TRIGGERnometry - Mehdi Hasan Debate on the Iran War, Immigration and the Israel Lobby

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00:01:00.000 The war in Iran, what do you make of it?

00:01:05.240 Right now, I think it's a disaster.

00:01:06.940 I don't think it was legal.

00:01:08.400 I don't think it was justifiable.

00:01:09.780 And I think a lot of innocent people are dying as we speak

00:01:12.020 without any real justification.

00:01:14.300 Israel's war goals and interests are actually very clear.

00:01:16.800 I'm very unclear as to what the U.S. was.

00:01:19.140 Well, if it is the nuclear program, this is not the way to do it.

00:01:22.440 Negotiations are the way to solve.

00:01:24.120 Most experts say you cannot bomb away a nuclear program.

00:01:27.640 It's in people's heads.

00:01:29.060 All of the available evidence suggests he is losing.

00:01:31.220 What do you mean?

00:01:32.040 Strategic experts will point out that a country like Iran wins simply by surviving.

00:01:37.160 We have to admit that there have been fundamental failings on the left.

00:01:40.020 For instance, having an open border.

00:01:41.600 There's no open border, Francis.

00:01:43.080 That doesn't mean it's open.

00:01:43.960 That just means they managed to come in illegally.

00:01:46.200 That just means the border wasn't as secure as you wanted.

00:01:48.940 Hold on a second.

00:01:49.560 Open border means I can just walk into America.

00:01:51.380 Sorry, you triggered me with open border.

00:01:54.560 This episode is sponsored by our friends at Hillsdale College.

00:01:57.800 Right after this episode, go check out the incredible online courses, which are absolutely free at hillsdale.edu slash trigger.

00:02:08.040 Mehdi Hassan, welcome to Trigonometry.

00:02:10.040 Before we get into the meat of the interview, Iran, domestic policy, all the good stuff, tell us who you are and your journey through life.

00:02:17.440 That's a big question.

00:02:18.560 Thanks for having me, guys.

00:02:19.440 My name is Mehdi Hassan.

00:02:20.380 I am the editor-in-chief of a media company called Zeteo.

00:02:23.500 I've been a journalist here in the US and in the UK for the past 25 years.

00:02:27.180 I'm old. I used to be at MSNBC. I've done shows for Al Jazeera. I've worked at Sky News. I've

00:02:32.940 worked all over the place. So I do interviews. I do shows. I write books. And I'm stuck in the

00:02:39.020 middle of all the current controversy right now here in Washington, DC. So what I find very

00:02:43.240 interesting is you're from the UK, you're left wing. What brought you to be on the left?

00:02:48.980 To be on the left? Yes. I grew up in a very political household where my father, my late

00:02:53.360 father who passed away last year was very, very political, loved Harold Wilson, immigrant from

00:02:57.540 India to the United Kingdom in the 1960s, arrived in 1966, a great year to arrive in England. And

00:03:03.000 yeah, I grew up in a household where we were taught to give a damn about what's happening

00:03:06.960 in the world, care about causes both distant and nearby. I've always cared about justice.

00:03:11.660 I'm also a Muslim. As a Muslim, you're taught from a very young age to give a damn about your

00:03:15.800 society, your community, about a world bigger than yourself. So justice, I guess, justice has

00:03:20.700 been something that I've cared a great deal about so uh yeah I was an angry young man in my teens

00:03:25.080 and probably you know they say you grow out of it as you grow older but I didn't

00:03:28.300 absolutely fair enough so what brought you to the U.S. why not stay in the U.K. and focus on

00:03:35.060 U.K. domestic and be angry there yeah moral outrage um the I mean one there's a history of

00:03:41.660 British people coming to the U.S. uh both in the media in entertainment across the world you know

00:03:47.040 to look at different opportunities I was always fascinated by the United States I'm sure both of

00:03:50.600 you guys, you're here in DC. US politics is fascinating. It affects all of us around the

00:03:54.220 world. Also, my wife is American and they say a happy wife is a happy life. So at some point

00:03:58.960 when she said, you know what, we've done a good gig in the UK, why don't you come try to live in

00:04:02.020 the US? So I moved here in 2015, just as Donald Trump was coming down the golden escalator. So

00:04:07.640 it's been an interesting 11 years. Well, it has. And as we sit here in DC,

00:04:12.640 big things are happening globally. The war in Iran, what do you make of it?

00:04:20.600 Right now, I think it's a disaster. I don't think it was legal. I don't think it was justifiable. I don't think it was necessary. I think it's self-destructive. I don't think it's in the US's national interest. And I think a lot of innocent people are dying as we speak without any real justification.

00:04:37.420 Why do you think it's happening?

00:04:38.320 many reasons uh one of the main reasons was expressed by secretary of state marco rubio

00:04:44.040 before he tried to walk it back where he said that we were told this is rubio's words i'm

00:04:48.500 paraphrasing that israel was about to attack iran and if they had attacked iran iran would

00:04:52.620 have attacked us so we decided to attack first which is kind of insane on multiple levels number

00:04:57.320 one if you thought israel was going to attack iran just stop israel from attacking iran it's

00:05:01.000 your client state number two imagine if you're at home and you're like my brother's about to

00:05:06.120 get drunk and drive the family car and wreck it. I'm going to wreck it first. So it's a bizarre

00:05:11.060 argument to say they were going to attack, so we attacked first. So Israel plays a big role in this.

00:05:14.940 I don't think it's the only role. Joe Kent, who has just quit the Trump administration,

00:05:18.340 director of counterterrorism, he wrote a letter saying, it's all Israel. Israel manipulated us

00:05:22.360 as well. I think that takes away too much responsibility from Donald Trump, from Lindsey

00:05:25.460 Graham, from the US government and hawks in the US who have long wanted a confrontation with Iran.

00:05:30.220 This has been building for years. I mean, we're all, I think, of a similar age group.

00:05:34.460 You know, we're all old enough to remember the Iraq war.

00:05:36.620 We're old enough to remember George Bush, Dick Cheney.

00:05:38.680 They wanted to go into Iran at the time too.

00:05:40.140 They didn't.

00:05:41.000 George Bush was smart enough not to do that after the disaster in Iran.

00:05:44.420 Benjamin Netanyahu is on the record saying,

00:05:46.120 I've dreamed of attacking Iran for 40 years.

00:05:48.080 Trump's the first president to let me do it.

00:05:50.740 Those are all points that I wanted to discuss with you,

00:05:53.500 but I still am not very clear on why you think it's happening

00:05:56.200 because I agree with you.

00:05:58.120 A lot of people talk about Israel, but as you said,

00:06:01.220 Israel is a client state of the United States.

00:06:03.180 And quite a lot of people act as if it's the reverse now, which doesn't make a lot of sense to me just from the understanding of how these dynamics work.

00:06:10.660 So why would President Trump, who's on the record repeatedly saying no more foreign wars, no more forever wars, who got rid of all the neocons within his administration from the first one, why would he do this now?

00:06:24.140 I think now is the good question, Constantine.

00:06:25.900 It's about the timing because Donald Trump is not an anti-war.

00:06:28.520 I never accepted the bullshit shtick that he was anti-war.

00:06:31.020 I was one of the people in 2024 who said,

00:06:32.960 don't buy this crap that he's running on.

00:06:34.200 He went to Michigan and told Muslims,

00:06:36.000 vote for me, no wars in the Middle East,

00:06:38.120 no Muslims will die.

00:06:39.040 If you vote for Kamala Harris and Liz Cheney,

00:06:40.420 they're going to bomb the whole of the Middle East.

00:06:41.900 I never bought that stuff.

00:06:42.960 I remember his first time, he was pretty belligerent.

00:06:44.800 Why not? Why didn't you buy it?

00:06:46.200 Because in his first term, he expanded drone strikes.

00:06:48.800 He killed Qasem Soleimani.

00:06:50.820 He bombed Somalia at a rate,

00:06:52.460 we never talk about countries like Somalia.

00:06:53.980 There was nothing in his first term that said,

00:06:55.480 this guy is not totally happy with war.

00:06:57.400 He also surrounded himself with,

00:06:58.740 look at the people he hired, Marco Rubio, Pete Hegseth.

00:07:01.020 Look at his best friend in the Senate, Lindsey Graham,

00:07:02.740 a man who's never met a country he doesn't want to invade.

00:07:04.800 So I never bought that.

00:07:06.440 And unfortunately, I've been vindicated.

00:07:07.960 In his first year, he bombed, I think, seven countries in 12 months last year.

00:07:11.080 He just bombed Nigeria on Christmas Day.

00:07:12.600 We've all just moved on from that randomly.

00:07:14.340 He started this year with Venezuela regime change, Maduro.

00:07:17.640 And then Iran, the timing is interesting.

00:07:19.440 I was talking to Senator Chris Van Hollen, an anti-war Democrat, yesterday.

00:07:22.360 We were trying to get to the bottom of this.

00:07:24.060 What is in it?

00:07:24.740 Very hard to get inside Donald Trump's head.

00:07:26.340 Very hard.

00:07:27.160 But what is going on in there?

00:07:28.400 Is it just Benjamin Netanyahu playing for a fall?

00:07:31.020 partly, yes. Netanyahu's kind of admitted it. Is it the old belligerence of Donald Trump with a

00:07:36.060 country that won't bow down to him? Is it Wyckoff and Kushner screwing up the negotiations, not

00:07:41.460 understanding what was going on, which a lot of reporting is suggesting? Is it just Jared Kushner

00:07:45.120 and others trying to make money out of this? We see Kushner's, you know, a lot of, would Trump

00:07:48.400 follow the money is often an explanation to a lot of what's going on. Is it him trying to distract

00:07:53.000 from domestic economic woes? We've seen this before. Unpopular leaders at home decide to start

00:07:57.380 a foreign war to distract the public attention. Zateo, my company, did a poll of the American

00:08:01.440 public recently, found 52% of Americans think the Epstein files was one of the reasons Trump

00:08:05.540 went to war. You might think mad conspiracy theory. A majority of Americans believe that

00:08:08.940 is one of the reasons he went to war. So I think it's a mix of things. Israel obviously played a

00:08:13.140 big role in that. And I think now he's in it. He's doubling down, tripling down. He could just

00:08:19.300 declare victory. People like Tucker Carlson have called him or called proxies of his and said,

00:08:23.200 just say mission accomplished and go home. Just say, I killed Khamenei. I degraded their military.

00:08:27.380 blah, blah, blah, and go home like you did last year after the 12-day war. He won't do it. He's

00:08:31.980 quadrupling down as we speak. So why do you think that is?

00:08:37.160 If we're going to spend an hour doing psychoanalysing Trump, it's going to be difficult.

00:08:40.160 Look, I think he is someone who does not want to accept defeat. The worst thing in his life is to

00:08:45.480 be a loser. The guy doesn't accept he lost a 2020 election. Still ranting on about that.

00:08:49.460 The idea that he would lose to the Iranians, and he is losing right now, let's just be very clear.

00:08:53.320 All of the available evidence suggests he is losing.

00:08:55.520 What do you mean?

00:08:56.000 What are his goals in Iran? We don't know because he's never really stated them.

00:09:00.560 But if it's destroying Iran, he's failed. He posted a couple of weeks ago,

00:09:04.660 I've destroyed 100% of Iran's military capability. Okay, then what are we watching every day?

00:09:10.120 Land on Gulf countries. What are we watching happening in the Strait of Hormuz? He's alienated

00:09:14.500 his allies. Iran's nuclear enrichment, whatever they have still left over, they still have.

00:09:20.180 They're still hitting Gulf countries. Gulf countries are furious. So I think he's losing.

00:09:24.060 And, you know, people like, you know, strategic experts will point out that a country like Iran wins simply by surviving, right?

00:09:31.760 Because they're the weaker, smaller power.

00:09:34.060 So I think he's in a bad state.

00:09:35.840 I don't think he's going to give up because he can't handle the defeat.

00:09:38.960 And by the way, it's a U.S.-Israeli war, right?

00:09:41.820 And a lot of people have pointed out that the U.S. and Israeli interests are not the same.

00:09:44.900 Our strategic interests are not Israel.

00:09:46.220 That's very clear that they're not.

00:09:47.520 And I think that divergence is one of the reasons people keep saying, you know, Israel tricked Trump into this war.

00:09:54.060 or bullied. I think one of your guests on your show recently talked about how he bullied him.

00:09:58.860 And that's where they lose me because I don't understand what this supposed mechanism is by

00:10:04.380 which Israel bullies America. Well, I don't know about the word bully, but let me just say in

00:10:08.620 terms of tricked or manipulated, this is not a conspiracy theory. The beauty of these Republicans,

00:10:13.120 and you're in DC, I know you're going to be speaking to Republicans. The only redeeming

00:10:15.600 feature of the Republican Party right now, they just say the quiet part out loud. People like me

00:10:18.980 don't need to speculate or come up with theory. They just say it. So Lindsey Graham told the

00:10:23.100 Wall Street Journal that I went to Israel, and Israel showed me intel that made me think we've

00:10:27.800 got to go to war. That's bizarre. A United States senator went to a foreign government for intel.

00:10:31.760 Then he says, I met with Netanyahu, and I coached him, his words, not mine, on how to persuade Trump

00:10:37.440 to get into this war. Again, bizarre that a United States senator and a foreign leader is discussing

00:10:41.320 how they're going to coach, how they're going to persuade, manipulate a sitting president into war.

00:10:45.800 So they're saying this stuff out loud. I'm not absolving Trump of responsibility,

00:10:49.740 But nor am I saying Israel didn't play.

00:10:51.340 Would we be in this war were it not for Israel?

00:10:53.420 No, I think that's very clear.

00:10:54.800 And by the way, if we stop the war tomorrow,

00:10:56.720 just one last point,

00:10:57.560 if Trump would say we're done, we're over,

00:10:59.380 then one of the reasons I think he's not

00:11:00.400 is because he's been told the Israelis aren't stopping.

00:11:02.740 And therefore, as long as the Israelis go, we go.

00:11:04.400 Well, see, all I'm doing, Mehdi,

00:11:06.100 is trying to pass logically the things

00:11:07.980 that people are saying, including...

00:11:09.420 Logic and Trump doesn't always go in the same sentence.

00:11:11.940 Well, sure, fine.

00:11:13.360 But I guess what I'm saying is this.

00:11:15.340 If President Trump didn't want to do this,

00:11:17.380 he wouldn't do it.

00:11:18.240 Agreed.

00:11:18.480 we are in 100% agreement. He could very easily say to Iran, we have nothing to do with this.

