Valuetainment - March 05, 2026


“The Hitler Of The Middle East” - MBS BLASTS Khamenei Over Threat To Saudi Arabia

Hosted by
Patrick Bet-David
Mentioned
Khamenei Ayatollah Hitler Jeff Mark Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlavi Survival Khomeini Maduro
“Midterms Will Be Dictated” - Iran War & U.S. Troop Losses SHAKE 2026 Election Odds “China Has 21 Days” - Strait Of Hormuz Crisis THREATENS China’s Oil Lifeline

Episode Stats


Length

9 minutes

Words per minute

196.17

Word count

1,925

Sentence count

165

Harmful content

Toxicity

4

sentences flagged

Hate speech

13

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, I sit down with my good friend and long-time friend Rob Ackerman to talk about the Iranian regime in the Middle East, the rise of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and why Saudi Arabia continues to support the Ayatollah.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 There's an old clip of MBS being interviewed where she asks him about Khamenei.
00:00:04.980 Have you guys ever seen this clip?
00:00:06.380 Here's a clip of MBS being interviewed, and she asks and makes a comment.
00:00:12.620 She says, wait a minute, is this really how you view Khamenei?
00:00:15.960 Look what he says about Khamenei.
00:00:17.780 Go ahead, Rob.
00:00:18.760 I've seen that you called the Ayatollah, Khamenei, the new Hitler of the Middle East.
00:00:23.680 Absolutely.
00:00:24.720 Why?
00:00:26.600 Because he wants to expand.
00:00:28.020 He wants to create his own project in the Middle East, very much like Hitler, who wanted to expand at the time. 0.74
00:00:33.160 Many countries around the world and in Europe did not realize how dangerous Hitler was until what happened happened. 0.57
00:00:38.320 I don't want to see the same events happening in the Middle East.
00:00:40.900 Does Saudi Arabia need nuclear weapons to counter Iran?
00:00:44.900 Saudi Arabia does not want to acquire any nuclear bomb.
00:00:47.840 But without a doubt, if Iran developed a nuclear bomb, we will follow suit as soon as possible. 0.99
00:00:51.980 It's crazy when you think about it, because Saudi, pre-79, had a decent relationship with Iran under Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi.
00:01:02.480 And now, who knows them better?
00:01:05.120 Who knows Khamenei better?
00:01:06.420 Who knows the IRGC better?
00:01:08.420 Social media influencers?
00:01:10.120 Mainstream media folks?
00:01:11.500 Or MBS?
00:01:12.400 Right.
00:01:12.740 Who do you think knows them better?
00:01:14.200 Of course a guy like this does.
00:01:15.800 So why do you think they're sitting there saying, they're not allies, we're not working with them, we're not going to, and by the way, FYI, just so everybody knows, this is the part that, for someone to say, well, you don't even know, it's because of this, he's bought, he's this, it's a business deal, it's that deal.
00:01:30.540 By the way, if Iran is set free, and the sanctions are lifted, and they can do business with the world, Saudi takes a hit from business, because there's a new competitor in town. 0.83
00:01:44.060 I don't know if you understand what I'm saying.
00:01:45.700 Now you have a massive oil supplier that can sell to everybody.
00:01:49.520 You think Saudi wants Iran, like, economically?
00:01:52.760 They're now, so imagine if Iran opens up, it becomes free, they start building towers, they start doing concerts, they start doing events. 0.80
00:01:59.980 You know, if people start going there for vacation, like they used to in the 70s, way before Dubai, what does that do to Saudi?
00:02:06.960 That's a new competitor.
00:02:08.300 Why would he want the regime to fall?
00:02:10.440 He wouldn't want the regime to fall, yet he still does, yet they're still supporting.
00:02:14.520 Why are they still supporting?
00:02:16.660 There's a lot of questions that comes up when you think about what's going on there, but what are your thoughts when you see what NBS said about Khamenei?
00:02:23.780 Survival.
00:02:25.120 Like you said, I mean, Saudi Arabia doesn't lose everything, but they lose quite a bit with Iran.
