On this week's episode of The Nod, we discuss the latest news and reaction to it, including the latest in the Iran crisis, the recent arrest of an ICE agent, and more. Plus, we're joined by special guest Mike Harlow, host of the podcast Sex and the City reboot.
00:03:07.000We don't know for sure, but we'll break that down.
00:03:09.000Plus, we've got a bunch of other news.
00:03:10.000Kristi Noem was rushed to the hospital with an allergic reaction, which is alarming, but she appears to be okay.
00:03:15.000And then a Democrat mayor—I'm sorry, a Democrat mayoral candidate was arrested trying to stop an ICE proceeding, linking arms with the man.
00:03:26.000And he was actually seen aiding one of these guys before he ended up getting arrested.
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00:06:15.000I think it's kind of hilarious that I was just on Pop Culture Crisis talking about the national nightmare that is the Sex and the City reboot, and now I'm here discussing World War III.
00:08:28.000Well, I suppose it really comes down to how you define are we joining the war?
00:08:34.000As we've seen, Israel thus far has conducted a range of strikes on the nuclear program, but also on oil infrastructure, oil facilities, missile defense, air defense, missile silos, airfields, airports, etc., etc., and military leadership.
00:08:55.000I think the big question has been specifically on the nuclear facilities that reside at this position that are far lower, the Fordow site, far lower than any of the Israeli bombs or missiles can be able to penetrate.
00:09:11.000So that's really one of the big questions, although I'm told that at the National Security Council meeting this evening, a range of options were discussed.
00:09:23.000Do you think it's likely, because right now it's my sense that there's still support, basically what we're seeing is support aircraft and support systems.
00:09:33.000Do you think it's likely that the U.S. joins and actually strikes?
00:09:36.000Well, at this point, that's one of the...
00:09:41.000So one option could be pursue diplomacy for longer.
00:09:44.000I think a lot of people think that that ship has sailed at this point, given just reading the tea leaves and seeing everything that's going on out there.
00:09:51.000And so the U.S. military prepositioning all these forces creates optionality for the president as commander in chief.
00:09:57.000And no decision has been made yet, as we've seen the the.
00:10:04.000And so those options range from potentially just this limited strike against certain facilities, all the way up to a wider range of strikes, all the way up to—and Lindsey Graham, the senator, and a lot of the neocons are really calling for this full-scale regime change operation in Iran right now, led by the U.S. military, working in conjunction with Israel and others.
00:10:25.000Does anyone around the table think that an actual regime change effort is something that's realistic in the future?
00:10:34.000Well, there's the probability that it does happen.
00:10:37.000I think the probability is low right now.
00:10:39.000I think U.S. strikes are incredibly likely.
00:10:44.000It's a random ballpark number, but I'd say 65-70% that the U.S. does some kind of airstrike.
00:10:49.000I'd say maybe a 30% that we simply engage in assistance of Israel, like refueling and things like that.
00:10:55.000And then maybe single digits, full-on regime change.
00:10:59.000I think it's worth mentioning that it's been MAGA doctrine since Trump has been involved in politics that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.
00:11:09.000When Trump, when President Trump first got, began getting involved in politics during the Obama era, one of the.
00:11:24.000And it was clear that from then, and he released recently like a press statement, and even on his Twitter, his rapid response Twitter account, going back like a decade, there are videos of him saying, I would not allow Iran to get a nuclear weapon.
00:11:36.000And even today, in response to a question about how Tulsi Gabbard said, Iran isn't getting close to your nuclear weapon.
00:12:04.000I think that the Jews are doing our dirty work in the Middle East and diminishing Iran's offensive capabilities against us.
00:12:11.000I think it would be a good thing if our allies took care of our enemies as well as Israel did our enemies.
00:12:16.000Like if South Korea took care of the North Korea issue or if Japan and Taiwan took care of China or if Europe pulled their weight over with the war against Russia and Ukraine.
00:12:26.000Is there anywhere in the world that you think that we shouldn't be at war?
00:12:34.000If the statement is Korea should be responsible for itself and Israel should be responsible for itself and we're not involved in any of it, done.
00:14:59.000Sure, well, it didn't in the case of Qasem Soleimani.
00:15:01.000I think, and it's fair to say, I genuinely believe if the U.S. did launch strikes on Iran, no one's coming to Iran's aid.
00:15:09.000And it would be foolish of Iran to respond against us.
00:15:12.000They're not going to, and I don't see any of the BRICS nations, Russia or China, wanting to get involved in this, because Iran's not a great ally.
00:15:21.000They're politically weak and isolated.
00:15:24.000There's some reason to be working with them, but right now I think the best thing for the U.S. is just to do nothing, not be involved in this.
00:15:56.000So we're sitting back and we're watching TV and then all of a sudden, like within 24 hours from the initial strikes on Thursday night, going into Friday, and then BBs all over TV saying the U.S. needs to come in.
00:16:10.000The U.S. needs to commit to regime change.
00:16:12.000Ending the nuclear program means regime change.
00:17:27.000Because we've been told for 30 years now that Iran is close to getting a nuclear weapon.
00:17:32.000So I think I'm where I'm at, where a lot of people are at that.
00:17:35.000I just have a bunch of questions and no real answers.
00:17:37.000If I understand correctly, part of the why now is because of how badly Iran planned their their attacks against Israel when they started with.
00:18:04.000and you're right about the military window.
00:18:21.000It was these cases which were marching through and Trump was winning.
00:18:25.000And there was so much mass appeal for, I think I saw a poll, like a mainstream poll saying 50, CBS, 55% of Americans saying they wanted to, they supported All illegals being deported.
00:18:42.000And there was this massive push for full-on immigration, or illegal immigration pushed out, and then suddenly it's like that's evaporated overnight.
00:19:30.000But it looks like Donald Trump, whoever, Is gearing up for at least airstrikes in Iran.
00:19:38.000Yeah, can I just say something about that?
00:19:39.000that there's been a lot of people who are sort of dying to be first on X, and, oh, I've reported it, I've reported it.
