Iran War -- One Week Evaluation | Yaron Brook Show

The radical fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights.

This is the Yoram Brooke Show.

All right, everybody, welcome to Yoram Brooke Show on this Saturday, March 7th.

I just need you to miss me.

I miss you.

I miss you guys.

Glad to be back, as you can see, back in my studio in Puerto Rico.

That is good, hopefully, all those technical issues that we had for a couple of days in

London.

History now, and we can go back to normal.

All right, so today we're going to talk about Iran.

We're going to basically give you a rundown of where we are, where I think we are.

And then I want to focus in on two big strategic problems that I see is that shockingly and

head scratchingly, unexplainingly, I don't know what the word is, the Trump administration

does not seem to be prepared for.

So we'll talk about two big strategic problems.

The Trump administration seems to have dropped the ball on, and where we go from here.

So we'll do both the things.

Of course, I will take your questions.

You get shaped to show.

You ask questions.

I answer them on any topic you want.

We will have a show tomorrow where we will talk about more news from Iran, I assume,

will be available tomorrow.

But then we'll also talk about a few other issues like Tucker Carlson's latest, Dougan

is influenced on the American right, and maybe one or two at the top, we'll see what comes

up.

Iran, Dougan, Tucker is part of the show for tomorrow, probably, same time as today,

maybe an hour earlier, but no, probably, same time as today.

So I'll definitely post about that tomorrow.

All right, Jonathan, C.P. Melkin, thank you for the sticker.

And Amen, $100 sticker, really, really appreciate that.

Thank you, Amen.

And Jacob, thank you for your sticker.

They appreciate the support, guys.

Thank you.

All right, so let's jump in on what we are on this day, what is a day eight?

I think basically of this of this war.

And what have we learned?

Well, a lot of what we learned is stuff that at least some of us already knew.

We certainly have learned that Iran has no significant military power, that it is, it

is and never was a formidable military power.

It was assumed that they had this mighty military force, and oh, be careful, United States

are upsetting this giant, it's a paper tiger, it's not even a tiger, it's not even paper,

there's no way they can lob stupid missiles, and they do have a lot of drones, but that's

about it.

They have no other military capability, and of course, they ring a fire, it was destroyed

by Israel, so they don't have Syria and the Gisbalah and the Houthis and all these,

you know, they have a little bit of Gisbalah and a little bit of the Houthis, the Houthis

are still not joined because they're afraid, I think, and Gisbalah did join, and they're

probably regretting it because it's gone all the wrong way for them, we'll talk about

that in a little bit.

So yes, we never had a fear of them, this was you should have been taken out decades

ago, there's all there there, I mean, they should have been the target of American

phone calls, you have to 9-11, so yes, we're seeing it in a day-to-day basis that there's

nothing there, you know, and so that's the big lesson, we're also seeing the vast superiority

of U.S. and Israeli technology, and it forced dominance, just dominance, so right now Israel

and the United States have complete air dominance over Iran, the Iran air defense system

has been completely neutralized, it's certainly in the western and central part of Iran, it's

very little attempt to go into the eastern part of Iran, maybe there's still some functioning

air defense systems over there, but I doubt it, Israel and the United States now can basically

attack any target they want, whatever pace they want with whatever weapon system they want,

so for example, there were days last week that the United States was flying B-52s, B-52s,

those old B-52s, intercombat and bombing assets, bombing locations, the B-52 is not stealth,

the B-52 is incredibly slow, the B-52 is unbelievably vulnerable to very basic

air defense systems, and the fact that the United States felt confident enough to enter the space

with the B-52 tells you everything you need to know in terms of the fact that they have

dominance, superiority, they basically have nothing to fear when they're flying in there

from anything, the Iranian air force is not existent and the air defense systems incapacitated,

so complete superiority dominance, they've also the United States is used B-2s and B-1s, the

difference between B-2s and B-1s I have learned is that B-1s are not stealth and B-2s are stealth,

so B-2s are stealth, B-2s you use when there is significant air defenses or you're not sure,

B-1s are very fast, not like the B-52, but they're not stealth, so they are challenged for

defense systems, they can be taken out if it's a robust air defense system, they've used

both B-1s and B-2s to carry big bombs and B-52s, big bombs, in many cases bunker-busting bombs,

they've used those bombs primarily on the large ballistic missile storage facilities

and launch pads that the Iranians have tucked into deep tunnels and the mountains,

and what these bombs are doing is it's not so much that they're penetrating and blowing up

the missiles, is they're basically blocking the entrances, they're blowing up the entrances

of the tunnels, so that the Iranians can access all of the ballistic missiles, they have all

these ballistic missiles that they're produced, they're all in these well-defended tunnels

that nobody can bomb because they're so deep underground, but if you take out the entrance,

you can't get the missile out, it's useless, it's also the case that those are the platforms

where they can launch multiple missiles at the same time versus the mobile launches which move

around, which can launch one missile at the time, mobile launches harder to destroy, although

Israel and the United States have destroyed most of them, but the static ones outside of these

deep-deep tunnels, they're the ones that can launch large quantities, that's what these big bombs

have been used for, those launches, the tunnel openings, and you can see it in the numbers,

I mean it's truly stunning, on day one of the war, the Iranians launched 350 ballistic missiles

at Israel and Gulf states countries, and day 275, so exactly half, day 320, day 450, day 540,

day 632, day 728, and day 815, so we've gone from a barrage of 350 missiles, ballistic missiles,

which, you know, a very small percentage of them actually make it, but 350, small percentage,

350, you know, if just, you know, 5% of them make it, let's say 18, that can do a lot of damage.

Now that's dropped to 15, now maybe one day will drop,

everybody over the last week has been panicking, oh my God, you know, Gulf states and Israel

are running out of interceptors, they're running out of patriot missiles, they're running out of

fad missiles, you know, the United States can't be producing, I mean generally the last week has

been characterized, and still is, characterized by this pessimism, US can't win, they can't do regime

change, we'll get to regime change later, they can't do, they can't defend the Gulf states,

they can't defend Israel, they're going to be overwhelmed by the Iranian missiles, they don't

have enough interceptors, they can't produce them, this is a sign of American weakness, I mean,

God, they're looking at a different world than I am, the reality is that the United States doesn't

need many interceptors because they've destroyed the capacity of the Iranians to launch,

now if the Iranians were launching 350 every single day and could continue indefinitely,

then yeah, the US and its allies would have a problem, but the beauty of this is

that if they're only launching 15 a day, interceptors less of an issue, less of an issue,

got enough interceptors for that, probably last a long, long, long time, both in the Gulf states

and in Israel on 15 missiles a day. Now Israel has a problem with the Qizballah, it has to deal with

that as well, but Israel has other capabilities, they have the Iron Dome, they have the laser system

to deal with what Qizballah is doing, but the Iranian ballistic missiles and some of them

really, really fast and very destructive, those are basically being handled by the Patriot systems,

the Thad systems, the Arrow systems, and they're plenty of interceptors. So this pessimism,

that the mainstream media and so many people online are expressing, it just doesn't make any sense,

it's the same people who before the war said, oh, the mighty Iranian military war inflicts

these incredible, incredible, thousands of Americans will die. I mean, it's sad that we've got

what five six Americans died and it's sad that six Americans died, but six Americans in eight days

of war, where America is dominating the way it is, and you think that the media would shift away

from its total dominant pessimism to reflect a slightly more realistic, which means optimistic view.

Yeah, you're not going to get that, unfortunately.

So anyway, missile, missiles way, way, way down. Now, the bigger challenges right now, not so much

for Israel, Israel is not challenged by this, are drones. The reason Israel is not challenged by

the drones is it takes a long time for the drones to get to Israel, and that means there's a long time

to shoot them down, and you can shoot them down with helicopters, with planes, with lasers, with

you know, air defense systems, and the Jordanian air forces participating, and others are participating

shooting down the drones heading towards Israel. The challenge for the drones really is for the

Gulf states on the eastern side, or the western side of the of the of the Gulf of the Persian Gulf,

the eastern side of the Arabian Peninsula, they are very close to Iran. So it takes the drones

very little time to get there. They can fly very low, they can evade radar that way,

and it's, it's real challenge for them to detect the drones and to shoot them down.

So the drones are a challenge for the Gulf states, and it's also very expensive right now to

shoot down the drones, and here is an example of the Trump administration's just cluelessness

when it comes to strategic thinking. Everybody knew, everybody knows that the Iranians have vast

quantities of drones and have a lot of drone productive capacity. Now we'll see in a minute

that even that is overstated, I just overstated it, but everybody knew this, and you would have

thought you would have prepared for it with some kind of technological solution to down these drones.

Now I don't think the United States has any laser weapon ready, a defense system ready to deploy

the testing, they're still testing them, and they've got them shooting down drones above New Mexico,

but I don't think they're ready to deploy them in battle. They need to be quickly.

The drone stuff is stuff that we need to really get caught up on not so much because of

Iran, but because of China, potential conflict with China. But you know who has really, really good

anti-drone tech? Our enemy, no I'm sorry, our friend, supposedly, the Ukrainians. The Ukrainians

are really good with drones. They know how to shoot down. They have hundreds of drones attacking

them every single day. They figured it out. They have cheap ways of taking out vast numbers of drones.

You know, a strategic defense department would have talked to Ukrainians before engaging in this war.

Maybe would have even purchased some of those assets, maybe secretly, and brought them to the Gulf

States and deployed them there. Now right now, the Gulf States themselves are frantically

turning to Ukraine to buy drone defense systems, authentically turning to Ukraine to buy drones,

offensive drones so they can attack as well as defend. I mean, this all has come at a shock to

everybody. When everybody, the Gulf States should be blamed here too, but the Americans, you know,

the ones driving this, the Americans and the Gulf States should have known this in advance and

prepared. You would think, and sadly, they did not. But even here, there's ultimately, there

was good news, because on day one of the war, the Ukrainians launched 294 drones against

primarily the Gulf States, but also Israel. On day two, they launched 541 drones, so they increased

the number of drones significantly as their ballistic missiles shrunk in half. But then after

day two, they shrunk dramatically. So day three, 200, day four, 85, day five, 45, day six,

38, day seven, 30, day eight, 12. So on day eight, I think that's today. We've had 15 ballistic

missiles and 12 drones. Pretty pathetic for this mighty, mighty, Iranian force.

And very manageable. We'll see other ways in which the fact that the Iranians still have drones

is problematic. But look, the Israelis and the Americans are destroying drone manufacturing

capabilities. They're destroying the bases in which the drones are stored. They destroyed a

drone aircraft carrier, a carrier for drones in the Navy, basically. The United States has

destroyed much of the Iranian Navy does not exist anymore. So drone launch a down.

