It's A Disaster Already

What's up? What's up, everybody? Welcome to a brand new episode of part of the problem.

I am Dave Smith. He is Robbie the Fire Burnstein. Um, we will be out in Pittsburgh this weekend.

Comic Dave Smith dot com. Come grab tickets. We haven't, I don't think me and you have done

shows together in Pittsburgh ever. I haven't been there on quite a while. I think I haven't been

there since we had like a Mises Caucus event in Pittsburgh a while back. Anyway, really looking

forward to going out there. So come on out and see us this weekend. I do apologize. The show is

starting a little bit late today. I was on a Pierce Morgan panel at it. You know, it might have

been one of them. Oh, dude, Ben Ferguson, who I used to know from back in, um, I think we met

like when I was doing S.E. Cup show. If you remember, like back in in those days, it's like a push,

George W. Bush conservative. Dude, it was, I mean, he just, it was bad. Dude, he literally just

had like, I got to understand because he just knew he couldn't win the argument. He just talked

over me the entire time that the entire show just became us talking over each other. And then

I did do it back to him a little bit because it was just like, oh, he ruined my whole last time

to speak. So now I'm going to do it. So it just turned into a total shit show. But it was kind of

interesting because Jack Pusebiak was on to and, you know, I, I, you know, I got to, I probably

should reach out to him. I'd be interested to talk to him more about it. But he just kind of seemed

like, man, I can't even defend this shit. And then they got like that Jojo chick and Tim Miller.

So it's like two Biden Democrats over here who are just like trash and Trump because it's the

opportunity and you're like, shut up. I don't really want you on my side. Like I just wanted to talk

the whole time. I'm like, Jack, you got to admit to that we have to stop supporting the president

now because Jack Pusebiak, you know, he was, he had just put out this mini documentary like a

few months ago on the war in Iraq that was excellent, dude. Like it was excellent. Like I would stamp

my name on that documentary and go, yes, he hit all of it. The clean break and the Israel lobby

and the seven countries in five years and he went through the whole thing. And then, you know,

I mentioned to him today, you know, remember because it's so funny because we'll get into it.

There's a bunch, obviously more developments and fall out from the war. But it was Dick Cheney. He

had in the documentary, Dick Cheney's now infamous, meet the press appearance where they ask him

at the beginning of the war, how long will the war in Iraq last? And he goes, it'll be weeks not months.

That was his quote, it'll, this is going to be, we won't take months. Come on, months,

that's ridiculous. Meanwhile, you know, we, there was a bloody civil war for eight years and a

military occupation for nearly 20. And, you know, so you, you know, you get into these things,

it's easy to say, oh, this will be quick. And like, maybe this one will be, I mean, maybe Donald

Trump will just stop. But man, seems unlikely. You know, I wanted to, I'm curious, just Rob,

like just where, what you're thinking about, you know, 24 hours since our last podcast on this.

But one of the things that I'm thinking about that, I think I maybe didn't, I maybe didn't do

as good a job as I should have in the last episode of really making this point. But I think the fact

that, because now, by the way, this has been verified by a bunch more reporting, this is real,

that after the, the Ayatollah was killed, that Donald Trump threw his Italian

negotiators, they, their conduit there, they offered a ceasefire. Like Donald Trump tried to do

the 12 day war thing and take another off ramp. But the Iranians said, no, and they've been

responding for 36 hours since then. And the thing that's so, like, I think that's a really

important dynamic that that has shifted. I tried to make this point on yesterday's show,

but I think it bears repeating or maybe trying to make it in a better way that, you know,

when I said Donald Trump had changed the incentives for the Iranians, it's like, well, look,

for all of this time, and really, obviously, this was demonstrated in the 12 day war, Iran has not

wanted it. They don't want to get destroyed, obviously, right? But now they've created a situation

where the Iranians go, dude, we can't do that now. You know, okay, it's one thing if you say,

hey, we're going to bomb Fordo or we're going to take out your nuclear sites and then go, hey,

you pretend to respond. Now, let's make a deal. They go, okay, let's make a deal. But we're going

to come in and murder your Ayatollah and his family. Now, let's call a ceasefire from the Iranian

perspective now. They're like, no, then we know you're just going to keep fucking with us forever

until you overthrow us. So they're only, so now their self preservation calculation

is that we got to give you a black eye. We got to make sure, you know, some people died. Now,

already since then, since since this war launched, there's, I think, is it for Americans?

They're, they're central command is admitting have died. I think a dozen or so other have been

injured. I think three people died in Austin, Texas in a blowback terrorist attack. Is that a

terrorist attack? Well, he fucking, I mean, look, I guess we don't have all the details yet,

but he had an Iranian flag and I'm with Allah shard on when he started shooting people up.