00:19:48.000Unless U.S. forces are responding to a direct threat, somebody's fired on them and they're firing back and they have to, I don't think that Trump is going to commit U.S. forces to a direct strike on Iran without some kind of statement first.
00:20:33.000But I mean, like, for some random X account just pops up, and I'm Asint, bro, and I know that the U.S. is currently doing this, and it's like, guy, like, if you read those Asint, I call them Brosin accounts, and if you read Brosin accounts, like, we've been at war with Iran for like 10 years, and there's been like all these other strikes that have gone on, and also Iran.
00:20:56.000There's a lot of misinformation in there as well as true stuff as well.
00:21:00.000I can't trust the thing that I read on Twitter.
00:21:03.000I do trust things that Trump puts out on truth, which, if you guys have been following, has been absolutely insane.
00:21:10.000He warned people to evacuate Tehran, which was absolutely bananas.
00:21:15.000Pasobek, I wanted to get your take on Trump boasting, we now have complete and total control over Iran skies.
00:21:22.000Well, the royal we, I mean, I think there's an understanding there that Get your turn in control?
00:21:35.000And it was in a situation where I think a lot of people were saying the S-300 systems could potentially have been brought back online.
00:21:41.000But to Tim's point, Russia has not provided them with any extra S-300 systems since that time.
00:21:47.000Russia's air defense is very capable, as we've seen in Ukraine over the past couple of years.
00:21:52.000And so the fact that they haven't backfilled those, the fact that Israel was able to with, you know, I think a conjunction of.
00:21:59.000It still has to be shaken out, but a conjunction of these Mossad strikes as well as probably cyber and electronic warfare has basically taken the entire air defense net offline.
00:22:26.000So they're highly vulnerable to cyber attack if you're able to get something into that system because they're all on one system, basically.
00:22:35.000And they don't really have a lot of fail-safes in there.
00:22:38.000And particularly, I remember being told that with Iran and North Korea, that they were very susceptible to this type of attack.
00:22:45.000I know there were questions about how involved we are.
00:22:48.000Many people are reading into him saying that as we now have complete and total control over Iran's guys as us being involved.
00:23:09.000And I think the State Department or excuse me, the Defense Department actually put out something saying.
00:23:14.000Saying that, hey, to clarify, this does not mean the U.S. is involved in direct, you know, direct, quote-unquote, control of the skies.
00:23:23.000But he sort of means, to your point, you know, this is the royal we.
00:23:26.000Aside from the mobilization— You sure used it.
00:23:28.000Aside from the mobilization that we're seeing from the military, there's another component that makes me think we're going to intervene, and that is The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
00:24:02.000Jon Stewart could very easily come out and say, hey, look at these hypocrites instead.
00:24:06.000He chooses to target the staunch anti-intervention faction of the MAGA base and tries to discredit them, namely Bannon and Jack and Marjorie Green, Charlie Kirk, by claiming that Jack called for the military to be deployed against 75 million Democrats in the United States, which is an absurdity and a lie.
00:24:26.000And I had to ask myself, why would he do that when he could mock those who actually support the war?
00:24:31.000He's not going to mock those support war, just like.
00:24:43.000And this time around, they want to do the same thing.
00:24:45.000So when I say this leads me to believe that there will be intervention, is that there's a concerted effort, even on liberal media, to mock and discredit the strongest voices saying no war, implying there is a concerted effort to have us intervene in the region, just like we saw in the 2000s.
00:25:19.000It would be inseparable from a parody, which is funny because I'm like, you know, Mark, you and I are both from the same part of Pennsylvania, just outside of Philadelphia.
00:25:47.000But when it really comes down to is very interesting to see that Where was the Jon Stewart who used to say, you know, and he does actually mention it in the clip.
00:25:58.000He said, well, I agree with these guys.
00:25:59.000I agree with these guys when it comes to this.
00:26:01.000I agree with these guys when it comes to this.
00:26:03.000But, but, and then they go to play edited spliced clips with very, like, not even very well edited.
00:26:11.000It was very amateurish jump cuts where I'm saying something about, like, Trump is deploying the National Guard and that jump cut.
00:26:24.000And it's just like, it's like Frankensteined altogether as if I'm calling for force against the Democrats, which, come on, if anyone knows, I am not a Fed poster.
00:26:35.000There is no Fed posting out here, okay, folks?
00:26:48.000At the end of the day, myself, Charlie Kirk, Steve Bannon, and Marjorie Taylor Greene have been saying to President Trump, hey, we backed the play with Whitcoff.
00:27:13.000And so there's this real question of – and Steve Wyckoff, by the way, a lot of people in the foreign policy world don't really know him that well.
00:27:20.000They say, oh, who is this Wyckoff guy?
00:27:22.000Well, he's actually one of President Trump's best friends, just on a personal capacity.
00:27:26.000And a lot of people miss the fact that – On, I believe it was September 15th of 2024, when Trump was at the golf course and was almost killed by the Ukrainian foreign fighter, Ryan Routh, who was there on the periphery of the golf course in West Palm Beach, Trump was golfing with Steve Witkoff that day.
00:27:46.000So they were both in the line of fire or potentially were about to be.
00:27:50.000They were on the fifth green and he was waiting on the sixth green.
00:27:53.000And so they were both potentially killed by this guy.
00:27:56.000And so they've just been through a lot together.
00:27:58.000They have a huge, very deep relationship.
00:28:01.000And so I wonder, you know, how much Witkoff has really been brought up in these conversations.
00:28:07.000With all due respect to Steve Witkoff, I don't think he's come to a successful negotiation yet.
00:28:12.000definitely not in this Iran deal, With the people who were killed.
00:28:58.000Because they're radical Islamists in Iran, whose regime was founded on anti-Americanism, frankly, and they chant death to America and death to Israel.
00:29:06.000We know that, but how would them having a nuclear weapon change it?
00:29:09.000It would lead to other countries in the region wanting to get a nuclear weapon.
00:29:13.000So, for example, Mohammed bin Salman said that if Iran got a nuclear weapon, then they would want a nuclear weapon, too.
