“Pahlavi Is A Zoom Call Leader＂ - Trump DOUBTS Reza Pahlavi As Iran’s Future Leader
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Summary
Reza Shah Pahlavi, the son of the deposed Shah of Iran, was an exile royal who served as Prime Minister of Iran from 1979 to 1989. He is now a member of the Iranian royal family, and is one of the most influential people in Iran. In an interview with Reuters on Wednesday, President Trump praised him as a "nice guy," but didn't go as far as saying he would support a change in Iran's leadership.
Transcript
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And so this last week, when you're talking about Reza Pahlavi asking the Iranians to go on the streets,
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this is an interview that he got criticized for heavily, because in this interview, Nora,
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I don't know what her last name is, is it Nora O'Donnell?
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That's a very good pointed question, Rob, if you want to play this clip, go for it.
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As you are urging people to protest and go to the streets, the death toll is rising in Iran.
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This violent crackdown continues, just as it has in past attempted revolutions.
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I mean, is it responsible to be sending citizens in Iran to their deaths?
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As I said, as I said, as I said, this is a war, and war has casualties.
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In fact, in order to preserve and protect and minimize the death toll,
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minimize innocent victims yet again be killed by this regime, action is needed.
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The regime is going to try and brutalize its citizenry as it has always done.
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I didn't ask the people to come to the streets to fight against the regime because I wanted so.
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They asked me to step in to help them and to be their voice on the outside world,
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to do everything that we can so we make this uprising successful this time.
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And I think we have some serious leaders that understand what is necessary,
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that understand the ask of the Iranian people and are responding to that.
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I think President Trump is responding to the call that the Iranian people have.
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So when President Trump and his team watches this, what do you think they say?
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Do they say, this is the guy we can get behind and help Iran be free again?
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Or do you think they say, I don't know if he has it or not?
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Do they look at this and say, this shows strong leadership?
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Do they look at this and say, this guy is going to be able to go and win the people over and do that?
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The president said, Trump praises Iran exile royal as very nice,
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but doesn't go as far as fully supporting regime change bid.
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If you want to play this one more time, you can go ahead and play the clip.
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Would you meet with Crown Prince Pavlai, who is the heir to the constitutional monarchy?
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He would be a symbolic ruler like King Charles.
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Well, I've watched him, and he seems like a nice person.
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But I'm not sure that it would be appropriate at this point to do that as president.
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I think that we should let everybody go out there and we see who emerges.
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I'm not sure necessarily that it would be appropriate.
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Now, this is an interview with Reuters on Wednesday, that this is a different interview.
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In an Oval Office interview with Reuters, he said that while Rizal Pallavi seems like a nice guy,
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Trump wasn't sure the Iranian population would accept the Crown Prince as the country's leader.
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The conversation happened moments after Trump appeared to pump the brakes on an American military intervention,
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something the president has been threatening for weeks,
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as the Islamic regime has brutally cracked down on widespread protests.
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He says, he seems very nice, but I don't know how he'd play within his own country,
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the president said of Pallavi, and we really aren't up to that point yet.
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I don't know whether or not his country would accept his leadership,
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and certainly if they would, that would be fine with me.
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Trump said it was possible that the government of Iran's Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei,
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Whether or not it falls or not, it's going to be an interesting period of time.
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Trump added, Pallavi was born in Tehran, the son of the U.S.-backed Shah,
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Muhammad Reza Shah Pallavi, who Iranians overthrew.
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The 65-year Pallavi, who lives in D.C. suburbs,
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has played a very vocal role in the protests from abroad,
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but on the ground there appears to be a little organized support for the country
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Just for me, watching him speak, and with all due respect,
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These people, where my mom and dad and my grandparents are from,
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where your whole family's from, they don't need a Zoom call leader, okay?
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They need somebody that's going to be there with them on the ground, okay?
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He's been there for 47 years, and this isn't a knock on him.
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Whatever they're doing, this is a whole different situation.
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And by the way, just really fast on the Israel thing,
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we all know the arguments, the debates we've gotten into about me and Israel
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and criticizing all this stuff, put that to the side.
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Their leader is tweeting stuff that's saying that we will kill the president,
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him getting shot in the head, we won't miss, okay?
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The IRGC are going into hospitals looking for people that were protesting that are injured,
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And I saw the bodies in the body bags with the catheters because they were in that room, okay?