He's like, maybe it was motivated by that, like a pretty likely guess. Like I said yesterday,

it's the, it's the worst way to be vindicated, but around really seems to not be playing around

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What are your thoughts since last week's spoke? Well, still, yeah, I mean, I was hoping that there

would be the easy off ramp of Donald Trump saying, hey, it's a new regime, even if it's not a new

regime. In terms of, you know, taking unnecessary risks, apparently, Donald Trump's leading picks for

who might take over for Kalmani, they accidentally killed as well in the strike. So he doesn't even

currently know who he might want to team up with if they were to forge a new government. I think

the thing that's really standing out to me and it resonates from your comments on the last episode

is just that Donald Trump is now the old Republican party. It's all the people that we voted against

and had no interest in as the, you know, establishment politicians are the people that are taking a

victory lap on the new stations, speaking for Trump. And you're like, this is what Trump was here to

do is to thwart your you guys because we all hated you guys and we hated this stuff. And now

we're back. You guys are in full control. I was listening to the Ted Cruz interview and he's

talking about briefing Donald Trump the day beforehand. And I mean, the way he's selling it is

almost like Ted Cruz went in there, pulled up his pants and showed him his boss and said, here's

what we got to do. And Trump went, yes. And you would know what happened in the elections. We all

voted against Ted Cruz because that's not what we wanted. And it's incredible that we thought we

were thwarting the Republican party and or voters did. They thought they were getting a new

Republican party that was actually America first. And now, I mean, we've got a better salesman

for their bullshit. Yeah. Yeah. Although, I mean, I don't know. I don't know how effective of a

salesman. He's really going to turn out to be. You know, there was there, one of the things that's

so interesting right is that even from and I kind of pounced on that guy Ben Ferguson on the show

for this, but even from the Republican perspective, who's went there, you know, trying to somehow

justify this war on the just it's like, it feels like a what's the word I'm looking for? A

hodgepodge. What is that with like, were you just like randomly take think like that's kind of

the justification for this war is just like, I don't know what they're, they're, they're Muslim.

And they also nuclear weapons. And they're like, but you destroyed the nuclear weapons.

They're kind of mental ballistic missiles are Marines. Remember the Bayroot bombing,

you remember that 60 years ago? You know, like, it's just like whatever they can grab.

But he goes at one point, like after Pierce asked him a question, he goes, he goes, well,

I mean, you got to admit, because I said Donald Trump just destroyed his presidency. And then he

goes, well, you got to admit, if this goes bad, James, right? And he goes, yeah, yeah, if this

goes bad. And it's like, okay, so he goes, if this goes bad, the Democrats are going to win the

midterms. And you're like, okay, so, but if you're admitting that if this goes bad, which

seems like a good chance, like it seems like it's already gone pretty bad, Rob. But so if this

goes bad, then the Democrats win the midterms and the Democrats win the presidency in 2028. And so

if you just think about like the average Republican, what they've been saying about the Democrats,

you're like, so you're willing to risk our liberty to maybe bring liberty to the Iranian people.

And that is America first. How? I almost like, I understand why Ben had to just interrupt me

the whole time, because what are you going to do? Fucking make that have that argument?

Whatever you're going to make the debate that trying to liberate the Iranian people, which may,

to your own admission, may not work at all. Is this? You know, the other point that I wanted to make

on yesterday's show that I don't think I did. I don't remember. Maybe I did. I don't think I made

this point, but I think it's an important one. You know, when when Donald Trump, so I knew this

about and I had made this point previously about the first Iraq war under George H. W. Bush,

Persian Gulf War in 91. But I had never made it about Panama. You know, after I never really knew

that much about Panama, I probably knew like, you know, I don't know like the broad strokes of the

thing. Like I knew Noriega was the CIA's guy until he wasn't. And I knew he was like in bed with

the drug cartels. I knew Nas like to wrap about him a lot. And I knew that I knew that we went in

there and we took him out. But after Venezuela, everybody was like, all the hawks were bringing up

Panama as the example. Look, this is another success. So I kind of like started reading a little

bit more about it. And one of the really interesting things was that Panama was just like with the

first right, what they, the hawks were saying at the time was what Ben Shapiro is saying now about

Venezuela that it cured it cured Iraq war. Okay, they were all saying this cured Vietnam syndrome.

That's what they were saying that like, you know, ever since Vietnam, we have this real problem

where Americans don't want to get into stupid bloody wars. But look, we just showed him that it

could be a stupid not that bloody war. So now, you know, whatever we want. And anyway,

there's been all types of reporting about, and you could also see that the hawks have all been

bragging about this. But there's been a lot of reporting that this is Donald Trump's, you know,

mindset. And I had this confirmed from people who are very close to him that essentially he looks

at the success of Venezuela, the success, whatever that means, like what did you actually do there?

