＂Trump Is At A Crossroads＂ - Trump's Iran Dilemma： Historic Win or Economic Disaster？
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Summary
On today's show, John Rocha and Shannon McClatchy's Peter Bergen discuss the latest on the latest in the Syria situation, including the possible strike by President Trump on Iran. They also discuss why Trump might not be as dumb as we think he is, and why he may have been duped.
Transcript
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He has to juggle these two ideas, and at the end of the day, guess who has to make the decision?
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And is he going to go here, or is he going to go here?
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The outcome is five to ten more days of intense battle and intense strikes.
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And then we're going to come up with a system, which we don't have right now,
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which is why there's been miscommunication for clearing out the strait.
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And then we're going to go to our golf partners and say, we're done for right now.
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We're going to tell the Israelis, we're sorry that we're done.
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We're going to help you covertly look for the uranium and stuff like that.
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He does not want to go into the midterms with a ground war.
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He doesn't want to go into the spring in the United States with an aerial attack like this because it's only – this is the worst polling war.
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Yeah, with oil prices at this going into the summer.
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This is the worst polling war, below Korea, below all the other wars.
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He's already signaled that to his friends in the Gulf.
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And the one thing that I want to address here is Trump likes money.
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And he's getting a lot of money from the Gulf states in terms of these real estate deals that his kids keep announcing.
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He's got $4 billion that he's made so far in the first term.
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And whether Trump supporters that listen to your show like it or not,
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he's motivated by money, he's motivated by attention,
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and I think those two things are going to pull him out of the conference.
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He doesn't want a bad legacy, but if you think legacy is number one?
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You think an extra billion dollars is more important than legacy
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Trump wants to be the richest person in the world.
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Trump's making a move for another $20 to $100 billion of dough for himself.
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You don't think he wants to be remembered as the greatest president that did all these things?
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And then the third thing is if I generally do a good job,
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as long as it keeps inside the ambit of my self-interest, then that's fine.
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In my opinion, I think he'd rather be number one president of all time
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But quick thing why I think he got duped is because every military—
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Real quick, though, so I mean, I think he got duped here because every military strike that he's done has been like Art of War style where it's basically it's over before you even know what happened.
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Very smooth, meticulous, clean, and it's done by the time you're hearing about it.
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But this one, completely different than whether it's the Syria attack, whether it's the first Iran attack, whether it's the Venezuela attack.
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So I don't know what went wrong here, who gave him bad information, if he was manipulated, if they didn't anticipate certain things.
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But that's why I think it's going to drag out because it's uncharacteristic of the other attacks that he did.
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By the way, just so you know, background, masters and bachelors in national security.
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Which, by the way, on the Republican side, probably the most hated guy in the Republican side this week.
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Below the surface, Nikki Haley and others on boards and influence.
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So let me, not to make Trump paranoid or think paranoid, but let me ask you a question.
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OK, so if I'm Trump and I know I'm in surrounded by neocons that love this sort of stuff, right?
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Like we did a seance with Dick Cheney right now.
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He's dancing, probably the dancing in hell and purgatory.
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Do those guys go hard at him with the Epstein files?
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If he doesn't do what they want him to do, you're saying?
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I think that people already went after him as hard as they could
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I'm talking about the neocons going hard at him.
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but no, I don't think that's a factor, and I think that's a reach.
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I think the Epstein thing hit its peak already.
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And by the way, I don't know what's in those files or not,
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and I've said repeatedly that he's never going to get strafed or hit by those files.
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Unless there's a bomb somewhere in the file that I don't know about,
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The question is, would they use it on him once they have used him?
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Look, I got an 11-day Ph.D. in Washington, scumbaggery.
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They all get up in the morning when they're put in their suits on.
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They're willing to take everybody out to serve their own personal interests.
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And you're saying you're not worried about that.
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And that would give me comfort if you're saying that.
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Yeah, I mean, I'm sure he's influenced by certain people.
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I just don't think it's about that at this point.
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I think that people have already came at him as hard as they could with the Epstein stuff.
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I think if there's one thing about his profile, it's a couple things.
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And look, it's obvious that the two of you guys have.
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By the way, if you're watching this and if you agree or disagree with Anthony,
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you want to ask him a question, he's on Menech.
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You can send him a Menech, then agree, disagree, send him an article.
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What do you think about this? What do you think about that?
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I mean, just literally did that in the green room, Patrick.
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That's how quickly this works, so you're officially on my neck.
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You will be shocked how many people come asking you questions.
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Yeah, it's a great conversation, great exchange.
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But going back to it, to me, you know, apart with you,
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obviously the market knows you're not a pro-Trump guy.
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So you're not somebody that's pro-Trump, but I would say you're probably more,
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your emotions are lower today towards him than it was two years ago,
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Once he went after my wife on Twitter, I am an Italian.
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We have to remember that at the end of the day, I am an Italian kid from Long Island.
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Don't go after my wife on Twitter who's never once said one thing about you publicly.
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And who the hell are you to do that after I gave you a million dollars personally,
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worked on your campaign for over a year, was on your executive transition team?
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I said one thing that you didn't like on the Bill Maher show.
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And Bill said to me, you were 7 for 8 for Donald Trump tonight.