00:29:24.000Well, they didn't say they would if Iran didn't, so we need to prevent and make sure Iran doesn't, especially with their threats they make against Americans and how their proxies have killed Americans.
00:29:33.000So, are there any other Islamists and extremists that are making nuclear weapons?
00:30:05.000So, Muhammad bin Salman, if you want to pull up the article, he has...
00:30:09.000I'm just asking, what is the connection?
00:30:11.000Like, are you saying that they'll simply just go, well, I guess we should too?
00:30:15.000The balance of power will dramatically shift, yes.
00:30:17.000And they will all say, we need to have nuclear weapons too as a deterrence.
00:30:21.000So they would try to argue that we need to make it like an India-Pakistan situation, an Iran-Saudi Arabia situation where both sides have nuclear weapons.
00:30:27.000Are there any other countries with nukes we should bomb?
00:30:30.000We should prevent these rogue nations and nuclear proliferation from happening.
00:31:40.000So AQ Khan Network developed the nuclear weapons, and Pakistan has basically said to the Saudis, and you mentioned Mohammed bin Salman, they've also discussed that if the kingdom were under attack, that Pakistan would essentially allow their nuclear arsenal to be used by the Saudis.
00:31:57.000I mean, you mentioned nuclear escalation, and that's certainly a valid statement, but there are already nukes in the Middle East.
00:32:03.000Let me ask, do you think that Iran should be able to acquire nuclear weapons?
00:32:09.000I think that there are many policies and many options to be able to deal with that as opposed to just simply blowing up people that you don't like.
00:32:17.000So how should – That we shouldn't allow them to.
00:32:27.000No, what you're doing is you're presenting a Because you're presenting a false binary and you're trying to play this Kafka-esque trap of saying like, oh, well, if you don't support war on Iran, then you must support Iran getting the nukes.
00:32:38.000And people have been doing this to me like all week.
00:32:40.000How should the United States react to Iran?
00:32:42.000I literally just gave an entire conversation about Steve Wyckoff and you like crapped on it.
00:32:47.000And Steve Wyckoff wasn't able to come to any conclusive negotiations through that it were approved by the president.
00:33:51.000Appreciate you doing that because a lot of people are doing that to me this week and who share your views, and it's very annoying.
00:33:57.000So what I've said for a long time now is the best way to do this is stop looking at it in two dimensions, saying, oh, it's just Israel, the United States, and Iran.
00:34:46.000When that took place, and China played a small role as well in destroying them, but after the fact.
00:34:53.000And so this idea of Russia coming in and saying, wait a minute, why wouldn't that be a good idea?
00:34:59.000Because while the US has issues with Iran having a nuclear weapon, certainly, And for Russia, they don't want Iran to have nuclear weapons either, because that's right in their backyard.
00:35:11.000And they don't want this huge escalatory ladder going on in their backyard the same way that I think that most people in the Middle East probably wouldn't.
00:35:19.000And so it's a much bigger threat to Russia than it is to us.
00:35:22.000And so why not have multiple negotiations, have Iran put pressure on them because they know they have to and then use as a potential dangle for that the peace and ceasefire in Ukraine?
00:35:44.000So the issue I see is, Elad, when you say that we've got to stop them from getting a nuke because other countries will get nukes, it sounds like you don't know what you're actually worried about.
00:35:53.000I'm worried about nuclear proliferation and our enemies abroad who have wished death upon us and have the death of American service members on their end.
00:36:01.000If they get a nuke, Saudi Arabia will start a cheesecake factory.
00:36:04.000It's like, okay, I don't understand how these things are related.
00:36:07.000Saudi Arabia could make a nuke right now.
00:36:08.000They said they wouldn't unless Iran did.
00:36:12.000Saudi Arabia currently has access to a nuclear stockpile.
00:36:14.000And Jack pointed out Pakistan already has nukes.
00:36:17.000There's nukes in the region, and there's Islamists capable of firing them, and there's fears they actually will over Kashmir.
00:36:21.000So why isn't Saudi Arabia building them if the politics of the region dictate?
00:36:25.000I keep hearing there's a major threat if they get a nuclear weapon.
00:36:29.000Notably, this is what the meeting with Netanyahu was about, where he was like, they're going to make a nuclear weapon come for you and – Oh, well, you mean when you met with him?
00:36:52.000There was a handful of people in the room that were like, he's right, and most of them were rolling their eyes being like, they can't even build an ICM to reach us.
00:36:59.000So I have concerns about them being a nuke.
00:37:04.000I think the real concern is they give fissile material to a bunch of wackaloons in the region like the Houthis, and they start blowing up tankers and launching low-yield nuclear artillery.
00:37:22.000We've got massive ICBMs, MIRVs we call them.
00:37:25.000We can wipe out 12 cities with one ICBM.
00:37:30.000I'm not concerned about Iran having access to low-heeled nukes.
00:37:34.000Even though it's never been officially acknowledged, there's also a lot of consensus that Israel more than likely has a stockpile of nuclear weapons as well.
00:38:20.000And Tulsi Gabbard didn't say that Iran isn't building nukes.
00:38:25.000She said, we have no intelligence that Iran has ordered.
00:38:30.000Ayatollah Khomeini has ordered the restart of a nuclear weapons program.
00:38:34.000She then also said that in addition to that, we agree with the public statements that Iran has been enriching uranium at a level that is not weaponized, And so this idea that it's just like Tulsi Gabbard's opinion, she's not just giving her opinion, right?
00:39:37.000And Netanyahu just survived a very narrow vote for his leadership just last week.
00:39:42.000And a lot of people are pointing to his domestic base, which goes along with some of this popularity issue that Israel has in the United States.
00:39:50.000It also is Netanyahu's own popularity.
00:39:54.000Domestically within Israel, he's having issues with his coalition.
00:39:57.000One of the ultra-Orthodox parties was threatening to break out.
00:40:00.000I forget the name of it off the top of my head, or I don't want to say it, actually.
