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that in any way diverges from Madisonian liberal democracy, if we even still have that.
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That's the idealist hawkish camp. And then there are the people in the middle
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who are realists, who are pragmatic, who are, one might even say, America first,
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certainly in the way Trump means it. I think that's the camp that Trump is in,
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the camp that wants America to be strong, maybe to help the world order, because we are the global
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empire, but also to be strong so that we can be strong to benefit the American people.
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The kind of group that says we need to be tough and intervene around the world so that we get better
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trade deals, so that Americans stop being threatened when we go abroad, so that our enemies do not
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advance, enemies like China and Russia. We're gonna intervene sometimes when it's in our interest,
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when the intervention can be done efficiently, when the benefit will outweigh the cost,
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when that's that camp. And so right off the bat, when we're talking about Iran,
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I'm just gonna write off the peaceniks, the kind of people who say we should never go to war,
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war is always terrible or whatever. That's just not a serious opinion. I have friends who hold that
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opinion on the left and the right, I guess, but that's not a serious opinion. You don't even get
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to join the conversation if that's your view. I'm reminded of C.S. Lewis's excellent essay
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against pacifism. I don't think it's a serious moral point of view, but I certainly don't think
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it's a serious point in statecraft. So write that one off. Now we're left with the realist pragmatic
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types and the hawks and the idealist and the neocon types. So which is this? I think that the decision
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to go to war in Iran was not chiefly led by the neocons and the hawks. I think it was a battle
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from within the realist pragmatic practical camp. When President Trump says America first,
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he's been clear about what that means from the beginning. Some people want to pretend that America
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first means America's not involved anywhere in the world and we never use our military and we never
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go to war. That has never been what Trump has meant by that. Don't forget, when Trump launched
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America first, this iteration of America first back in 2015, 2016, one of his promises was to
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go destroy ISIS. So not only did he talk about intervention, he talked about military intervention,
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not only military intervention, but military intervention in the Middle East. Clearly,
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what he means by America first is in that center camp. We need to be strong. We need to pursue our
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interests. We need to be respected on the world stage. So that's the debate. Now, had I been on the
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National Security Council and nobody invited me, but had I been on it, I probably would have made
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the argument that the risks were too high, that the benefits were not totally clear, that things
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could spiral out of control and things could still spiral out of control, by the way. The early few
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days have been very, very promising. There are a billion things that could go wrong. So I probably
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would have made that argument. But notably, that would not have been a peacenik argument. And I don't
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think the argument that Trump is making is some neocon kind of argument. I think Trump's argument
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is, yeah, yeah, it's high risk, but I can do it. I'm the man who can do it. I'm the man who can get
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all these benefits for us. I'm going to take the risk. Trump's a risk taker. He's, I won't say a
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gambler, but because he does it with skill. But Trump's going to come in and say, I have a great
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record on foreign policy. Look what I did in Venezuela. Look what I did in the Middle East
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in my first term. Look what I did in Russia, Ukraine. I prevented that war from breaking
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out until Biden got in. I can do it. And so the debate is not really over ideology. It's not
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really over even grand strategy preferences, but we'll get to what that means. It's really a debate
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over. Can this guy, can this guy really affect US foreign policy better than any president in our
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lifetimes? And we don't know. It remains to be seen. We are in the early days of this war,
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which President Trump says is going to go on for four weeks, maybe five weeks.
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Famous last words for some other presidents. However, we have to observe the first few days
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have been extremely effective, extremely successful beyond most people's wildest imagination. And
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President Trump has the best record on foreign policy practically in my lifetime.
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So even if some of us would have said, I don't think it's worth the risk. I don't. I think we
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should just deal with the Iranian regime, even though we've been at odds with them since 1979.
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Even if that's the art, it really, there's not a disagreement on strategy here.
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All the serious people want to get rid of the Iranian regime in an ideal world. The only question
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is, can we actually pull this off? Thus far, President Trump is giving us a lot of reason to
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believe that. Now, what this means is that when we read President Trump's no stupid wars,
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no more stupid wars promise from 2016, we heard that. A lot of people heard that as no more wars.
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The emphasis was on the word wars. But what President Trump is showing is, no, no, no,
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the emphasis was on the word stupid. When we say no more endless wars, we heard wars.
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The emphasis was on the word endless. I think Pete Hegseth just made that point.
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I think Pete made a statement maybe this morning. Here's the Secretary of War.
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To the media outlets and political left screaming endless wars. Stop. This is not Iraq. This is not
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endless. I was there for both. Our generation knows better and so does this president. He called
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the last 20 years of nation building wars dumb. And he's right. This is the opposite. This operation
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is a clear, devastating, decisive mission. Destroy the missile threat. Destroy the Navy. No nukes.
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Israel has clear missions as well for which we are grateful. Capable partners. As we've said since
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the beginning, capable partners are good partners. Unlike so many of our traditional allies who wring
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their hands and clutch their pearls, hemming and hawing about the use of force.
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There you have it. This will not be an endless war. This will not be. We're going fast. I think
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what's confounding a lot of people about this, and again, a billion things could go wrong. But the fact
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that this worked so effectively, what's shocking to a lot of millennials, certainly to a lot of Zoomers,
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maybe even to a lot of Gen X, is that in our lifetimes, we have never seen the United States
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military truly unleashed. We've always put all these constraints around it. I mean, under Bush,
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after the initial days of the global war on terror, the U.S. military was told to function basically as
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an NGO, as some kind of U.N. nonprofit or something to hand out goodies to the locals. They were
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constrained. Under Obama, they were especially constrained. And so you saw these bungling
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missteps that were generated really by the political class in Washington, not by the U.S. military.