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The only reason I say we have to care, Ann, is because if we let them put somebody else
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in that's worse than this guy or another guy that's Islamist or whatever, it's a problem
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that's going to get worse and get worse and get worse.
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And I'm not trying to say we have to be the police of the world, but these people are begging
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And if you don't mind, Pat, this got me emotional.
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I'll probably not even be able to go through it.
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I want to play a phone call that was recorded of, I think, an American-Iranian girl from here.
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Her mother finally calls her and gets a hold of her.
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She can't even speak freely because of the regime is surveilling them.
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So for people to sit there and try to blame everybody else, the people have done it organically.
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You were the first one that called him a nice, sweet guy.
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The moment he was asked, he goes, yeah, no, he's not the guy.
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You know, your discussion of Mossadegh and Shah, the Shah remind me of why I think we should not be getting involved.
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And yes, it would be great if the people overthrew and, you know, fixed it themselves.
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I think most of the world is not fit for democracy.
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Everybody was taken out by the CIA, and the CIA and the United States supported the Shah.
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As long as we're installing puppets around the world, things are going to go great.
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And especially you don't want to let them vote now.
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I mean, I don't think I really want to lose the Iranians or Persians, as we call them, in Beverly Hills.
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The most civilized, educated Iranians have left.
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If we're going to be installing puppet governments and holding them up and we have to protect them,
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let's start with our hemisphere and see how it goes.
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And also, let's also remember that this is all Jimmy Carter's fault.
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Richard Falk at Princeton, who promised to everyone,
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Yeah, there's your Princeton professor for you.
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When a nice guy that should be an ambassador or should be in a think tank becomes president,
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And this guy happens to be the son of the prior leader.
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That doesn't make him, that gives him proximity.
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That doesn't give him the presence, the power, the personality and everything he needs to lead.
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But is he ready to go into this beehive and to do what's necessary to lead it through it?
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And we can make assessments like that because we saw it happen in our government.
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I was of age when Jimmy Carter, you know, basically on these human rights campaigns,
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in the name of human rights, ignored warning signs of destability in governments,
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The world needs strength and clarity and leadership that probably needs to be protected by the U.S. government
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Sir, I don't care one way or another about Reza Pahlavi.
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But I am on the side of the Iranian people, no doubt.
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So when he says, this is a war, we have to do it.
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This is one side with guns and the other side with cell phones at best.
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Number two, as much as I love our friend Ann Coulter, I do care about the other side of the world.
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I think this is as America first as it gets, supporting the people of Iran because of China.
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I understand the Monroe Doctrine and the Don Roe Doctrine.
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But if Venezuela falls, which is looking very likely, obviously, and if Iran falls, that
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helps America in monumental ways and destroys China.
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So these are moves that on the surface, I get it.
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We want to be some sort of isolationist, maybe be a little more pragmatic.
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But if these moves help bring down China, that would only help America.
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There's this whole thing of, you know, remember when Dave Smith, the famous, famous comedian,
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hilarious, just, you know, worldwide comedian said, Iran is not a threat.
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Well, here's some evidence as to why I sent it to you in a text of why Iran is actually a threat.
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And we do need to pay attention to the country that has coined the phrase, death to America.
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Do you have that tweet, Rob, that I sent it to you?
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By the way, everybody's texting that Twitter is down.
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Just so you know, that's why he can't follow that.
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But the point is, they're threatening our president.
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And excuse me, we're one earlobe away from Kamala Harris or Weekend at Biden's being president.
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So these geopolitical conversations do have ramifications.
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And when someone who presents himself as the smartest person in the room said something like this,
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you tend to, maybe this guy's got some credibility.
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And then what happens is our old friend Dave Smith runs into someone infinitely smarter than him named Coleman Hughes.
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And all of a sudden, Dave's back to being a struggling comedian, not so much a pundit.
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So, by the way, if you want to go back to, is it showing Twitter's down, Rob?
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Can you show that again, the report you had up?
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Today, down to pretty much, you know, 25, you know, depending on by when, September 1st,
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Then if you go to Mohammad Reza Pallavi, because, you know, this had to be up.
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Will the United States recognize Reza Pallavi as the leader of Iran?
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And by the way, the last three days, Adam, he spent time with our leaders in Washington.
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He said that they spent time with our leaders in Washington.