00:11:24.440 And in fact, we're not even going to shoot down your ballistic missiles if you shoot them at

00:11:27.540 Israel, because we'd want no part in this. And then none of this will be going on. So

00:11:31.440 that's the bit where people lose me when they talk about Israel. I mean, every country wants

00:11:37.100 to manipulate the United States into doing what they want. They've been doing it well.

00:11:40.860 He's easily manipulated. Russia wants him to make it easier for them in Ukraine. Ukraine wants

00:11:47.540 to make it easier for them to defeat Russia. China spends huge amounts of money shaping US

00:11:53.040 foreign policy if it can. So does Qatar. So do lots of countries. So I guess the thing that I'm

00:11:58.420 trying to get to the bottom of, because it's such a big talking point in the US right now,

00:12:03.460 is what is the supposed mechanism by which this tiny country of Israel has this outsized power

00:12:11.060 over the president of the United States? So a couple of things. One is it's not mutually

00:12:15.180 exclusive, is it, Constantine, to say that Donald Trump has responsibility, is a grown man, he may

00:12:19.720 not act like a grown man, but is a grown man and has to take responsibility for decisions he makes.

00:12:24.640 That's not mutually exclusive with saying, but the Israelis also tricked him, manipulated him,

00:12:28.000 lobbied him, bullied him, pressured him. Both of those things can be true at the same time.

00:12:30.620 All I'm asking is what is the mechanism by which that happens?

00:12:32.500 But we accept that both those things can be true. So now we come to what is the Israelis doing?

00:12:36.500 You would accept that, you just listed a bunch of countries, and the Gulf, the Qataris have a lot

00:12:40.480 of influence, the Emiratis have a lot of influence, the Russians sadly have a lot of influence with

00:12:44.100 Trump, you would accept that none of those countries come close to Israel's influence.

00:12:48.440 I don't think there's any question mark about Israel's influence on American policies. The

00:12:51.260 question you're asking about is how, but no one would deny. I mean, you know, you watched the

00:12:55.660 Ted Cruz interview with Tucker Carlson that went viral not long ago. Cruz says, I came into

00:13:00.200 politics to defend Israel. They don't say that by any other country. I've never heard an American

00:13:03.540 senator say, I came into politics to defend Belgium. Never heard it. Never heard anyone

00:13:07.260 talk about any other country. Just interject one small thing, if I may. That's not necessarily

00:13:10.700 evidence of Israel having influence. It might well be a case of there are lots of people who

00:13:15.600 live in America who believe for whatever reason, for religious reasons or for geopolitical reasons,

00:13:22.460 that this is a country with which America should have a close alliance.

00:13:25.320 So 100% I agree with you. There are Christian evangelicals in this country

00:13:28.140 who believe that the rapture will happen when all the Jews are gathered in this place,

00:13:32.400 and they are even more hardcore pro-Israel than a lot of pro-Israeli Jews. That's 100% true.

00:13:36.600 But there are also a bunch of people in American politics. I know I've met them. I've interviewed

00:13:39.420 them. They tell me this on and off the record, who are supporting Israel because they're worried

00:13:43.280 about being primaried. They're worried about losing their jobs. They're worried about being

00:13:46.240 called anti-Semitic. They're worried about being targeted by AIPAC. They're worried about being

00:13:49.940 targeted by their political opponents, etc., etc. The idea that there isn't a very, very powerful

00:13:54.760 pro-Israel lobby is absurd, just as there is a very powerful gun lobby, just as there is a very

00:13:59.540 powerful farmer lobby, right? It's funny that in this city, people are happy to say, you're owned

00:14:05.100 by the gun lobby. But for good reasons, because of anti-Semitic tropes, people don't want to say

00:14:09.140 you're owned by the Israel lobby, but there is a good reason for it. But the fact is there is an

00:14:13.960 Israel lobby that has massive oversized influence on American politics. Let me just lay out the

00:14:17.540 distinction I'm trying to make. And I think it's an important one. And it's good that we're

00:14:20.860 exploring this, which is, I think the reason people worry about calling it the Israeli lobby

00:14:25.700 versus the gun lobby is the Israeli lobby implies some kind of foreign influence, right? Whereas the

00:14:31.800 point that I think you and I are both making actually an agreement on is there are lots and

00:14:36.100 lots of Americans who, for whatever reasons, their own personal reasons, view this as an

00:14:41.480 important strategic alliance of the United States or a religious worldview or whatever.

00:14:46.040 So, and I think that's where the distinction becomes difficult.

00:14:49.680 I think you're, in good faith, overstating the other part of the argument, maybe for

00:14:53.540 argument's sake or devil's advocacy.

00:14:54.960 All I'm saying is, let me give you one example.

00:14:56.920 When you ask Democratic voters, do you support what Israel's doing in Gaza?

00:14:59.620 Eight percent, according to one poll, said we support it, right?

00:15:03.020 Democrats don't support it.

00:15:04.080 The vast majority don't support it.

00:15:04.860 Right.

00:15:05.000 When you go look at Democrats in Congress, the vast majority do support it.

00:15:08.620 There's an absolute discount.

00:15:09.800 The numbers are reversed.

00:15:10.920 And why is that?

00:15:12.100 That's exactly my point.

00:15:13.020 Why is that?

00:15:13.500 It's not because they're all out for self-indict.

00:15:15.320 It's because they're lobbied by various lobbies, the military-industrial complex,

00:15:19.080 which also has interest in war, the pro-Israel lobby.

00:15:21.960 Vast influence.

00:15:23.760 There's money in politics that influence a lot of positions in this country.

00:15:26.980 You're in this town.

00:15:27.600 This whole town is very corrupt, right?

00:15:29.440 The way you influence people is through money.

00:15:31.080 And the same thing with Israel.

00:15:32.180 By the way, you mentioned foreign lobbying.

00:15:33.560 Well, I said Israel lobby, not Israeli lobby, the lobby for Israel.

00:15:36.700 That can be Americans.

00:15:38.240 But let's just be clear.

00:15:39.120 There's a long history of people trying to get the pro-Israel lobby to register as a foreign agent,

00:15:43.500 just as some Arab pro-Arab lobbies have to register as foreign agents.

00:15:46.920 You go back to RFK, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

00:15:49.420 He wanted to register the precursor to AIPAC.

00:15:52.300 Senator William Leahy, very famous Democrat senator in the 70s, said we should register as a foreign lobby.

00:15:57.440 So there's been a debate for a long time as to whether AIPAC and other such groups should actually register

00:16:02.020 because they do seem to coordinate

00:16:03.400 with the Israeli government.

00:16:04.360 So that's a separate issue.

00:16:05.500 But look, I take your point.

00:16:06.720 There are many Americans who support Israel.

00:16:08.420 But if you look at the polling, Constantine,

00:16:09.760 you're in D.C. at a time when,

00:16:11.400 in astonishing polls I never thought I'd see in my lifetime,

00:16:14.060 that Americans have now switched.

00:16:15.680 They are now supporting Palestinians

00:16:16.780 more than they've supported Israel.

00:16:17.780 First time in my lifetime.

00:16:18.520 I never thought I would see those polls.

00:16:19.960 Sadly, it took a genocide

00:16:20.900 and tens of thousands of Palestinians

00:16:22.440 to get Americans to switch their positions.

00:16:24.740 But again, if that doesn't translate into Congress,

00:16:27.360 into the presidency, then you have to ask why.

00:16:29.400 Do we have a democratic crisis in this country?

00:16:30.800 Well, 70% of Republicans support Israel over...

00:16:34.120 Republicans, but the American public,

00:16:35.700 independents, and Democrats...

00:16:37.740 Yeah, yeah.

00:16:38.140 But the Republicans are in power,

00:16:39.460 so that would explain why...

00:16:40.320 But they should also respond to public opinion.

00:16:41.780 It's not like when Democrats are about

00:16:42.640 they only follow the base.

00:16:43.840 They spend their whole life chasing swing voters.

00:16:46.560 Don't know about that.

00:16:47.240 Well, look at Kamala Harris' election campaign.

00:16:50.120 She didn't go to the left.

00:16:52.220 Interesting.

00:16:53.060 So, but coming back to the Democrats,

00:16:55.540 it's an interesting point you make.

00:16:56.660 So your contention is Democratic politicians fear AIPAC and...

00:17:00.660 Yes, we're meeting in D.C. just after a bunch of primaries in Illinois.

00:17:04.520 AIPAC dumped millions of dollars to defeat the critical candidates.

00:17:07.340 Lots of lobbies dumped millions of dollars.

00:17:08.720 I agree, we said that.

00:17:09.740 But your claim is that the reason Democratic politicians

00:17:13.420 ignore their voters' concerns about the Middle East, for example,

00:17:17.400 is because of something like AIPAC.

00:17:19.140 Yes.

00:17:19.580 Okay, fair enough.

00:17:20.920 And so how do you think this conflict will go on from here?

00:17:25.140 It's very hard to know.

00:17:26.240 We're in uncharted waters.

00:17:27.640 I've said since 2003, both as a private individual

00:17:31.260 and when I became a public figure in 2009,

00:17:33.440 I've said this consistently that I was against the Iraq war

00:17:37.040 and I think it was one of the big disasters of my lifetime,

00:17:39.640 but Iran would make Iraq look like a walk in the park.

00:17:42.280 It would be Iraq on steroids.

00:17:43.740 It's a much bigger country, much harder to topple,

00:17:46.140 way more regional and international ramifications.

00:17:48.980 And we're seeing that now.

00:17:50.100 We're a couple of weeks into this war

00:17:51.600 and we're seeing the oil price spikes,

00:17:54.140 economic repercussions globally,

00:17:55.860 the attacks on natural gas facilities. I'm not an expert on this stuff, but the experts are saying

00:18:00.760 this could have 10-year, 20-year ramifications to rebuild some of this stuff. The environmental

00:18:05.620 consequences in the region, the public health consequences, of course, the acid rain in Tehran.

00:18:09.680 Of course, the blowback. In this country, I always joke that Americans have the memory of goldfish,

00:18:15.260 eight seconds. It's hard to remember what happened last week, let alone last year.

00:18:19.560 People in the Middle East have very long memories. Americans don't know who Mohamed

00:18:22.640 Masadek is, most Iranians will tell you that's the prime minister in 1953 that the US overthrew

00:18:26.780 and brought back the Shah. And then the Shah led to the revolution, et cetera, et cetera.

00:18:30.300 When we talk about blowback, we need to have big picture. God forbid, three years, five years,

00:18:35.200 a year from now, some bomb goes off somewhere, kills a bunch of innocent Americans. We say,

00:18:39.580 why, why, why do they hate us? And they're like, but Khamenei. We're like, Khamenei who? Who's he?

00:18:44.140 We've forgotten about him already. I mean, this is my worry. We've seen this with every invasion.

00:18:48.300 The invasion of Iraq brought about ISIS. The invasion of Southern Lebanon in 1982 brought

00:18:52.120 about Hezbollah, right? These illegal wars, these wars of choice, these occupations, they lead to

00:18:57.360 blowback, unintended consequence, what the CIA calls blowback. And I really worry about that

00:19:01.560 when it comes to Iran. We don't know what's going to happen next. To quote Donald Rumsfeld,

00:19:05.540 a New York War architect, there's the known unknowns. We know there's some bad shit coming.

00:19:08.760 We don't know what it is. Most people think they're informed. In reality, they're selectively

00:19:13.980 informed. Modern media doesn't just tell stories. It quietly decides which ones you never hear about

00:19:19.600 at all. That's why I use Ground News. It's the only app that compares how the same story is

00:19:25.100 covered across the political spectrum and show you what whole audiences are not being told.

00:19:29.860 The Blindspot feed is one of my favorite features. Every day, it flags upwards of 20 stories that are

00:19:35.080 being ignored either by the left or the right. Follow along at ground.news.com. Take this story.

00:19:40.820 A major U.S. poll found that Republican voters' confidence in Trump's economic leadership

00:19:45.100 has dropped sharply during his second term.

00:19:47.700 That is not a minor data point.

00:19:49.480 If you only read right-leaning publications,

00:19:51.660 you would have missed this completely.

00:19:53.340 On the other hand, look at this.

00:19:54.980 The UAE drops UK from scholarship list

00:19:57.260 over radicalization concerns on university campuses.

00:20:00.540 That's a significant story.

00:20:02.040 Yet coverage from left-leaning outlets

00:20:03.820 was almost non-existent.

00:20:05.200 Ground News puts all of this in one place.

00:20:07.420 Headlines, bias breakdowns, ownership, and context.

00:20:10.540 So you can actually understand what's going on,

00:20:13.520 not just react to what you're told.

00:20:15.100 go to ground.news slash trigonometry to get 40% off their unlimited vantage plan,

00:20:20.220 the same one we use, and stop being managed by the media.

00:20:25.140 Mehdi, there'd be people who go, well, look, you've mentioned Hezbollah. Iran funds Hezbollah.

00:20:30.120 They fund Hamas. They effectively destabilize the region. I don't say that I agree with this,

00:20:35.640 actually, but they would say, look, if we deal with Iran, long term, we're going to get a better,

00:20:40.760 more prosperous, more stable Middle East. What would you say to that?

00:20:43.440 I would say Benjamin Netanyahu said exactly those words in front of Congress in 2002. He said,

00:20:47.220 if you invade Iraq, there'll be positive reverberations throughout the region.

00:20:50.120 What happened? We got ISIS, we got Al-Qaeda in Iraq, we got seven bombings in London. Tony

00:20:56.060 Blair was warned, if you invade Iraq, there will be bombings at home. The Joint Intelligence

00:20:59.320 Committee told him in 2003, he ignored those warnings. We got more terrorism, more blowback,

00:21:03.960 more violence, more regional instability, more refugees. That's what I fear is happening now

00:21:07.980 with Iran. In terms of destabilizing the region, look, this is where we get to like,

00:21:12.300 where do you start the clock? I would say, yes, of course, Hezbollah and Hamas destabilized the

00:21:16.360 region. But they would argue, and many people would argue, that the destabilizing began with

00:21:20.160 Iran. They are a reaction to Israel's actions. So, you know, it depends where you want. Like I said,

00:21:24.940 1982, Israel invaded southern Lebanon. There was no Hezbollah in 1982. So look, Iran does play a

00:21:30.820 role that is malign. I've never defended blindly Iran. Iran does bad things. No one's debating that.