But he looks at the success of Venezuela and goes, and that's a big part of his

mentality with this. Like, no, I'm really smart. This is what all the hawks are saying. Yeah,

that was with dumb leadership. This is with smart leadership. And so you end up realizing that

there's like a hidden cost even when these military adventures are somewhat, you know,

what they would call successful, what we might call not catastrophic in their results. But there's

a hidden cost to that too. And the cost is that that breeds all this hubris. And now they start

going, Oh, yeah, we can do this. And this is literally I remember living through this. This is

what happened after the first war in Iraq is that everybody said, Hey, this was so successful and

easy. We didn't even lose any troops. We can do stuff. And then we were bogged down in that country

for the next 30 years. You know, and so it just, you know, Donald Trump can sit here and say,

it's going to be weeks, not months, but we've heard that before. And I think if you're really paying

attention to the fucking, you know, the signal, not the noise here, the big news as of today, Rob,

is that both Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth, the two most important people who you could hear from

on this issue, the commander in chief and the Secretary of War, both said they're not ruling out

boots on the ground. Well, yeah, I mean, it's it listen, I mean, yeah, it's hard to believe in

when they promised us no wars. And now we're already in a war. And now they're going, well, it's

going to be a quick war. And now they're already teasing. Well, not only we haven't done our

big and major strike. And listen, if we got to do boots on the ground, I'm not, I don't care about

the polls. I don't care about anything we're getting this done. It doesn't sound like it might

still be a quick operation, but it's starting to sound like you're teasing the American people on

a, this might be a little bit of a bigger operation. And it might be more drawn out.

Yeah. And one of the big questions so far has been, um, can they, uh, bring about a regime change

through these bombing campaigns, you know, without boots on the ground? And,

you know, that's an open question. We really don't know, but it does seem at least so far.

Obviously, we're only a few days into this thing, but it seems so far that, well, they were able to

kill the Ayatollah and his family member and evidently a lot of senior people, but in the response

since then in the, what is it going on 24 hours since then, um, or 48 hours, excuse me.

The regime has not been taken out. You know, you look at all of these response, they've,

they've hit almost everywhere, dude. Like the UAE, Saudi, Bahrain, like all over the place has

been touched by Iran. So the regime is still there and strong. And so now this becomes an interesting

thing here. Like essentially, because we've seen lots of reports of, of senior generals saying,

like, hey, we only have a couple months of this in us. And the big thing that I was reading is

that they were saying they don't have enough anti-missile missiles, meaning like at a certain point,

okay, they're not going to be able to shoot these missiles down as they're coming. And that

makes them that much more deadly. Now it's a big, uh, unanswered question. How long can Iran keep

this up? You know, like what, what happens there? But look, I'll say this even if, which is possible,

you know, everyone always brings up the, um, the Marines getting killed in, uh, in Lebanon.

And, um, you know, what people don't mention is what Ronald Reagan did after that,

which is he left. And he wrote about this in the Mars and said, I crossed, I would never turn

tail and run. You know, but then, and then his, his line was a great line, as each goes,

I underestimated the irrationality of Middle Eastern politics, you know, like basically being like,

hey, this is too crazy. We got to get out of here. But like, so look, there is a chance,

and maybe I'm starting to think the best case scenario is that Donald Trump just realizes that

and just stops. And just, that's it. We're done. But I got to say, Rob, I think in that case,

he's already destroyed his presidency. Like I, I really think here, Donald Trump's in a position

where this has to be a success and not Venezuela where he pretends it's a success. You know,

there's a big difference when you get Americans killed. It's a different thing to go over there,

get Americans killed and then go, wait, you said it was regime change and now there is no regime

change. I don't know. Anyway, here, let's, let's play this. Here was Donald Trump in a really

extraordinary moment, addressing the, the Americans who have been killed.

We pray for the full recovery of the wounded and send our immense love and eternal gratitude

to the families of the fallen. And sadly, there will likely be more before it ends. That's the way

it is likely be more, but we'll do everything possible where that won't be the case.

We pray for the mayor's Donald Trump. I mean, I thought that was quite a statement, dude.

Just straight up saying like, yeah, they're, they're dead and there'll be more likely be more.

You know, and as you pointed out, Rob, you alluded to there that Donald Trump had made a statement

earlier that the, the biggest wave of attacks they haven't seen yet. So I guess that's coming.

So his response right now is that we're going to hit them really hard. And again,

if again, there's, there's two options here, right? It is kind of a binary in the sense that you,

that either topples the government or it does not. And if it does topple the government,

well, then everybody is on record acknowledging we have no one else. We played you yesterday,

Lindsey Graham. I don't know what happens then. It's a tool time, you know, a home improvement

sound. That's what we got of what happens then. And if the regime is still standing,

then what happens? These are major goddamn questions that don't seem to have positive answers to

them. I mean, he's really a couple of deaths. No big deal. We're going to see more. I mean,

talk about priming the American people for, hey, there's going to be boots on the ground.