Note also in terms of ballistic missiles and drones that Israel, you know, most of these

weapons have not been targeted at Israel. And the main reason is Israel is very good at shooting

them down. And Israel is far. It's much more difficult to shoot down either ballistic missile or drone.

If you don't have any time, if it's really, really fast. And that means if it's really, really close.

So for example, the UAE United Arab Emirates Dubai is one of them. Had 863 drones and missiles

targeted at them. Kuwait, 562. Qatar, 162. Bahrain, 129, Israel, only 113. And then Jordan,

40, Cyprus, five, Oman, two Saudi Arabia, two. And then one I guess went to Turkey and a couple

went to Azerbaijan. But very little, you know, relatively speaking in terms of what one would expect.

Now this is, this is a few days old. So this is earlier in the week. These numbers are all higher.

But the trend, the general trend is the same. I think many more inside of UAE now. But Israel

a steady, very steady, but low drip, very low quantities of missile shot at Israel. And drones,

again, they don't reach Israel. They're not damaging. The drones from Gisbalah in Lebanon are going

to do damage to Israel because of the short distance. But again, Israel has the high end dome and

it has the laser system. So Israel is well equipped to deal with whatever Gisbalah sends at them.

All right. So let's see. So why are we done? Complete oil dominance. Huge, humongous, massive

reductions in missile and drone attacks. The United States and Israel, other than continuing to

pound any kind of missile facility, drone factories, any and bases where they might launch drones and

going after mobile launches, they probably hit more than 50% of all the mobile launches that the

Iranians have. They shifted about towards the end of the week. And I think I mentioned this.

They shifted towards a targeting regime, regime installations, particularly those regime

installations that are used by forces that the Iranians use to oppress and suppress their own people.

And they've been going after this particularly in Tehran, but also in East Afan and other places,

just pounding these, these, you know, G.C. installations, besage and other police stations and

things like that. Just to try to take out the soldiers and the facilities and the commanding control,

that would suppress an uprising by the people if they rose up against the regime. So

that has been happening and it continues to happen. You know, to some extent, they started shifting

the day before yesterday to attacking these kind of installations along the Iraqi border with Iran

and along and within the Kurdish areas, in anticipation of a potential Kurdish uprising, military

uprising and actually incursion by Kurds from Iraq into Iran as boots on the ground. Now,

we'll get to that issue in a few minutes about how possible, how likely that is and what effect

that might have. Let's see. Command and control. Destroy it. I don't know if you saw the attack

on the bunker underneath Hamani's headquarters, which was attacked the first day, but then the

bunker was attacked a few days ago. It was supposed to be 50 Israeli aircraft, hundreds of

munitions. This something goes deep, deep down. How to tell who was killed there? We're not getting

a lot of reports of which leaders are killed. We know the president is still alive. We know that

this council that is running things, they are still alive. Not clear who was the dead, the Iranian

or not, Iranians are not disclosing. It is interesting that Hamani's funeral, really, really important

in Islam, to have that funeral quickly, has not happened yet. They were afraid. They were afraid

that during the funeral, Israel will attack and take out the leadership that attends the funeral,

so the funeral is not being held. Anyway, Israel and the United States, destroying and undermining

the command and control capabilities of the Iranians, again, they've decapitated much of the

leadership, but now they need to keep doing that with the lower levels of leadership and with any

kind of, I mean, the reality is that Iran is pretty resilient. It has a system just like Hamas,

just like Hezbollah. They have a system where the decision-making just gets pushed down to lower

levels as you decapitate the top. And even if you disrupt command and control, units function

independently. And a lot of the argument right now is that a lot of the missiles and drones are being

fired not through the command and control, not through leadership, but through independent entities.

And today, for example, the president of Iran, not the Supreme Leader, the president,

the Supreme Leader, they have an appointed one, but the president came on and apologized to the

Gulf States for all the attacks on them saying that it was rogue units of the Islamic Revolution

Regard that were attacking these Gulf States. Now, within an hour, the Islamic Revolution

Regard said, don't pay any attention to the president. He doesn't know what we're talking about.

This has always been the plan. And generally, the president sees them being marginalized,

which is good to see because you're seeing the first cracks in the system. You're seeing the first

explicit, you know, out there conflicts among Iranian leadership. And that is a very, very good

sign for the future. That is for the potential for what might happen in the days and weeks to come.

All right, let's see. What else do I want to say? So we talked about the Kurds. We'll talk

more about the Kurds in a minute. All right, one more topic really here. And then I'll get to

the two strategic issues that I think are real weaknesses that Americans have and these really

have been primarily the Americans because these are things that Americans would have been responsible

for and seem to have defaulted completely on. Israel is dealing with the fact that

Gisbalah has entered the free and is shooting missiles from and drones from Lebanon. Now, the numbers

are very low as compared to what was feared before Israel took out Gisbalah a couple of years ago.

There was always this fear of thousands of missiles. At some point, Gisbalah had 140,000

missiles that they could shoot at Israel. Israel's depleted that dramatically. I have to say,

I think that these Israelis are pretty happy with the fact that Gisbalah has joined,

because they see it as the ultimate opportunity to take them out and finish them completely

and destroy them thoroughly. And indeed, the Lebanese government seems to be cooperating

with that idea. The Lebanese government has declared the, is declared Gisbalah military wing

as illegal. The Lebanese Justice Minister announced that he's going to request a rest of Gisbalah's

secretary general named Qasam, which is pretty amazing. This would not be even thought of just

a couple of weeks ago. The Lebanese have also basically kicked out, kicked out,

basically announced that the Islamic Revolutionary God, which has been stationed in Lebanon for decades

really and runs Gisbalah, they are unwelcome in Lebanon and if they leave the country, they will

be arrested and they have all evacuated Lebanon. So Lebanon is becoming a good place,

a place that's anti-Gisbalah. And this is what Israel wants. Is there once Lebanon to turn against

Gisbalah to ultimately have its own military and ultimately hopefully sign a piece deal with Israel

where Gisbalah is completely defamed. And I think we're moving slowly in that direction.

In the meantime, Israel is occupying land in southern Lebanon to create a buffer zone

between the Gisbalah and its civilian population in northern Israel. It is also bombing

Gisbalah facilities. About 400,000 plus people have been basically asked to leave their homes.

Most of the population of southern Lebanon, south of the Lytani, have been asked to go north of

the Lytani. I think I showed you once, years ago, a map of Lebanon is this river that flows through

southern Lebanon and it's kind of a natural, you know, kind of everything south of the Lytani is

very, very close to Israel and Israel considers that as a security belt and would like to see that

demilitarized. So in the past, occupied that territory. And so Israel is basically going to make

sure that Gisbalah doesn't exist south of the Lytani. We'll see what actions it takes to achieve

that. But then in Beirut, they basically told the entire neighborhood in south Beirut that is

occupied by Shiites, primarily back as a Gisbalah to leave, to get out of there. They're not going

to bomb freely and everybody should get out of there because otherwise they'll be killed.

And hundreds of thousands again of Lebanese have left. So Israel has been knocking down multi-story

buildings every day, basically buildings that have some relation to Gisbalah. They've attacked banks,

they've attacked command control centers, they've attacked bunkers, and the destruction in the south

part of Beirut is vast. And then even in the Nabaka Valley, this is in the area closer to the border

with Syria. Israel is evacuating villages and attacking Gisbalah bases and munitions depots and

missile depots. And this is Israel's. What Israel wants to do next two weeks is basically on the next

two, three, four weeks. Basically destroy Gisbalah's military capabilities and then tell the Lebanese,

okay, maybe there's some left. You guys are strong enough now to take it over, right? Because the Lebanese

are too weak to challenge Gisbalah is what wants to make the Lebanese so weak. Sorry, Gisbalah

so weak that the Lebanese have the ability to take them on. And that is really what we are waiting for.

Yeah. So that is what we are. And

you know, let me just wonder the issue, I guess. I mean, the target of this war is regime change.

Trump keeps saying he doesn't care what the regime is. It might be a regime of clerics,

but they have to be friendly to the United States and to Israel and stuff supporting terrorism.

I don't think that can be a regime of clerics. He doesn't understand quite the theology

that's involved here. But the ultimate goal is regime change. And look, regime change is very,

very difficult to achieve from the air. Ultimately, the Iranian people are going to have to take steps

to do the regime change. And as I've told you before, we're going to have to see, and we haven't

seen yet, and this is very disappointing. And maybe there's just hasn't been an opportunity.

We're going to have to see some military forces on the Iranian side defect and embrace regime change.

Now, I'm going to be interviewing on Monday at 2 p.m. East Coast time, 2 p.m. East Coast time.

Andrew Fox is a military expert from Great Britain. I was going to talk to him about Gaza,

because he's written a lot about Gaza and was in Gaza and knows a lot about Gaza, so-called

genocide in Gaza. We'll talk about that a little bit. We'll also talk about Iran. He has

thoughts about Iran. He's more pessimistic than I am about Iran, but he has thoughts about Iran.

And particularly, what it would take to get regime change in Iran. So we're going to talk to him

about that. But I think I'm channeling him when I'm saying, we need some military units to switch

sides. And we haven't seen it yet. And I'm hoping that over the next few days, as the US and Israel

continue just to pound the Islamic Revolution in regard that will change. I think more stuff needs

to happen. We'll get to that in a minute to bring about regime change and to entice the population

that might be not quite ready to overthrow the regime or parts of the population, not quite ready

to overthrow the regime, entice them to do it. And part of the way to entice them to do it is

they need to suffer a little bit, suffer the consequence of this war, beyond what they've

already suffered in the variety of ways you can do that. And I think should be done that we'll get to.

All right. So I'll be talking more in the days to come about what next and where we go from here,

and how to achieve the regime change. I mean, again, and I'm not going to cover this now,

but one of the great, I mean, there's a number big, big strategic holes that the United States has

in this war. We'll talk about two of them in a minute. But the third and maybe the most important

one is I don't know that they have a plan for regime change. I don't know that they're, well,

we'll talk about that in a minute. I don't know if they thought it through. And it doesn't seem

like they've talked a lot to the opposition. Trump doesn't seem to want to have any do with the

Shah, the Shah son. It seems like they're just clueless. I think he's probably getting some bad

advice on CIA in terms of who the opposition is and whether there is an opposition. The CIA is,

I mean, American intelligence with all due respect is probably as good in terms of assets on

the ground. But in terms of evaluating the future in terms of being able to tell relative

strength and to tell what could and couldn't happen or even evaluating your own nuclear program.

I don't think the American intelligence is very competent or good. They're good with, you know,

covert operations. They're not good with anything that requires. Let me see. What's the word?