00:40:04.000And they were saying, we're going to come out because we don't want to be conscripted because Israel, as we know, has compulsory military service.
00:40:12.000And so it was widespread military acceptance in the population.
00:40:16.000However, the ultra-Orthodox were saying they didn't want to be in and they were threatening to blow up Netanyahu's coalition if he didn't agree to this concession.
00:40:24.000They were able to run that out of him.
00:40:25.000And so the coalition stood, but I think he only stayed in power by like nine votes or something like that just last week on the eve of all of this.
00:40:33.000They're just going to end up blowing up MAGA's coalition.
00:40:36.000I mean, there's going to be no support for this because the left is going to oppose anything Trump does, and most of his supporters are principled in being against this.
00:40:49.000I do think that's the thread that Trump understands of understanding that the MAGA coalition is just like all coalition politics, which I mentioned BB is dealing with some as well, that there's going to be this friction.
00:41:03.000So, you know, I don't see a lot of the Maha crowd being down with this.
00:41:06.000I don't see a lot of which, you know, and RFK Jr. himself had spoken out quite a bit against the Ukraine war, but then his own son actually had volunteered for it.
00:41:16.000So there's, you know, there's this big split.
00:41:19.000And at the same time, though, I think that President Trump is— Let's jump to this next story, ladies and gentlemen, from the Pentagon Pizza Report.
00:41:45.000So for those that aren't familiar, the Pentagon Pizza Report tracks the pizza restaurants that are near the Pentagon.
00:41:52.000And as of 30 minutes ago, there has been a huge surge in pizza orders, busier than usual.
00:42:00.000Now, this usually indicates that people at the Pentagon are working overtime and they're ordering lots of pizzas because something is about to happen.
00:42:08.000Now, Donald Trump was supposed to give an urgent address and then he did not.
00:42:12.000So it's hard to know exactly what's going on other than in D.C., in the security apparatus, they're gearing up for something big and ordering lots of food.
00:42:20.000It wouldn't surprise me if there was a strike tonight.
00:42:22.000However, Jack, they also announced Freddy's Beach Bar, the closest gay bar to the Pentagon, is having a very busy night.
00:42:30.000I don't think I've ever seen it this high above the averages of 815.
00:42:34.000Well, we know where Lindsey Graham is.
00:44:24.000So if you're taking a look at the map of the Middle East, it really is...
00:44:34.000President Trump, he sent out to all the White House reporters, he sent out a long list of like 30 different references to his specific quote over the years of saying specifically, I will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.
00:44:47.000I don't feel like there's a lot of people that are saying that he didn't say that.
00:44:52.000Well, it's just this catch-22 between how do we stop that?
00:46:20.000Are you saying that one of the world's largest oil producers in Iran, that this flow of oil, this massive flow of oil may have something to do with what's driving these events?
00:46:44.000There's actually a great book that's written all about regime change in Iran and sort of the previous regime change operations the U.S. has been involved in, and it's called Dune by Frank Herbert.
00:48:18.000Doom was based on the last time the US and the UK got involved in a regime change operation in Iran, and they overthrew the prime minister who had nationalized all of the oil in Iran.
00:48:36.000And they were like, we got to get rid of that guy.
00:50:09.000No, I agree with Jack that it's a false binary that either you want them to have a nuclear weapon or go to war.
00:50:15.000I think the issue is that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and I'm just not seeing that.
00:50:19.000And you look on X, and there are people beating the same drum from Iraq saying the Iranians just want to be liberated.
00:50:26.000It's the same Dick Cheney line for we'll be greeted as liberators.
00:50:29.000And I think it's simple to say that – So just coming out and saying, you know, I've seen a report, it looks like they're doing nukes, is not enough evidence, in my opinion, to justify.
00:53:35.000It does not matter who attacks in a false flag because no one believes what they don't want to believe.
00:53:41.000So even if there is strong evidence the U.S. attacked itself or a third party that wants to force the war, the people who want the war in the U.S. are going to be like, nope, you're crazy.
00:53:53.000Iran will deny it even if they did do it.
00:53:55.000So I think that's the direction we're heading, and I hope it's not the case.
00:53:58.000But if they want war and they're positioning the U.S. for war, why would they not do it?
00:54:04.000In the Six-Day War back in the 60s, there was a U.S. Navy ship that was famously also attacked.
00:54:09.000And a lot of people say that that was potentially either by Johnson, who did, by the way, the Gulf of Tonkin, or potentially some other actors, what may have been a potential false flag attack or an attempt, even though the ship didn't sink.
00:54:40.000So that's 10,000 right there, 10,000 souls per aircraft carrier.
00:54:44.000Then you've got hundreds and hundreds of more throughout the strike group and then the different bases, plus we've got Air Force, et cetera, in the area.
00:54:52.000So the Persian Gulf, it's actually a lot smaller than a lot of people realize.
00:55:02.000It would be, you know, like the Great Lakes are, you know, we don't consider that to be that big of a deal, but like they're enormous, right?
00:55:09.000And so basically what I mean to say is all of this military equipment is coming very, very, very close together right now to the point where, you know, we're talking about these long-range bombers and bunker busters and things, but once you get things into the Strait of Hormuz, and this is why it's such a key critical choke point, because so it's the mouth.
00:55:27.000People say Strait of Hormuz, Strait of Hormuz.
00:55:29.000Okay, this is the mouth of the Persian Gulf.
00:55:32.000And 20% of the world's oil flows through there from the Gulf Arabs and from the Persians as well.
00:55:38.000And so any blockage of this, mining it, which the IRGCN, so the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy, has threatened to do this time and time again.
00:55:48.000It would be very easy for them to do this.
00:55:50.000what they would do is they would take a couple of, you know, merchant tankers that would probably be, you know, false flagged, right?
00:55:56.000You know, with some operating under like some...
00:56:02.000They just park right there in the Strait of Hamos and just start pushing mines over the side.
00:56:26.000You know, I'm used to having access to, you know, in the Navy, when you're in, you have access to all, like, the direct lifetime feeds, so you can see just everything on a given basis.