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And I think looking at these operations, Venezuela and now Iran, I think a lot of people are just
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shocked to discover the amazing strength from the perspective of technology and personnel, the just
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amazing, awe-inspiring force of the United States military, because we hadn't seen that unleashed.
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And that changes the calculation. So just to wrap up that bit, should we go to war in Iran? Should
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we not? Obviously, aliyah iakta est, the die is cast. But everyone is debating this from the perspective
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of ideology. Well, I'm an interventionist and you're an isolationist. Isolationist, which is always a term
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of derision, always a term of insult. No, I'm a non-interventionist and I'm a liberty-loving
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America first and you're a warmonger. It's all from ideology. That's not what this is about.
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The questions that we don't have answers to, frankly, outside of the government,
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maybe the government doesn't have answers either, but we certainly do not outside the government, is
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was the threat posed by Iran really that great? We don't really know. The government could be lying
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about it. The government might not even know, but we certainly do not know. Was the threat posed by
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Iran really that great? And two, can we really effectively and efficiently install a friendly
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regime in Iran? Those are the two questions. Not should America ever intervene or not should we
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spread democracy or should it's none of it has nothing to do with any of that. I think from Trump's
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perspective, certainly from my perspective, those are the two questions. What really was the threat?
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How effectively really can we install a pro-Western regime? If the threat was high and we can easily
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install a pro-Western regime, then obviously this was awesome. This was like the greatest thing ever.
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Trump will go down as one of the greatest presidents in American history.
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Replacing this regime in Iran has been a pretty high American priority since 1979.
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If the threat was not that high and we get bogged down in an endless war,
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Trump will have destroyed his legacy and he will go down in much the same way as George W. Bush.
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That is serious risk that this guy is taking based on his confidence in the United States military and
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his confidence in his own statesmanship. Say what you will, that takes serious gulians.
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Okay, we will get into the reasons for the war, what has happened since. There were protests,
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according to the liberal media, at U.S. embassies, especially an embassy in Pakistan.
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There too, you saw the U.S. military unleashed. This ain't the Obama era, guys. This is the real deal.
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What are the reasons for war? I want to be real specific. I want to really drill down here on
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what we're doing. One reason that has been suggested is that Iran was on the brink of a
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nuclear weapon, something we've been hearing, in my case, almost every year of my life since I was
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born. What, since the 90s? Really, since the 80s, we've been hearing this. Since before I was born,
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Iran is on the brink of a nuclear weapon. According to reporting and sources from Capitol Hill and elsewhere,
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was Iran really on the brink of a nuclear weapon? No. Were they pursuing a nuclear weapon? Yes.
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Did Trump's military strikes on Fordow last year set back the nuclear program? Yes, obviously.
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But it couldn't be the case that that was a totally successful operation and Iran was once again on the
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brink of nuclear weapons. That would be contradictory, but that's not even what was being claimed.
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Iran was continuing to pursue nuclear weapons. Trump was clearly unhappy with how the negotiations
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were going. We tried to negotiate with Iran for almost 50 years. They just wouldn't play ball. So
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Trump said, okay, well, look, I gave them a serious hit over the summer. They didn't want to play ball
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after that. I guess I got to take out the regime. So brink of nuclear weapons, probably not.
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There was another claim that Iran was about to launch an attack on US interests. And so we had
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to preempt that because they were about to launch a missile attack any day now. There is really no
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evidence of that at all. I think that is just pure propaganda flying around from where I'm not totally
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sure. But according to the people who were debriefing Congress on this matter, apparently no,
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Iran was not about to launch an attack on US interests. Now, you could observe that Iran had already
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seriously harmed US interests because Iran has killed about a thousand US troops over the course
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of its regime, going all the way back to the 1980s and a lot during the global war on terror.
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And even recently, it's not like it was over 10 years ago. Iran killed three Americans just two
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years ago. I think it was January of 2024. So we went in and we blew up the Iranian Revolutionary Guard
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headquarters, among other military assets. There's video going all around about this,
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aircraft carriers and destroyers, and we blew it up. Okay, another cause of the war that's been
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floated is Israel. Did Israel try to drag us into this war? I think the answer is yes, right? According
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to the Washington Post, the answer is yes. According to Washington Post reporting, which again, grain of
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salt, they're the ones who said that the Ayatollah was Santa Claus. But still, here's their reporting.