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The meaning is the more and more that people have been around him, they recognize he ain't
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Let's just say, do you think for Iran to go through their revolution, a country that
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any day anybody complains about the Second Amendment, if Iran had Second Amendment,
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none of this stuff is happening right now, by the way.
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Like, if Iran had Second Amendment, if the Iranian people could defend themselves, you
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think the cops going out there with a shotgun shooting people free?
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Like, you realize in America, if someone like that, you know who would be the first one
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They're going to come and say, what are you doing?
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I think the George Floyd, if I'm not mistaken, riots was going on, and they decided to go
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to Huntington Beach, if I'm not mistaken, in LA.
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Every single day, you should be thankful, the fact that we have that in America.
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Was this it, Rob, when they were trying to do it?
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Yeah, protests, and all of a sudden, like, no, you're not going to come through here.
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The biker folks showed up, and they're like, yeah, we'll skip today's deal of doing anything
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To have a revolution happen in a country like Iran against a regime like IRGC, Islamic Revolutionary
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Guard, in a society where it's like the supreme leader, the phrase they use, their supreme leader,
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And American journalists say their supreme leader, their supreme leader, what's his name
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It's not that your supreme leader is somebody else.
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What do you think you're going to need to do if you're in America as an outsider?
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Actually, say you are part of Trump's advisors, and somebody brings a guy in who's sitting right
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in front of us right now, interviewing to be the leader of Iran, to go through the transition.
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What five questions do you have for him if you want to support him?
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And he says, of course, but he's been here for 48 years.
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Are you willing to put your life on the line and die for this cause?
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Do you think Iran wants a monarchy or a democracy?
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Let's let the people decide because that's the answer he's given to everybody.
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I'd be like, hey, listen, you're going to listen to what we say.
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What is the most important question that you have?
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Okay, so let me say before he walked in, we're sitting together here,
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We made a decision, hey, guys, if we like this guy,
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Your J.D. Vance, you say, listen, no more than what we did with Venezuela.
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I don't want troops on the ground staying there, Iraq, 20 years, 3 trillion dollars.
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Marco Rubio says, well, it depends on what we're going to get in return.
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Because let's just say Marco Rubio is a little bit more of a neocon,
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and he's open to the idea, and he's having a conversation.
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But let's just say the five of us, that's an odd number, which is good,
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three, two, three people are going to say, okay.
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We say, look, if it's a little bit of intervention, I'm open to it.
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But full on, I want to interview this guy to see if we can get the job done
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with a little bit of intervention, or do we need to do everything for him?
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So if that's the mindset that we're going in with,
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Not just the people, who else's support do you need?
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So I'm going to ask and say, okay, how many people from the military
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If you're running, like if you really, really, really want to do something,
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why don't we see how many Iranian military have turned and become
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You start from the outside and you come fully inside because there are a lot
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of people that are on the verge, but they don't want to be the first.
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You ever seen that one TED Talks where the guy shows and says,
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here's the guy that just goes out and he starts dancing like this,
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Where the guy's just dancing like a horrible dancing and everyone's looking at him.
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But he goes for five seconds and they're thinking he's going to stop.
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He goes for 20 seconds and they're thinking he's going to stop.
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30 seconds later, another guy goes in and he starts.
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He says 20 seconds after the second guy, a couple hundred people are dancing with him.
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And he says the most important person is the first true believer in you that is willing
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Who has stood up from the military unit and said we're all with Reza Pellevi?
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That's the question I'm going to be asking, Tom.
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I'm going to ask the question, has the military from Iran flipped to support this man?
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You know, yesterday, two days ago, we're interviewing a guy that wants to be the general manager by
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And we have some finalists, but he's the final guy.
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He interviews with Casey, a couple other people he interviews.
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But then he comes with me and RJ and then we go to dinner with them to introduce them
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So to me, if this all of a sudden happened to the Iranian people who are saying Trump is
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Jimmy Carter 2.0, maybe instead of saying is Trump Jimmy Carter 2.0, Jimmy Carter's case
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was there was already a stable guy in Iran named Mohammad Reza Shah Pellevi that had figured
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This was a guy that was not afraid of calling people out.
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In this scenario, this is not the same case as Jimmy Carter 2.0 because Iran doesn't have
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During Carter, there was a definite leader called Mohammad Reza Shah Pellevi.
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The God forbid you call out anything with Reza Shah Pellevi's community.