00:56:35.000And one of those things, one of those things you don't always have, but it's all very, very within range of even, you know, even the smallest.
00:56:42.000This is why the Houthis were able to be so effective at their fire.
00:56:58.000Yeah, for people that don't know, the Strait of Hormuz is 21 miles across.
00:57:02.000So it's really, really, really small, like really narrow.
00:57:20.000And, like, the U.S. would absolutely go to war over that little piece of war.
00:57:25.000Well, you'd isolate Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates.
00:57:28.000So they're not going to let that happen.
00:57:30.000And for the record, if anyone's blocking this trade of Hormuz, that's, I mean, that's fully support the U.S. Navy doing whatever it takes to get them out of there.
00:58:01.000You've got the threat of just general threat to merchant shipping.
00:58:05.000And then if that's still going on, you've then got the question of one of the things the Iranian ships will do, these IRGC ships.
00:58:12.000The reason I mentioned – so Iran has two militaries.
00:58:15.000There's the IRGC and their standing army and standing navy, both of which have different armaments, both of which have different tactics.
00:58:22.000It's typically seen that the IRGC operates under the Ayatollah, and so they get a little bit better funding in terms of special forces type of stuff.
00:58:30.000That's where Quds Force Soleimani was part of the IRGC in terms of their external operations branch.
00:58:36.000That's why he was in Iraq when he was killed.
00:58:42.000So the idea is, how are you going to take out a giant aircraft carrier?
00:58:46.000Well, you surround it like the Spanish galleons of old with these small ships, and then you attack it from all sides at once.
00:58:54.000And if a carrier were passing through the Strait of Hormuz and were attacked that way, it would actually be extremely vulnerable, especially if they've got Charlie 802, they've got cruise missiles or something else that parked in the back of those things.
00:59:06.000It would be extremely vulnerable to a couple of hits below the waterline.
00:59:10.000you've got a huge problem on your hands.
00:59:12.000I think a key thing to also understand here, I think at some point, Something like 20% of the world's oil transits, the Strait of Hormuz.
00:59:24.000Also, I think it's important to notice who the biggest losers here would be.
00:59:28.000Obviously, this would be a big loser for global trade, and everybody would suffer when oil prices shoot up as a result of this.
00:59:33.000However, China specifically imports...
00:59:42.000So China would be a huge loser in this situation, and China would suffer a huge amount of economic distress as a result of this.
00:59:49.000So there would be worldwide reverberations as a result So that's exactly, they understand this, and they say, okay, well, this is why we want to build our pipelines and railway system up through Pakistan, through this economic corridor.
01:00:09.000And then what's right on the other side of Pakistan from that spot in China?
01:00:16.000so that's why the Uyghurs and EITF and these various groups are such a threat to China in that sense because it's just basic geography so they want to control that area because it could potentially be an extremely key resource China doesn't
01:00:50.000If China were able to build pipelines in a railway system, it would drastically reduce that price of the Iranian oil to begin with coming out.
01:00:58.000That's why Xinjiang is so important to their imperial gains in pushing out, really, just across all of Asia and Eurasia.
01:01:05.000That's why they want that so much, and that's why to them, the Uyghurs, it's just the cost of doing business.
01:01:10.000Let's jump to some domestic news time, my friends.
01:01:37.000The way you know that this is a photo op is because all of the reporters that are surrounding these guys in the background taking photos, all of those people were tipped off by this guy's campaign, Brad Lander.
01:01:49.000He's running third in the New York City mayoral race, and that's why he's doing this stunt.
01:02:30.000I'll just further explain kind of what's going on here.
01:02:33.000In New York City, within the immigration courts, ICE agents are now hanging out outside of the immigration courts, immediately outside of the doors, to arrest illegal aliens and detain them.
01:02:47.000Some of these ICE agents are masked up without any badges or name tags out, and I guess that's been some people's beef.
01:05:47.000No, I was going to say, if you guys want to get a better idea of what's going on in these immigration courts, if you could pull up my Twitter, the most recent video I posted is like a clear Hispanic man being detained by a half dozen guys in masks grabbing him as his girlfriend is crying behind him.
01:06:13.000Yeah, so, Mast Immigration and Customs Enforcement's agents detain an illegal immigrant immediately outside of the doors of Immigration Court in NYC.
01:06:20.000The illegal alien resists but is overpowered by agents.
01:06:23.000His girlfriend watches on crying and bangs on the door he's let into.
01:07:06.000They're allowing her to do this, by the way.
01:07:10.000This is an illegal immigrant as well that they're choosing not to detain and deport.
01:07:16.000Yeah, I saw this clip where this woman's like, if you're okay with families being ripped apart, and it's like, oh, oh my god, you're right.
01:07:24.000The next time a guy robs a liquor store, put his kids in jail.
01:07:30.000And if you want to know why they're wearing masks, if you go to the tweet below this, you'll actually see one of the activists who is a lawyer and an observer there taking photographs of people's faces.
01:07:40.000And I've spoken to some of the agents who said they're as concerned about being doxed and having their families threatened.
01:07:46.000Some choose not to mask up, though, so there isn't consensus.
01:07:50.000I am not going to burn the Constitution because some foreign woman is crying and banging on a door.
01:08:32.000I am not going to empathize or sympathize with this woman who's crying because she broke our laws, spat in our faces.
01:08:38.000Dude, if a guy came to my house and broke through my door, broke the back door open, came in and was sitting in my kitchen, and then I threw him out and his girlfriend started crying, I'm not going to go, oh, I feel so bad.
01:09:23.000You know, here's a good man on the street bit.
01:09:25.000You know, like, people go on the man on the street and they ask him a question and catch him, like, did you know that Trump said this?
01:09:30.000And then they're like, Obama quote, and they're like, I hate you.
01:09:32.000What you do is you get a video of, like, a serial rapist crying, and then you say, this is a man whose children were just deported by Donald Trump.
01:09:41.000Do you think that it's okay this man is crying?
01:09:43.000Like, actually, that's a serial rapist.