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In the briefing on Tuesday for the Gang of Eight, which consists of leaders of the House, the Senate,
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and each chamber's intelligence committees, Secretary of State Marco Rubio indicated to
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lawmakers that the mission's timing and goals were shaped by the fact that Israel was going to attack
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with or without the United States, according to a person familiar with the administration's
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outreach to lawmakers. So the only debate that seemed to be remaining was whether the US would
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launch in concert with Israel or if the US would wait until Iran retaliated on US military targets
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in the region and then engage. So this could mean one of two things. One, this could just be the
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White House trying to fly some political cover and say, no, it's really Israel. But you know,
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so therefore we were dragged into this. That would be very much in keeping with a statecraft going back
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millennia. However, it could be totally sincere that Israel has Mossad agents throughout every Iranian
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00:24:39.600
interest everywhere. The degree of penetration is absolutely astounding. And they said, okay, no,
00:24:45.460
this is it. This is the moment. We got them. They're all going to be in this meeting. We're
00:24:48.240
going to blow them up now. So we're going to go in and you can deal with it. And the problem is,
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00:24:53.220
because the United States is so closely tied to Israel, Iran would not retaliate only by hitting
0.54
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Israeli interests. They would retaliate by hitting American interests. So if Israel even did act alone,
0.54
00:25:03.560
we would still get dragged into it. That's just how alliances work. America's a global empire
00:25:07.600
empire and Israel is part of the empire. That's how it goes. People can debate whether or not that's
00:25:11.940
a good thing or whether or not the tail wags the dog sometimes, or whether or not our interests are
00:25:16.740
too closely. We can debate that all day. It's just a fact. Just as Judea was a troublesome province for
00:25:22.880
the Roman empire, so too that neighborhood of the world is tricky for us. It seems to be just part
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and parcel of the Holy Land. Okay. So that part, I believe Israel was going to do it. Maybe Israel had
0.90
00:25:35.880
very good reasons to do it. Israel's wanted to do it, obviously, for a long time and has struck
0.96
00:25:39.420
various Iranian interests many times. But Rubio says that's why we had to go in to have an early
00:25:45.800
advantage. Now, was it just Israel dragging us into war? According to the Washington Post, no. You know
00:25:51.860
who else was dragging us in? This is a little interesting tidbit. Saudi Arabia. Now, that's odd.
00:25:58.400
This is one of the most distinctly Muslim countries in the entire world. So you got one of the most
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distinctly Muslim countries in the entire world, teaming up with the distinctly Jewish country.
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00:26:11.240
Historically, they haven't always gotten along. And both of them, according to the Washington
00:26:15.120
Post, lobbying the United States to go in and attack the other regional power and the other
00:26:20.240
very prominent Muslim country, the Shiite Muslim country, Iran. According to the Washington Post,
00:26:25.380
the Saudi leader, Mohammed bin Salman, warned that Iran would come away stronger and more dangerous
00:26:31.520
if the United States did not strike now after amassing the largest military presence in the
00:26:35.660
Middle East since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. And this is according to people who were all speaking
00:26:41.860
on the condition of anonymity. So the idea being, look, we built up these huge military assets in
00:26:47.540
the region, much as we did in Venezuela in the lead up to ousting Maduro. And so if you get all the
00:26:53.560
way there and then Iran really won't negotiate, they just keep stalling, they keep putting everything
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off. And you don't do anything, then Iran wins the game of chicken. Iran is stronger than it was even
1.00
00:27:02.860
before you sent the USS Gerald Ford and the USS Abraham Lincoln into the region. So according to
00:27:08.920
the reporting, which Saudi Arabia denies, Saudi Arabia says, no, we've been consistent in supporting
00:27:13.900
diplomatic efforts to reach a credible deal with Iran. We never lobbied. We never, no, of course,
00:27:19.040
it's the Saudi regime that for a long time denied that they killed Jamal Khashoggi,
00:27:23.240
who also our media lied to us and pretended was some journalist for the Washington Post actually,
00:27:29.420
but actually he was like a Saudi spy. And anyway, but all of that to say, you can't always take the
00:27:34.540
Saudis at their word. And I believe the reporting that they too were lobbying to hit Iran. And
0.95
00:27:41.640
regardless, Saudi Arabia supports hitting Iran right now. Riyadh has issued a statement calling on the
00:27:49.700
international community, which really means the United States and Israel, to take all necessary
00:27:54.340
and decisive measures to confront Iran. Okay. There are two other people who I think could have
0.98
00:28:01.320
been really pushing us into war. And one of those people is not really talked about, but he happens
00:28:06.260
to be the guy sitting in the Oval Office. First, before we get to that, I want to tell you about
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Was it, let's see, was it that Iran was on the brink of a nuclear weapon that we went to war? No.
00:29:34.160
Was it that Iran was pursuing nuclear weapons? Yes. Was it that Iran was about to launch an attack on
00:29:38.500
U.S. interests? No. Was it that Iran has already attacked U.S. interests? Yes. Was it Israel? Yes.
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00:29:44.180
Was it Saudi Arabia? Yes. Was it the Iranian diaspora? Was it the Iranians, who tend to be
0.99
00:29:53.800
very pro-Western, who live in the United States and throughout the West, who have been begging for
00:29:59.300
the U.S. to bomb the Mullahs for decades now? Well, according to the crown prince of Iran,
00:30:04.920
whose father, the Shah, was deposed, yes, this is a great moment. And just wait till you see the look
0.70
00:30:12.660
on this journalist's face when Pahlavi talks about how great Trump is for doing this.
00:30:21.680
My message to President Trump is that I'm here to echo and join millions of my compatriots
00:30:27.800
inside and outside of Iran to thank him for having done and having the courage to do what is not easy,
00:30:35.280
but intervene. And he will go down in the annals of Iranian history as the most celebrated foreign
0.99
00:30:41.040
leader that changed the ballgame and changed the world as a result.