Intelligence. I mean, remember, this is the CIA that thought that the Soviet Union in the 1970s

was going fast in the US and it was a real economic competitor to the US. This is, this is, yeah,

over and over and over again over many, many, many, many years, US intelligence has been wrong

on so many things. So anyway, they've screwed this up. Somebody needed to have a plan for

regime change and that man having people on the ground. All right, let's see. All right, so let's

talk about a couple of strategic problems that I see with this war, war effort by the United

States in particular because these are things again that the US seems to be responsible for.

The first is really this question of regime change in particular aspect of it. They seem to

be in towards the end of last week like this frantic realization that, oh my god, we need boots

on the ground. We can't get regime change without boots on the ground. What are we going to do?

And almost a panic around this. And then, you know, and there were some even rumors of

the possibility of bringing American, putting American boots on the ground.

We'll talk about the one scenario where I think American boots on the ground might be appropriate.

But there were some thoughts about boots on the ground. There were rumors about the 82nd

airborne division, maybe, maybe getting ready to flight the Middle East and maybe using it

of boots on the ground. But then everybody kind of coalesced around this idea of, of let's get

the codes to be our boots on the ground. Now, the codes are interesting, right? The

code is population. It's a minority in the Middle East. The codes do not have a state.

There are vast numbers of them distributed between Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran.

They are armed. And over the decades, they have been armed by the United States, and I suspect by

the Israelis. The codes have been thrown in the side of Turkey because they've wanted independence

from Turkey. So there are militant groups within Turkey that the Turkish government considers terrorists

and is trying to get rid of. But they are, most of the codes in Turkey are peaceful and not

seeking independence. But there is a militant group. The codes in Iraq have always been fairly

militant. And if you remember, the one time Saddam Hussein used what he called chemical weapons

that was against the codes in northern Iraq. And then, of course, during the 2003 invasion of

Iraq by the United States, the codes sided with the Americans. They were also the codes with the

victims of ISIS, both the codes in Iraq and in Syria with victims of ISIS. And they cited

with the American fighting ISIS and landed up to being our number one ally in defeating ISIS.

Codes did more boots on the ground work to defeat ISIS than anybody, including the Americans.

And so the codes have been, the codes have also received some kind of autonomy within the

Iraqi states. They participate in the Iraqi government in Baghdad, but they have autonomy

in the northeast of the country. The codes in Iran have sought autonomy for many decades and

never received it. They're frustrated. It was from among the codes that the first goal, whose name

sadly I can't remember, was killed over the, not wearing the hookah right, and launched kind

of the goals revolution. It was from that part of Iran. So there was a lot of frustration among

the codes who are maybe more secular and certainly not particularly happy about being ruled by

the rulers into Iran. And again, they've wanted some kind of autonomy and have not received it.

So the idea was, there's a militant faction of Iranian codes in Iraq that are well-armed and

late last week, the idea was the CIA was arming them and arming the Iranian codes. And they were

going to invade Iran and basically start fighting the Islamic Revolutionary Guard and the Iranian

military with the idea of distracting them and maybe even pushing all the way to Tehran. But

most of the focus, I think, is being on, they would distract so that an uprising could happen

in Tehran to overthrow the regime. Anyway, the idea was the codes were going to do this. They

were going to be our boots on the ground for the purpose of regime change. But here's the problem.

The problem with that scenario is that the codes have been betrayed by the Trump administration

over and over and over again. Pymelians Syria and in Iraq. In the first Trump administration,

there was a famous phone call between Erdogan and Trump, where the one requested that the United

States withdraw its troops from the areas where the codes were and not intervene as the Turks

came into areas in northern Syria and Iraq and wiped out the codes. And Trump with Bolton

on the phone with him basically agreed to Erdogan's demands. More recently,

the Syrian regime has attacked the codes in northern Syria. And these are codes that have been

working with the Americans again for years, a couple of decades, unkilling ISIS. And the United

States basically facilitated the surrender of the codes to the Syrians and a complete capitulation

of the Kurdish enterprise with no autonomy for them. Not to mention the murder rate,

just horrible scenes coming out of the Kurdish areas committed by Syrian soldiers basically are

sanctioned by the United States, by the Trump administration. So Trump has basically stabbed

in the back and betrayed the codes over and over and over and over again. And now he's asking if I

suppose he's on the phone with two Kurdish leaders trying to get them to convince them to invade

Iran and to be his boots on the ground. Why would they do that when they know? That as soon as things

shift, as soon as things go differently, as soon as Trump changes his mind, he will quite likely

stab them in the back again. This is one of the many problems of having Trump be the president

executing what we're doing right now. Nobody can trust him. Nobody knows what he's going to do.

Nobody knows what he actually wants. He doesn't know what he wants.

So you know the codes we're asking, simple questions. Are they being asked to go to

Tehran and actually impose regime change? And are they going to be alone?

Is the United States going to send in troops as well?

You know, what about the possibility that Iran then starts attacking the codes in northern Iraq with

their drones? They don't have any defense systems to protect themselves and these drones could be

catastrophic for the Iranians that the Americans are going to provide any defense systems.

No answer to any of these questions. Who's going to defend the codes against

whatever the Iranians choose to do? Again, codes have been America's proxy force against ISIS for

decades and every single time. Every single time the United States has abandoned them and stabbed

them in the back. Trump more than anybody else. And of course, everybody remembers that Trump

cut a deal with the Taliban, Biden fulfilled that deal and ran from Afghanistan.

Why won't Trump cut a deal with the Iranians? I mean, does anybody trust him?

So the codes are hesitant, unsurprising. They want to see a plan. They want guarantees. They want

to be protected. They do not trust the Trump administration. So there was a lot of talk last

week. It seemed like they were going to invade imminently. They were going to enter into and

haven't and not surprising at all. Not surprising at all. So a real, again, failure, a failure to

plan in advance, figure this out in advance against this war. It was not a complete surprise to

Trump. I mean, he's been planning this for at least a month, maybe more probably from

sometime in January when the protests happened. There was plenty of time to talk about this,

to arm the codes, to prepare, to put in the right kind of a defense systems made he provide them

to the codes and to really think through boots in the ground regime change. What do we want the

codes to do and how we get their trust? None of that happened. Okay, second strategic failure.

And this one is so stunning that I just, it's hard to really have words to describe it. And

that is, it seems from what we're seeing and for what I'm hearing, it seems the Trump administration

had no plan. Did not think through the closing of the straits of homeless. Now, I've been talking about

this for a long time, including the first, the 12-day war, the individual engaged and told you

the number one weapon the Iranians have against the West and against the world really is to close

the homeless straits. And it's easy for them to do because they're narrow. And they have probably

1,500 mines and they have these small boats and they have submarines and they have, they have the

ability, they have, sorry, land to, land to ship missiles and they have drones and they can block

the homeless straits. They absolutely can. And everybody knew this. This was the number one

bigger risk than ballistic missiles, bigger risk than drones. The number one risk of war with Iran

is the long-term closure of the strait of homeless. Now, unless you thought the war would be a

week long and Iran would just capitulate, then it's not a problem. But given the Trump has been saying

four weeks maybe longer, that's a problem. Four weeks without any oil flowing through the straits

of homeless is a problem. We're seeing that in the massive spike in all prices and the decline

in stock prices, which makes sense. How you don't have a plan for this, how you don't have a plan

for this, I do not understand. This should have been a big part of what the American military

should have thought about is how do we secure the homeless, the straits and how do we get the

ships by? Now, right now, the thing that is really blocking the homeless straits is the fact that

the ships carry war-risk policies and those are basically being cancelled. London-based

insurance, London is always at the heart of the maritime insurance has been from the beginning

of maritime insurance. Basically, they've cancelled the war-risk policies. Now, again, that should have

been expected. They're not going to carry policies into a war zone. I mean, they can if they don't

know what was happening, but the war now is happening. Now, they can cancel.

And as a consequence of that, all prices are spiking. You know, we're heading into an election

yet. Trump is panicking. The gasoline prices are going up and they'll go up a lot more in the weeks

to come, unless they're solved. I mean, just give you a sense of the lack of planning. The United

States has a strategic petroleum reserve. In a sense, that strategic petroleum reserve

was created specifically for cases like this. To be able to pump into the world market, petroleum

to lower prices to a reasonable level, not to flood the market with it. It would

eviscerate the reserve quickly. You buy oil when oil's cheap, like a few months ago,

and then you use the strategic reserve when war causes a dramatic change in supply.

And yet, the Trump administration did not fill up the strategic petroleum reserve. So it's only at

58 percent capacity. They wasted the months when war with Iran was not science fiction.

It was a, I have some probability of likelihood. They could have filled up the strategic reserve.

And yet, they chose not to.

It's mind-boggling. The extent to which this administration didn't think this through,

that there's no planning, and what to do. Now, the things you can do right now to lower gas

prices. You could start releasing stuff from the strategic petroleum reserve. There's an

international petroleum reserve that can also start putting oil into the marketplace.

You can do away with things like the Jones Act, or at least suspend it temporarily.

You can increase the missing production, but that takes time, and it's not going to be that

big of impact. But it is stunning that these things have not been

... have not been really addressed.

So, what can be done? What can be done? Well, the obvious thing to do is to end this

war quickly. It's the wind quickly. And I actually believe that is possible. But it's

going to require things that the United States has avoided doing, indeed Israel has avoided

doing. To win this war quickly is going to require to make it so painful for the Iranian

regime and so painful for the Iranian people that it's just not sustainable for them.

And notice what has not been hit during this war. It's a unique in the history of war

that this has not been done. What has not been hit? Military has been hit. Missiles, drones,

military industries, headquarters, even police stations. But what has not been hit? What

is not off the table? They haven't touched, which would be easy. Iran's infrastructure.

It's civilian infrastructure. Now, I know Trump has gone after Putin for hitting Ukraine's

civilian infrastructure, which again is stupid. You know, war, everything is a target. Imagine

that somebody says regime change will have boots on the ground. It's not possible. Wait

and see. I mean, I love it. We have real experts in the house who know exactly what it takes

to have regime change. And again, this is media-driven pessimism. Media-driven. It can't

be done. It cannot be done. Iran's this powerful thing. They've got, we've already seen

cracks in the regime. And you're going to see bigger and bigger cracks. It might take

a while. It might take time. But regime change is absolutely possible. And I think could

be possible a lot faster if we went after infrastructure. What are the infrastructure? Power. Imagine

Tehran with no electricity. Water. Iran is in deep problems with water. Imagine suddenly

you couldn't pump water into Tehran. And ultimately, what about the oil infrastructure? I mean,

Iran is still pumping oil. Now, it can't send them out because homostrate is blocked even for

their own ships. But nobody said they were infrastructure. There's one island. There's one

island off the coast of Iran that has 90% of all the oil exports go off of this one island.

It's the facility that loads up all the boats, all the ships that carry oil out of Iran. One

island. Hasn't been hit. Israel didn't hit in 12-day war. Hasn't been hit this war. Nothing.