01:10:20.000Encouraging this results in children dying in the Rio Grande, young girls being raped as they trek across by force by their parents as the coyotes abuse them.
01:10:32.000You could say how sad a woman is crying, but the person she should be crying towards is herself and her own actions.
01:10:37.000And nobody's hurting her boyfriend here.
01:11:18.000I guess my bigger point here is that it's not efficient.
01:11:20.000If we want mass deportations, this is not the way to get those numbers up.
01:11:24.000Just out of a manpower and the process, I was hanging out with these guys in hallways for hours, not doing anything.
01:11:31.000And they are not going to get to the mass deportation numbers this way.
01:11:36.000There needs to be other initiatives that are going on.
01:11:38.000Even if they have multiple teams of people doing this, if you're only arresting a dozen people a day and supporting a dozen people a day- That's got to be the majority of people that leave.
01:11:51.000And we have to make it as uncomfortable for illegal immigrants to be here as we possibly can.
01:11:55.000Take away any state benefits, anything at all that comes from the government, take it all away.
01:12:04.000You can't come here and get schooling.
01:12:06.000You can't come here and get anything if you're not a citizen.
01:12:09.000And then make it difficult on the people that would hire them.
01:12:18.000The whole Donald Trump, you know, talking about, oh, we're going to allow farm workers and people that work in restaurants and then walking it back and then doubling down on it.
01:12:27.000That's a terrible, terrible thing for him to do.
01:13:00.000And the Empire has come to do audits to look for undocumented workers.
01:13:05.000And the Imperial colonel or lieutenant or whatever sees the main character's wife and he's not there and he's like, so you work around here?
01:13:35.000So they get forged documents and then go to some other facility where eventually the Empire pulls up and they see one of the guys lurking and they're like, they're escaping or whatever.
01:13:46.000The Imperials, like the commanding officer, goes to them and he goes, I know you're undocumented.
01:15:29.000But the point is, the full context is...
01:15:33.000She's part of a criminal cartel gang that has been stealing military equipment and selling it on the black market and murdered dozens of soldiers.
01:15:42.000So it's like, hey, no good guys here, I guess.
01:15:47.000I will say that, just on that point, in that scene, it's clearly written that you're supposed to side with one side and the other side is clearly evil.
01:16:15.000The joke is always that—this is like around the time of the prequels, and then of course—I can't remember who brought this up, but became a meme.
01:16:26.000Where I would say to my friends, do you like the original Star Wars?
01:16:29.000You like the idea of a young kid on a desert planet getting radicalized by religious extremists and then taking a cargo ship and blowing up a military base?
01:16:39.000And everyone's like, oh, and I'm like, that's what it's about.
01:16:41.000And then he gets, because of that successful attack, he gets brought to a religious education center where he becomes even further radicalized and sent off to assassinate government leaders.
01:17:47.000So what they're writing now is that when you're tracking undocumented workers, the Imperial, the white men, are trying to rape the brown women who are harvesting grain.
01:18:44.000And I was wondering, Libby told us the other day that in Canada it was called the No Tyrants protest.
01:18:49.000Oh yeah, they can't have no kings there.
01:18:50.000So Postmillennial had someone up there, I think it was Toronto, covering the protest, but they had to call it No Tyrants because Canada literally has a king.
01:22:49.000Actually, I hope it happens to a lot of people, because otherwise they're going to end up soft like this guy.
01:22:53.000He planned it initially when he went in there to try and talk to Kirstie Noem.
01:22:58.000He approached the podium or whatever aggressively with the intent to get the Secret Service Yeah, of course, to get the Secret Service to act.
01:23:13.000And the whole point is just so that way he can do more of this making content.
01:23:17.000The it's crazy that politicians don't.
01:23:25.000They try to make content like YouTubers because that's how they get their name out there.
01:23:32.000This is what Carl Benjamin's point is about democracy, though, isn't it?
01:23:36.000That, you know, that the incentives, I mean, you could argue that these are the incentives that present him with the advent of social media, the advent of virality.
01:23:50.000So the person who goes viral gets more attention.
01:25:21.000As someone who's dabbled in a few infamous stunt queening incidents, um, that, uh, you don't, You can't keep going to that well eventually because the problem is with stunt queening and if you create that as your incentive structure for your business or in this case politics, you always have to keep one-upping one another.
01:25:42.000So eventually this is going to get passe and people say, oh, another Democrat got arrested, whatever.
01:25:48.000And eventually someone's going to say, okay, I don't want to say that online.
01:25:53.000But, you know, I've got to do something that's—I'm going to have something—I'm going to provoke something to me that is worse than just getting arrested.
01:26:02.000I'm not going to— We're on YouTube, so I'm not going to say it.
01:26:54.000There's got to be some community theater somewhere where they're discovering all of these Democrat politicians, like the George Soros Playhouse or something.
01:27:29.000And when that relationship was separated, that's really when AOC became rudderless, as she is now, that he was very, very effective at what he did.
01:27:38.000And she was a great deliverer of his his material.
01:27:42.000And then up until the point where, you know, definitely a much more effective operator when she had someone like that behind her.
01:27:49.000But, you know, then when she switched over to whoever Pelosi's team is, it's just in Jeffries.
01:28:01.000This is still a symptom of them having absolutely no policies and no idea whether or not they should go after the progressives or go after regular Democrats.
01:28:10.000No, they're like, just go on camera and screen.
01:30:16.000On X, all the people who respond to you, probably half, are just bots.
01:30:21.000And the best way to figure it out is that you just post sarcasm and they can't understand it.
01:30:24.000And I think AI bots and foreign sock puppet accounts – And so I find that's a great way when dealing with these issues to see if people actually care is to be sarcastic about it.
01:30:41.000And then you can see all the malfunctioning bots and lunatics.
01:30:45.000Democrats are operating to appease those people.
01:30:48.000They have a simple worldview where if the crowd says it, it is.
01:30:52.000So they go on social media and they look for social media validation, and if they get it, they'll continue down that path.
01:30:57.000But if they're being validated by bots and foreigners, then they have no coherent policy or anything.