00:30:45.060
In January, there's this great bit there at the end where you get the Reza Pahlavi, the crown prince.
00:30:53.440
He says, you know, yes, Trump is the greatest guy ever. We totally love Trump. And then the 60
00:30:59.020
minutes journalist, he goes, uh-huh. Okay. Uh-huh. All right. Next question. No doubt. The Iranian
1.00
00:31:04.760
diaspora absolutely loves this. And then there's President Trump. And he's the guy. Was it Israel?
00:31:11.640
Yes. Was it Saudi Arabia? Yes. Was it this threat? Was it that? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:31:15.940
Well, let's get down to basic decision-making. I think this answer from Trump on the cause of war
00:31:20.940
tells you so much about his decision-making process and his grand strategy.
00:31:27.640
I just spoke to President Trump for several minutes about Iran. I asked him about who is going to take
00:31:32.840
over now that the Ayatollah, the supreme leader, is gone. And his answer was interesting. He said the
00:31:38.240
attack was so successful it knocked out most of the candidates. He told me it's not going to be
00:31:43.140
anybody that we were thinking of because they are all dead. I talked to him about the fact that the
00:31:50.500
Iranians had tried to kill him. There was a plot in 2024, an Iranian plot to try to kill Trump. And he
0.53
00:31:58.420
said of the Ayatollah, I got him before he got me. They tried twice. Well, I got him first. As for how long
0.91
00:32:08.320
the war will go on, the president told me we always thought he always thought it was going to be a four
00:32:13.480
or five week deal. That's what he told me, a four or five week operation. He said it could be shorter and he was
00:32:21.980
prepared to go longer. I got him before he got me. That is the talk of a Manhattan real estate
00:32:31.820
developer. That is the talk of a guy who, by virtue of his previous job, had to deal with the mob.
00:32:38.880
That is tough guy talk. Iran has tried to kill Trump. This is not just based on, you know,
0.92
00:32:48.840
intelligence community analysis. A lot of people don't believe intelligence community analysis.
00:32:54.320
Iran has been pretty open about this. This is not, they weren't hiding the ball here. Iran has tried
0.85
00:32:58.880
to kill Trump on multiple occasions and threatened to kill Trump for a long time. And then Trump comes
00:33:05.180
out. He goes, yeah, he tried to get me, but I got him first. Funny how that works, huh?
00:33:09.920
Now, this tells you a lot about how Trump views the world. First of all,
00:33:20.220
we're struggling to understand this because we think this is war with Iran.
00:33:26.240
This is not war with Iran. And even some of the messaging you're getting out of the White House
00:33:30.360
here, it's not going to be an endless war. It's not going to be like Iraq. It's not going to be this.
00:33:33.900
Even that, I think, kind of misses the point. Trump just told you what this is about.
00:33:38.720
What the first impulse is about, which is, he goes, yeah, Khamenei, he tried to get me,
00:33:44.960
but I got him first. I was talking to a buddy of mine about this last night, and he made an
00:33:50.020
excellent, excellent point. Trump does not believe in institutions. I love institutions. I'm a
00:33:56.120
conservative. I love it. Trump does not believe in institutions, and I got to give him credit here.
00:34:00.560
I think that he has a really good point when it comes to foreign policy.
00:34:04.840
Trump believes in individuals. He does not believe in institutions. He believes in individuals.
00:34:11.540
Had Trump been the CEO of a Fortune 50 company, Trump would believe in institutions a lot more
00:34:17.560
than he does. He would believe in boards and legacies and contingencies. But Trump was the head
00:34:26.560
of the Trump organization. Trump was the reality TV star. Trump was the guy who is a personal brand.
00:34:32.800
And in Manhattan real estate in particular, you're not dealing with institutions. You're
00:34:36.960
dealing with individuals. So we, when we think of foreign policy, we think, okay, we think of the
00:34:43.300
Chinese Communist Party. Trump doesn't think of the Chinese Communist Party. He probably doesn't
00:34:47.600
know what the Chinese Communist Party is. He thinks that's a waste of time. He knows Xi Jinping,
00:34:51.500
and he knows if he can get along with Xi Jinping. He knows how he can get along with Xi Jinping. He knows
00:34:57.080
what can anger Xi Jinping. He knows what can put Xi Jinping into a corner. He's dealing individually.
00:35:02.400
He knows Kim Jong-un. He doesn't know anything about the regime of North Korea. He knows Kim Jong-un.
00:35:08.320
He knows Vladimir Putin. Look at what he did in Venezuela. Did he replace the socialist regime?
00:35:14.700
Did he go in there and replace that socialist party in Venezuela and replace it with the classically
0.99
00:35:20.520
liberal center-right party? No, he didn't do that. He went in. He kidnapped Nicolas Maduro.
00:35:26.960
And then the person underneath Nicolas Maduro, he put in charge. According to reports,
00:35:31.600
he was impressed that she was able to keep up oil exports even amid American sanctions. So he thought,
00:35:37.160
you know, this lady, maybe she can play ball. And then he went in and he said, hey,
00:35:40.920
you're going to run the country now. And he said almost verbatim, if you cross us, we'll kill you.
1.00
00:35:46.960
He said, I'm getting the words a little bit off, but he said, look, I think we can work with her.