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I have no idea, by the way, for a guy who's a massive fan of Reza Shah Pellevi, okay, the
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family, for a guy that collects everything I can get my hand, if you want to give me a
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nice gift, give me an old coin gold of Reza Shah Pellevi.
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I have all those collections in my safe in different places that I hold on to.
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But God forbid you say something and criticize them even just a little bit.
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God forbid you criticize and say anything about him.
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Now, by the way, the one thing on the opposite side.
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So to me, I said this last week about Mohammad Reza Shah Pellevi.
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And they came, who the hell do you think you are?
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It's called sit back down and realize how terrible you are.
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I'll build them relationships with individuals.
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I was very surprised that he called me and asked me, what do you think about the 10%?
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So, you know, I hope you guys hold him accountable because he does play a very important role.
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And to Reza Pallavi's credit, he did an interview yesterday, which, by the way, it's the best one he's done.
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I liked how he handled himself in this interview.
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I'd like to host a podcast with bringing different people from the Iranian side to talk to a bunch of different guys that have different opinions.
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But look, to the Iranian people, it breaks my heart because my only first cousin in the world, my only first cousin, and I only have one first cousin.
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Him and I were very close back in the days, Robert.
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And I really wanted to see this being able to be pulled off.
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But unfortunately, the more and more this dies down, and it gets quieter and quieter, and the momentum goes away, people, families have to go take their kids back and go to school and go back to their jobs.
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And they realize they had the greatest two-week run.
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Does that mean Trump's not going to do an attack like he did with Ghassam Soleimani?
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Of course, Israel is also, and Trump is also very much of a, let's make a story up.
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Netanyahu told them that you shouldn't attack and all this other stuff.
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Three days later, boom, seven leaders in Iran get killed.
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To just also appreciate the president's unpredictability of what he's capable of doing.
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But number one rule, when that man came in to interview with Whitcoff, interview with Lindsey Graham, and he's leaving,
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what set of questions you're asking, are these guys walking out, calling Trump, saying, I think he's the guy, let's roll, he's going to get it done, you need to meet with him.
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Because if you would have met with him, what would you have told me, Tom, if you were impressed with a candidate?
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I think we can support this guy because he can pull the coalition together and he's got the support of the military.
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He'll need some of our intervention, some of our support, but I think his arms are long enough to pull the coalition together.
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If you believed in him, how quickly would you say I should meet with him?
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Mr. President, I think we should meet with him immediately.
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Now that he's met with all of us and we've got our stuff in order, I think we need to make the plan.
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By the way, I'll change the names and listen to this.
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General Ver was the evil general henchman for Ferdinand Marcos.
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And General Ver pledged that he would support Marcos.
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So that's when the CIA said, okay, Marcos is our guy.
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Because for 20 years, General Ver supported Marcos in the Philippines.
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And that's what kept the peace in the Philippines.
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And the only reason that we selected Ferdinand Marcos, the CIA, was because he had the support of General Ver.
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So this has happened before in history where the U.S. makes sure that that leader can carry the coalition.
00:27:09.960
I just want to thank you for your breakdown because it helped me come to this conclusion.
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But Reza Pallavi is the opposite of Donald Trump.
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We have one woman on this panel today who predicted in 2015 Donald Trump would be the President of the United States.
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But she did that when it was inconvenient and he was 1% chance.
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Get up on that stage and debate how many people?
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Because in America, you know, we've been so focused on DEI, we still don't forget this is still a meritocracy.
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The final point is here, just because your father was great doesn't mean that you're going to be great.
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So there's a meritocracy is what America's founded on.
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Vinny's got something special he wants to share with you guys.
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And when Vinny does this, it's a very, very special moment.
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So as you guys know, I have the Faith Over Fear line.
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And this shirt that I'm wearing right now is our newest.
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So in Isaiah 6, verse 8, Isaiah has a vision of God in his throne.
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He wants somebody to step up to go to Israel to, you know, call people to God.
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And God says, whom shall I send and who will go for us?
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And Isaiah, knowing the cost, just answers quick.
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And there's actually a moment, Pat, in the movie Fury.
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But they choose to stay there and delay the enemy from advancing.
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And Shia LaBeouf has that moment where he goes, this is a righteous act, gentlemen.
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So it's about answering the call, even when it costs everything.
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It's speaking the word when it's unpopular and standing firm, regardless of the consequences.
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Yeah, last time he did this, 10,000 Faith Over Fear shirts were picked up.
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