01:31:04.000It's just going to be, he posts this video, he gets viral.
01:31:07.000He gets positive reinforcement from bot accounts and from foreign individuals and very few real people, and he'll keep doing it.
01:31:31.000So this guy's running for, you know, well, he is a senator in California, so that can work in California.
01:31:36.000But I've, I've, I don't actually see Gavin Newsom as being a successful candidate nationwide because of his policies and because a lot of these floated AstroTurf bases don't actually give you that broad appeal that you would need to run as a national candidate for office.
01:31:56.000I see a few contenders on the Democrats' side.
01:32:00.000I'm not going to give them the benefit of me saying who I think would be most dangerous to run against, whether it be J.D. Vance or whoever else, in 28. Not AOC, though, of course.
01:33:57.000Israel is leading them, but we're supporting them.
01:33:59.000Well, you're breaking news here because the U.S. government last night denied, the National Security Council spokesman Alex Pfeiffer denied on behalf of Trump that we were acting on Israel's behalf in any offensive capacity at all.
01:35:55.000How could you possibly have an opinion?
01:35:56.000It's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
01:35:58.000Regular Americans are allowed to have opinions on what our military is doing, okay?
01:36:02.000Now, I agree with Tucker in this regard all the same.
01:36:04.000U.S. sitting senators shouldn't call for intervention and regime change while not knowing— And you see what Ted Cruz tried to do in that regard?
01:36:15.000What does it matter if it's 80, 90, or 100?
01:36:18.000Because he didn't know if it was 30. Right.
01:36:20.000He didn't know if it was 20. And 92 million is a massive, massive population.
01:36:27.000Yeah, so Iraq is about 40. Iraq and Afghanistan are both about 40 million.
01:36:33.000Syria is about 25. Iran is, as best we know, 90, 92 million.
01:36:39.000So, I mean, just an order of magnitude larger than any of those countries.
01:36:43.000And yes, as I was saying earlier, so yeah, the vast bulk of the population are Persians, but then you also have a variety of ethnic groups around the periphery.
01:36:54.000I mean, remember, this was the Persian Empire, right?
01:36:55.000So you've got Arabs, you've got Beluchis, you've got Sunnis, you've got the Kurds up in the north, which, of course, they would like to link this sort of Kurdistan across Iran, Iraq, and Syria, where they have holdings now with the new government, where they're trying to work on.
01:37:29.000The Syrian civil war, like this year, like within the last couple of weeks, in a sense, where he installed this new totally reformed terrorist as the leader of Syria.
01:37:40.000And so, yeah, I mean, there's just a ton.
01:37:45.000And I really do think that anyone who says that they know what would happen, uh, I mean, we never have been able to affect this in any country in the Middle East or really any other region of the world with one of these.
01:38:07.000And the population estimates do range from 85 to 90 or so million.
01:38:23.000Their birth rate is actually one of the highest.
01:38:25.000And so they, you know, people point this out many times that that gives them a larger military age male population quotient relative to their population size, as opposed to, say, like Europe or some of these other areas, United States, where our population is generally aging because our birth rates are down so low.
01:38:43.000Israel, of course, also has an extremely high population or birth rate, even though they're there.
01:41:22.000Yeah, I mean, I've been in Israel multiple times.
01:41:25.000I certainly believe it is the holy land, and I think there's a range of opinions that a lot of people can have on what the best way to keep it safe is.
01:42:59.000IsDestroider says, I'm not against Israel, and I don't want to ask this question, but it must be asked.
01:43:03.000With the precision of intel and force used in the bombings, how did Israel miss October 7th?
01:43:09.000I think Israel missed October 7th because they had their eye on the ball in Hezbollah and Iran, and they were able to actually take out their targets in Hezbollah and Iran extremely effectively.
01:43:22.000And I think that's where they had their focus because they thought the issue in Gaza was already neutered.
01:43:31.000I think there's also something to say about, you know, again, nobody cares about...
01:43:36.000You know, we don't need to belabor the point of the horrible atrocities that happened on October 7th, and I don't think anybody here wants to hear Jewish sob stories any more than they already have, but I think there is something to say about how the Israeli psyche deeply was affected by October 7th, and they are still reeling from that tragedy that happened there.
01:43:51.000It is in no way comparable to 9-11, but I think there's a way to...
01:43:59.000And I think there was a similar effect in post-October 7th society in Israel.
01:44:04.000the mood has changed drastically and differently.
01:44:07.000And I think, you know, obviously we overlook that now, For sure, and unfortunately, just on that point, that in the U.S., we saw the neocons totally abuse that emotional situation in order to push for forever war.
01:44:24.000Bueno Malio says, Padilla's name is pronounced Padilla.
01:44:29.000I hope he liked how the ground tastes.
01:44:32.000I just hope you all realize I was pronouncing his name wrong intentionally to disrespect him.
01:44:37.000I didn't pronounce it wrong to disrespect him.
01:44:47.000I'm a huge proponent of saying that if you're not speaking that language, and I'm sure plenty of us around here can speak different languages, that if you're speaking English, just go ahead and say it the English way.
01:45:33.000For effective communication, if someone doesn't understand what you're saying, that's on you.
01:45:39.000because you're not effectively communicating.
01:45:41.000And so the point of effective communication is that someone can always understand Obviously, if you're a waiter, if you're a waitstaff, your goal is to sell the stuff.
01:45:51.000Now, if you're trying to put flair on something, I think that might be okay, but you don't want to go so overboard that you're alienating a customer base.
01:45:58.000I think if you're an English speaker and you're visiting any other English-speaking nation, you should immediately adopt their accent.
01:46:04.000So if you're in Ireland, you should start talking like this to everybody you meet.
01:48:50.000Those are the types of people that have destroyed and invaded New York City.
01:48:57.000Did you see that video of the black girl in the car trying to get to work and there were the white liberal protesters blocking the way and she was trying to talk sensitive.
01:49:06.000And they were like, but the children in Gaza, and the children were being deborted, and she was like, what about my kids?
