00:04:18.160they are the frontline shock troops that went around and destroyed the mainstream media and
00:04:26.080took their audience and convinced that audience that they should vote for Trump. Obviously,
00:04:32.500other podcasters had had something to do with it. Rogan, most importantly, I suspect. Theo Vaughn,
00:04:40.500a bunch of others, I think Logan Paul, the people that Trump appeared with.
00:04:47.200But these are not, you know, stupid people.
00:04:53.460They're actually quite capable people, and the fact that they have an audience demonstrates it.
00:04:58.220It means that people think that they have something intelligent to say.
00:05:00.480And it is rather extreme to call them nutjobs and troublemakers and all of that, and call them low IQ and pretend that Trump won the White House purely on his own, unaided.
00:05:18.740This is a big misrepresentation of what happened.
00:05:21.500There was a broad coalition that was built, bringing on people like Kennedy and Tulsi Gabbard, played a role in doing this, but so did the podcast circuit.
00:05:36.020And the fact that these guys are attacking Trump over this war, and he's throwing them under the bus, shows you that he's, as Tucker Carlson said, I guess, more or less a slave now.
00:05:50.300I just want to listen to this segment for two seconds, right?
00:14:33.200On the nuclear program, the Iranians would have insisted on, at the very least, retaining enrichment capacity, but under inspection, as had happened under the JCPOA.
00:14:47.900And it's important to understand the context of the Iranian nuclear program.
00:14:53.900The Iranian nuclear program began under the Shah.
00:14:57.280It's not something that was begun by the Islamic Revolution.
00:15:00.200And the idea behind it always was national prestige, that Iran would be a fully autonomous
00:15:08.700nation that would have the capacity to get its own nuclear energy if it wanted to.
00:15:17.900Now, there was always a military dimension to this, of course, but the reporting from
00:15:24.700the Americans, from American intelligence, is that the Iranians suspended the military aspect
00:15:30.560of the nuclear program in 2003, which raises the question, why were they enriching beyond the level
00:15:38.980needed for things like nuclear energy or medical isotopes, three and a half percent for energy and
00:15:46.50020 percent for some medical isotopes? And the answer was clearly to get concessions from the
00:15:53.720West by threatening to build a nuclear weapon. It was always a threat. The Americans' own
00:16:01.560intelligence assessment was that the military aspects of the program had been terminated in
00:16:07.2402003. So, now the Americans are trying to get the Iranians to fully give up on the nuclear program.
00:16:16.360But with the Iranians having just been attacked twice during negotiations, where even in the latest round of negotiations, they had made massive concessions on the nuclear program, the Iranians were not willing to make further concessions.
00:16:35.880for two reasons. One, they wouldn't give the United States in a negotiation what it couldn't0.67
00:16:44.480take from them in a war. It makes no sense to give up in talks what you were able to defend
00:16:51.700militarily. That's kind of the reason why the Ukrainians are being as stubborn as they are.1.00
00:16:57.860That's why the Russians are being as stubborn as they are. You don't tend to give your enemies
00:17:04.120more than you have to. And so, if the Americans couldn't prevent the Iranians through a military0.99
00:17:09.720campaign from having a nuclear program, the Iranians weren't going to give up. Second,0.96
00:17:16.600the Gaddafi experience in Libya was a pretty terrible one. In the early 2000s, Gaddafi,0.90
00:17:23.720the former president of Libya, or president, you know, leader of Libya, shall we say,
00:17:29.080gave up his own nuclear program, which was far less developed than the Iranian one,
00:17:34.120it was a bit ridiculous, whatever, but he fully gave it up. And then a few years later,
00:17:41.300the Americans, the British and the French, attack him, destroy his country, and kill him personally.
00:17:47.860And now he and his children are dead. And so what incentive is there for the Iranians to give up
00:17:57.540that option, given that they're under attack. Indeed, the incentives have gone pretty much
00:18:03.980the other way. Now, every country in the region that is worried about the possibility of the
00:18:08.700Americans or the Israelis attacking them, and most obviously that would be Turkey and Egypt,0.92
00:18:15.320these guys have every incentive to get a nuclear weapon. And when you go and you kill the leader0.88
00:18:20.880of the country, what you're saying is that the only guarantee that you'll remain president and
00:18:30.140alive is if you have a nuclear weapon to deter the other guys. That's the message. So there was
00:18:38.760no reason whatsoever to expect the Iranians to fully give up on the nuclear program.
00:18:45.440Go back to a form of the JCPOA with a lengthened timeline?
00:18:50.020Yeah, they had already conceded that by the 27th of February, the day before the war began.
00:18:57.400And that's what the Omani foreign minister said, and that's what the Brits have said.
00:19:01.640So yes, they were willing to give that up.
00:19:05.680But to the extent of fully dismantling the nuclear program, absolutely not.0.73
00:19:09.300And then the other issues on the Trump plan, maybe if you could pull up the 15 points for me, Samson, the other issue on the Trump plan was that the Iranians now have zero incentive to give up their ballistic missile program and their drone program. Zero incentive.0.59
00:19:27.640Actually, the war demonstrated the value of the ballistic missile program, and it demonstrated
00:19:40.240that the ballistic missiles and drones can be used effectively to fight the United States
00:19:47.040not to a military victory, obviously, but to a military stalemate, which is why the
00:19:54.820Americans accepted a ceasefire. And so, given that the weapons have been tried
00:20:02.140and tested, and that it's been demonstrated that the ballistic missiles
00:20:09.160work quite well and can destroy critical assets and can therefore impose
00:20:15.220deterrence on the United States, why would the Iranians give these up now, in0.98
00:20:21.280in the middle of a battle, when there's still a risk that they'll be attacked again.
00:20:27.880So the starting positions of the two sides seem to have been incredibly far apart.
00:20:33.960And with Trump having sold his soul to support Lindsey Graham and Mark Levin and these characters,
00:20:44.720It seems that he ended up in a position where he said that the Iranian 10 points would be
00:20:51.780the starting point of the negotiations.
00:20:55.020But the American delegation arrived in Islamabad in Pakistan to try to enforce the 15 points.
00:21:04.040And you look at these 15 points, I mean, giving up on the proxy militias.
00:21:09.380Why would the Iranians give up the Houthi now?
00:21:12.260would they give up hezbollah or the iraqi militias like what's the logic here for them they were able
00:21:19.500to force a ceasefire okay they're not going to give up anything else right now and so we've
00:21:28.140ended up in the situation where it looks like the only option trump has if he's still going
00:21:37.880to try to pursue these 15 points is to double down and to escalate this conflict again and
00:21:50.140go back to war to see if he could get more concessions out of the Iranians by pummeling0.85
00:21:57.200them even harder. It's possible. It's possible. But it's also guaranteed that the Iranians will1.00
00:22:05.900also escalate. And so let's look at where we are now. Now the United States, according to1.00
00:22:17.180nice Mr. Donald Trump, has announced that it's going to impose a full blockade on the Strait
00:22:22.360of Hormuz. That was the first thing that he said, that basically because the Iranians didn't open
00:22:27.840the Strait, and they didn't open the Strait, let me explain why they didn't. Firstly, because the0.91
00:22:33.160the Israelis didn't implement a ceasefire in Lebanon.1.00
00:22:36.160Secondly, because that's the only way the Iranians1.00
00:22:38.500are going to raise enough revenues0.97
00:22:40.820to pay for the damage that they've taken in this war.
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