0.98
00:35:52.880
But if she crosses the line, it's going to be worse for her than it was for Maduro. Maduro got
00:35:58.080
kidnapped. She'll get murdered. That's the implication. And you know what? That's worked
1.00
00:36:04.480
pretty well. And I suspect that's what's going to happen here. Compare that to George W. Bush in Iraq.
00:36:10.820
George W. Bush in Iraq goes in. We win the military victory. We were at Saddam Hussein in like five
00:36:16.180
minutes. And then what do we do? We disband the Iraqi bath party. We disband the army. We disband
1.00
00:36:23.760
all of these institutions because in the Bush view, the institutions are the problem.
00:36:30.660
We need to spread democracy and Western liberalism. And I don't think that's what
00:36:35.620
Trump's thinking. I think Trump's going to go in. He's going to kill the number one guy.
00:36:39.020
And then he's going to kill the number two guy. Trump had to joke about this. He goes,
1.00
00:36:42.140
yeah, you know, look, some of the guys we were thinking could take over.
0.98
00:36:44.580
Unfortunately, we were so successful, we killed them all. Oops. Guess we're going to have to find
0.98
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someone new. He's kind of trash talking. He's very good at that. But I think Trump is looking at
1.00
00:36:54.620
regime change in Iran more like the Maduro model. Because there are two potential meanings of regime
00:37:01.000
change. The first potential meaning is you truly change out the regime, the ideology, the party that
00:37:08.480
is powering the government. But the other way that you use regime change in a looser sense
00:37:13.580
is you take out the leader and maybe you leave the party in place. Maybe you leave the ideology
00:37:21.080
such as it is in place. You just put a new guy in and you put a gun to his head and you say,
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00:37:27.640
you're going to play nice. Or you know what's going to happen? We're going to kill you too.
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00:37:32.060
And then we're just going to keep killing you until we get a guy that plays nice.
1.00
00:37:37.560
Capisce? That worked in Venezuela. I suspect that is what President Trump is doing here.
0.98
00:37:46.020
You know, it's funny because all the foreign policy geniuses make fun of Trump. He doesn't
00:37:50.340
understand the nuances of the Shia and the Sunni and the this party and the that party. He doesn't
00:37:56.380
understand the nuances of the Chinese Communist Party and the FSB and the, I don't know. Trump
00:38:03.700
understanding individuals? Talk about a vindication of the great man theory of history. Trump just
00:38:11.060
dealing mano a mano? Seems to have worked out pretty well. And this brings us to the grand strategy here.
00:38:19.460
Trump, what I think he's after is not just revenge or even self-protection for the guy who tried to
00:38:25.620
kill him. I don't think it's just about the oil. I don't think it's about freedom for the people in
00:38:30.440
Iran. I think it's in part about that, but I think it's only about that. I think Trump,
00:38:36.240
I don't think Trump wants to retreat, you know, as an isolationist. I don't think Trump wants to
00:38:41.780
spread democracy around the world. Here is what I think Trump wants. And the Iran strike gives you
00:38:47.180
this perfectly or could give you this perfectly if it doesn't spin out of control. Trump wants to
00:38:52.960
reshape the world order in a way that benefits the United States. The American empire has been
0.79
00:38:59.620
on decline for 25 years, since 9-11. Maybe even before that. You know, we had this huge peak
00:39:05.340
because of the dot-com bubble and the information technology revolution. But we were socially
00:39:10.100
becoming weaker. And after the Cold War, we kind of squandered the post-war dividend. And we're just,
00:39:15.320
we were kind of declining. And then we had the bungle in Iraq and Afghanistan, we start declining.
00:39:20.000
We had the global financial crisis, we're declining more. We had the Obama years were
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00:39:23.540
really declining. I mean, this is really bad. Then we had Trump come in the first term and kind
00:39:27.880
of staved it off a little bit. Okay. But then Biden, oh my goodness, we just started plummeting.
00:39:32.040
Three million illegals coming in a year. People don't speak English anymore. The economy is on the
0.99
00:39:36.940
brink. It's just collapsing, right? And then Trump comes in. And I think what he wants to do is just
00:39:41.480
reset things. Say, no, no, we can win. I mean, even the shock for many Americans, 50 and under,
00:39:50.660
that the American military actually can succeed and succeed beyond people's wildest expectations
00:39:56.740
when the politicians in Washington don't constrain them. When we fight a war to defeat our enemy
00:40:02.080
and get what we want within the confines, I think, of law and justice. Well, if we have time today,
00:40:08.840
we'll get to some people are arguing that this is an illegal war, whether by the law of the
00:40:13.980
constitution or by international law or by just war theory. I'll try to get to that today. If we don't,
00:40:19.020
we'll get to it tomorrow. But that's what Trump wants to do. And from this perspective,
00:40:24.380
I think it is undeniable at this point. Trump understands grand strategy better than any
00:40:31.440
president in our lifetimes. And the proof of this is Iran's reaction, not at the United States or even
0.79
00:40:38.280
Israel, Iran's reaction to all the Gulf states after this strike. We'll get to that momentarily.
00:40:43.680
February 1st, this weekend, the moment news broke that the U.S. launch strikes on Iran,
00:40:48.940
the Daily Wire went live immediately. I lost my Saturday morning and my wife wanted to kill me,
00:40:53.300
but it was okay. We had to do it. This is a big event. We brought in real experts.