00:21:35.460 Many countries in the Middle East do bad things. We are not invading... Saudi Arabia, I think we

00:21:39.380 would all agree around this table does bad things, has done bad things. We are not invading and

00:21:42.740 trying to topple Saudi Arabia or bombing their oil fields and gas facilities. And I'm glad we're

00:21:47.080 not. So I don't think this war is a solution to the problem. By the way, what is the problem?

00:21:51.660 Donald Trump will not tell us what the goals of this war are. It changes every day. Marco Rubio

00:21:55.100 says it's degrading the Navy. First, they said it was a nuclear program that they obliterated last

00:21:59.040 year in the 12-day war, apparently. There's a lot of evidence that the nuclear material may well

00:22:04.120 have been removed prior to the strike. But I'm saying this war was not about the nuclear program

00:22:08.080 because they've done nothing to...

00:22:09.120 Well, that's actually the thing that they have said

00:22:12.400 that makes sense to me.

00:22:13.960 Like, I think I'm actually kind of with you

00:22:15.980 in terms of I don't understand

00:22:17.860 what the goals of this thing are.

00:22:19.380 They don't either.

00:22:20.020 If we take it that the nuclear stuff

00:22:23.520 and degrading the military, that's fine.

00:22:25.680 But then why are you killing their leaders?

00:22:27.800 That's the bit I don't understand.

00:22:28.920 Well, interestingly,

00:22:30.000 they're not killing their leaders, right?

00:22:31.700 They killed Khamenei,

00:22:32.600 but the Israelis are doing much of the killing.

00:22:34.080 They've killed the intelligence minister.

00:22:35.580 They killed Ali Larajani.

00:22:36.700 Now, let's just deal with what Israel wants, because what Israel wants is pretty clear to

00:22:39.880 anyone watching. They want an unstable, weakened Iran that doesn't pose a threat to them. They

00:22:45.380 don't care if it's a democracy. They don't care if it's a dictatorship. They don't care for civil

00:22:48.640 war. They just want Iran off the table, right? And therefore, they're killing people who might

00:22:53.120 do a deal with Trump. They've done this before. Last year in the 12-day war, they tried to kill

00:22:56.600 a guy called Ali Shamkani, who survived. Then they killed him now. He was a negotiator who

00:23:00.920 Trump had been praising and reposting on social media. They killed him because they don't want

00:23:05.080 Trump to do a deal with this guy. Why not? Because they don't want to negotiate a solution

00:23:09.560 to this conflict. They want to keep going, the Israelis, until they wipe out everything they

00:23:12.920 want to win. Yeah, they want to degrade Iran. They don't want Donald Trump to do one of his

00:23:16.240 deals. That's the worst thing they could have. They didn't want the JCPOA, the Iran nuclear deal

00:23:19.900 that Obama signed that resolved the nuclear program for at least 15 years. They were dead

00:23:24.640 against that deal. But so was Trump himself. Yes. And Trump pulled out of that deal. And

00:23:28.200 then what happened? Enrichment went up. Then Biden came back in, said, let's try and go back

00:23:32.320 into that deal. The Israelis attacked Natanz in 2021. They enriched up to 60%. Then last year,

00:23:37.800 they went to Oman to negotiate. They had a meeting scheduled for Sunday. The Israelis bombed on

00:23:42.740 Friday. This year, they negotiated in Geneva. The Omani foreign minister came to DC and said,

00:23:47.320 a deal's on the table. Apparently, Jonathan Powell from the UK said there was a deal to be done.

00:23:51.260 Guess what happened? The US and Israel bombed the next day. There's a history of Israel in

00:23:55.480 particular, but also the US bombing every time we're close to a deal, every time there's a

00:23:59.500 negotiation in place. And this is why we just come back to the nuclear point, because I agree with

00:24:03.820 you. It's very clear that there's a difference between the interest of the United States and

00:24:07.780 the war goals of the United States and the war goals and interests of Israel. And Israel's war

00:24:11.660 goals and interests are actually very clear. I'm very unclear as to what the US was.

00:24:15.860 Well, if it is the nuclear program, I think we're both unclear, but if it is the nuclear program,

00:24:18.900 I don't think they know. But if it is the nuclear program, this is not the way to do it.

00:24:22.980 Negotiations are the way to solve Israel. Most experts say you cannot bomb away a nuclear

00:24:28.160 program. It's in people's heads. It's scientific expertise. You cannot kill every scientist.

00:24:32.480 You can destroy the nuclear material. And then years later, they can rebuild facilities and

00:24:37.160 enrich again. And then you're just mowing the lawn, as the Israelis say, going and bomb every

00:24:40.560 couple of years. But we had a JCPOA. We had a deal that was working. The IAEA said Iran was in

00:24:45.780 compliance with it. Do you know how much enriched uranium they had under the JCPOA? 3.64%. You know

00:24:50.920 how much they have now? 60%. You want to go back to logic. Logic tells me that was a failure to

00:24:55.760 get out of that deal? I mean, I also don't think there's any huge evidence that negotiations

00:25:00.120 produce nuclear non-proliferation. I just think this is a very... Oh, come on. The entire history

00:25:04.660 of the post-war era? Well, if you look at Ukraine, for example, Ukraine was forced to give away its

00:25:10.900 nuclear weapons and made itself very vulnerable. And I've been on record as saying, I think that

00:25:16.120 in and of itself and the fact that we haven't supported Ukraine properly will lead to more

00:25:19.780 nuclear proliferation. I agree with you on that. And I think on this issue too, I don't see what

00:25:25.140 the incentive would be for Iran not to pursue nuclear weapons. Well, we're in agreement,

00:25:30.140 but not just Iran. So I interviewed, again, if you guys remember the Iraq war, do you remember

00:25:33.300 Mohammed al-Baraday? He was the head of the IAEA. Him and Hans Blix went to the UN and said,

00:25:37.220 don't invade Iraq. We can... We were both against the one in Iraq. Exactly. That's why I'm saying

00:25:40.660 this to you, because I know you understand. He said, we can guarantee disarmament. He was the

00:25:44.060 head of the nuclear watchdog, spent his life opposing nuclear proliferation. I interviewed

00:25:47.660 him recently. I said, if you were in the Turkish government right now, which Israel is saying is

00:25:51.460 next, would you try and get nukes? And he said, yes. I was astonished. This is a man who's devoted

00:25:56.360 his life because, as you say, everyone now has an incentive to get nukes. Why would you not?

00:26:00.420 My point was even broader than that, Mehdi, which is that I think everyone always has the

00:26:04.480 incentive to get nukes. And that's where I don't think negotiating with Iran...

00:26:08.840 So that's where we disagree.

00:26:09.520 Hold on. Let me finish the point, though. I don't think that's... In that situation,

00:26:13.480 I don't think Iran has any interest in that. Iran is very clearly... The reason the Gulf

00:26:17.260 Arab states and Israel all want Iran degraded and all supported this conflict, by the way,

00:26:23.100 and are still encouraging it, the Gulf states, especially internally, the people at the top,

00:26:30.420 the people on the street may not, is because Iran wants to dominate the region. It's a perfectly

00:26:36.180 legitimate thing for Iran to want to do. But that being the case, the fact that they fund proxies

00:26:41.180 to facilitate that process.

00:26:45.040 Of course they'd want nuclear weapons

00:26:46.640 and I don't think they'd negotiate them away.

00:26:49.180 But they already did negotiate them away.

00:26:50.940 According to US intelligence,

00:26:52.140 they suspended whatever nuclear weapons research

00:26:53.780 they were doing in 2003 after the fall of Saddam

00:26:56.100 because they didn't want Bush to invade them.

00:26:57.640 There was also a fatwa from the late Ayatollah Khamenei

00:26:59.760 saying that nuclear weapons are haram,

00:27:01.460 forbidden under Islamic law, which is ironic.

00:27:03.320 People are now saying,

00:27:03.960 I hear supporters of Khamenei saying,

00:27:05.560 that was a mistake.

00:27:06.740 He should have actually got nuclear weapons.

00:27:07.460 But under him, they did enrich more uranium.

00:27:09.460 But they didn't build weapons.

00:27:10.280 Enriching uranium is their right under the NPT.

00:27:12.380 Every country has a right to enrich uranium.

00:27:14.240 No, not to 60%.

00:27:15.280 That was a bargaining chip.

00:27:15.860 But they did.

00:27:16.360 That was a bargaining chip.

00:27:17.660 Why did they enrich to 60%?

00:27:19.080 Because they're saying, if you keep pushing us...

00:27:21.600 Exactly. Israel attacked them, so they went to 60%.

00:27:23.680 They only went to...

00:27:24.640 You say Iran wants to dominate.

00:27:26.640 This is why it's so important for your viewers

00:27:28.140 to understand the timelines here.

00:27:29.580 I know in the West, we're kind of brainwashed

00:27:32.340 by some of our media and politicians

00:27:33.760 to believe that Iran is this Hitler country.

00:27:37.420 And again...

00:27:37.860 I'm not saying that.

00:27:38.660 But I didn't say you said that.

00:27:39.820 I said some in our media and politicians brainwashed over the years.

00:27:42.800 Trigonopathy is a great show.

00:27:43.620 It hasn't been here for decades.

00:27:44.380 I'm talking about the last 30, 40 years.

00:27:47.540 Have been told Iran is the great, you know,

00:27:49.520 just like Iranians say the great Satan,

00:27:51.120 Iran is also the great rogue state in the Middle East.

00:27:53.600 Actually, when you look at it,

00:27:54.860 Iran is the country that is actually now being bombed,

00:27:57.900 was attacked from 1980 to 1988 by our ally Saddam Hussein,

00:28:01.480 attacked with chemical weapons, lost half a million people,

00:28:03.800 had their planes shot down by the United States of America.

00:28:06.240 And then they agreed to a negotiated deal

00:28:09.200 with the American government in good faith

00:28:10.560 and with the EU, by the way.

00:28:11.660 The JCPO was with the US and the EU.

00:28:14.700 Iran stuck to that deal.

00:28:15.800 Trump tore it up.

00:28:16.780 Trump violated that deal by pulling out of it.

00:28:18.920 As I said, they then began to increase enrichment

00:28:20.840 only after the deal was done.

00:28:22.240 So I don't accept your premise when you say,

00:28:24.240 of course they want to get nuclear weapons and enrich.

00:28:26.180 No, they signed the JCPO,

00:28:27.200 which it says in the first paragraph,

00:28:28.560 we will never get nuclear weapons.

00:28:29.720 That's what they signed on to.

00:28:30.280 But they then took that money

00:28:31.380 and used it to fund their procterics.

00:28:33.280 Okay, but now you're moving the goalposts.

00:28:34.560 I just want to stick with your nuclear point.

00:28:35.920 No, no, you made a very strong point about nuclear.

00:28:38.020 They have an incentive to get nuclear weapons.

00:28:39.920 I'm saying there's no evidence of that.

00:28:41.120 It's the exact reverse.

00:28:41.920 The incentive is clear.

00:28:43.180 You're saying they didn't.

00:28:44.000 Now they have an incentive for sure.

00:28:45.160 They just got attacked.

00:28:46.160 They always did.

00:28:46.560 Well, of course.

00:28:47.100 If you want to be the dominant.

00:28:48.020 Strategically, yes.

00:28:49.520 But the irony is they didn't.

00:28:51.060 That's the irony.

00:28:51.500 If they did, they'd be fine.

00:28:53.280 Ayatollah Khamenei would be alive,

00:28:54.720 chilling with Kim Jong-un right now

00:28:56.280 if he had got nukes like Kim Jong-un did.

00:28:58.200 Let's just be very real about that.

00:28:59.540 There's a reason why Pakistan and North Korea,

00:29:01.700 which destabilized their region much more

00:29:03.660 than some would say Iran, are fine

00:29:05.200 because they have nukes.

00:29:06.160 We're in complete agreement.

00:29:07.120 But Iran didn't get nukes. This is a great irony here. They didn't get nukes. They got attacked.

00:29:11.300 The leader got killed. And now I'm hearing you say it's because they wanted to get nukes. It's

00:29:14.380 the exact opposite. If they had gotten nukes, they didn't have much safer place. Instead,

00:29:18.080 he put out a fatwa saying no nukes. He signed up to the JCPOA, which many Iranian hardliners were

00:29:22.260 against. Ham and I signed on to a deal that people in his own country said we shouldn't sign on to.

00:29:25.820 They then stuck to the deal, according to the IEA. Trump then tore up the deal. They then

00:29:29.960 marginally increased enrichment to 20%. They then got attacked by Israel in 2021, increased to 60%,

00:29:35.480 And then last year got attacked during negotiations.

00:29:38.220 And again, this year got attacked during negotiations.

00:29:40.360 And one last point, the Gulf countries, it's just not true.

00:29:42.520 The Omani foreign minister just wrote a piece

00:29:44.500 for The Economist magazine.

00:29:46.200 Oman got bombed by Iran.

00:29:47.520 And even he's saying,

00:29:48.640 it's very rational for Iran to do what it's doing.

00:29:50.280 This is an Israeli war that America has been dragged into.

00:29:52.800 America needs to be independent from Israel.

00:29:54.600 The Qataris, I've spoken to very senior Qataris privately,

00:29:57.160 who of course are mad that Iran are bombing their gas fields,

00:30:00.080 but they know who they blame.

00:30:00.900 They know who started the war.

00:30:01.940 It was Israel and the United States.

00:30:03.460 And they're reaching out to the US,

00:30:04.440 telling the US, stop this. So maybe the Saudis, maybe the Emiratis wanted this war, but not all

00:30:09.320 of the Gulf countries. That's just not true. Fine. So it's really interesting that you're

00:30:13.880 talking about, you know, the bombing of facilities, gas facilities, etc. Because one of the worries

00:30:19.660 for me, Mehdi, is how this is going to affect ordinary Americans. And I don't actually think

00:30:25.200 that we've been focused on that enough. So let's talk about the Strait of Hormuz. Let's talk about

00:30:29.180 why it's so important. Let's talk about why shutting it down is not potentially catastrophic,

00:30:35.580 is catastrophic for the global economy, but for Americans and Brits and the West in particular.

00:30:41.980 It's a disaster. So we just ran a piece by Elan Goldenberg, who was a senior official

00:30:46.200 on foreign policy under Barack Obama and Joe Biden. He conducted war games for the United

00:30:50.680 States government on what would happen if they attacked Iran, because they were doing the JCPO,

00:30:53.820 they had to have a backup in case it all goes pear-shaped. If we go to war, it's Obama time.

00:30:58.120 He says the worst case scenario of the war games

00:31:00.600 is what's happening right now.

00:31:02.220 That's kind of scary when you hear someone

00:31:03.680 who's in government saying that.