The entire civilian infrastructure of Iran has untouched.

Now,

you want, they targeted the salination plan today. Who targeted which deceleration part? I know

that the Iranians are targeting Saudi deceleration plans. The Iranians are targeting

Saudi oil facilities and Kuwaiti facilities and UAE facilities. They're even targeting ports

and places where LNG and oil is being put on. But the United States and Israel have not targeted

a single one of these type of infrastructures in Iran. Now, they're lending the Iranian

Scott free. You want to make this world faster? You want to win this world faster?

Bring them real pain. Bring them real pain. And make it urgent for the civilians who support,

who are against this regime. Make it urgent for them to act. And promise them that once they

replace the regime, you'll come in and help them rebuild. But make them feel the pain.

Make them feel the pain. I mean, part of the strategic era of this whole thing is,

if Trump had let Israel continue the 12 days for another couple of weeks,

the Iranian regime would have been already on the brink of, you know, of destruction.

The reality is that, you know, that was a massive strategic mistake. Just bombing the

nuclear facilities and walking away by Trump. That was the opportunity right there. But anyway,

what else can the United States do to get oil out of the Persian Gulf flowing back into global

markets? Well, what the United States has to do is start escorting ships and providing insurance

to replace the cancelled war risk policies. Now, to do that, to replace the cancelled war

risk policies, the United States will probably have to have an act of Congress, providing the funds

to do that. It hasn't done anything like that since World War II. And it will be expensive.

But probably worthwhile. And the United States could probably charge premiums from,

you know, ship companies. And then it would have to escort these ships using the US Navy. Now,

this is dangerous. The Iranians have drones, missiles, mines. They have a lot of ways to

inflict pain on the Americans and to inflict pain on the ships coming out of the

homostrates. What do you do about that? Well, a few things. One,

you basically tell the Iranians that they have to keep the straits of homos open and that they

better not strike the US Navy as it escorts ships out. And you tell them exactly what the

consequence will be. Every ship that is down by an Iranian missile, an Iranian refinery goes up

and smoke. Iran refines, this is not true 20 years ago, but today, most of the petroleum that it uses

knock out to refineries. Again, haven't been targeted yet. So every ship that goes down,

a refining week gets taken out. Not that many refineries in Iran. At some point, I'll have no

ability to produce petroleum. No ability to produce petroleum. Again, threaten the civilian infrastructure.

I mean, beyond that, threaten the entire Iranian oil sector. Iran is attacking the oil sector

in other countries. If you bring down a ship, we'll take out your island. We'll make it impossible

for you for decades to be able to export oil. If that doesn't help, we'll take out your oil fields.

Now, that could really help. That could really help. It just happens, supposedly,

IDF just attacked the Iranian refineries and oil depots. Well, they did it some mistake because

they should have waited to use it as a threat to open up the homostrates.

So, I haven't seen that yet, but it would be interesting if that actually just happened.

Then on top of that.

Then on top of that. Who gets most of the oil coming out of the homostrates?

By the way, Trump has suggested that the United States use the development finance

corporation to provide a very, this is quoting Trump, very reasonable price for the insurance,

political risk insurance, and guarantee for financial security of all maritime trade,

especially energy traveling through the Gulf. The United States Navy will begin escorting tankers

through the homostrates as soon as possible. It hasn't happened because it exposes the US Navy.

It's a problem. And the US development finance corporation doesn't have enough money,

but it's the right approach. It's exactly what needs to be done. But also, at the same time,

Iran needs to be threatened. So, I'm just reading from you. This is not done to trick.

Partly, the problem is the DFC's 205 billion liability ceiling does not suffice to cover the

sheer number of tankers going through the straits, more than 350 a week in normal times.

This could be an expensive scheme, so they need a lot more money, and they probably need to go to

Congress for that. Now, note that almost all of Iran's exported oil, 520 million US

million barrels go to China. That's about 15% of Chinese sea-borne crude.

Iran was second only to Saudi Arabia's China main supplier, but even Saudi can supply the Chinese

because it has to go through the straits. Another 1.4 billion barrels come from five other

countries, all the ships through the straits are four months. In other words, somewhere between

38 to, let me just see where the numbers are, to 48%. Somewhere between 38 to 48% of all the oil

that comes into China comes from the Homo strait. That is also true of natural gas.

Most of natural gas that goes to China comes through the Homo straits.

So, China has a huge incentive, huge incentive, to keep the straits open.

And I think done wisely, the Trump administration can leverage that.

This is a long shot, but go to China and say, do whatever you have to do to force the Iranians to

keep the straits open. We will let's go to ships, but you put the political pressure on Iran.

I think that's very doable, but here's one more escalatory thing that can be done

that would be pretty amazing if it happened. China has at least a couple of ships

very close to the Gulf, the Persian Gulf. It has a port in Djibouti where the facilitates the Chinese

Navy. Create a coalition of Asian countries, countries that hate each other, China, Japan, India.

And tell them that they have to escort the ships out of the straits of Homo. They're the ones

with the strongest interest. The US will back them up. The US will support them with

air defense systems, with its own military assets. But we want a Chinese ship there. We want a

Japanese ship. Japan, by the way, has at least one significant Navy asset in the region, also

at a port in Djibouti, that it can deploy. Have the Asians put their ships into the Gulf

of Persia. And dare the Iranians to down a Chinese ship or a Japanese ship or an Indian ship.

So that's what should be done. You know, a threatening Iran, credibly, put in play

the civilian infrastructure. And by the way, on top of that, just on top of that.

Basically, the United States has already sunk most of the significantly sized Iranian ships.

I would basically expand massive resources on bombing the entire coast to destroy whatever

small boats or whatever assets they have that can deploy ground to ship missiles. Now, some of

them are shoulder held. There's very little you can do there. But take out every military base

along the coast of the Persian Gulf on the Iranian side. Just use those B-52s to just drop massive

quantities of bombs in this area. Tell the civilian population evacuate. Tell the civilian population

evacuate the entire coast of the Persian Gulf. If Israel can tell, you know, a significant percentage

of the Lebanese population evacuate, move out. America could do the same with the Iranians.

Unless you want to get killed, move away from water, move inland. And then the United States needs

to massively bomb the entire coast as to make it unusable to attack. Now, Iran has a number of

submarines. The United States has destroyed some. Not clear how many. It should make whatever efforts

need to be done to make sure that those submarines are not in the Persian Gulf, not anywhere near

the Persian Gulf. And if they are to destroy them, hopefully the US has those capabilities.

It's not hard to bomb the coast of Iran. This is not difficult.

The United States has the resources. And Iran is not a very developed country. Again,

evacuate the civilian population. Tell them to leave and do it.

And then, by the way, if you're going to put troops on the ground, if you're going to put

boots on the ground anywhere, I wouldn't put boots on the ground in Tehran. As you'll see,

I don't think they're going to be needed. But you should consider and could consider, strategically,

putting boots on the ground on the coast, deploying the 82nd Airborne or whatever. I'm not an

export on Americans military assets. Put boots on the ground along the coast.

Basically, make it so that if you want to attack the ships, they have to do it from far.

And then, you know, the US Navy is very well equipped with air defense systems to knock those

whatever they send out there down. And then accept the fact that you might take casualties.

Anyway, that's what I would have done.

Not impossible. But requires, requires some balls, requires strategy,

requires some effort, requires some focus, and requires the willingness to really punish you on,

really punish them, which they need to anyway tend to work quickly.

And by the way, again, Japan gets all its oil from there, South Korea gets all its oil from

there, China gets all its, after 50% of its oil from there. These are countries that should have

a significant vested interest in making sure all continues to flow.

Bring them in as allies. Bring them into the war. Just in terms of just, you know,

in terms of just what do you call it? Guiding the ships out. Guiding the ships out.

Don't need much more than that. You don't need anything more than that for them.

They don't have to fire shot. They have to knock things, stiff stuff down,

so defensive posture, but that's it.

All right. The Taiwan gets 38% of its oil. South Korea, 30%, Japan, 30%, and I think natural

gas that percentages even much, much higher than that. So all these countries are in big trouble

if they don't help. So use that. Trump, use it. This is, this is, this is where the United States

could really use some leadership.

All right. What else did I want to, I think, I think we're covered.

I mean, 90% of all the oil that Iran exports goes to China and it all goes through the streets.

Now Saudi Arabia and the UAE have pipelines that can get around the state of Homo's,

but the capacity is very limited. So they need to ramp up and they will, I think, ramp up production

through those pipelines and ramp up offloading on ports that are way from the Homo straits,

but you got to open the states to normalize oil markets and to make this, I mean, one of the problems

that Trump will face is that as all prices go up, his approval rating for this war will plummet.

And then the great risk is political. That is the Trump will get tired of the war. He will be worried

about his approval rating. He'd be worried about the elections in November and he will stop.

He will call it a victory and walk away. And that'll be a tragedy because we're so close

to actual regime change. We're so close to basically pounding this regime into oblivion

that it will be truly tragic to stop part-way. And Trump is completely capable of doing it,

completely 100% capable. I think these railies are committed. They're willing to run the course,

but if Trump tells them to stop, they will stop.

Russia does not produce enough oil for China. It does not produce enough oil for China.

And it's a different quality of oil. China does not have enough refining capacity

to deal with heavy Russian oil. What they love about the Gulf oil and Iranian oil is how light it is.

China cannot replace easily replaced Gulf oil. Oil is very different product and requires

particular refining capabilities in order to deal with it. China cannot just shift easily

to relying on China and Russia and Russia just doesn't have enough of it.

Doesn't have enough of it. And if the United States took seriously the sanctions on Russian oil,

which they're not right now, the oil would be very difficult for Chinese companies to buy Russian oil.

Not easy, but let's get to Japanese Navy in there. Let's get to Chinese. Just on this one little

issue on our side. That could be interesting. I mean, Trump is going to seek Xi next month. He

could make this a condition of the visit. Pressure on Iran to not attack the ships as the United

States escorts them out of the Gulf. That would be what I did. What I would do, you know,

plus the bombing and the, you know, the taking control of the coastline of the Gulf on the Iranian side.

All right. We have a ton of questions. A ton. And I have a hard stop at some point,

so I better get to the questions. Thank you all. Really appreciate it. Let me remind you of our

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Micro-williams, a program to defend capitalism on a more practical economic, political basis,

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defenders of capitalism dot com. All right, let's jump in here. Remind you all to support

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supporter incredibly valuable for the future of the show. All right, let's jump in here.

Tyler with 300 Swiss banks, Swiss banks are with a lot of money these days. I just was in Zurich.

So Tyler says thank you for coming to Zurich and for the great talk. Thank you. I did a talk

on the morality of war. It was a pleasure to finally meet you in person. Keep up the great work,

Tyler. Tyler, thank you. Really appreciate it. It was good to meet you. I hope to be back in Zurich

at some point. Give another talk there. The talk by the way will go up on my channel at some point.