00:02:30.340 Being a functioning state and a competitor.
00:02:32.760 However, survival comes first.
00:02:35.160 And he understands the threat more than anybody else does because he's got to live next door to them.
00:02:40.920 He's seen it up close and personal.
00:02:42.660 I mean, we've seen it before.
00:02:44.380 So it really is a matter of this is just way too frigging dangerous to just sit here and do nothing.
00:02:50.520 That chart was absolutely fantastic, by the way, because it actually does put everything into the right context.
00:02:57.200 Everybody said, we've got to do this and we've got to do this now because if we wait any longer, it gets to the point where action becomes catastrophic.
00:03:05.000 I think a bigger piece that has to be taken into consideration is that we, a lot of us, sit here and think about this from a rational mindset.
00:03:12.460 And so the whole thought during the Cold War, Jeff referenced Cold War 2.0, but in the Cold War, it was mutually assured destruction.
00:03:20.180 It was rational thought. 0.98
00:03:21.480 If you can kill me and I can kill you, then we have a standoff and we have peace. 1.00
00:03:25.260 But that only works with a rational actor. 0.99
00:03:27.940 When you have an ideological actor whose actual goal is to die in war, they would rather die in war, then it changes the whole thing.
00:03:37.320 And you have to take that into consideration.
00:03:39.400 You're so right because they do not have a constitution or something they want to stand on.
00:03:43.980 They have a suicide pact with an ideology.
00:03:46.980 And their ultimate outcome is the destruction of anything that is not aligned with that.
00:03:53.020 And then ultimately, they believe in this endgame.
00:03:57.620 And so you look at it, you go, wait a minute.
00:03:59.360 You don't really believe in a happily ever after.
00:04:02.260 Your form of world domination tightens the noose until the Shiite question is eventually solved. 0.99
00:04:10.840 Because the Sunni-Shiite question is the last question, and that is the last war of Islam. 0.82
00:04:15.720 When everyone else, but remember, it's first the Christians, then it's the Jews, then it's the neutral, 0.94
00:04:19.800 then it's the people that stayed even more neutral.
00:04:24.160 It's like the old poem that talked about Germany.
00:04:28.340 These people did something and I did nothing.
00:04:30.220 Then these people did something.
00:04:31.580 Finally, at the end, they came for me and I did nothing.
00:04:33.980 That is exactly the path they're on.
00:04:35.960 It's a suicide pact with the future.
00:04:37.980 And then at the very end, what most of us don't know, the Sunnis and Shiite fight the final war to see who wins.
00:04:44.600 Right?
00:04:45.540 Which, if you want to go back and look at, that was, how many years was that?
00:04:49.800 Between Iraq and Iran, the 10-year war, wasn't it? 0.60
00:04:52.360 10-year war.
00:04:52.620 80 to 80.
00:04:53.420 Yeah.
00:04:53.840 Yeah.
00:04:54.340 It's like, so this is such a great point about the rational actor.
00:05:01.880 So what do you have to do?
00:05:02.960 You have to defang every part of the rational actor and put them in check.
00:05:08.780 And the way you put it in check is you somehow have to move the clerics out and then move others in.
00:05:14.500 Remember the subway bombings.
00:05:16.000 The young men that died in those subway bombings were radicalized to the point of committing suicide by the radical clerics that were north of London.
00:05:25.780 That is, look at it.
00:05:27.040 That's the way it works.
00:05:28.880 Get that page.
00:05:29.840 The one of the ones I give you.
00:05:30.760 That's my denim.
00:05:31.340 Yeah.
00:05:31.460 Well, I think the other thing, too, Tom, is, you know, we were talking about this, too, a little bit, Mark.
00:05:36.820 You know, Maduro, Venezuela was pretty easy, relatively easy, because it was not an ideological state.
00:05:41.920 It was basically a criminal organization.
00:05:43.840 You take out the top, everybody's mercenary.
00:05:46.040 Who am I going to get paid by?
00:05:47.780 That's done.