00:31:04.960 He wrote that piece for us and he said,

00:31:06.080 look, the Strait of Hormuz was always

00:31:07.360 going to be the Iranian leverage.

00:31:08.740 It was always going to be the choke point.

00:31:10.160 When Donald Trump comes out and says,

00:31:11.380 we didn't know they would do this.

00:31:12.580 We didn't know they would attack the Gulf countries.

00:31:14.140 I mean, it's idiocy of the highest order.

00:31:16.080 It's like COVID all over again.

00:31:17.620 He mishandled a major national crisis

00:31:19.340 because he was incompetent,

00:31:20.640 not just ideologically doing the wrong thing.

00:31:22.760 And again, we have these people like Hegseth and Trump

00:31:25.100 who are completely out of their depth

00:31:26.480 running this war and saying stupid things like,

00:31:29.040 well, we didn't know about the Strait of Hormuz.

00:31:30.840 I just saw reporting the other day

00:31:32.340 that the Brits and the Poles and the Germans

00:31:35.100 all have mind-sweeping carriers

00:31:37.100 that could have been of use.

00:31:38.840 The Brits pulled ours out.

00:31:40.560 I don't know where the German one is,

00:31:42.200 but meanwhile, Trump is just attacking all the allies.

00:31:44.140 So we don't need anyone from NATO.

00:31:45.600 We don't need you.

00:31:46.380 He's doing all caps, late night,

00:31:47.680 insane, deranged posts on Truth Social.

00:31:49.640 He doesn't know how to run a war.

00:31:51.060 He doesn't know how to keep allies on board.

00:31:52.620 Again, I'm gonna have to go home and take a shower

00:31:54.100 after praising George Bush.

00:31:55.060 But even George Bush, a war criminal who should be in The Hague, created a coalition of the

00:31:59.280 willing with a bunch of countries. Not the big countries, but some, what was it called? New

00:32:03.280 Europe, Rumsfeld called it. This guy can't even build together a coalition. He didn't even tell

00:32:07.080 his allies before he decided, as you say, to create massive economic chaos for everyone in

00:32:11.580 the world. And we're speaking on a day, Francis, where the Treasury Secretary just announced,

00:32:15.500 we may unsanction Iranian oil. Isn't that, I don't say hilarious, because it's such a tragic

00:32:19.700 war and people are dying. But bizarre that three weeks into this war, the result of this war is

00:32:24.280 Iran's oil is unsanctioned.

00:32:26.540 That's insane.

00:32:27.860 But let's go back to the Strait of Hormuz.

00:32:29.820 Can you explain for people who are listening,

00:32:32.160 who, you know, they've got families, they've got jobs.

00:32:34.720 Why is it so important?

00:32:36.340 And why is closing it so disastrous?

00:32:39.240 So it's where the majority of that region's oil and gas

00:32:41.960 goes out of the region, goes out to China and India,

00:32:44.700 into the Indian Ocean.

00:32:45.740 It's very narrow.

00:32:46.540 I think it's 25 miles at its narrowest point.

00:32:48.720 It means that the Iranians can shut it down

00:32:50.440 with like one guy on a boat, right?

00:32:52.360 With like a rocket launcher.

00:32:53.320 It doesn't require a massive Iranian military presence.

00:32:56.220 There was a moment the other day where Hegseth said,

00:32:58.560 we're run by such incompetence.

00:32:59.980 Peter Hegseth, the defence secretary said,

00:33:01.420 no, no, it is open.

00:33:02.580 You can go through with the ship

00:33:03.840 as long as you don't get attacked.

00:33:05.620 Well, you will, so it's not open.

00:33:07.340 The whole point is all these planners,

00:33:09.620 military planners are saying,

00:33:10.960 you can't open it up

00:33:12.300 as long as Iran is a country in that region.

00:33:14.520 They will always have that leverage to shut it down

00:33:16.540 because it doesn't require much on their part

00:33:18.420 to take out one tanker

00:33:19.700 and then which country,

00:33:20.620 which company is going to go into that place.

00:33:22.060 So there's two lanes, literally it's two lanes,

00:33:24.800 one going that way, one going that way.

00:33:26.180 It's very easy to shut down.

00:33:27.380 So this was always the Iranians' key leverage point.

00:33:30.380 And apparently Trump didn't know about this,

00:33:32.400 didn't think it through.

00:33:32.940 He posted the other day calling it

00:33:33.980 the Strait of Hormuz, spelled S-T-R-A-I-G-H-T.

00:33:37.160 That's the President of the United States.

00:33:38.440 So we're in a very disastrous position.

00:33:40.060 The Iranians can hold out.

00:33:41.740 We don't know how long the Iranians can hold out,

00:33:43.520 but the longer they do, us at home here in the US,

00:33:46.660 you guys in the UK are gonna feel the pain.

00:33:48.540 You know, 104, 110, $120 barrels of oil,

00:33:50.840 who knows how high it's going to go and the repercussions for a country this country where

00:33:54.780 affordability was the big political issue at the last election inflation well you should be very

00:33:59.120 excited about this maddie surely because remember you asked me at the beginning why i'm on the left

00:34:02.900 i believe in justice i don't want people to suffer just to win my political i meant i was kidding

00:34:06.720 obviously but i meant politically yes the democrats i think are on course to win the house and senate

00:34:11.240 maybe the senate definitely the house yeah uh and you imagine uh i mean i i it's clear i think i

00:34:18.280 I think whatever you support the conflict

00:34:20.260 or the President Trump, or you don't,

00:34:22.120 I think it's very clear

00:34:22.900 this is the biggest gamble of his political career.

00:34:25.100 100%.

00:34:25.500 And if it doesn't go the way he wants,

00:34:28.980 I mean, the Republicans surely would lose the presidency

00:34:31.520 in the next election.

00:34:32.660 A counter-argument,

00:34:33.640 Bush and Blair were re-elected after.

00:34:35.440 The real counter-argument is,

00:34:37.320 there's three years to go, Francis,

00:34:38.940 and Trump years are like dog years.

00:34:40.380 Francis is him, but it's fine.

00:34:41.540 Sorry, I know we're dressed the same.

00:34:43.740 It's all right, it's all right.

00:34:45.440 Because I'm so...

00:34:46.860 You did that politician thing

00:34:48.040 where you tried to name people by name,

00:34:49.680 but you got us confused.

00:34:50.500 It's because I was thinking about the next three years

00:34:52.580 as I said it.

00:34:53.300 And the point I was making when I confused you both

00:34:55.480 was it's three years to go of Donald Trump.

00:34:58.140 Three years is, we've just had a year.

00:35:00.080 It feels like 10 years.

00:35:01.180 The idea that anyone can know what will happen in the US

00:35:02.980 a year from now, let alone three years from now, insane.

00:35:05.900 Anyone who tells you they know what America will look like

00:35:07.520 in 2020 is a liar or a fool.

00:35:09.860 It's just too much change.

00:35:11.220 Too much happens here.

00:35:12.280 So anything could happen between now and then.

00:35:13.840 That's why people who say it's going to be Vance or Rubio,

00:35:15.860 no, it might be neither of them.

00:35:16.900 It might be Trump again if he doesn't want to leave.

00:35:19.680 Do you think that's a realistic possibility?

00:35:21.980 You think there's a possibility?

00:35:23.740 A hundred percent.

00:35:24.380 Not that a hundred percent that he will stay,

00:35:25.780 but a hundred percent there's a possibility.

00:35:26.700 That he would try.

00:35:27.640 That he would try.

00:35:28.760 Let me say this because I know I'm not alone.

00:35:31.900 At some point, your body just stops bouncing back

00:35:34.580 the way it used to.

00:35:35.720 You train hard, you travel, you push yourself

00:35:37.900 and suddenly recovery takes longer.

00:35:40.020 You wake up stiff, joints complain, skin, hair, nails,

00:35:43.300 things don't look or feel quite right anymore.

00:35:45.680 So many people listening to this know exactly what I'm talking about.

00:35:49.500 What surprised me is that this isn't just getting older in some vague sense.

00:35:53.800 A huge part of it is collagen.

00:35:55.460 Your body starts producing less of it from your mid-20s onwards.

00:35:59.420 Collagen is basically the glue that holds everything together.

00:36:02.680 So when your levels drop, you feel it everywhere.

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00:36:09.660 And I've stuck with it.

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00:37:43.740 The reason I wonder about that is, to me, that's kind of terrifying.

00:37:48.740 It is.

00:37:49.640 But then I talk to, we talk to people all over the political spectrum,

00:37:52.980 but we have a lot of friends who are on the right,

00:37:54.780 and they all say, if that were to happen, I'd be on the street opposing it.

00:37:58.700 So, again, I have a longer memory than most.

00:38:01.180 In 2019, I wrote a piece for The Intercept saying,

00:38:03.200 Donald Trump loses next election. He will not accept the results. He will try and stay in

00:38:06.300 office. He will start a riot. I wrote that piece in May 2019. People laughed at me. I was not an

00:38:10.520 American at the time. They said, you're a Brit. You don't understand American politics. Secret

00:38:13.580 Service will march him out. His party will never accept it. January 6th happened. He still doesn't

00:38:18.160 accept the result. He's still trying to fiddle with that result and the next result. Donald

00:38:22.240 Trump should be taken seriously and literally. I do take him seriously and literally. When he says

00:38:26.120 again and again, should we suspend elections? Will this be the last time you ever have to vote?

00:38:30.140 Should I stay on for a third term?

00:38:31.760 He's not just joking.

00:38:32.960 I'm not saying he isn't joking, but he's not just joking.

00:38:35.300 In that weird head of his, there's stuff whirring.

00:38:37.660 You're a close Ukraine watcher.

00:38:39.060 Remember when Zelensky came to the Oval Office,

00:38:41.520 and not the time he got braided, but the other time,

00:38:44.040 and a journalist said,

00:38:44.980 why haven't you had elections in Ukraine?

00:38:46.440 And Zelensky said, how can I have elections?

00:38:47.780 We're in the middle of a war.

00:38:48.880 And Trump jumped in immediately.

00:38:50.020 Oh, if you're in a war, you don't have to have elections.

00:38:52.340 I'll have to remember that.

00:38:53.720 And people chuckled.

00:38:54.680 And I'm thinking, that's Donald Trump's brain work in there.

00:38:57.160 He's thinking, hmm, there's a war.

00:38:58.960 Maybe we don't have to have elections.

00:39:00.280 And you've got people like Steve Bannon, who I do take seriously,

00:39:02.940 making it very clear that they're working on a plan to try and keep him in office in 20.

00:39:05.860 That doesn't mean they're going to succeed. That doesn't mean he's going to do it.

00:39:08.320 But to pretend when he shows world leaders merch Trump 2028,

00:39:11.500 that we shouldn't take this guy who already tried to stay on in office,

00:39:14.660 already incited an insurrection. Yeah, we should take that seriously.

00:39:16.980 This is a party that doesn't believe in democracy anymore.

00:39:19.040 But we're talking about democracy and I'm looking at the Democrats.

00:39:21.980 I'm not someone who's on the left or the right.

00:39:23.980 And I'm looking at the Dems and I don't see any candidates.

00:39:27.240 I don't see any particular ideas.

00:39:28.660 I don't see any challenge, if I'm being honest, Mehdi.

00:39:32.580 What am I missing?

00:39:33.300 It's a good question.

00:39:33.920 I mean, look, I've been very critical of the Democratic Party

00:39:35.780 for my own position on the left.

00:39:37.260 Look, there's not great candidates.

00:39:38.700 I agree with that.

00:39:39.400 There are candidates.

00:39:40.360 It depends who they're up against.

00:39:41.280 If you're up against a Rubio or a Newsom,

00:39:42.860 then yeah, sorry, a Rubio or a Vance,

00:39:45.960 then Gavin Newsom or a Jamie Pritzker or whatever it is

00:39:49.080 could do a decent job and easily be competitive.

00:39:51.800 I don't rate those Republican candidates.

00:39:53.560 But yes, do I wish there was a more dynamic Democrat?

00:39:56.380 Yes.

00:39:56.720 Do I wish there was a more charismatic Democrat?

00:39:58.240 Yes.

00:39:58.660 Do I wish there was a more populist Democrat?

00:40:00.420 Yes.

00:40:00.600 Do I wish Bernie was 20 years younger?

00:40:02.440 Yes.

00:40:03.180 Will AOC run?

00:40:04.280 We don't know.

00:40:05.540 It'll be interesting to see.

00:40:06.580 I think there will be about 30 people running.

00:40:08.240 I think it's going to be, do you remember the 2016 elections

00:40:10.160 where the Republicans had to have a kiddie table debate

00:40:12.400 the night before because there were too many candidates

00:40:13.700 like Lindsey Graham and the losers.

00:40:15.040 They went the night before.

00:40:16.380 I think they're going to have a Democratic version of that

00:40:17.820 because it's going to be, I think everyone on their dog

00:40:19.160 is going to run this time.

00:40:20.180 But you look at Gavin Newsom and people are going,

00:40:22.240 oh, you know, this guy's the next candidate.

00:40:23.640 Look, you look at California, it's a shit shot.

00:40:27.200 He's got great hair though.

00:40:28.260 Yeah.

00:40:28.660 He looks the part where Donald Trump would make him a running man

00:40:31.240 if he was a Republican, because he always goes for visuals.

00:40:34.320 Yeah, look, I'm not disagreeing with you.

00:40:35.720 I think there are Democrats.

00:40:36.940 But look, again, three years to go.

00:40:38.720 I'm of the Donald Rumsfeld known, unknown, unknown, unknown.

00:40:41.660 There could be someone none of us have even thought about who emerges.

00:40:44.960 You know, Barack Obama was elected in 2004 as a senator

00:40:47.280 and then ran for president in 2008 and won.

00:40:49.820 There's a guy, John Ossoff in Georgia,

00:40:51.340 who's about to be in a very tight Georgia Senate race.

00:40:54.620 He's Jewish. He's young. He's centrist.

00:40:56.760 He's not on my side of the political spectrum.

00:40:58.800 He's very charismatic.

00:40:59.900 He could be the candidate if he wins in Georgia.

00:41:01.700 He could change things around.

00:41:02.860 We don't know.

00:41:03.800 Do you think when you look at people like Zoram Amdani,

00:41:06.720 do you think-

00:41:07.160 I wish he was born in the US

00:41:08.360 so he could run for president.

00:41:10.020 Go on.

00:41:10.740 Do you think that could be the future of the Democrat Party,

00:41:14.040 that kind of very left-wing progressive politics?