I need to get the link to so I can upload it to my channel, but yeah, hopefully we'll have it soon.

James, $100. Thank you, James. The Florida House just passed a joint resolution to place a

proposed constitutional amendment on November ballot that would abolish property taxes for primary

residences. Will dissentist use this as his platform to run for president rather than bashing

immigrants? I doubt it. I doubt it very much. Plus remember, property taxes are local. The state

taxes are not federal taxes. There's no federal property tax. So I don't think he could have

president abolished property taxes. And look, at the federal level, the problem is not taxation.

At the federal level, the problem is, is government spending. And even at the state level,

and I hesitate to say this because some of you will be upset at me. Even at the state level,

I don't think property taxes are the priority. That is at the state level. There are other

more distorted taxes. And from my understanding, this, this constitutional amendment,

why, you know, it's primary residences and it's got all kinds of other caveats about when

it applies and when it doesn't apply. If you're going to have a constitutional amendment,

then it should be a ban on all property taxes, all property taxes, commercial, residential,

all property taxes. It's just once you start manipulating only residential and only this and only

first homes and not second homes and not vacation homes and not. And look, I'm not, I believe the

priority should always be cutting government spending, governing government involvement,

cutting government regulations, cutting government controls, and only then taxes. Now,

Friday doesn't have any income tax, so that's good. But I'm sure there are lots of taxes on businesses,

for example, the distorted businesses that could be cut made, made more streamlined, made more simple.

And property taxes is not probably the first thing I would cut. And if I did cut it,

I would cut it across the board. But look, generally, yeah, cutting taxes good, particularly

Florida, which does not have a huge deficit, it's good. But I worry about all the loopholes

and all the exceptions and all of that rather than a straightforward cut the whole thing.

And again, it's not a national agenda because you can't nationalize it because federal government

doesn't have property taxes. All right, let's see, Athena, 70 Canadian dollars. She says,

I missed you, you're on. I couldn't stand the war updates from any other source. Thank you

for all that you do. I appreciate that, Athena. Thank you. Thank you. I really appreciate the

support and I appreciate you miss me. And yeah, I'm going to be here. I will be traveling again

starting Thursday. But I think the while I travel on this trip, I'll be able to do a show every day

well, except for the days where I'm actually traveling. And so that that'll be good. So there

won't be, you won't miss out a lot. I'm actually going to Prospera in Honduras, which will be

interesting. I'll be reporting to you from the first kind of free private city. And so it should

be interesting. I'm looking forward to seeing what that's like Prospera in Honduras. So that'll be

that. I'll fly down Thursday, probably do a show on Thursday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday,

Sunday. I'll do shows Monday. I'm traveling all day. Won't be able to do it. Thank you,

Athena. All right, not Travis. I'll go with them. All those enlightenment ideas aren't just going

to go away, even if they're rejected in academia. Look at you want much of the population values

enlightenment, thinking despite being taught, the opposite by their school systems and totalitarian

government. Yes, I mean, I don't, I think up to a point, I think that's right. And I've said all

along that the enlightenment doesn't just collapse everywhere all at once. But it's certainly

eroding in the West and whatever versions of it, you know, they might come back and they might

get eroded. I just expect that you're going to see kind of mixed economies slow growth,

mixed economies of soul of ideas for decades now. I don't expect the dark ages. I don't, as I've

said, I don't expect, I don't expect the West just to go dark. I don't expect the collapse of

the West. I expect slow stagnation over the very long term. And then how we get out of that is

going to be interesting. How we get out of that is going to be interesting. But yes, it is

inspiring to see that a little bit of the enlightenment ideas that are still in the West

have inspired people in Iran who have access to the internet and TV and see what life is like

in travel. I see what life is like in the West and want to live that way too. And don't want to

give up on those freedoms and those liberties and that individualism that is expressed in the way

you cut your hair and the clothes you wear and the kind of life that you live, they want that. They

want the freedom to be able to live the life that they want and pursue the values they want.

And they're willing to fight for it and good for them. That is the enlightenment. That is

fundamentally the enlightenment. And it won't go away completely. But it's not an uptick in terms

of full understanding of it and a full embrace of it and driving us towards capitalism. That is

not happening. All right, molten spend a $50. Thank you, molten spend. You were missed. Thank you.

Can't believe I made it four days without you. Thanks for all you do always. Really appreciate that.

Was it four days? Did it really go four days? Probably. Today's I don't even know what day is this

today. I'm completely jet lagged. So it's Friday, Thursday, Wednesday. Did I not do it show and

Tuesday? I thought I did a show and Tuesday. I thought it was just three days. But anyway, it felt

like four days when there was four days or not. It felt like four days. Thank you, molten spend.

I appreciate it. All right, let's see some stickers rolling. Thank you for the stickers more.

More Swiss francs. I appreciate that. Didn't see you in Zurich though. You didn't take the train over.

Let's see. What else do we have?

Any other stickers? Yes, Applejack. Thank you for the sticker. And

ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta. All right, now I'll have stickers. Lots of questions. Blue

soul. Thank you for the sticker. Lots of questions though and a lot of dollars. I'm in, of course,

thank you for the $100 and CP milk and Jonathan. Thank you for the sticker. All right, guys. Let's jump

into some more questions and we'll just run down the $20 questions and then move to the

$5 to $5 10 questions. Clark Young says, could you do a whole show on what accounts for the slow

spread of objectivism? I don't know. I don't know that I have a full show of content to do about

the what accounts for the slow slow of objectivism. I mean, I'll think about it. I'll think about

how much I have to say. I don't think I have a whole show's worth to say about it. I just think

it's slow. Everything's intellectual change. Real fundamental philosophical change is slow. I

don't think there's any way around that. No magic bullets, no shortcuts, just no way to change

philosophical culture fast. But I'll think about what I can talk about it more. Liam, leftist

claim to care about the working class, but if you ever been around them, they treat working people

like trash, they're extremely rude to waiters, Uber drivers, labor, day laborers. What explains this

disconnect? Well, I mean, leftists are usually, you know, intellectuals, they come middle class

of rich families. I mean, Marx was a good example. He never worked a day in his life as a laborer,

you know, and I think he was pretty dismissive of the working class and treated his made pretty badly.

I think he had an affair with her. I think he even had kids with her. Anyway, Marx was not a

nice human being. Most of these people are nice human, not nice human beings. They come to

leftism to their class struggle ideas out of resentment, out of guilt, out of fear, out of hatred,

rather than out of love, out of positive values. And that's what is expressed. That is, it's not

about the working class. It never was about the working class. It's about tearing down the wealthy.

And it's about tearing themselves down in the sense of putting themselves down because they

itself hatred. So much of leftism is motivated by self hatred rather than something positive to

be achieved, something beautiful to be brought about. I think much of it is the hatred of self

and really the hatred of reality and what's around us. And you can see that starting with Marx.

They just don't like people that much. They wish they were a different being. They wish they were ants.

Harrison, recursive revolution, the song about feedback loops and the industrial revolution

by feed rate command came out yesterday. And tomorrow you'll be able to hear a rap battle

between chat GPT and GROC just for fun. All right, check that out. That is on Spotify.

Fried feed rate command is the, I don't know what it is, the AI music label. Paul,

what is your opinion about the unconstitutional aspect of the war since Congress did not declare

war should the war be condemned because of it? Yes and no. I mean, I said from day one,

this is unconstitutional. It was not approved by Congress. And she condemned this unconstitutional.

And at the same time, you can hold two thoughts at the same time. It's unconstitutional.

It's wrong for president to engage a war without a poor getting approval of Congress. And given

that no president has really gotten proper approval of Congress to engage in war really since World War

II, you know, it's not surprising. And of all the wars that we've engaged in this World War II,

this is one of, this is one of the more justifiable ones. This one has as a moral purpose and is

essential for the in the, you know, protection of the United States essential for the United

States self-interest. And therefore you have to support the war while condemning it. You can do

both. You can support the war from the perspective of this essential for Americans self-defense,

and condemn the war from the perspective of it wasn't approved by Congress. And in that sense,

you could then Trump, not the war, you condemn Trump for not getting Congress's approval.

And for that matter, for not even making the case of American people, for not really caring what

anybody thinks about the war except this is more of Trump being an emotionalist, which is horrible.

And he could really, really, really screw this up the war. That's the risk of anything,

that's the risk of electing Trump. And yet the war is just war. The war is a right war in spite of

that, all of that. And remember, this is all in the context in which presidents don't ask Congress

for approval. And in the context of so much of what presidents have done for the last 100 years

has been unconstitutional. And should be condemned as such. But sometimes they do something good

that's unconstitutional. And you go, yeah, should be condemned. And it's something good they did.

You have to be able to hold more than one thought at the time. Hards sometimes.

Now, Travis algorithm, would you say Ayn Rand had a profound impact on the American business

community or somewhere, what minor or somewhere in between? Probably somewhere in between. She had

a profound impact on a certain number of individuals and a certain number of people that turned out

to be very, very successful and very, very important for American business, particularly in Silicon

Valley. But it's hard to tell what would have happened without her. I think American business life

would be, I mean, business would be a lot less successful without her. So maybe it's profound. I

don't know how exactly to measure that. But she had a profound impact. It's not objectivism.

That is, it's not, they didn't embrace it as a system of philosophy. They embraced her ideas

as inspiration. They took it as inspiration for their own productive ability. And that's huge.

And we've all benefited from that. Not your average algorithm has Trump changed his mind about

the noble peace price. He'd prefer his legacy to be toppling regimes and being feared by the world.

Well, I mean, if he brings regime change to Iran, he might actually deserve the peace

for once. I think he's not changed his mind about it. I think he's given up on it. I think he

realizes he's not going to get it. See might as well succumb to his whims. Michael, if you're really

integrated, if you've really integrated objectivism, you're going to be smarter than most people

around you. You have a superpower. Most people don't know they can tap into. Yes. You know,

the more you integrate objectivism, the more you can use objectivism in your life, the more you

can see connection between things, the more you can understand the world around you, the more you

can understand yourself, the more inspired and inspiring you can be. Yeah, that's a competitive

advantage. There's no question about that. Now, you know, whether that means that you are smarter.

I don't know what smarts depends how you define smart, but you're definitely

better at living and that should show up in a variety of different ways.

Eric, I'm going to a law and economics conference this week. I'm assuming there will be a lot

of Keynesian types there. Any advice on how to push back or tactfully rock the boat?

Well, I mean, law and economics generally tend to be more

they lean free markets. So there will be some free marketers there. If this is a law and

economics as a field, as a field generally, they are

what am I looking at? All right. So, you know, I think the biggest problem with them is lack of

principles, the pragmatists, the full of cost benefit analyses, and almost no principles at all.