0.90
00:40:56.800
We delivered real analysis. We covered the latest developments as they happened.
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That kind of live coverage is only possible because of our members.
00:41:03.720
If you value breaking news, investigative reporting, and journalism that helps you understand
00:41:07.420
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My favorite comment yesterday, or no, on Friday, this is from Waylon Jenkins, 222,
00:41:48.780
who says, I got more prison time for a bar fight. It's a shame. Oh yeah, speaking of violence,
00:41:54.040
you talk about this guy, this Antifa guy, showed up to one of my speeches, threw an explosive,
00:41:59.500
seriously injured a female cop. He should have gotten 20 years instead, or more.
00:42:05.200
That's attempted murder. You throw an explosive in someone's face,
0.83
00:42:10.240
and instead he got, I think, two years. Now he's at a halfway house.
00:42:14.120
Pathetic, it's true. You could have gotten more jail time for a bar fight.
0.99
00:42:17.760
Okay, Trump's grand strategy here. It's Iran's response that proves in the early days
0.92
00:42:26.720
the wisdom of this strategy. So right off the top, Iran declares jihad on the United States.
0.97
00:42:34.400
I shouldn't laugh. This is from Visigrad 24. It's breaking. 99-year-old Iranian Grand Ayatollah
00:42:41.780
Nasser Makarem Shirazi has declared jihad against the United States and Israel.
00:42:46.740
Is that really breaking? Would we say breaking? First of all, the guy is almost literally 100 years
00:42:54.460
old. And I'm pretty sure Iran has declared jihad against the United States and Israel for like half
0.90
00:43:01.620
his life. For the whole of the Iranian regime. Breaking news. Iran doesn't like America or Israel.
00:43:10.740
Okay, next response. Drones hitting the Saudi Aramco Ras Tanura facility. This is one of the biggest
00:43:22.320
oil export facilities in the entire world. They process 6.5 million barrels of oil a day.
00:43:29.120
This is apparently 7% almost of global oil supply going through this one facility. Iran hits the Saudi
0.96
00:43:36.100
facility. Iran hits Oman. Iran hits Bahrain. I think Bahrain. Kuwait. Iran's just hitting these
0.98
00:43:46.880
Gulf states. And I think this was probably a pretty bad idea because I think it actually advances Trump's
00:43:55.880
strategy. You don't even have to take my word for it. The Iranian foreign minister has just admitted
00:44:01.920
this was probably not great. Well, there might be a risk. I have been in touch with all of them,
00:44:08.760
as I said, especially with Qatar and Oman foreign ministers. I explained for them what happened in
00:44:14.640
Oman was not our choice. We have already told our, you know, army armed forces to be careful about the
1.00
00:44:24.380
targets that they choose. As a matter of fact, you know, our, you know, militaries, military units
00:44:32.260
are now, in fact, independent and somehow isolated. And they are acting based on instructions.
00:44:41.220
You know, the general instructions given to them in advance. No, no, no. This is all big
00:44:47.100
understanding. You understand. This is all. We did not mean. I know Iran hit Oman. I know this
0.80
00:44:53.180
seemed very bad and hit Dubai. I know. I don't know. I don't know what accent. It's like almost
0.98
00:44:57.780
Russian or something. I don't know. But it is big mistake, Habibi, a big mistake, you see, because
0.99
00:45:02.940
we actually don't have any control over our military now. That's basically his argument. His argument is
00:45:08.420
we have no control over our, over our terror, terrorist slash army forces. This was, this is
00:45:16.380
one of the big risks for Iran because the chief problem of Iran over the last 50 years is that
1.00
00:45:22.180
they've got one foot in the international order and one foot outside of it. In some ways, they're
00:45:26.600
like a real state. In some ways, they're like a terrorist organization. And so one of the problems
00:45:30.200
is when things start to break down, most charitable view of what he's saying is you lose control of
00:45:35.560
your terrorists. In any case, they hit Dubai. Ah, it's not a good look. Oman. I've been, I've been
00:45:42.260
to Dubai and Oman. They're both very nice places to be. Dubai is a little bit degenerate, but you
00:45:47.840
know, people go there, get up to no good. But Oman is a beautiful, beautiful country. And what these
00:45:54.200
countries desire more than anything in my limited experience there, what they desire is to not have
00:46:01.680
terrorism. They really, they don't want any of that. They don't, these are places, especially Dubai
00:46:06.740
and the Emirates, that thrive on tourism, that thrive on international finance and business, being
00:46:14.620
here to give Westerners a nice place to live where they don't have to pay taxes. That's what they thrive
00:46:18.640
on. When missiles start flying, that becomes an existential threat to their polities. And so what's the
00:46:25.880
grand strategy of this all? This, this is where you really, whether you're totally in support of the
00:46:30.260
Iran war, whether you're skeptical of the Iran war, as I continue to be, as I certainly was before,
00:46:35.380
though now the die is cast and we're all in, you know, with our president and he deserves a fair
00:46:40.160
bit of credibility. And in any case, it's our country. But one can keep a healthy skepticism
00:46:45.220
or whether you, whether you're all for it. Regardless, I think you have to appreciate
00:46:51.120
the grand strategy here. Going back to the first term.
00:46:56.220
First term, what is Trump's signature foreign policy accomplishment? It's the Abraham Accords.