00:41:17.240 Or do you think that in order for the Dems to win,

00:41:20.080 they need to be more pragmatic

00:41:21.400 and they need to attack the centre?

00:41:23.780 I don't know what the centre is anymore, to be honest,

00:41:25.880 in the crazy world we live in now.

00:41:27.340 and I know you guys are based in the UK

00:41:28.560 where there's five parties now fighting for dominance.

00:41:30.980 I think the old, old, old ways

00:41:32.600 of thinking about politics are gone.

00:41:33.820 What does the centre mean in the age of Trump?

00:41:35.580 I think what matters is,

00:41:36.980 are you anti-establishment or are you pro-establishment?

00:41:38.900 I don't think it matters.

00:41:39.800 I think left and right is less relevant

00:41:42.180 than are you anti-establishment or pro-establishment?

00:41:44.800 Are you a populist or are you not a populist?

00:41:46.680 I think that's what Mamdani proved in New York.

00:41:48.500 He got all, Mamdani got a bunch of Trump voters.

00:41:51.980 So did AOC.

00:41:53.080 There's, you know, there's Ocasio-Cortez Trump voters.

00:41:55.280 They exist.

00:41:56.100 There are Trump-Mamdani voters.

00:41:57.580 Why?

00:41:57.900 Not because they agree with his socialist policies,

00:42:00.240 but because they see him as an outsider.

00:42:01.740 They see him as someone who takes on the establishment.

00:42:03.360 They see him as someone who speaks his mind

00:42:04.960 and doesn't talk like a consultant

00:42:06.260 with boring talking points.

00:42:07.700 That is going to be the person who emerges

00:42:09.220 and is really going to occupy the ground,

00:42:12.080 centre or left, come 2028, if that person exists.

00:42:15.140 I think Americans are fed up with politicians.

00:42:17.480 They're fed up.

00:42:17.820 We talked about moneyed interests earlier.

00:42:19.080 They're fed up with money in politics.

00:42:20.440 They're fed up with foreign wars.

00:42:21.600 We didn't talk about the fact that this Iran war

00:42:22.980 is the most unpopular war of my lifetime.

00:42:24.720 Like, I've never seen a war in the US

00:42:26.160 where the public doesn't get behind it.

00:42:27.460 Once troops are committed, they're behind it,

00:42:29.060 even if they're skeptical like Iraq.

00:42:30.560 Nope, not this time.

00:42:31.700 They are consistently anti-war, the American public.

00:42:34.420 Consistently anti-war, consistently anti-billionaire,

00:42:36.960 consistently anti-establishment and anti-DC,

00:42:39.500 which, who is the candidate in either party

00:42:40.940 who's going to monopolize?

00:42:41.600 Trump did a great fake con job of being,

00:42:43.720 I'm going to be the outside guy,

00:42:44.740 even though he gives tax cuts to billionaires,

00:42:46.660 enriches himself.

00:42:47.600 But he played the part to some people of being,

00:42:49.980 I'm the guy who's going to go shake things up

00:42:51.320 and burn it down.

00:42:52.340 Who's actually going to do that?

00:42:53.540 And who's going to do it on the left?

00:42:55.220 Well, there's a couple of points I want to jump in.

00:42:57.140 I mean, one of them is the anti-war thing.

00:42:58.920 It's an interesting point about the broader sweep of the entire country.

00:43:03.380 The Republicans are overwhelmingly in favour of this war.

00:43:06.320 We agree.

00:43:06.800 And the Democrats are overwhelmingly against it.

00:43:09.020 And I imagine that's partly to do with the person who is doing it.

00:43:12.340 I think a lot of Republicans support it.

00:43:13.940 Oh, they would be opposed to it if Kamala Harris was bombing Iran.

00:43:16.560 Likewise, a lot of Democrats would probably support it if it was being done.

00:43:19.760 100% Chuck Schumer would be behind this war if it was a Democratic president.

00:43:22.540 So I don't think that's a reflection on the war as much as it is.

00:43:25.360 But the public, you're talking about politicians.

00:43:26.740 I'm talking about the public as a whole,

00:43:28.540 whether Republican or Democrat are tired of this war.

00:43:30.840 No, no.

00:43:31.640 I know the polling shows Republicans are behind Trump,

00:43:34.380 but I think that's because it's Trump.

00:43:35.980 That's what I'm saying.

00:43:36.760 But I don't think they support war.

00:43:38.400 I think there's a general principle.

00:43:39.380 I also think a lot of Democratic voters are against it

00:43:42.120 because it's Trump's war.

00:43:43.220 Agreed, but I also don't think they would be enthusiastically for it,

00:43:45.200 the voters.

00:43:45.520 I think voters across the board.

00:43:46.660 I've not met enthusiastically pro-war people in this country

00:43:49.760 outside of media green rooms.

00:43:52.540 I have. I mean, we've met people who just go, you know, you support your country at a time of war.

00:43:58.940 I support the president. There are lots of people like that.

00:44:00.780 There's polling that shows that a significant minority of Republicans would bomb Agrabah if given the chance from Aladdin.

00:44:06.260 Yeah.

00:44:07.580 There's a poll that shows that.

00:44:08.380 Well, as long as they're trying to develop nuclear weapons, we're all infected.

00:44:11.380 Well, and we agree that Iran wasn't developing nuclear weapons.

00:44:13.300 I'm kidding. But I think France's point about the center versus not the center,

00:44:17.400 I guess if you take something that we have explored quite a lot on our show,

00:44:20.860 which is the cultural dimension of all these conversations.

00:44:24.660 You could see at the last election,

00:44:26.740 some of the, you know, this was talked about endlessly

00:44:29.660 about the trans ad that Trump ran, et cetera.

00:44:33.120 I guess the question is,

00:44:34.940 is the Democrat Party going to move away from that

00:44:39.020 or more lean into that?

00:44:40.880 I mean, Mamdani, I think,

00:44:42.120 actually really didn't go into that at all

00:44:44.740 and tried to stay on the economic issue as much as possible.

00:44:47.420 I'm not sure that's quite true, but yes,

00:44:48.800 he definitely led with economic issues,

00:44:50.620 but he was super anti-ice,

00:44:53.120 which used to be an unpopular position

00:44:54.420 in the Democratic Party.

00:44:55.180 Now everyone finally gets behind abolish ice.

00:44:57.380 Well, some do.

00:44:57.920 The leadership don't.

00:44:58.840 The public is now getting behind abolish ice.

00:45:00.780 By the way, both of you say you're centrist,

00:45:02.260 but I noticed, I couldn't help but notice,

00:45:03.560 both of you say Democrat Party,

00:45:04.860 which is a Republican phrase.

00:45:05.960 Is it?

00:45:06.760 Democratic Party is what it's called by the Democrats.

00:45:08.420 Oh, is it?

00:45:09.040 Democrat Party is like a smear used by Republicans.

00:45:10.880 This is just an ignorance.

00:45:11.780 Just FYI for you while you're here.

00:45:12.820 It's just an ignorance.

00:45:13.420 Just good to know.

00:45:14.360 I just wanted to let you know

00:45:15.100 that is something in right-wing circles

00:45:16.620 that is used to bring...

00:45:17.280 That's interesting.

00:45:17.660 to bring...

00:45:18.240 It's an ignorance thing

00:45:19.920 on our party.

00:45:20.320 Fair enough.

00:45:20.680 I was just flagged

00:45:21.160 because I'm hyper...

00:45:21.940 We're foreign media.

00:45:22.540 I'm hyper attuned to this stuff.

00:45:24.620 I was like,

00:45:24.740 why are they saying

00:45:25.120 the Democratic Party?

00:45:25.200 All right,

00:45:25.400 the Democratic Party.

00:45:27.280 Look,

00:45:27.740 I do think Mamdani ran

00:45:28.780 definitely on it.

00:45:29.920 Populist platform,

00:45:30.640 economic issues first

00:45:31.480 and that is the way forward

00:45:32.520 but he didn't shirk away.

00:45:33.780 He went...

00:45:34.040 You know Tom Homan

00:45:34.680 was the guy who runs

00:45:35.360 the border stuff?

00:45:36.640 Mamdani was caught on camera

00:45:37.500 screaming at him

00:45:38.640 at a protest in Albany

00:45:40.000 during the campaign.

00:45:41.000 People said,

00:45:41.380 this is going to destroy Mamdani.

00:45:42.300 He looks like a crazy,

00:45:43.240 mad leftist Muslim.

00:45:44.060 him. Didn't hurt him, actually. It put him ahead of the curve on where public opinion has gone on

00:45:47.920 ice, which is very anti-ice. So I do think you can walk and chew gum at the same time. I think

00:45:52.240 the problem with the Democratic Party is they don't know what they believe. And when you look

00:45:54.820 at the polling, to go back to your point, Francis, not Constantine, to go back to your point,

00:46:00.720 the polling shows that people think the Republicans are extreme now, but the criticism of the

00:46:05.920 Democratic Party is no longer that they're extreme left. That's not the criticism. When you ask

00:46:09.440 Americans, what is the number one objection you have to Democratic Party? They're weak. They look

00:46:13.380 weak. That is what American people tell pollsters. And they're right. They are weak. Anytime Trump

00:46:18.120 does something, they either roll over or they write a sternly worded letter. They don't know

00:46:21.680 how to fight. Mamdani showed that you can fight. Some people, the people who are standing out in

00:46:25.580 the Democratic race, you asked about presidential candidates. There's a guy called Ruben Gallego,

00:46:28.600 senator from Arizona, very centrist, border hawk, Latino, ex-military veteran. He's going to run for

00:46:33.640 president too. He has a great line right now. He says, Donald Trump ran on exposing pedophiles

00:46:38.540 and stopping wars. He's protecting pedophiles and starting wars. That's your bumper sticker,

00:46:43.020 a Democrat. Just run with that. He has been very anti-ice too, even though he's in a border state.

00:46:47.200 So I do think, why do I like Gallego right now? Not because he and I are on the same

00:46:50.860 political spectrum, because he's fighting, because he's standing up, because he's taking

00:46:54.000 strong stances. He doesn't look weak. That is the problem for the Democratic Party. They've

00:46:57.640 looked weak for so long. And I also think as well, it's like, let's be honest, we live in

00:47:01.580 the age of populism. I think in order to be elected, you have to be a populist. You have

00:47:06.120 to have a populist message. I agree. And I don't see that from the Democratic Party. You see,

00:47:10.160 I got it right, Mehdi.

00:47:11.320 But not just the whole party,

00:47:12.660 the leadership of the party, surely.

00:47:14.600 Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeff,

00:47:15.420 these people are useless.

00:47:16.540 They should be gone.

00:47:17.320 I don't know why the hell they're there.

00:47:18.620 But as I said, there are others.

00:47:19.740 There are Ruben Gallegos.

00:47:20.840 There are AOCs.

00:47:21.740 There are Mamdani's.

00:47:22.620 There are Ro Khanna's.

00:47:23.720 There are people who are taking a more popular stance.

00:47:25.880 Whether they win the nomination is, who knows?

00:47:27.780 The Democratic Party, you know,

00:47:29.300 the Israelis used to always say about the Palestinians

00:47:31.900 in a very derogatory way.

00:47:33.440 They never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

00:47:35.200 That was their lie.

00:47:36.100 It's just false.

00:47:36.880 But I would say that about the Democrats.

00:47:38.000 They never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

00:47:40.580 There is a moment now for this party,

00:47:42.180 but they just won't take it

00:47:43.060 because they've got losers as leaders.

00:47:44.980 And they always go towards this, quote, fake center ground.

00:47:47.480 Look at the people they put up.

00:47:48.760 Joe Biden in 2020 was the candidate.

00:47:50.700 He only won because of COVID.

00:47:51.780 Let's just be very honest about that.

00:47:53.140 Had there not been a pandemic,

00:47:54.040 Trump would have been reelected.

00:47:55.260 In 2016, Hillary Clinton defeated by Donald Trump.

00:47:58.500 You know, this is a problem.

00:47:59.580 They put up these people who are not the right people.

00:48:01.840 And then they say,

00:48:02.660 oh, we've got to try the centrist playbook again.

00:48:04.020 We've got to be pragmatic when it hasn't worked.

00:48:06.080 and what does work is populism.

00:48:08.580 It's populism and it's also economics

00:48:10.420 because when you see the average person

00:48:13.860 they go to the supermarket

00:48:15.400 and they're thinking

00:48:16.500 everything seems to be going up

00:48:18.680 apart from my wages

00:48:19.880 and there's an anger and a frustration to that

00:48:22.080 they also see billions being spent

00:48:23.880 in overseas wars

00:48:24.920 and the question that a lot of people would ask

00:48:27.620 fairly enough in my opinion is

00:48:29.600 why is the money being spent over there

00:48:31.440 it should be spent here or whatever else.

00:48:33.280 That's what Trump ran on

00:48:34.020 that was MAGA right

00:48:34.700 America first

00:48:35.840 And I think you'll see a lot of Democrats

00:48:36.900 now borrowing that language.

00:48:37.940 The smart ones are saying exactly

00:48:39.400 what you just said, Francis.

00:48:40.740 Why are we spending that?

00:48:41.680 I think they just asked for $200 billion.

00:48:43.460 Trump has just asked for the war.

00:48:44.760 That's insane.

00:48:45.660 $200 billion.

00:48:46.420 You could just give a free community college

00:48:48.440 to every American with that money.

00:48:49.740 Just insane numbers.

00:48:50.920 And I think that's only going to get worse

00:48:51.980 over the coming years.

00:48:53.080 And look, my thing is,

00:48:54.440 Republicans are evil geniuses, right?

00:48:56.560 They know what they're doing.

00:48:57.580 I wrote a book about debating and persuasion.

00:48:59.900 One of the first chapters in the book is,

00:49:01.220 you don't win people over by giving them facts,

00:49:03.260 statistics, policy papers, polls.

00:49:05.180 That's not how you convince people. You go to people's hearts, right? You get their emotional

00:49:08.360 heartstrings and you pull them. The Republicans are masters of that. They appeal to our dark

00:49:11.660 demons. They're like, you need to hate that person. You need to be mad at that person.

00:49:15.620 The migrant, the Mexican, the trans kid, right? It works. It's evil genius. It works.