And I think you can push back a little bit and what basis is that? When do you get that

firm? How did you come up with that? You know, what about this? Why not? What about the principle

of property rights? What about you can push that way, I would say. Push on where they're getting

this stuff from and try to get them to to a principle, politely, nicely. DB Renek, you're on your

one house. This can't be beat. I hope someone rationally minded, close to Trump administration,

listens to your podcast, if such a person exists. You know, maybe somebody in the defense department

that would be cool. I think because that's what's relevant right now. People at the top are not

going to get this. They don't care. It's not for them. But now people in the defense department,

I'm sure one, or in the Pentagon, the one the U.S. they win that are thinking strategically

about these issues. Maybe they've already thought about everything that I say, but maybe I can

inspire them. Maybe I'll give them an idea of something else. I don't know. But thank you,

DB Renek, I really appreciate that. Vadim, having serious YBS withdrawal, thank you for coming back,

absolutely. And again, there'll be a show tomorrow, basically same time. Jamie from Canada,

do we know who hit the goalscores in Iran yet? I mean, for everything I've seen, it's likely the U

U.S. did. It's likely an accident. The goal school was right next to a strategic location of

a Islamic Revolutionary Guard base, and they either targeted it wrongly, thought it was part of the

base, or a missile went off and missed the target and hit the school. Either way, it's Iran's fault,

right? So, Iran is the initiator force in the struggle, and all the victims are there for. But

it's sad. It's tragic that these goals had a suffer. It's sad and tragic. The children get killed in

war, but it's a cost of war. There's just no way around it. You can't go to war and not expect

significant deaths among civilians, or among innocents, in this case. That's just the cost of

war. So, it's an accident. It wasn't an purpose. It appears now to be an American missile.

They were bombing the camp right next door. Michael, is giving Trump credit for attacking Iran,

like giving Hitler credit for attacking the Soviet Union? No, Trump is not Hitler.

And so, no, there was no value in Hitler attacking the Soviet Union. But again, Trump's not Hitler.

So, those comparisons are not helpful. Trump still represents the United States of America,

free country. So, Trump gets credit for making the decision. We'll see if he gets the credit for

falling through. That is yet to be determined. Michael, can you give an example of empathy as a

selfish act? Yeah, of course. I mean, your loved one is going through pain, physical pain.

You know, she is your life, your reality, your world. You know, you feel her pain.

And you respond in an appropriate way. You respond. As if it's you've got the pain, you respond.

And I mean, you don't, but you respond in a helpful understanding sympathetic way, because you're

empathetic. And that's a selfish value. Because the person you're feeling empathy towards is of great

selfish value to you. An empathy is one way in which you relate to them. You give them visibility.

You give them a sense that you're with them. You are strong with them. You are supportive of them.

Clock is total victory coming. Will we witness Iran transform into a first world,

Western country in our lifetime? I don't know. I'm not sure that we'll get a total victory.

I'm hoping we get victory, but I don't know about total victory. I think there's a chance that we

see Iran start in the process of moving towards a Western country, a first world, Western country,

whether they achieve it or not is a question. And, you know, just the fact, even if we get total

victory here, does that mean that in five years, there's not a counter revolution or 10 years,

the Islamists don't make a comeback? You'd have to know a lot more about how big of a base the

Islamists have and how strong they are to be able to tell, but I do think there's a chance that

you will see it transformed in your lifetime. James, can you learn from the podcasts

from podcasts about economics and philosophy than you can from universities? Can you learn more from

podcasts about economics and philosophy than you can from university? It depends on the podcast

and it depends on the universities. You can learn more about philosophy from the Iron Man

university than you can from podcasts, but you can learn a lot about philosophies from podcasts.

And you can learn a lot from universities. I'm sure there's some good universities out there.

It's also teaching philosophy, the philosophers to you. And the same is true of economics. You go to

George Mason. You'll learn a lot of good economics. You go to some other places. You'll learn good

economics. There's some good podcasts. There's some bad podcasts. I don't know which podcast

in economics you listen to. So it depends. How is it? What do you think of Stuxnet? There's a

feed rate command song coming out about it in April. Very cool subject matter. I don't know what

Stuxnet is. I'm showing my ignorance, but there's more advertising for feed rate command song,

feed rate command songs on Spotify. All right, Res, how would you, how would, how would we

argue against another person who supports an unconstitutional act that we do not support?

They could use the fact that I'll support for this war against this as we objected to such a

thing. I don't tend to argue as a main argument that's unconstitutional. I mean, it is an argument,

but not the main argument. My main argument, for example, against tariffs is it's a violation of

rights and stupid economics. And oh, by the way, using this particular provision is unconstitutional,

but it's still immoral and and and really bad economics. Everything that you want to argue against

that the government does should be argued primarily from the perspective of violates individual

rights, therefore it's immoral. Because the reality is the constitution today is at least in

possible a pretty empty. That is, we latch on to fragments of the constitution to somehow

keep us free a little bit. But the constitution is not the basis of my criticism of 99.9% of

what the government does. Based on my criticism is it's violating rights. It's immoral and it's

usually bad policy, bad economics, bad for the country. What's moral is the practical,

the practical is the moral. And hey, by the way, 90% of what the government does is unconstitutional.

But if you just argue that, you'd be batting your head against the war because you disagree with

the Supreme Court. Supreme Court doesn't think 90% of what the government does is unconstitutional.

I think the existence of federal service is unconstitutional. But have you ever really argued that

as the main reason to object to the, no, federal service, it's immoral for the state to control our

money? That's the argument. So our argument needs to be moral and based on a political philosophy,

not based on a particular interpretation of the constitution.

Adam, why did outside not have a coherent plan for winning? Why not at least bring together

organized and prepare the anti regime factions in advance? Adam, you shocked me that you asked

this question because outside is run by Donald Trump and Pete Hickseth. Hickseth. I mean,

it's run by morons. Sorry, I know. God. But it is. It's run by people who are not strategic

thinkers and the people within the Pentagon who are strategic thinkers, probably oppose the war

and weren't inclined to do all that work because they opposed the war.

So we don't have an intelligent strategic thinking president or a secretary of defense

or a war or whatever you want to call him. We just don't have it. And the people around Trump

are just not strategic, not strategic. And even Rubio, maybe he's too focused on Latin America,

but he's just not that strategic. So that's why we could have easily, we didn't because they're

unthinking because they don't plan because they go by gut feeling. Jennifer, is it more likely we

un-un-un alive, how many son before or after he's named Supreme Leader? I don't know. My

the latest intelligence I have, which is I don't know what it's worth exactly, but the latest

intelligence I have is that he was injured in one of the attacks, but wasn't killed. I think to

the extent that they know where he is, they will try to kill him. But you know, my guess is that

the Iranians, I guess now, at this point of the war, smart enough, not to be in predictable places.

And that's why we haven't heard much about leaders within the Iranian regime dying in the last

few days because they may be on the road. Maybe they're outside of Tehran. Maybe they've

gone all the way out to West East and Iran. I don't know. But the point is that they're probably

scattering. And to the extent that we know where he's son is, he's already a dead man.

And if he hasn't been killed, it's only because we're not sure where he is.

Molten splendor, can you show your opinion on how and if the Kurds might soon be in a leadership

position and how they would lead? Oh, as I said, I don't think the Kurds will be in a leadership

position. I don't think they want to be in a leadership position. There's a small minority

within Iran. They don't want to control Iran. What they'd like is autonomy in their region

in North West Iran. The most you could expect from the Kurds is to distract the Islamic

Revolutionary Guard so that they would have to deploy forces to combat the Kurds in North East

Iran. I don't expect them to march on Tehran. I don't expect them to take over the levers of

power into Iran. I don't think that will happen. So what they want is autonomy. What they really

want is a Kurdish state that takes chunks of Iran, chunks of Iraq, chunks of Syria, and chunks of

Turkey. But that unfortunately for the Kurds is not happening. It's not happening. But I think

they will fight in their region, for their region. And that'll be a major distraction and that

I hope the cause of the Americans. But it's not going to be the boots in the ground in Tehran

that are needed in order to replace the Shijim. That is going to happen. That is going to have to be

Iranians, locally Iranians. That's going to have to be I think ultimately. It's going to have

to be the military. I mean, the whole goal I think of the Israelis and Americans at this point

is the weekend. Is the weekend. The Islamic Revolutionary God so much that the military,

the opposition figures within the military have the courage to stand up against them.

Linda says, did you read that Rama Dhuaji, the wife of New York mayor, Zaharan Mamdani,

liked social media posts on Instagram that appeared to celebrate the Hamas lived October 7th,

2023 attack on Israel? I did. And it doesn't surprise me. It didn't surprise me for one

hour. You know, you think Mamdani didn't? I'm sure he did. If he didn't like them, I'm sure he

felt that sentiment. We all know. He's a globalized anti-fodder guy. That was just an occurrence of

a global anti-fodder. So none of that surprises me at all. That's who he is. Now, I don't think he's

that Kua Islamist. I think he's that Kua leftist. And I think he suppressed that because

you know, he worried that by having those views, he wouldn't win the election.

He might have been right. He might have been wrong. It's not clear.

Liam says, someone told me, watch the rich for markets, but watch the middle class for the economy,

any truth to this. I don't even know what that means. It strikes me as a meaningless statement.

Most of the rich are passive investors in the markets. I don't know what it means to watch

them. I don't think they know anything in advance. I don't think they're particularly good in

markets unless they're in finance. And I don't know what it means until the middle class in the

economy. Yeah, I really don't know what it means. And I know I wouldn't go by something like that.

Romans says, Kata stopped all diplomatic diplomacy with the Islamic dictatorship.

Should Kata teach Europe diplomacy? Why the Europeans so hesitant in this war? Because they

hesitant. They hesitant in every war. They hesitant in life. They don't want to make moral statements.

So don't you know people who don't want to make any moral judgments, who never judge anybody,

who never take a stand, who never take a radical position? And by the way, don't trust the

Qataris beyond, you know, beyond anything. I don't trust them. I don't know what exactly they're

doing. I don't know that they're not working with the Iranians on the side. I wouldn't trust them

when I ordered one bit. Anyway, Europeans are more relativists and they refuse to judge. And because

they can't judge the Muslim Brotherhood, they can't judge the Iranians. And as a consequence,

they land up sitting on fences. Hopper Campbell, you said ISIS is a phenomenon.

Phenomenon, we've never seen an American history before, but weren't the Japanese in

terminic camps far worse than what ISIS tasked to do? I mean, maybe, maybe, but I'm not sure it is.

I mean, first of all, there was a semi-valid reason for the internment camps.

There was a war. There was a fear of people spying for the Japanese.