01:49:11.000And then Sav Hernandez was like, And he goes, oh no, not work.
01:49:44.000Koffer, the great longshoreman philosopher, wrote back in the 50s in True Believer that the reason that Karl Marx got it wrong when he said the working class will eventually unite and revolt is that they won't because they're too busy working.
01:49:58.000And typically the way you see these mass movements run, it's that upper – They never have that and so they become susceptible to these just insane mass movements because they're really just kind of very bored.
01:50:26.000Guys, by the way, I'm an anarchist now.
01:50:35.000I'm just like, after the 897,000th bull thing that pops up, where you start, and everybody knows this, so I'm only half kidding, but the law is constructed in such a way that the government can enforce whatever they want in any way, however they want.
01:50:53.000And then make you spend tens of thousands of dollars on legal fees to try and challenge it.
01:50:56.000After which, what they then do is pull a uno reverse, creating an alternative where basically they're like this.
01:51:05.000You've got to pay us X amount of dollars for this registration form.
01:51:08.000And then you go, no, that's ridiculous.
01:51:35.000I don't think people understand how hard it is to run a business in this country.
01:51:37.000It is the stupidest effing thing imaginable.
01:51:40.000It took us like a year to do the documents longer for the coffee shops so we could have franchises.
01:51:49.000Now it's taking us another six months to go through the paperwork for individual proprietors.
01:51:53.000It is psychotic what this country – like the incentive right now is I work 16-hour days and on weekends and then I got to pay the government extra because – It's a salary.
01:52:05.000So then I got to pay the government extra.
01:52:07.000So it's like, okay, the incentive really is constructed in such a way to be communist.
01:52:59.000The biggest inhibitor to economic growth is always the state.
01:53:03.000You know, it's always the state saying you need to make sure that these rules are followed and we have to come out and check to make sure that you follow them and we're not in any hurry to do that kind of stuff and there's all the infrastructure that you need to develop your business and stuff.
01:54:32.000Actually, that's a huge point, though, as well, is that there was a good amount of momentum that was being built up for the border bill, and it's just gone now.
01:54:43.000It's just like not even something that's being discussed anywhere.
01:54:46.000And the White House put a lot of equity into that bill.
01:54:49.000The White House put a lot of time into it.
01:54:51.000They'd been working hard on, you know, they need 50 votes in the Senate to be able to at least 50 votes in the need of JD if there's a tiebreaker vote needed.
01:55:01.000So they had put all of that momentum in.
01:55:04.000That's just like it's like the entire domestic agenda is now just over here on the shelf.
01:55:09.000So the big, beautiful bill, no tax on overtime so long as you make less than one hundred and sixty thousand per year.
01:55:58.000But I was talking to the guys at the casino because the dealers are all largely tip-paid.
01:56:05.000And then I was talking to him about it and we were at the craps table and one guy was like, I was like, hey, you don't got to pay tax on this now, do you?
01:56:23.000It's being told you get to have more money.
01:56:25.000That's why I think that vote in the Senate was like 100-0 when they put that up as a single bill because it's just everybody knows that you're just done politically if we can pin you against that.
01:56:37.000Yeah, you can't vote against that at all.
01:56:40.000Michael Howard says, let me buy that board but put trucks and bearings and wheels on it.
01:56:44.000Oh, you mean the Timcast Skate Company skateboard with the Timcast Skate Company skateboard logo?
01:57:12.000It's in all the skate parks, spray-painted and stuck places.
01:57:16.000One of the most iconic logos, and they abandoned the trademark.
01:57:20.000And so as soon as they did, I announced that I was going to be taking it and using it for my company, which I am, the Tim Cash Skateboard Company.
01:57:28.000And so we've made those boards several years ago and have featured that board on the show for years now, and they've not challenged it in any way.
01:57:37.000So I would assert, as of a long time ago, I now own that logo.
01:57:43.000Also, I own a company called Slave Skateboards.
01:57:46.000There was a skateboard company called Slave and they abandoned the trademark because they said it was offensive.
01:57:51.000So they changed the name to Glass House and I immediately said, I own Slave.
01:58:56.000And it was funny because it was white liberals that didn't like that a black woman was serving them pancakes.
01:58:59.000It was also – it reminds me of when they – I guess they removed Gone with the Wind from – It's actual black history, and yet you've now excised it.
01:59:19.000I'm telling you, the Democrats at some point were like, guys, this overt racism isn't working.
02:06:30.000He finds the knowledge gap and then berates him with it, and I'm like, uh, that's some weak-ass pussy shit, bro.
02:06:37.000So when I'm talking about Ukraine, and I said Russia won, because Russia controls the regions they sought to control from the beginning of the war.
02:06:45.000And then someone says, no, they were trying to take Kiev.
02:06:50.000And then I'll be like, right, but they pulled back from there, and then they took the land bridge into Crimea, so now they control the regions they wanted.
02:07:01.000And so, then they'll be like, no, Russia was trying to, and I'll be like, okay, what were the regions that Russia was fighting over to begin with?
02:08:25.000The four or five oblasts that you mentioned, the first five, I believe Russia also claimed to be a part of Russian territory now that they wanted to inherit into the Russian Federation, if I'm not mistaken.
02:08:36.000So that's that's what Russia, you know, started kind of kicked off all of this was that Russia is saying that their their contention is that these oblasts have vote, you know, well.
02:08:48.000They would say that these oblasts broke away from Ukraine, voted internally, and there were votes taken, to be sure.
02:08:57.000Of course, the, you know, legality of those votes and the efficacy of those votes is called into question to join the Russian Federation and then Russia and then Russia accepted them into the Russian Federation.
02:09:07.000The reason Russia did this is because they were throwing all of the United Nations and and.
02:09:22.000And so they said, well, we just followed the same process you guys laid out.
02:13:27.000Because I thought, at some point, Mrs. Butterworth's was actually maple.
02:13:31.000And so I looked it up, and I'm like, I thought it was maple syrup, and then eventually they switched to maple-flavored and then got rid of it.
02:13:37.000No, no, they were always garbage corn syrup.