00:49:20.380 The problem for the Democrats or the Labour Party in the UK is they don't have a positive

00:49:24.220 version of that. They don't have a way of actually inspiring people with the same emotional messaging,

00:49:28.660 nor do they have a way of channeling people's anger in the right direction. People are angry,

00:49:31.960 but don't channel that anger towards the undocumented migrant who's not the reason

00:49:35.640 your wages haven't gone up who's not the reason that you know you've been lost your job even

00:49:39.300 though that's what you're told channel it at the people who actually are screwing you over the

00:49:42.880 people who are getting massive tax cuts from Donald Trump the people who are not paying their

00:49:45.920 taxes avoiding taxes stashing their money offshore the people who are running big tech companies and

00:49:50.400 screwing over your kids with ridiculous algorithms and nonsense channel the anger that way and I

00:49:55.240 think you win look it's a good point but also as well we have to admit that there have been

00:49:59.940 fundamental failings on the left. For instance, the border, having an open border. There's no

00:50:03.860 open border, Francis. Where's the open border? Well, Trump has closed it, but before there was

00:50:08.500 an open border. It wasn't. What's your definition of an open border? Well, you lose. Millions of

00:50:12.300 illegals coming in. That doesn't mean it's open. That just means they managed to come in

00:50:15.380 illegally. That just means the border wasn't as secure as you wanted it to be. Open border means

00:50:20.340 I could just walk into America. Nobody could do that. Well, hold on. If millions of people are

00:50:23.900 able to walk into my house and I say, I've got an open door policy to my house, he goes, that's not

00:50:28.740 an open door policy. It just means people got in. I mean, come on. No, I'm being very serious. If

00:50:33.380 you want to use your house analogy, if you opened your house door and said, everyone come in. No,

00:50:37.940 I'm not going to stop you. Then fine. That is an open door policy. If people come into your house

00:50:42.240 in the window in the middle of the night while you're calling the police. That you left open.

00:50:46.340 Well, did they leave open? Well, clearly, because the moment Donald Trump was elected,

00:50:49.480 he closed the window. Well, he closed it completely, which is ridiculous because now

00:50:52.440 you can't even claim asylum, which is a legal right. Joe Biden actually deported more people

00:50:56.700 than Trump did in his first term.

00:50:58.040 He actually detained the deportation.

00:50:59.160 We're not talking about deportations.

00:51:00.520 Hold on, let's just focus on the open medic.

00:51:03.240 We're having a great discussion and we're really...

00:51:05.280 Sorry, you triggered me with open border.

00:51:07.500 Clearly.

00:51:08.340 But actually, I think we should talk about the issue

00:51:10.600 and we don't get triggered about it.

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00:52:39.660 this episode. Under the Democrats, unlike under both Labor and conservatives in our country,

00:52:46.100 numbers went up. It's not just that numbers went up. I always give the stat. I came to Britain in

00:52:50.920 1996. When I came to Britain, 55,000 people a year net were coming in legally. More people now come

00:52:59.060 into Britain illegally every year. Now, to me, you can argue about language, but when you have

00:53:05.000 that and in this country, in the United States, literally millions of people coming in illegally

00:53:10.800 and you can see that when there's a change

00:53:13.280 of administration, that's stopped.

00:53:15.540 You can disagree with ICE at the extremes

00:53:18.420 and I think probably all of us do.

00:53:20.540 But to describe that as an open border policy,

00:53:24.820 I think it's quite reasonable, don't you?

00:53:26.140 No, because open borders suggest

00:53:27.420 anyone can walk into America.

00:53:28.460 And they did.

00:53:29.220 Millions of people did.

00:53:30.160 And millions of people didn't.

00:53:31.100 Millions of people got detained.

00:53:32.140 Millions of people got mistreated in camps.

00:53:33.760 I mean, Joe Biden was not some dove on the border.

00:53:36.340 Biden and Harris put together

00:53:37.400 the most draconian border security legislation,

00:53:40.040 which, by the way, Trump told Republicans not to vote for

00:53:41.780 because he wanted more people to come in

00:53:42.960 so he could win the election.

00:53:44.200 But they put together, I'm on the left.

00:53:45.680 I was criticizing Biden and Harris

00:53:46.980 for being hawks on certain things.

00:53:49.120 For example, child separation.

00:53:50.680 For example, putting children, you know, all of this stuff.

00:53:52.760 They borrowed a lot of Trump policies.

00:53:54.140 For the first year of their administration,

00:53:55.380 they kept the same rule that Trump used under the pandemic

00:53:58.780 to just kick people out, which was a nonsense rule.

00:54:01.700 Did a lot of people come in?

00:54:02.500 Of course they did.

00:54:02.920 Record numbers came in.

00:54:04.200 But again, why?

00:54:05.160 Was it just because of an open border

00:54:06.280 or was it because of push factors, not just pull factors?

00:54:08.860 What was going on in Central America in 2021 and 2022?

00:54:11.720 The actual crises that drove people out,

00:54:13.700 not just economic migrants, but yes, refugees as well.

00:54:16.220 This is what you're triggering me with all respect,

00:54:17.640 because I walk around the United States.

00:54:19.800 It's called trigonometry.

00:54:21.800 That's why we're having this discussion.

00:54:23.280 I mean, as I walk around the cities of the United States,

00:54:25.860 and we travel here regularly,

00:54:28.000 I'm shocked by the number of homeless people, right?

00:54:30.920 And you could say, well, look, the push factors,

00:54:32.880 you know, the people who don't have somewhere to live,

00:54:35.160 so that's why they're coming into your house.

00:54:37.440 No, they're coming into your house

00:54:38.880 because you've left the door open.

00:54:40.320 And that's what was happening

00:54:41.380 under the Democratic Party.

00:54:43.280 So that's not quite true.

00:54:44.360 So let's look at the numbers.

00:54:45.180 When Biden left office, right, in 2024,

00:54:48.180 there were fewer people coming in

00:54:49.240 than in Donald Trump's last year

00:54:50.180 of office in the first term.

00:54:51.300 That's just a fact.

00:54:51.980 Go look at the numbers.

00:54:52.820 The trends were down.

00:54:53.540 You've got to look at trends.

00:54:54.260 Clearly, there was a peak.

00:54:55.180 I'm not disputing that.

00:54:56.060 Okay.

00:54:56.280 In 21, 22, huge peak.

00:54:57.740 I was at MSNBC.

00:54:58.360 We covered it all the time.

00:54:58.840 Just stick with that point.

00:54:59.460 But the point is,

00:55:00.080 if it was an open border,

00:55:00.980 why didn't they stay up, up, up?

00:55:03.380 Why did it come down?

00:55:03.900 Because they realized it's a problem and they were trying to deal with it.

00:55:05.740 So then we agree there wasn't an open border.

00:55:07.160 No, there was an open border.

00:55:08.600 Okay, for one year, they were really bad at border security.

00:55:11.980 Yes, let's concede that.

00:55:13.240 Okay, so remember how we started this conversation.

00:55:16.460 Francis, actually, I think you guys were agreeing a lot,

00:55:19.020 but he said the left had failings, right?

00:55:21.960 And one of those failings was the failure to enforce the border.

00:55:24.860 And you've just conceded that it, I mean, in your telling, it's one year.

00:55:28.200 I would argue it's a longer thing.

00:55:29.760 Okay, fine.

00:55:29.880 And it's interesting to me because I wrote about this in my book, actually, that the

00:55:34.480 democratic politicians and left-wing politicians in our country talked about the importance of

00:55:40.320 border security and managing immigration well and carefully for decades. And then there was

00:55:46.200 this moment which meant, you know, let me present the argument and you tell me what you think about

00:55:50.260 it. My sense is there was a cultural view that immigration good, illegal immigration isn't

00:55:57.240 illegal immigration. It's all asylum seeking. There is nobody who's trying to get in illegally.

00:56:01.840 Everyone is trying to just find their way to a better life. And there was a cultural shift,

00:56:05.720 which a lot of people call woke, where that was perceived as the morally right thing to do.

00:56:10.720 And that's why across Europe and the United States, people in power, not just left wing,

00:56:16.120 by the way, but across the political spectrum, did leave the, I mean, you argue with the quibble

00:56:21.980 with the word open, failed to have the border policies that the people of their countries

00:56:27.840 repeatedly voted for. And that is one of the reasons Francis, I think, is arguing the left

00:56:33.320 got the kicking that it did. Well, can I untangle those two things? One is the electoral thing,

00:56:39.800 which is a much more complicated issue. I don't know if we have time to talk about why did they

00:56:42.760 get the kick in different places. There's incumbency, there's inflation. We've talked

00:56:46.020 about many things. Populism agreed. Clearly, immigration played a role. I'm on the left.

00:56:50.740 So when you say the left failed, you might not like this to know true Scotsman fallacy.

00:56:55.440 The left hasn't been in power, right?

00:56:57.400 And Tony Blair was not the left.

00:56:58.560 Gordon Brown was not the left.

00:56:59.860 David Cameron and George Osborne were not the left.

00:57:01.360 You can't play this game.

00:57:02.320 I can, because I criticize them from the left.

00:57:04.020 If you tell me that there was an open border, I would say Tony Blair spent his whole life

00:57:07.820 being hawkish on border.

00:57:09.140 He gave asylum seekers vouchers.

00:57:11.680 I spent most of the 2000s attacking Blair for being cruel to asylum seekers.

00:57:15.460 Gordon Brown talked about British jobs for British workers.

00:57:17.740 People say you sound like Nick Griffin, if you remember 2010.

00:57:19.840 And then, for example, here in the US,

00:57:21.900 Biden and Harris were way to the right of me on the border.

00:57:23.940 Kamala Harris said, do not come.

00:57:25.340 She went to Central America and said, do not come.

00:57:27.100 Doesn't sound like someone with their door open to me.

00:57:28.580 But they did leave the door open.

00:57:29.300 But that's a separate argument.

00:57:30.240 In practice, they left the door open.

00:57:32.180 Okay, so in practice, people got in.

00:57:33.620 I've never disputed that.

00:57:34.660 Your argument was you left, you opened the door,

00:57:36.220 said come in.

00:57:36.800 There's no evidence of that.

00:57:37.280 My argument is the fact that people at one point

00:57:40.800 were not able to come in, and then they were,

00:57:43.640 is evidence of a shift in policy.

00:57:45.460 Is that a fair claim?

00:57:47.040 I don't know about its policy,

00:57:48.080 because the Biden administration did copy a lot of Trump policies.

00:57:50.780 For example, they got rid of Remain in Mexico,

00:57:52.220 whereby Trump took people and said,

00:57:53.220 you've got to go to Mexico and make a claim.

00:57:54.540 You can't do it here.

00:57:55.500 He got rid of that.

00:57:56.140 People said, oh, because of that, the numbers went up.

00:57:58.160 I don't agree with that.

00:57:58.920 I think the numbers were coming.

00:57:59.400 But why did the numbers go up?

00:58:00.460 I told you because there were push and pull factors.

00:58:02.580 A, the economy was opening up.

00:58:03.940 Let me finish sentence.

00:58:05.220 The economy was opening up after COVID.

00:58:07.060 The US economy, despite Trump's claims,

00:58:08.760 was amazing on Biden's watch in terms of growth and jobs.

00:58:11.140 Record jobs growth.

00:58:12.360 So when you have record jobs growth, people come for work.

00:58:14.400 You need people from abroad.

00:58:15.900 Legal immigration.

00:58:16.660 and number two

00:58:18.120 there was a lot going on

00:58:19.100 in the Northern Triangle

00:58:20.500 in all these Central American countries

00:58:22.060 a lot of crises

00:58:22.660 some crises that we've caused

00:58:24.000 were people coming in

00:58:25.340 so there were many many factors

00:58:26.800 was it also liberal bias?

00:58:29.140 maybe

00:58:29.400 but this idea that

00:58:30.740 you know the left

00:58:31.340 you said the woke

00:58:32.300 you know want to have

00:58:33.680 virtue signals to be

00:58:35.400 you know everyone's an asylum seeker

00:58:36.520 I didn't say virtue signal

00:58:37.460 okay

00:58:37.640 but the implication being

00:58:38.780 they want to look good

00:58:39.820 by saying everyone's an asylum seeker

00:58:41.080 no one's illegal

00:58:41.680 no no that wasn't my implication

00:58:42.880 feel free to answer

00:58:44.380 once I just address this

00:58:45.500 it's not an implication

00:58:46.540 thing. I think it's a change of worldview that happened. People changed how they thought about

00:58:50.320 this issue. On the ground, maybe. I wish it changed in government. This is what's amusing

00:58:53.760 me listening to you guys. I wish these people existed in power. They don't. Joe Biden wasn't

00:58:58.500 that person. Hillary Clinton wasn't that person. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown weren't those people.

00:59:03.240 Keir Starmer is not that person. Keir Starmer and Shibana Mahmood are to the right of

00:59:08.220 David Cameron in many ways on this issue. They talk like they are. Well, talking's bad because

00:59:11.960 It has effects on the public and on our discourse.

00:59:14.840 So I wish these people existed that you're telling me exist.

00:59:17.920 Yes, there are people on the left who I know and I'm part of

00:59:20.180 who did take a much more open-border stance,

00:59:22.800 who did say, actually, a lot of these people are asylum seekers

00:59:24.860 and you shouldn't demonise them all.

00:59:26.520 I'm not sure I saw that in policy or in government.

00:59:28.380 I wish. Maybe I missed it.

00:59:29.420 But I didn't see Joe Biden make the case emotionally

00:59:31.760 for refugees and asylum seekers during his administration.

00:59:34.660 I'm just a little confused here, Mehdi, because you...

00:59:38.060 Look, your point about push factors, I think it's true.

00:59:40.320 more people want to leave countries when there's economic problems, etc. But you can't deny that

00:59:47.920 policy shifts change the number of people who will come through a door depending on whether

00:59:52.880 that door is ajar or open or closed. But if the alternative policy, as France has said,

00:59:57.060 was will Trump shut the border? Do I agree with that? No, that's ridiculous. Do I believe in

01:00:00.380 building a wall? No, we have to allow migration into this country because we need it for the

01:00:04.840 economy. And we have to allow asylum seekers in this country because it's the legal thing to do.

01:00:08.980 It's our obligations under multiple international conventions and U.S. law.

01:00:12.800 He's blocked all of that.

01:00:13.720 Would you agree that people should have a right to asylum in the U.S.?

01:00:15.700 I think my view on asylum is very simple.

01:00:17.980 And this is true for Ukrainian people in my family,

01:00:20.840 which is that you should apply for asylum in the area that you're in.

01:00:24.900 And then if you're approved, you get to travel to the country.

01:00:27.400 We shouldn't have people crossing.

01:00:29.580 So you would change all international law and U.S. law?

01:00:31.540 Absolutely.