There was only initiated by Japan. There was real fear that local Japanese would spy for Japan.

I'm not saying it's justified, but there was some national security reason to do it.

It was much easier to round them up. They were concentrated in particular places where

Japanese lived and worked. They weren't thugs and out neighborhoods all over the place. The numbers

weren't quite as large. I think it was much simpler, much more localized, much more

defined operation than what you're seeing with ISIS, which is somewhat open-ended.

Hopper, maybe your path is harder because your calling is higher. Again, I don't know what that means.

I don't know what my calling is. I don't know what calling is. I don't like nobody's called me to

do anything. Calling is not a good term. Certainly not a good objectivist term. So

purpose is a good term. Purpose is what the objectivist legitimate term is.

Gary, could you see Lebanon and Beirut becoming again the Paris of the Middle East? Yes, I can.

I can, and a lot depends on the next few weeks. If we can really neutralize the Kizballah,

wow, look out. Beirut could really flourish. Lebanon could really flourish, particularly,

and they will need to sign a peace agreement with Israel. Yes.

Not to have a juggle with them. Will Megatun on Trump over-specived Soviet Israel?

Big chunks of MAGA? No. MAGA is whatever Trump says it is, for most MAGA. Now, there is a faction,

the Tucker Carlson, I can't just own faction, that is turning against Trump over this.

But what's their options? Who are they going to go with? There's nobody out there that is

challenging, channeling them other than these influences. Maybe Tucker Carlson gets a

politics in order to take advantage of that. I don't know. Not to have a juggle with them. Why are

intellectuals yearning for a dark age, both left and right? Well, they don't say they're

yearning for dark age. They don't think they're yearning for dark age. They think they want an

age of success and prosperity. It's just that the dark age is a consequence, but they don't hold

it in their mind as I want a dark age. They are attracted to ideas because of their religion,

because they can't think, and they can't think about causing effect, and they can't think about

consequences. They at some edge of their mind know that this is bad, but they can't really

think it through, and they just don't have the capacity, or they have the capacity. They're

ignoring their capacity, they're vading their capacity. So it's not like what they're

yearning for is destruction, more than anything else. And that comes from hate and fear, primarily.

Hate and fear, the driving emotions are both the fall left and the far right.

I like numbers when Oxford's Meezer Society promotes scholarships for young people to attend

events at Meezer's Institute at Auburn does that counter sanction. I mean, it does, but I give a

certain latitude, latitude, I think it's latitude. Two students to youth organizations run by

students, you know, I think they at least can be assumed to be more ignorant than assumed to be

evil in a sense of having the knowledge to know that this is evil and this is bad. And therefore,

I don't have a problem speaking for two. Student runs student-based libertarian organization.

And even more so in Europe where they don't always know how bad the Meezer's Institute is.

But, you know, students, I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt until they prove me wrong.

Michael, is Mamdani all talk? Will he not actually do another majority,

majority, anything majorly destructive or will New York City landlords be in the sum rough times?

I think it's going to be somewhere in the middle. I think he'll do stuff that's destructive.

It won't, so landlords are in for a rough ride, but I don't think he can get away with a lot because

they are property rights and they are courts. So, it'll be less harmful than what one would expect

given his rhetoric, but more harmful than if he did nothing. So, it'll be bad, but not horrific.

That is my prediction.

Not chavish algorithm. You said Trump hasn't done anything to move against the welfare state,

but they have cut Medicaid and food stamps. They cut Medicaid a little bit,

they cut food stamps a little bit or they change food stamps and made them, it's not that they cut them,

they made them more reliant on work, but these are tiny little changes that have very little impact

and don't change any of the budget stuff. And they did it in order to be able to spend money on

other things that they wanted. They haven't done anything fundamental and anything substantial

about the welfare state. Maybe they've done some minor stuff. It's minor, whatever they've done.

Look at the numbers. The shin amount of money spent on Medicaid and food stamps, I don't think

has gone down or is going down. Benjamin, can you elaborate on how you maintain objectives

principles when supporting this war? It seems pragmatic to support regime change by corrupt Trump.

I mean, why? I mean, the question is, if there's going to be a regime change, then there's going

to be a regime change. Why does it depend where the Trump is corrupt and not? Does that make

the freedom of the Ukrainians any different? Does that make the fact that America will be

more secure any different? Trump is corrupt, completely corrupt. More corrupt than any of the

president, but other presidents were pretty corrupt, too, from a constitutional perspective. And

yet, I still supported them when they did good things. Now, I'm hesitant with Trump because

he can screw this up. And I keep telling you, Trump could still screw this up. So I support it,

as long as Trump doesn't screw it up, he's ready to something, then screwing it up, because

you know, states of almost closed and stuff like that. But no, you can't. I mean, this idea that

a president that's co-op, therefore you must oppose everything that they do. I don't understand it.

I just don't understand it. I mean, I continue to argue against Trump and continue to argue that

he could really screw this up. But if, by chance, because of our military, not because of Trump,

it is successful. Then, you know, that is a good thing. And it won't change my criticism,

or Trump. And so, you know, let's say, make this extreme. You want us about to launch a

nuclear weapon towards the United States. And we're like, and Trump is like, okay, I'm going to

go stop them. And we're like, no, you can't do that. You're Trump. We won't let you do it.

Because you're corrupt. So you can't do something that'll save American lives. Well, he's doing

something that will long-term save American lives. Even if you stop today, this will have been good.

Because it's stopped American, saved American lives. And that's the purpose of government.

It's to protect the individual rights of Americans, which means save American lives.

So if Trump can do that in a particular context, then maybe even because of the particular nature

of altruism and particular character of Donald Trump, he might be the only one who can do it.

I'll even go that far. Then I will support him in this narrow, very, very narrow thing.

And recognize the harm that might be done as a consequence.

Liam, is New York City more like Europe than America? No, because I think America is not that far

behind New York City. And I think all of New York and New York is a driven city in a way that

no city in Europe is driven like New York. Rimos says, what do you think of Zurich? I just love it.

It's a pretty city. It's a pretty city. It's very pretty. If people are incredibly friendly,

it actually went to a good restaurant too. So food is good. Yeah, I like Zurich. I haven't spent

a lot of time there. I'm always in and out quickly, but the time I've spent I've enjoyed.

Rimos, value for value. Thank you, Rimos. Appreciate that. Gold, gold. I am an aerospace engineer.

I want to study masters and finance. A masters and finance is a good degree to have. There's a lot

of jobs for that. Go to the best university you can get into for getting your masters and

finance. That'll give you great job prospects afterwards.

Clark, despite Trump's buffoonishness, are you optimistic about Iran's future and radically

Islam dissolving because of this military action? I still am. I still think that, yes, despite

of Trump and despite a lack of strategy and planning and all of that, Iran is so weak,

ultimately, that this really could lead to regime change and a significantly improved future

for Iran. So I'm still optimistic. Neo, IDF launches an Iranian refineries and oil depots.

Yeah. I have to catch up on the news. I can't do that while I'm doing this, we'll see.

Ryan, can you make the regime and I allG feel the pain without doing it to the people too

and get regime change without much damage to the people? I don't know. I don't know. We'll discover

that. But I think some pain to the people isn't inevitable. No gasoline, for example, take out

out to a finer, a fineries, so they can't drive, which will really hurt, because trucks

won't be able to deliver food, it'll be a problem. But I don't know if you can get regime

change without doing that. Power, water, you know, you'd have to decide what are the priorities,

but some pain for the people is going to have to happen.

You're on, thank you for being a voice of reason in an increasingly rational world. Your

defensive reason of freedom is deeply appreciated. Thank you, Boris. Really appreciate it.

I'm Mikhat for once. I'm going to play the dove. 30,000 plus Iranians are being killed

by the regime. They hated plenty. This time, good will among Iranians, Iranian people

is an asset. I still think what I think about Gaza. I mean, that's all true. And yet, there's

still a significant proportion of the Iranian population, probably supports this regime.

And they're going to have to be brought to understand what happens if they continue

in this route. I don't think you can avoid. War is war. You cannot avoid civilian pain

in a war. Otherwise, don't go to war. After a week of bombardment of Islamic Iran has

the fighting ability of the G.C. and besiege being degraded to Iranian people can oppose

them. I think it's been significantly degraded whether the Iranian people can oppose them.

I don't know yet. But certainly it's been degraded so that, and I think this is the ultimate

goal, at least this would be my goal, is so that the Iranian army can easily oppose them.

That's what I think the goal needs to be. Not to degrade the I.C. to the point where unarmed

civilians can oppose them, but to degrade them to the point where lightly armed military

can oppose them. That should be the goal. And I'm not sure where they're yet, but that's

where we're heading. I make it. I'm OK bombing or facilities. I G.C. gets revenue anyway.

Just not water and power, not this time. Yeah, but oil will mean no cause, no trucks,

no delivery of food, no delivery of anything. It'll mean that raining people will suffer.

How wolf says wrathful Iran is what the world needs, right? Yeah, they need Iran wrathful

and and gentle and considering and principled and uncompromising and dedicated to liberty

and freedom. That's what they need. They need they need Iran. They need a lot of me.

Deepo with Diego, Dan and James said anyone who leaves Iran and goes to watch them over

it, A.R.C.U.K. you'll get five bucks. Dan and James are going to give people five bucks

so the people who leave my show. I mean, there's no reason to leave my show and go to A.R.C.U.K.

because they their shows are like 10 hours long. You can go anytime to their show. Mine are

short, condensed, powerful. Their show's gone forever. You can catch them after my show, catch them

before my show. Anyway, they're not going to give you five bucks. There's no way Dan and James

are going to give you five bucks. Cook, abandoning the codes was not only disloyal but would have

severely adverse adverse adverse consequences worldwide for any future effort to recruit allies

who might later be seen as expandable. This is from John Bolton's book. And that was the first

time they were betrayed. That was when they were trained in 2019, 18 or 19. They were even

betrayed worse last year by Trump. So it's, God, you know, people never learned. And John Bolton

was an exceptional national security advisor. But Trump didn't deserve such a good national security

advisor. P. Gupta, absolutely loved Mr. Sunshine. Thanks haunting scenes and music. Fast forward to

episode two to get going after multiple failed starts. Well, you have to do, yes, you have to

get through episode one and two to get into it. But episode one is important because it sets the

context. But you have to watch it more than once because you have to figure out what's a flashback

and what is happening this and who are the characters and what it's hard. But once you get past it,

it becomes easier. And with thoughts on Trump demanding political and economic change in Cuba,

I think it's good. I think it's good. You know, I mean, I mean, I think regime change in Cuba is

easier than regime change in Iran. And the demand for regime change in Cuba, I mean, what are

the downsides? No downsides, lots of upsides. Uh, woman, lots of peer polyvego seems reasonable. Yeah,

I liked them. I was disappointed that he didn't win the Canadian election, but I think that's Trump's fault.