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Let me tell you something about you because I watch your show almost every week.
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If this guy, after you did all of that for him,
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started attacking your wife, who is the mother of your children,
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And by the way, maybe you wouldn't be, but I'm telling you, I would be.
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I couldn't even live in my neighborhood if I didn't respond to that.
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So for me, it's important for the market to know why you feel the way you feel.
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I respect the fact that you did that the audience needs.
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To me, I think the profile of Trump is, you know, he believes that he truly is Teflon.
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He won't even believe who's calling me right now.
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It's like he said this, I think, a week ago or maybe five days ago, right?
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So do I think in his mind he thinks the Epstein stuff is going to come and go
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I think he believes that, okay, where he's at to the core.
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Number two, I do think if you sit down two nights ago,
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I'm having a conversation with my son after one of the games that he had.
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I sat him and I asked my wife to come in to have a conversation with him.
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And I sold him the idea of what it is to mastering something
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and winning and and that moment where you go here was like oh my god I'm actually very good at what
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what I do if you really want to experience that it's one of the greatest highs in life
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and I saw him I saw the eyes getting uh what do you call it intense intense and not crying
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but you can tell it was filled with you know uh he's emotional he's feeling it okay and this is
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not an emotional guy he's feeling it right and i said okay this is great because he's receiving it
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this is something that'll move him okay where am i going with this i believe if you're having a
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conversation with trump the old timers the condoleezza rice types these types of people
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that you kind of talk about which by the way she all of a sudden showed up when's the last time
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you saw her around she's now here what part of the campus condoleezza rice hello yeah like it
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goes old school with her second term what dream you think is being sold to him what dream is being
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sold you think the dream is being sold of hey guess what one day you can be one of the richest
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men on earth you're not going to be elon musk is worth just everybody knows the numbers came out
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elon's worth 840 billion dollars the next four combined are not worth what elon is worth they
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Overall, $200, $200, $200, $200, and he's worth $840 billion.
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Could you be worth $20 billion, $40 billion, $80 billion?
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But when you're worth $40 billion, Elon's going to be worth $3 trillion.
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So you ain't never going to go into the room like you did 40 years ago
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when you're sitting with David Letterman and be the richest billionaire new.
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Those days are behind us because compound interest is going to work against you.
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And the stuff that you're investing in, they're running, and they own 16%.
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So I don't know if you understand math and business, so that one's out the window.
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But to me, if somebody's sitting there selling the dream of Mount Rushmore, you're not going to get there just based off of economy.
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You have to do something big, and you have to make a massive empire fall.
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You think on the resume, if he takes over Greenland,
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it's part of the country, it's like the next Puerto Rico?
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similar to Mr. Gorbachev, you know, tear down this wall,
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Is it Edelman that was the slot receiver for Brady?
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You ever seen a clip in Tom Brady's documentary?
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He's going back in the documentary because Edelman is trying to get, hey, you're a great president.
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If someone's poking to try to poke, knowing his DNA, he knows legacy is going to be written.
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So to me, if he is legacy, he's got to go ahead and do this for the history books.
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If he's purely economy, he's going to step on and say, no, guys, we've got to get our World Cup is around the corner.
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or I don't want any issues with people coming down here.
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So, again, I don't know because none of us are inside his head
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You've made a very compelling point, but I'm going with option two because.
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Because I, you know, listen, I did 71 campaign stops with him,
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I have been fairly predictive of a lot of things that he does,
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primarily because I understand the general nature of his personality.
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He definitely wants to topple Iran, but he's really thinking about,
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okay, what is this going to mean for me and my family and my pocketbook?
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And, you know, he's got some things coming right now that he doesn't want to interfere with.
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He's got an 80th birthday celebration that our friend Dana White
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is going to be celebrating with him on the White House South Lawn
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Now, if you told me they got to him in the situation room
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and what you just said, it was totally achievable,
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then I would say, okay, yeah, that probably would work.
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but I don't see that achievable right now based on what's on the playing
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I think it's people talk about quagmire and maybe this is pessimistic,
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I think we're at the front door of quagmire and now we got to figure out a
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way to get out and there's no good way to get out.
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I never thought I'd be saying this, but if he backs out,
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This could be like a failed retreat from extraction from Afghanistan.
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Even Cheney said that when he was getting the president to look for weapons of mass
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Everybody has looked at Iran and said, this is the guy.
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and it wasn't until age got to Ali that he ever lost.
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I think we're at the – I mean, maybe this is pessimistic, Pat,
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but I think we're at the front door of Quagmire,
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Yeah, I think it's more likely that we have a ground invasion
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No, I use that word because I can't use a lot more.
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I said I think boots on the ground is more likely than a complete pullout.
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I think the most likely option is that something fast and unexpected happens that makes the situation better.
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So polling at 12% on the ground troops, Trump's like, I've got to get this on my resume.
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I'm saying I think that's more likely than a complete pullout.
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I think the most likely option is something actually competent because I think they're regathering their plan right now.
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If Israel, out of the 50 that were killed, if Trump's plan was only three or four and they went and did the other 45, they're making it to say, listen, I spit in the guy's face.
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So to me, if they intentionally did that, I think this just goes in deeper.
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