01:00:32.060 But right now, we haven't changed that.

01:00:33.880 Under our current legal obligations, people should have a right to claim asylum.

01:00:37.060 Hold on. The solution to asylum is actually very simple, which is you set up asylum processing

01:00:40.800 centers near the countries where there's war and conflict and so on. And then you filter out the

01:00:45.780 people you want to come in. So I don't necessarily fully disagree with you. What's interesting is a

01:00:51.060 lot of these solutions require people with good faith, good intentions, competence, funds. Half

01:00:55.520 the problems of the immigration system in this country, if you talk to immigration lawyers as I

01:00:58.500 do, they're not all open borders advocates. They're saying, why do we not have enough judges

01:01:02.500 to process the claims? Why is there a backlog? Why do people disappear into America when they arrive?

01:01:07.060 Because there's no court hearing.

01:01:08.260 There's no court date.

01:01:09.320 Why is there no fully funded system

01:01:11.180 of lawyers and judges?

01:01:12.860 It would cost a trivial percentage

01:01:15.220 of what we spend on ICE.

01:01:16.800 So it's linked because if you deal with that,

01:01:18.960 then you deal,

01:01:19.340 because you said policy and election.

01:01:20.580 So I'm coming to that.

01:01:21.640 One of the reasons why immigration

01:01:22.980 has worked for the right

01:01:23.760 is because it looks like chaos.

01:01:25.100 And it is chaos.

01:01:25.800 It is chaos.

01:01:26.060 But it's manufactured chaos.

01:01:27.060 So when Biden and Harris put a bill together,

01:01:29.020 not one I agreed with,

01:01:29.820 but a draconian bill

01:01:30.800 to really shut down asylum claims

01:01:32.720 and immigration at the border,

01:01:33.700 Republicans voted against it

01:01:34.620 for political reasons

01:01:35.480 because there's an election coming up.

01:01:36.660 So they don't actually care about solving the issue at the border.

01:01:38.900 But this is a bigger conversation.

01:01:39.620 It goes back 20 years.

01:01:40.760 Marco Rubio, who's Secretary of State right now,

01:01:42.460 who's now a hardcore hawk because he works for Trump,

01:01:44.340 he was a guy in favor of amnesty, right?

01:01:46.060 Marco Rubio, whose grandfather was deported,

01:01:47.880 he was in favor of an amnesty for a migrant's country.

01:01:50.240 Today, MAGA would destroy him if he dared say that.

01:01:52.420 But that was part of the solution.

01:01:53.420 What do we do about 15 million people in this country?

01:01:55.500 You can't just deport them all.

01:01:57.080 This is a totally separate point.

01:01:59.280 I think the way, sorry, I'm talking for Francis a little bit.

01:02:02.360 That's why I called you Francis.

01:02:03.700 That's right.

01:02:04.200 I want to get to the bottom of this.

01:02:05.800 across Europe and the entire Western world, there was a gigantic shift within our lifetimes

01:02:12.260 from what I would consider sensible immigration policy, which is you welcome in the people that

01:02:17.500 you've looked at, you've looked at your background, you think they're going to be

01:02:20.820 positive addition to your country. You do it in numbers that are manageable. You give people an

01:02:25.520 opportunity to integrate. You do it in a way that is not disruptive to the existing population of

01:02:31.920 the country, that people don't feel unsettled, the infrastructure is not under pressure. That's

01:02:36.680 what we had for the entirety of my lifetime. And everybody agreed. Yeah, I'm not sure I agree.

01:02:42.040 Well, that was my experience. And then suddenly at some point, whatever happened, that changed

01:02:48.420 and you got to a position where lots and lots of people effectively advocated for or tacitly

01:02:54.560 supported a policy whereby we didn't enforce the border in the way that we used to. And we

01:02:59.940 allowed mass flows of immigration from all over the world. So you're mixing together different

01:03:04.700 things. Here's where you're 100% wrong. Okay. You can't enforce a border if you're in the EU.

01:03:09.040 Let us not forget that what you're talking about, the period, forgive me, when did you move to the

01:03:12.300 UK? 1996. Okay. So early 2000s, you will remember Tony Blair's prime minister, huge debate about

01:03:18.300 Eastern Europeans. Well, he failed to introduce transitional controls, which is why we got a

01:03:22.060 million people instead of 13,000. But it was still part of an EU debate. You accept we were in the

01:03:26.060 EU. There was free movement, right? So it was free movement within the EU. You can have a debate

01:03:29.580 about what the deals he should have done

01:03:31.020 with the French and others.

01:03:32.220 But the EU was the issue.

01:03:33.780 It wasn't people from Iraq, Syria at the time.

01:03:36.520 I mean, they were there,

01:03:37.120 but they weren't the big issue.

01:03:38.700 And then we voted for Brexit.

01:03:40.080 Apparently, the British public did this mad thing

01:03:41.740 where they voted for Brexit.

01:03:42.840 And what happened?

01:03:43.360 Numbers went up from other parts of the world.

01:03:45.060 As you know, you know better than me

01:03:46.020 you're living there.

01:03:46.820 So this is a problem

01:03:48.080 with these kind of populists on the right

01:03:49.380 who kind of sell you a bill of goods

01:03:50.740 is Brexit vote didn't solve the problem of immigration.

01:03:53.720 No, it didn't.

01:03:54.020 Because you can't be King Canute

01:03:55.780 and just say we're not going to,

01:03:57.160 we're going to ignore the state of the world.

01:03:59.100 You mentioned like massive flows.

01:04:01.060 First of all, massive compared to who?

01:04:02.440 Compared to the developing world,

01:04:03.760 they take the bulk of the refugees in this world.

01:04:05.320 No, compared to the entire history of countries.

01:04:07.400 And I'm saying you have to take a global perspective

01:04:09.700 and say these numbers are minuscule

01:04:11.080 compared to what a Turkey or an Iran

01:04:13.120 or an Afghanistan or a Pakistan has had to deal with.

01:04:15.360 The vast majority of refugees live in the developing world.

01:04:18.400 A few of them managed to get into Europe

01:04:20.160 and then we lose our minds.

01:04:21.580 And by the way, a lot of these people who are coming in,

01:04:23.680 where were they coming in from?

01:04:24.640 Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Libya.

01:04:27.640 Hmm. Do we have anything to do with those countries? I think we do. So I do think those

01:04:31.260 of us who said, you know what, we do have a moral responsibility. We helped fuck up a lot of these

01:04:34.660 countries. Let's just be very honest about that, either directly or indirectly. It's funny that

01:04:38.540 you have Richard Tice and Farage now backing this war in Iran and saying, we stand with the Persian

01:04:43.480 people. Apparently, and you can fact check this. I read this a second. I don't live in the UK,

01:04:47.680 so I read this online. The second or third highest number of people on the small boats coming across

01:04:51.740 are Iranians. So the irony of them saying that we support Iran while also being the people who

01:04:56.360 turn away people fleeing the regime in Iran is not lost on me. But the problem is, Mehdi,

01:05:02.820 is a public perception of the Democratic Party. And they saw what happened under Biden,

01:05:11.640 and they're thinking to themselves, I don't want to go back to that. I don't want that to happen

01:05:16.840 again. And that's going to be their real challenge. Because look, as someone who's half Venezuelan,

01:05:21.660 I saw a walk around the streets of New York, and then you see what's happening with some

01:05:27.180 Venezuelan, a minority of Venezuelan people, Tren de Aragua, et cetera. People will quite

01:05:32.060 rightly ask, why are these people here? Why didn't we get rid of them under Biden?

01:05:37.000 So it's interesting you should say that. The funny thing about the American public,

01:05:39.980 we talked about this earlier, eight-second memories. When Biden was in office, they were

01:05:43.960 super anti-immigration. I agree. Look at the polling. It was definitely a problem.

01:05:46.960 Right now, look at the polling right now, a year into Trump. They're more pro-immigration

01:05:50.180 than American public's been for decades. Support for immigration is now, I think, near record highs.

01:05:55.760 Why? Because Trump went the other extreme. And now they're not thinking about the Biden era.

01:05:59.600 They're looking at ICE agents shooting people in the street. They're hearing horrific stories of

01:06:03.500 their friend's grandmother being pulled from her garden while gardening by masked agents of the

01:06:08.800 state. So actually, the Democrats are in a very, very strong position on this issue now because

01:06:12.440 Trump has been so typically fascistically extreme that actually the immigration issue is now. I

01:06:17.140 know you mentioned earlier like talk about the border not interior it's actually all about the

01:06:20.100 interior now it's all about ice it's all about you know Stephen Miller and his white supremacist

01:06:24.200 rhetoric and this you know this plan to make America white again to you know the White House

01:06:28.280 put out a post one of these memes the Department of Homeland Security saying 100 million deportations

01:06:32.620 think about that's insane 100 million people it would mean U.S. citizens are getting deported

01:06:36.620 people like me are getting deported people who are born here are getting deported that's just insane

01:06:41.220 so that's turned the American public actually against what the administration is doing it

01:06:44.920 made them much more positive about immigration. And as the economy tanks further, I think you'll

01:06:49.000 see a lot of businesses also remembering the virtues and values of immigration. So look,

01:06:53.360 there is a problem. I don't deny that. But when we talk about the public, we also have to accept

01:06:57.280 that the media plays a big role in this, right? A lot of what the people think about immigration.

01:07:01.200 My favorite poll when I lived in the UK, there was polling done in the UK, I think by Gallup,

01:07:05.380 that if you ask people in the UK, do you think immigration is a national problem? Yes, it is.

01:07:09.920 Do you think immigration is a problem in your community? No. Why is that? Because in their

01:07:14.240 community and their lived experiences, they're not seeing gang members on their streets. They don't

01:07:18.060 have immigrants causing them problems, but they hear from the Daily Express and the Daily Mail

01:07:22.420 and Tory politicians and now reform politicians that it's a huge problem nationally. Same thing

01:07:26.940 in the US. You ask Americans what proportion of the country is migrant or Muslim. They give you

01:07:31.640 massive percentages because they think that immigrants have taken over the country. You're

01:07:35.480 in the US. Ask Republicans. I'm sure you're interviewing prominent Republicans. Ask them

01:07:38.800 about Muslims in the UK. They think Muslims run the UK. They think London has fallen to an Islamic

01:07:42.860 caliphate, right? This is the kind of insane rhetoric that Elon Musk pumps with his algorithms.

01:07:47.180 So I do think a lot, when you talk about public opinion, I think public opinion is something you

01:07:50.280 should change. You know, I don't think politicians should just blindly follow public opinion. They

01:07:54.220 should lead. One of the things Donald Trump was able to do is get his entire base to switch their

01:07:58.300 views on Russia, switch their view on tariffs and free trade. That's what Democrats should aspire to

01:08:02.380 do. Try and change people's hearts and minds. We're at a strange moment where people are pouring

01:08:07.200 their most private thoughts into AI, health issues, business ideas, political opinions,

01:08:11.920 things you wouldn't even tell some of your friends.

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01:08:16.660 analyzed, or eventually used against you

01:08:18.380 because tech companies have always handled power responsibly, obviously.

01:08:22.460 There is another problem too.

01:08:23.880 You've probably noticed that some AI tools now decide what you're allowed to ask.

01:08:27.720 Programmers at these companies get to decide what isn't,

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01:09:37.940 I agree with you.

01:09:39.340 But the problem for me is going to be, are they going to put together a coherent package to

01:09:44.480 actually make that happen? And are they going to prioritize economics? Because to me, if you want

01:09:49.120 to win this election, you focus on economics, particularly- It's very hard for me to say what

01:09:54.240 you focus on three years out. We don't know what the biggest issue. I mean, in 2017, if you had

01:09:58.380 said to me, Trump's unpopular, Democrats just lost with Clinton, what should they focus on in 2020?

01:10:02.400 And if I'd said to you, they should focus on a virus from China, you would have said, don't be

01:10:06.480 Yeah. Well, I remember we had a guest on the show, actually very much to your point about how Joe Biden won because of COVID. We asked him who's on course to win before COVID happened. And he said, if nothing changes and it will, then blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I agree with you.

01:10:21.240 Maddy, before we go to Substack and ask you questions, we always ask the same question

01:10:24.700 until I guess at the end, but I want to ask you about one other thing before we do that.

01:10:30.360 In the time we've been here for a couple of weeks now, in the time that we've been here,

01:10:33.920 there have been four, I don't know if you necessarily describe them as, maybe I think

01:10:38.540 they were four terrorist attacks committed by what we understand to be an Islamist.

01:10:43.120 Do you see that as part of, you talked about blowback, do you see that as part of the blowback

01:10:49.040 or is there another reason this seems to be happening

01:10:51.320 with increasing regularity in the United States?

01:10:53.660 Yeah, it's a good question.

01:10:54.440 It's very worrying.

01:10:55.620 It's one of the things that keeps me up at night.

01:10:57.260 I think the more we see that,

01:10:58.840 the more we're going to see real fractured relations

01:11:00.820 in communities.

01:11:02.000 Islamophobia right now is already off the charts

01:11:03.580 in the Republican body.

01:11:04.360 They're looking for any excuse.

01:11:05.620 I don't know if you've seen the tweets from Andy Ogle

01:11:06.960 saying Muslims are not part of American society.

01:11:09.180 I didn't see that, no.

01:11:09.860 This is a Republican congressman who said

01:11:11.020 Muslims are not welcome in America.

01:11:12.160 And there's another one he keeps tweeting.

01:11:14.620 There's a guy called Randy Fine.

01:11:16.020 He said, if I had to choose between dogs and Muslims,

01:11:17.720 I'd choose dogs.

01:11:18.780 So there's some real, I mean,

01:11:20.520 if you talk to Muslims who lived here after 9-11,

01:11:22.240 I didn't, I moved here in 2015,

01:11:23.400 but if you talk to Muslims in my wife's family,

01:11:24.900 friends of mine,

01:11:25.700 they will say the Islamophobia now

01:11:26.700 is much worse than after 9-11.

01:11:28.120 After 9-11, George Bush went to a mosque

01:11:29.460 and said Islam's peace.

01:11:30.980 Donald Trump would never do that.

01:11:32.480 And so in a climate of Islamophobia,

01:11:34.420 of course, Muslims,

01:11:36.580 any self-identified Muslim

01:11:38.200 who carries out an act of terror

01:11:40.120 against a synagogue or against a university

01:11:42.300 or whatever it is,

01:11:43.060 is of course, it's going to be

01:11:45.220 a morally wrong and a criminal act,

01:11:46.960 but it's going to be a real disaster for community relations, for the political debate,

01:11:51.420 for some of these culture war issues we talked about. I don't know what is motivating all these

01:11:54.640 people. It's very hard to say. The guy who attacked the synagogue in Michigan recently,

01:11:59.680 there's reporting that his two brothers were killed, their kids were killed.