00:46:59.980
Where he gets some of the Gulf states to drop the hostilities with Israel. Israel, which is an
0.97
00:47:06.720
American ally. And even if we, even if you don't think they're a great ally, and I think there are
00:47:10.940
arguments that they're a pretty decent ally, but regardless, they are an outgrowth of the American
0.66
00:47:15.420
empire. So to get the Gulf states, and we have allies there too, to drop the hostilities with Israel
00:47:22.700
is a great achievement. But it's still kind of loose. It's kind of nebulous. It started to fray,
00:47:29.660
obviously, during the Gaza war. By getting Iran to fire, not just on Israel, not just on some
00:47:38.960
American bases, but to fire on Dubai, but to fire on Oman, obviously to fire on the huge escalation to be
00:47:46.240
hitting Saudi Aramco. To hit all of that codifies, consolidates, reifies the Abraham Accords kind of
00:47:57.840
abstract alliance into a military alliance. It really begins to reshape the region.
00:48:05.340
And China and Russia have taken serious notice of this. Between Venezuela and Iran, we've just cut
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off almost 20% of China's oil. It won't be a huge deal and they can figure it out, but that's a real
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hit. The fact that Russia is not coming in to the aid of its client state in Iran tells you that Russia
00:48:22.720
realizes this was a pretty successful move by the United States, and they don't want to get on the
00:48:27.340
wrong side of it. Putin then responds, and within hours of the strike on the Ayatollah, he says,
00:48:33.800
hey, hey, you know that thing you wanted in Ukraine? You know that those security guarantees you
00:48:37.820
wanted in Ukraine? Yeah, we're good with that now. That is a reordering of the world. Again, a billion
1.00
00:48:46.520
things could go wrong and it could tarnish Trump's legacy and all that, but you have to give the guy.
00:48:51.760
He has a keen sense of grand strategy, even if it's not totally conscious. I kind of give him more
00:48:57.520
credit than a lot of people do, but this is a really, really smart grand strategy, and it kind of
00:49:04.780
makes a mockery of the whole foreign policy establishment in D.C. for the last 20, 30 years.
00:49:10.320
There's so much more to get to. I don't care. I'm running a little late today. I don't care.
00:49:13.060
There's too much to get to. I just mentioned Russia accepts the security guarantees in Ukraine.
00:49:19.180
Now you've got Muslims overrunning U.S. embassies in Iraq and Pakistan, but even here,
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00:49:24.120
look, there's video coming out of the attack on the embassy in Pakistan.
00:49:27.440
Notice something different about this attack than attacks on U.S. embassies under people like Obama.
00:49:34.780
They're screaming, running, babbling. Got it. What's going on here? What's going on here? Well,
00:49:49.900
what's going on is these guys show up to the embassy and the Marines just start shooting them.
00:49:56.640
And the way it's being reported, the headlines, I love this. This is Bloomberg and I think Al
00:50:00.160
Jazeera. I can't tell the difference. It said 10 killed in pro-Iran protests at U.S. consulate in
00:50:05.340
Pakistan. Protests. 10 killed in pro-Iran protests at U.S. consulate in Pakistan's Karachi. That was
00:50:12.500
Al Jazeera. It's a protest. It was a protest. Hey, let's take a look at the protesters. Do we
00:50:16.200
have a picture of the protesters? Oh, okay. It's a guy shooting at the Marines. Got it. Okay. It's a guy
00:50:22.820
with a gun. That doesn't, I'm waiting for the WAPO obituary. If this guy got killed, you know,
00:50:27.960
known for his crisp white shirt and keen ability to balance on one leg. This protester was, yeah,
00:50:37.000
I don't, that's not a protest. That's an attack. And under previous administrations,
00:50:43.640
they would have either been constrained or not properly resourced and fortified.
00:50:48.920
Under this administration, though, we have the Marines. And if you try to storm our embassy,
00:50:55.760
we're going to shoot you. We're going to shoot all of you. And that's a tough, I don't really
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00:50:59.080
take pleasure in this. Some people, they, I don't know, they get a little bloodlust up in the war.
00:51:04.200
But you don't, this is a lesson. This is a very tough lesson for people. And it's a lesson that
00:51:09.220
they might not have understood because of the weakness of previous administrations.
00:51:12.580
But this is an important lesson for everyone to recognize. All these people who want to do harm
00:51:19.160
to American embassies or American interests, even at home, this is not Obama. This is not Biden.
00:51:25.200
This is not Obama. If you threaten us, we're going to kill you all. We're going to kill all of you.
1.00
00:51:31.540
Why do you think Putin picked up the phone so fast to try to wrap down the Ukraine war the minute
1.00
00:51:36.420
this hit? He said, oh, Trump will really do it. He'll just go in, kidnap the leader of Venezuela.
00:51:42.840
Based on a legal predicate, by the way, the guy had an arrest warrant out for him, Maduro.
00:51:47.080
Ali Khamenei. We've been talking about getting rid of these people for 49 years.
00:51:51.800
49, 46. I keep forgetting the number. For a long time. And Trump just goes in and does it.