00:05:48.720 The point you're making is—
00:05:49.820 And they were nearly bankrupt.
00:05:50.920 They didn't have a modern army.
00:05:51.780 They didn't have anybody to pay them anyway.
00:05:53.420 Iran is different because there was this Israeli—I think it was an intelligence operative.
00:05:58.380 I can't remember where I saw the clip.
00:05:59.760 He's talking about, we're not interested in regime change in Iran.
00:06:03.080 We are interested in collapsing the regime.
00:06:05.120 Right.
00:06:05.500 Which is a huge statement.
00:06:06.880 It's exactly what you're saying.
00:06:08.260 You can't just change the Ayatollah. 0.96
00:06:10.320 Because the next Ayatollah, like you're talking about with Khomeini's son, he's going to be probably worse than the last one. 0.99
00:06:15.980 You have to collapse the entire regime because you are rooting out an ideology.
00:06:19.400 What's the difference?
00:06:20.060 The average person that's asking, Jeff, what do you mean?
00:06:22.500 It's still a regime change.
00:06:23.680 What's the difference?
00:06:24.360 Well, collapsing the regime means taking out the ideology and handing it over to somebody who's outside of that ideology.
00:06:30.620 So you can't just get the next guy in line like in Venezuela because they're acting irrationally, as Mark is saying, because they're a full believer in this Islamic takeover, the Islamic end state. 0.97
00:06:43.780 What I would say there's a little nuance to that, though, because I feel the Trump administration has been pretty deliberate by saying we're not going for regime change.
00:06:50.820 If we get regime change, great, but we're not going for that.
00:06:53.200 Of course, he's saying, hey, you know, Iranian people will rise up and take your country back and things like that.
00:06:57.480 But what Tom said is defang the regime.
00:07:01.360 So, hey, if we get regime change, OK, we get regime change.
00:07:04.380 But how about we just defang them? 0.89
00:07:06.260 How about we take away their ability to go attack the world and have these nuker weapons? 1.00
00:07:09.660 And if they stay, they stay.
00:07:11.140 If they if they change, they change.
00:07:12.960 That's not the goal.
00:07:13.920 The goal is the defanging.
00:07:15.520 Don't you think deep down, though, they're on board with the Israelis?
00:07:17.860 If the Israelis, the way I see it is the partnership here is Israelis are going after the regime, trying to collapse the regime.
00:07:25.140 And the U.S. is, first of all, trying to protect their economic interests, but also supporting Israel by saying, look, you guys take care of the regime.
00:07:32.380 You know, you target where the clerics are meeting to pick the next Ayatollah.
00:07:36.880 We'll take care of all the rest of the stuff so that you guys can do that and we'll do this.
00:07:40.760 And in the end, if it works, it works.
00:07:43.800 But the chart you show is very important.
00:07:46.640 The reason why the chart is important that you show with the missiles and the interceptors, Rob, if you can send that to me as well.
00:07:52.340 So I have it.
00:07:53.200 Reason why it's important is if you don't.
00:07:55.980 It's like, you know, it's like when Tom, when you guys sold jam that for six hundred eighty million dollars in all four.
00:08:00.640 Right.
00:08:01.420 And you were there and you remember the negotiation is like, so why are you paying six eighty for it now?
00:08:06.300 The answer was what?
00:08:07.200 I don't want to pay a billion next year.
00:08:08.920 That's right.
00:08:09.260 I don't want to pay a billion next year.
00:08:10.560 So I'll pay six eighty now versus a billion next year.
00:08:13.260 So if you don't attack now and this keeps climbing, the longer you delay to do this, eventually you're going to be like, we can't do nothing.
00:08:21.320 So we have to just tolerate them.
00:08:22.880 So there's an element of urgency for getting that done now rather than waiting.
00:08:28.800 For those of you guys that are watching this and you're tuning in, I've got two more stories to do before we wrap up.
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