01:12:03.200 They were two Hezbollah people, right?

01:12:04.560 That's what some people say. Some people say not. We don't have a confirmation. Different

01:12:07.040 media outlets. Some say Hezbollah, some say no. We don't know. But clearly he may have been,

01:12:11.460 it sounds like he was pissed, right, about what happened in Lebanon. That doesn't justify what

01:12:16.040 did, but that sounds like that. There was another attack that same day or week in Virginia on a

01:12:20.420 college campus from a guy who'd been linked to ISIS, who had been released from prison.

01:12:24.460 Again, don't know, because people say he was mentally ill. Muslims, we always joke that we

01:12:29.000 don't get to be mentally ill, right? It's only the white mass shooter he gets to be mentally ill.

01:12:32.140 Muslims, we never have any mental illness in our community. We're just all Islamists. But look,

01:12:36.460 this is a country with a lot of violence, right? Gun violence is a thing of norm, mass shooters are.

01:12:41.260 So the night we went to war with Iran, there was an attack on an Austin bar. It was a mass shooting.

01:12:46.040 That also is believed.

01:12:47.340 Some people are reporting.

01:12:48.400 Well, he was wearing a T-shirt saying property of Islam.

01:12:50.980 And he had a flag, an Iranian flag, whatever.

01:12:52.960 So there's some links.

01:12:53.940 But when that story first came up,

01:12:55.680 most people just shrugged and said,

01:12:56.620 oh, another mass shooting in a bar.

01:12:58.120 It's just normal in this country.

01:12:59.540 And then you throw in the political or religious angle,

01:13:01.260 then it becomes a big news story.

01:13:02.280 Well, I think, to be fair,

01:13:04.100 and actually, I mean, your point about mentally ill,

01:13:05.960 I haven't heard a Muslim be described

01:13:08.440 as someone who had real mental illness problems.

01:13:10.560 No, there's a famous family guy meme.

01:13:12.240 Yeah, I'm familiar with it.

01:13:13.160 But on the other hand,

01:13:13.920 I also think that if you have a white guy and there's any connection to white supremacy,

01:13:19.780 that also gets amplified, right?

01:13:21.420 Sometimes.

01:13:21.900 So when a mass shooter...

01:13:23.720 If you look at the studies, actually, not really.

01:13:25.480 It's like eight to one ratio of how much we talk about the motivations and religion of

01:13:29.580 a Muslim shooter versus a white shooter.

01:13:31.380 There's been a lot of studies done.

01:13:32.420 Well, the point I was going to make is if someone is wearing a t-shirt saying property

01:13:36.000 of Islam, or if someone is a member of ISIS, or if someone expresses allegiance to...

01:13:43.540 I'm agreeing with you. It's bad for Muslims and Islam.

01:13:45.140 Well, let me just finish.

01:13:45.880 So if someone expresses those views,

01:13:48.460 it would be natural for us to talk about that.

01:13:52.260 Likewise, if someone expressed white supremacist beliefs

01:13:55.640 while committing a shooting,

01:13:57.460 like the guy in New Zealand or whatever.

01:13:59.480 Or the people who attacked the Capitol,

01:14:00.760 who Donald Trump pardoned on day one.

01:14:02.160 Many of them wore Camp Auschwitz t-shirts,

01:14:04.020 carried Confederate flags.

01:14:05.100 Right, and people focused on that.

01:14:07.240 And Trump pardoned them.

01:14:08.560 Well, hold on, but you're derailing my argument.

01:14:10.980 I'm not a Trump advocate, right?

01:14:13.320 I apologize.

01:14:14.420 So my point is, the reason I asked you about this

01:14:17.060 is this is obviously something

01:14:18.980 that we have had to deal with in Europe extensively.

01:14:22.020 Yes.

01:14:22.460 And it feels to me,

01:14:23.980 I don't think it's being talked about in this way

01:14:26.360 here in the US,

01:14:27.160 but it feels to me like it's coming to the US.

01:14:30.340 Do you agree?

01:14:31.380 I worry that you may be right.

01:14:33.360 Why is that?

01:14:35.000 I mean, I don't want to make it all about blowback

01:14:37.160 because it's not, but you can't,

01:14:38.540 I mean, correlation is not causation,

01:14:40.500 but I was a MSNBC anchor for three and a half years.

01:14:43.320 I can count on, I did two weekly shows.

01:14:46.340 Sometimes I used to do a nightly show.

01:14:47.660 I can count on one hand, fingers on one hand,

01:14:50.120 how many times I talked about ISIS or Al-Qaeda.

01:14:51.940 Not because I was ignoring the story.

01:14:53.580 It wasn't a big story.

01:14:54.800 It went away.

01:14:55.740 We would stop talking about it.

01:14:57.020 We were only talking about the far right

01:14:58.400 and white supremacists because the FBI said

01:14:59.760 that was the biggest threat to the homeland.

01:15:01.040 We'd just seen an insurrection.

01:15:02.520 We kept arresting nutjobs who wanted to,

01:15:05.060 you know, militia members who wanted to blow shit up,

01:15:07.120 who thought COVID was a way of this government

01:15:09.060 taking over America, all of this stuff, right?

01:15:11.000 So I think people got complacent,

01:15:12.220 certainly in my community, thinking,

01:15:13.320 nobody thinks Muslims are terrorists anymore. There aren't any Muslim terrorists anymore.

01:15:16.820 Now, as you say, there does seem to be an uptick. Is that to do with Donald Trump becoming president?

01:15:21.000 Is that to do with the war in Gaza, the genocide in Gaza? I know we haven't talked about it today,

01:15:24.280 but US intelligence warned Biden in year one of the genocide that this will be a generational

01:15:29.860 recruiting event for Islamist and jihadist groups around the world. This will be a threat to the

01:15:33.940 United States. Obviously, I don't need to be an intelligence member to say that. It's just

01:15:37.680 common sense. If people spend two years watching a Gaza genocide, some people, some more unhinged

01:15:42.200 people, some more extreme people will say, I want to take revenge. I want to blow shit up.

01:15:45.840 Well, why is that? I mean, I don't see the same being done by Russians or Ukrainians

01:15:50.880 who've also had to deal with various things who might blame Americans for something or whatever.

01:15:56.440 Why is that? I'm not sure that's a good analogy. For example, Ukraine. I mean, why would a

01:16:01.280 Ukrainian feel the need to go blow themselves up in Russia when they have an army that's fighting

01:16:04.820 Russia and killing Russians? In America, they might say, oh, America, you know, didn't give

01:16:08.360 us the help they need. Or the Russians say, we're at war with you. Why doesn't that happen?

01:16:12.100 I think the analogy between America not supporting Ukraine as much as Ukraine,

01:16:15.820 even though America has basically kept Ukraine alive,

01:16:18.200 is not the same as America arming and funding a genocide in Gaza

01:16:22.440 for two and a half years on our phones.

01:16:24.160 Take the Russian example.

01:16:25.540 The narrative in Russia, I know this because I have family

01:16:28.720 and I follow what's happening in Russia.

01:16:31.200 The narrative in Russia is we're at war with America.

01:16:33.600 Yeah, I don't see Russians blowing themselves up

01:16:35.800 or throwing nail bombs or shooting people in bars up and down America.

01:16:39.480 I think because they think that they can do the damage they're doing

01:16:41.940 in Ukraine. I mean, this is the difference. And you could say the same thing about Jewish people

01:16:44.960 and Israel. Well, they have an army that's bombing Gaza. Look, this is not, I'm not saying

01:16:48.660 some crazy theory. This is something that has been testified to by history. Take Sri Lanka,

01:16:52.540 for example. The people who invented suicide bombings were not Muslim. The Tamil Tigers

01:16:56.440 perfected it as a mass weapon, right? That was people who believed they were under occupation

01:17:00.220 by Sinhalese, right? So this is, and Robert Pape, who was an expert on suicide terrorism,

01:17:04.420 has talked about this. There's a clear link between foreign occupations and foreign wars

01:17:09.200 and suicide terrorism, in particular, suicide terrorism.

01:17:12.100 But look, is there a problem where certain Muslim groups

01:17:14.780 are exploiting political conflicts?

01:17:16.200 Yes, I've spent 20 years opposing jihadists and Islamists

01:17:18.840 and pointing out that there is no justification in Islam

01:17:21.300 for this kind of violence.

01:17:22.980 But, you know, explaining something is not the same as justifying it.

01:17:26.000 I don't justify what they do.

01:17:26.900 I think it's irreprehensible.

01:17:28.200 But I understand how they work and the mindsets and how they,

01:17:31.800 you know, and this guy in Michigan is an example of that.

01:17:33.560 I don't agree what he did.

01:17:34.560 He's probably mentally unbalanced.

01:17:36.060 But, you know, people say, well, what would you do

01:17:38.180 if you lost your family?

01:17:38.900 why wouldn't go attack a synagogue? But that's people act in an unhinged way after tragedies

01:17:43.660 happen in their lives. That's not to justify it. Is it going to get worse? I hope not. But you know,

01:17:48.860 again, violence begets violence. We've seen that in Palestine. We've seen that with Hamas,

01:17:54.200 right? Who knows what's going to come out of Gaza? But isn't that the exact logic that justifies

01:17:57.920 America bombing the shit out of Afghanistan after 9-11? It doesn't justify it, but it explains it.

01:18:03.460 Right. It does. I mean, so if you ask me, why did America bomb Afghanistan? I wouldn't come up

01:18:07.980 with some, I wouldn't say it's for the Bible or Christianity. I would say they did it because

01:18:11.840 they got attacked and they wanted to attack back and make a show of force and do whatever they

01:18:14.800 want to do. It doesn't mean I justify, I didn't agree with the war in Afghanistan, but I understand

01:18:17.960 it. What we refuse to do with our opponents and our enemies, especially the Muslim ones,

01:18:21.680 is try and understand the mindset. We don't try and understand why Iran's doing what it's doing,

01:18:24.880 why Hamas is doing what it's doing, why Hezbollah's doing. You don't have to agree with it,

01:18:27.580 but they're not all crazy people. They actually have their own strategy. But some people say,

01:18:31.420 oh, they were just messianic people. You did say, Constantine, sorry, I'm going to bring this up

01:18:34.860 because I watched you on Rogan, you did say on Rogan, oh, well, my Iranian guests tell me there's

01:18:39.780 a 12-ish Shia Islam and they're messianic and they want to bring about the end of the world.

01:18:43.340 That's not true. I'm a Shia Muslim. I'm telling you. Shia Muslim is not messianic. I mean,

01:18:46.940 it is messianic in that we expect a messiah to come just like Christians, a Mahdi. But there's

01:18:51.500 no evidence that Shias in Iran are trying to bring about the end of the world and that's why they

01:18:55.240 want nuclear weapons. So that kind of thinking is not helpful. I was quoting specific people.

01:18:59.560 Yeah, they're wrong. I'm telling you. They're wrong. I'm only quoting them. And I think I

01:19:03.380 made it clear that some people say that. I'm not, I mean, I think we had this conversation with

01:19:08.260 someone else the other day. I'm not convinced of this idea that they want nuclear weapons and the

01:19:13.880 first nuclear weapon they get, they're going to drop it on television. I'm not convinced about

01:19:17.200 that. I think there are some people. By the way, Israel has nukes. Can I just remind you, we haven't

01:19:22.060 said that in this whole conversation. Israel illegally has nukes. You keep throwing stuff

01:19:25.380 in that's not related. It is relevant. Come on, we spent an hour, half of the talk, talking about

01:19:29.540 Iran's nuclear program. I forgot to point out to the viewers, Israel has nukes.

01:19:33.180 Mehdi, when we had Yossi Cohen, who was the former head of Mossad, I literally made a joke

01:19:41.040 which exposed the fact that Israel has nukes. Of course, Israel, everyone knows Israel has nukes.

01:19:45.020 No one denies it here, right? But what we've done here is we've derailed the conversation we're

01:19:49.020 actually having. The point I was making is I suspect Iran wants nuclear weapons for the same

01:19:53.720 reason that any country would want them, as we talked about earlier. Anyway, appreciate you

01:19:57.500 coming on. Thank you for having me. Thanks for the conversation. Thanks for the time. Apologies

01:20:00.600 for confusing you both. You look so similar. You're more offended by that. I don't know who's

01:20:05.660 more offended by that. We're both offended by that. Final question is always the same,

01:20:09.100 Matty. What's the one thing we're not talking about that we really should be?

01:20:12.060 I think if we're going to talk about war and conflict and World War III and the future of

01:20:15.300 the world, I think we've got to talk more about AI. There's a study that came out of King's a

01:20:18.980 couple of months ago that said when AI was asked to resolve various conflicts in nine out of ten

01:20:23.740 cases it said use nukes i mean it's my effective it's a tower i mean i grew up watching terminator

01:20:29.760 2 so i worry about skynet all the time yeah yeah no i think ai is insane and i think in war

01:20:34.540 especially well and actually i before you get to the nuclear thing i mean they are already talking

01:20:39.260 about the next phase is autonomous drones uh and i think and the school in iran there's a lot of

01:20:46.340 reporting that suggests that was hit because of ai really the minas it was right next to a military

01:20:51.940 base wasn't it but it's the ai that didn't have whatever didn't do the sufficient checking is

01:20:55.760 i'm not sure but that's what's been reported historically speaking of civilian objects next

01:21:00.600 to military facilities always get hit in war tragically um there are a lot of american

01:21:05.520 schools on a lot of american military bases we we wouldn't allow no no no no of course well

01:21:09.760 obviously it's terrible that it but ai is doing and in israel and in gaza something we didn't talk

01:21:13.780 about ai was used to kill a lot of innocent palestinians with a 10 error rate the israelis

01:21:18.800 admit this. It's like one in 10 of the AI attacks they accepted was maybe not a minute, but he did

01:21:23.380 it. Mehdi, thank you very much. Head on over to triggerpod.co.uk where we ask Mehdi your questions.

01:21:30.940 How do you reconcile the progressive left simultaneous alliance with transgender

01:21:35.020 ideology and with Islam? How are these compatible?

01:21:48.800 Transcription by CastingWords

01:22:18.800 You

TRIGGERnometry - March 27, 2026

Mehdi Hasan Debate on the Iran War, Immigration and the Israel Lobby

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