00:51:58.420
And that sends a message to people that this is not Obama. This is not Biden. This probably is not
00:52:05.120
George W. Bush either. We should point out there have been American losses so far. Confirmed,
00:52:10.460
I think there were three. Three American servicemen have been killed so far. There have been some other
00:52:15.700
injuries. You know, obviously awful. We should all say prayer for the repose of their souls and for
00:52:21.760
their families. Also, multiple F-15s were shot down in Kuwait by Kuwait. It was actually friendly fire,
00:52:29.140
you know, not great coordination from our allies in Kuwait. The good news is, well, we lost the airplanes,
00:52:34.420
but all of the pilots ejected safely. So I don't think any American servicemen were killed in this
00:52:41.520
friendly fire, but pretty scary. In any case, we should pray for their families. What comes next?
00:52:48.180
What comes next? I'm hoping maybe we get a little, I don't know, Cuba. We'll talk about that. Trump's
00:52:54.020
actually already hinting at that. But I think Rubio put it very, very well. What we need to recognize is
00:53:00.560
this is not just about Trump getting some oil. This is not just about, you know, spreading democracy
00:53:06.000
even further than it's ever been. This is not just about the world order as we have known it
00:53:12.660
is over. It is passing away, both because of the passage of time, but also, here's the good part,
00:53:21.200
because it was an order that had America in decline. And now there is a new world order
00:53:31.000
that has the possibility of America in ascent again, of American strength again. There's no
00:53:38.860
guarantee that it actually works. But I think Trump's broadest view of the grand strategy is
00:53:43.680
that he's going to make America great again. And a lot of people, even many people on the right,
00:53:48.520
don't think America can be great again because of all sorts of economic and demographic and
00:53:52.640
cultural reasons. But Trump is serious. When he says, I want to make America great again,
00:53:57.200
he's really serious about that. And he'll either do it or he'll go down swinging. Here's Marco Rubio.
00:54:02.960
The world is changing very fast on a verse. The old world is gone, frankly, the world I grew up in,
00:54:09.640
and we live in a new era, geopolitics. And it's going to require all of us to reexamine what that looks
00:54:15.260
like and what our world is going to be. And we've had many of these conversations that are private,
00:54:21.060
many of our allies, we are our allies. And we need to continue to have those conversations.
00:54:26.280
And I think Saturday, hopefully, and the meeting's live there when we'll listen to them.
00:54:29.540
Okay, before we go, I know I'm running late. I don't care. I have to get to Shia LaBeouf. I
00:54:32.900
promised we'd get to Shia LaBeouf. This is an interview going around. It has nothing to do with
00:54:35.540
Iran. Shia LaBeouf, though, he's led a colorful life. He converted. He had a religious conversion
00:54:42.200
some years ago and converted to Catholicism. It was retaken with the traditional Latin mass.
00:54:46.700
And then recently, around Mardi Gras, he apparently went on a little bit of a bender
00:54:50.320
in New Orleans. I think he was in jail. He had to go sleep it off or something.
00:54:55.300
And then he just, out of the blue, gave this interview.
00:54:59.080
What would you say to Jesus if you could meet him? I wouldn't say sh**.
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I kiss. I kiss him. I kiss his feet. I don't want to say nothing.
00:55:25.340
My bad. I didn't know it was going to make you emotional.
00:55:34.900
Well, hey, bro, you got to hit your head into the wall hard enough where you just go, f**k it.
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For the hard-headed ones, yeah, you got to go hard.
00:55:47.580
What do you think was the real-life equivalent of you smashing your head on the wall?
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I put a gun in my mouth. I was ready to kill myself, blow my brains out, writing letters.
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00:55:55.140
I had dark days. For real, gone. I'm ready to go.
00:55:59.160
But why didn't I do it? Because I'm p*****g and also my mom.
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So God bless her. She kept me alive that night.
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I'm not sure if it was ethical to interview him in this way because he's clearly going through something pretty hard right now.
00:56:14.600
And so, you know, probably should pray for Shia and, you know, he should, you know, process this probably out of the public.
00:56:23.800
But in a way, I'm glad he gave the interview because it's really touching in many, many ways.
00:56:36.520
But I love this interview, and I love his response.
00:57:00.500
The whole time, he's speaking in the context of what a sinner he is.
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But we all listen to, I don't know, I certainly listen to a lot of apologists, theologians,
00:57:17.620
people speaking, especially from an intellectual perspective about God and Christ and the truth
00:57:26.300
And that can have great apologetics effects, great evangelical effects.
00:57:31.640
Shia LaBeouf's answer in that one minute clip might have even more stronger evangelical
00:57:43.860
It just resonates with people because even if you've not been exactly at the place Shia LaBeouf
00:57:51.400
was, we've all been to some version of it, some proximity to despair.
00:57:58.120
And we all have the longing for God because we're human beings.
00:58:05.560
Shia LaBeouf is, for all his flaws, for all of his flaws, because of all of his flaws,
00:58:23.940
You really have to check out for two months free on all annual plans.
00:58:48.200
I think it's a desperate plan and foolish.
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00:59:06.980
If I lead you into victory, Uther, the men of Britain will proclaim me king.
00:59:11.980
He seeks our deliverance from God when he could so easily just give it to us with his own hands.
00:59:18.420
Not long ago, you offered me the Fisher King sword.
00:59:21.260
I have always believed you were meant to be, High King.
00:59:24.640
How many lives must be lost before you accept the power you were born to wield?
00:59:39.060
How are we to drive out 15,000 Saxon with only two and a half thousand men?
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