He seems like a good conservative relatively speaking. So I'm, I'm favorably inclined, seems

like a free market conservative relatively. Augustina says, thanks for your work. You aren't spending

my Saturday brunch money to support you. Oh, now you make me feel bad. I'm, I'm causing Augustina

not to eat brunch on Saturday. Again, I feel guilty all weekend for that. Thank you, Augustina.

And thank you for all the work you do. Uh, you're, you're an inspiration. Uh, peak up to where

Iranian assembly of experts all killed who elected Hamini's son. Well, nobody, so first no,

they weren't. Uh, it turns out the building was probably, we don't know, but probably mostly empty.

Some were killed, but maybe not a majority. They weren't there. Uh, they were, turns out they were

using zoom or something. Uh, but nobody selected Hamini's son. There is no supreme leader in Iran right

now. So while rumours say Hamini's son is the supreme leader, he is not. There's no proof of that.

There's no evidence of that. It's not definitive. Uh, there is no supreme leader right now in Iran.

They're still waiting for that decision to be made. So no, he was not, um, they were not

mostly killed and he was not elected. Not java java with them. When people say life is meaningless.

Do they mean there's no intrinsic value to life? We're all going to be dead and forgotten.

The objective is to use that life as meaning we give it for the time we have. Yes.

And the meaning of life is to live it. It is in the living. That's the meaning.

There's no meaning outside of life. There's no meaning outside of us.

There's no meaning that comes from other places. It's like we don't have a calling.

Nobody calls us. There's no somebody out there to call us. So it's, it's, you give meaning to your

life and how you live it in the values you pursue. That's what gives meaning to your life.

And, and yes, I agree. They say life is meaningless because they view it as intrinsic value

whereas we know it's not intrinsic. It's the value you give it. Um, and, uh, so, you know,

it's the Nietzsche. God is dead. Life is meaningless, right? Because there's no outside force to

give it meaning. Daniel, I hate to be negative while we're bombing you on. But if this goes good,

I could see the right saying you see it wouldn't have happened if Trump wasted time with Congress.

It's something we'll have to watch out. You know, maybe, but the reality is that's not the kind of

resolution he would have needed from Congress. He could have done it a month ago, two months ago.

And it's also the case that whatever happens, the right is going to take credit for it and,

and claim victory. Trump will anyway. Um, yeah, I mean, that is the downside of anything Trump does

successfully is they'll say, see, only Trump could do that. See, we need a Trump that, yeah,

and that's the danger. That's, but that's, look, that's the consequence of electing Trump.

Once you elect Trump, there are lots of downfalls. There are lots of downsides. But then to ignore

something good happening, potentially, it is the no reality. It's something good happening.

Law some logic. Thank you for the sticker. Really appreciate it. $20. I appreciate that.

All right. Um, res. Right. That was my thought to using the constitution as a primary basis is the

era I agree. Yes. You don't disagree with stuff primarily because it's unconstitutional.

The fact that it's unconstitutional is one aspect of what we from an objective perspective disagree

with something on. I, you know, I don't start with it's unconstitutional. Because so much is

unconstitutional. So so much again, something like 90% of what the government does today is unconstitutional.

P. Gupta, will Iranian could work with Palavi? Yeah, I think they will, particularly if he's

willing to give them autonomy. And I think he's expressed the willingness to do that.

Harrison, Stuxnet was probably Israel. Oh, the computer virus designed with extreme

positions of the target and destroy Iranian, uranium centrifuges and nothing else. I remember that

really powerful set back the Iranian nuclear program by years and years and years. Yep.

Ray Raymond. Why should the government issue shipping insurance right now? Isn't this just a

subsidy? Why is this a proper action by the government? I think because oil is a strategic asset,

oil is necessary, a decent price and oil is necessary for national security.

So, uh, you know, government intervention with regard to it during a war and only during a war

is relevant. It's the war that has caused the problem. Again, national security. Why

escort the ships? That in a sense is a military intervention in a civilian thing. It's because

of the strategic nature of the issue. And again, the reason, the reason that the US Navy is as

big and as vast and as powerful as it is, its primary function is securing the shipping lanes.

This is its job. But yes, I, you know, this is a subsidy, but it's a subsidy focused on

moving cargo that would have moved if not for the war. It's not a subsidy to increase production.

It's not a subsidy for anything like that, which has distorted effects. This would not actually

distort. This would return to normal. It would be short-lived only during this emergency and then it

would be gone. On some, it's really YouTube news channels. You recommend other sources.

God, I, you know, my wife listens to, um, channel 12 and con, KEN. You can find channel 12.

I think they both broadcast live. I don't listen that much, but she fills me in.

I read telegram various telegram accounts. Amit Segal is pretty good on politics and

in Israel and what's going on. And then there's, uh, then there's a number of others whose name

I can't remember. But I follow like five different telegram channels that are pretty reliable now

for a few years and they've been really reliable. Augustina, what do you know about

DHS Secretary nominee, McQueen Mullin? That's a weird first name. And how do you think he'd

perform his head of DHS if confirmed? I don't know that much about it. He's a Trump loyalist from

the Senate. Um, you know, everybody seems to think from what I've read about him that he is

a much more level headed that he's smart as compared to Nome, um, and, uh, kind of level headed

to good organizer. Um, I don't think you'll see a dramatic shift in what the department does.

I think you'll see it become a little bit more professional in what it does. It will be less

abusive, but maybe more efficient, which I'm not sure I like the more efficiency. But likely

to focus on being efficient and trying to be less abusive, what he'll try to do

is position ice towards the November election as going after criminals is making your life safer

unless about just random rounding up people, I think. But it's going to be interesting to see

how he performs during the confirmation hearings and what he says. I know it seems like a number

of Democrats will actually vote for him because they like him. He was a friendly senator.

And we'll welcome back. Iran should have been confronted decades ago. Yes. Better late than

never watching Tucker and other mega, uh, mega, it's squeamishness is a side poke. Yes. I'll talk

about Tucker tomorrow. He said some amazing things over the last few days, which, which are fun.

Uh, John, would it be more likely than objective as wins an election under an established party?

I'm probably going to Democrat who couldn't objective's party have a chance. When, now, I don't think

either one has a chance. I think probably of an objectiveist winning an objective's party winning

is zero. The probability of an objectiveist winning an election with an established party

depends on, on, on where it's very close to zero, but it's higher because you get the party

affiliation and you get people voting for the party just because they vote for the party rather than you.

So, I mean, Rob Tusinski running in Virginia is going to be interesting because he's as close

than objective as we have in running. Um, and he's running as a Democrat, which is interesting

because he shares my hostility towards Republicans and Trump. And we'll see how many votes he gets.

It'll be interesting. And he's articulate and he's bright in politics. So it'll be interesting.

What he can do? Uh, Charles. Hi, you're on. Thanks for an interesting evening at Oxford. It was

worth the trip down from London. Thank you, Charles. I'm glad you made it out. I, I'm glad you found

it interesting. Yeah, it was, it was fun. It was fun. It was good to meet you there. I look forward

to meeting you in the future in London, Oxford, or wherever. Come to Porto. You should come to Porto.

Harrison, could we possibly make an AI Iran at some point? I had this company that was going to

do it. And they disappeared. They, I think they went belly up. I think they couldn't raise enough

money. So yes, they will be at some point. Neo, contact Mark, Mark Mike at the Aristotle

Foundation in Canada. Yeah, I know. I'd be meaning to interview him for a while. I will at some

point. He's very responsive by email and it could be a great contact and guest for the show. Yeah,

I plan to do that. I've just neglected it. I apologize.

London Center, best case scenarios that Iran becomes like Jordan, still authoritarian,

with some pro-Western alignment and no expansion aspiration, that would be a good thing for the world.

It would, but I don't think that's the best case scenario. I think you could have much better

than that. I mean, I don't know if you saw the girls' revolution, I don't know if you saw the

protesters going out there, young people going out there, you know, that is not a population that's

going to settle for being Jordan. And then if they are like Jordan, will they oppress their people

when their people go on to the streets demanding freedom? I just don't think that's a stable equilibrium.

Too many Iranians want to be free for that to be a stable equilibrium. Daniel, this might be the

only time I can remember American asserting itself in spite of the regular caveats. It does feel

pretty great. Do you think this will help build our self-esteem to an extent? You know, maybe,

I think all of that is undercut by the fact that Trump is doing it sadly, but maybe,

maybe it's suddenly building up Trump's boastfulness. That's a danger that convinces Trump. He's

invincible, and he follows whims in everything. All right, it looks like Brian Cross is going to have

the final question. Let's see, I had thought Trump could have informed Congress as required,

maybe even gotten the votes to start the bombing, is that required, but he didn't want to imply

that he needed to consult Congress or anything. I think that's right. He could have asked Congress,

and I said this on a previous show. He could have asked Congress for the permission to attack

Iran at his discretion, given the threat they posed America, and just a vote to give him the

discretion in terms of timing to attack Iran to dismantle the nuclear program. And even in the

law, I could have said potentially being about a regime change. He could have done that. He could

have done that a month ago, two months ago. He could have done that a year ago. Just giving him

the discretion as to timing and urgency. It wouldn't, and I think, I think if he'd done it right,

and he'd gone to the American people and gone to Congress and navigated Congress, he could have

gotten the votes. But yeah, you're right. He didn't want to be in a position where he's going to ask

Congress for anything. He doesn't believe in that. All right, everybody. Thank you. Thank you for

your support. Really, really, really appreciate it. Have a great rest of your weekend. I will see

you guys again. Same time tomorrow. So tomorrow, clocks are switching, huh? So I'm not sure exactly.

It's the tomorrow either two o'clock or three o'clock, probably one hour later tomorrow, probably three

o'clock Eastern time tomorrow. See, your clocks are changing, mine are not. So I now become East Coast

time as of tomorrow. So it changes all my schedules. It just been booze us me every time. So probably

three o'clock Eastern time tomorrow instead of two o'clock. All right, hope you enjoyed the show.

Don't forget to support your on book show on patreon.com. Your on book show become a monthly

supporter. Oh, we got one more thing. Frank came in. You have been the best, Frank says.

Level headed reporter on the war, not a time for hysterics reading WS Javans. Javans great

writer, the economist. Thank you, Frank. And wow, I mean, that's you're eating some some intense

content. That's good. That's good. And thank you for the support. $50. That's amazing.

Oh, molten splendor says what is the status of AI Iran? I don't know. I've lost touch with those

guides. I need a good thanks for reminding me. I'll I'll let you know in the next few weeks. I'll

drop them in email and see if they exist. I have a feeling the company's gone belly up because

I haven't heard a word. All right, see you tomorrow. Bye, everybody.