And it's been everything of the conversation is getting Americans killed, not having boots on

the ground. And now he's just very casually playing that down is, hey, these are no big deal.

It's no big deal. A couple of people die. No big deal. If we got to put boots on the ground,

really seems like he's getting the American people ready for more.

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Yeah, yeah. And I mean, it's just again, like we said the other day, it's the Lindsey Graham

administration now. Well, okay. Well, Lindsey Graham ran for president alongside Donald

Trump in 2016 as a never-trumper war hawk. He didn't come close to getting 1% of the vote,

but that's who we got now. And so I don't know. It's, I think there is, it's unfortunate.

It's never good when any president, no matter who it is, whether it's Obama, whether it's Biden,

whether it's George Bush or whether it's Donald Trump. It's never good when a president

destroys their presidency because that's bad for the country. It is particularly terrible

when Donald Trump, who had positioned himself as being really the only candidate who had a shot

to win, who was against the bushes, against the Clintons, against CNN, against the deep state,

against when he destroys his presidency, that is really tragic for all American patriots.

I don't, it doesn't bring me any pleasure that this is the case. That being said,

we didn't get to make these decisions. We just got to debate about them. We did a pretty good job

of that. But now the dust has settled and it's president Lindsey Graham, I got to oppose

president Lindsey Graham. I have no choice. All good people. I think that was God's first

commandment was you have to oppose president Lindsey Graham. It should have been if it wasn't.

And it's amazing how we're just not, I mean, we never get a straight story from Trump.

But even headset that this is not a regime change war, but it is. We're not looking for a

prolonged war and we got, we're not the dummies of the previous ones, but this might go on longer,

but don't worry. It's not going to go on forever. It's just a lot of contradictory statements.

Well, also just like when they keep the look, I mean, and I will say this right because I don't

just to be clear, I still don't think we're going to see boots on the ground in this. And not just

because I think like Trump is wise or something like that, that's clearly gone out the window

a long time ago. But just simply because there is nowhere near the popular support to do something

like that. And listen, man, this is, this is not a rack or Afghanistan. I mean, I don't see how

you could possibly invade around without like minimum 500,000 troops. And I do think on some

level, like they know that's a blood bath if they do that. So like there's just no way. I mean,

that that totally changes the calculation of everything. You know, once once you invade the country,

you de facto become your government. And now the insurgents have a target.

You know, whereas not right now, it's just the Iranian military can hit whatever they can reach.

But if another government rises or if America invades now, there can be an insurgency. And so I

just don't see that happening just for logistic reasons. But they're keeping the option on the

table. And you know, even that alone is a really bad sign. It's a really bad sign that this is not

nobody is saying like, this is the 12-day war. They're like, no, no, no, no. This is like Dick

Cheney said weeks, not months. And they're telling us months. That's where we're starting at. Not

saying that that means it's going to be the same. But it doesn't bowed well for sure. All right,

anything else that we should hit or you want to get into some of these clips here? Let's get into

clips. All right. Why don't we, by the way, here is, let's play the JD Vance. This was from back

after the 12-day war in 2025, where it's the eye empathize clip here. Let's play that one.

I certainly empathize with Americans who are exhausted after 25 years of foreign entanglements in

the Middle East. I understand the concern. But the difference is that back then we had dumb

presidents. And now we have a president who actually knows how to accomplish America's national

security objectives. So this is not going to be some long drawn out thing. We've got in,

we've done the job of setting their nuclear program back. We're going to now work to permanently

dismantle that nuclear program over the coming years. And that is what the president has set out to do.

Simple principle. Iran can't have a nuclear weapon that has animated American policy over the past

130 days. It's going to continue to be a driving force of our policy in the Middle East for the

next three and a half years. I certainly empathize. It's, it's very nice that JD Vance empathizes

with us. I hope JD Vance can empathize with people who will never vote for JD Vance.

But isn't that it? That's, that's it right there, right? What they've been saying all along.

No, no, no, see, the problem isn't like, there's these, these guys like us, Rob, who think the problem

is the military industrial complex or the problem is interventionist foreign policy or the problem

is launching wars of aggression and wars of choice. But no, no, no, see the real problem is just

that they were dumb. But Donald Trump is so smart. He said this six months after we had to go attack

the country for the exact same reasons that he brags that we had set back. And again, it's just the

incoherence of all of this, Rob. We did the 12-day war. So we don't have to do what we have to do

right now. Oh, and that one was a success. They'll still brag about the 12-day war. Totally obliterated.

That's what I remember. They learned their lesson for about till winter. It's been totally

obliterated at least through the fall. That's what we got out of the the 12-day war.

All right. Let's see. Hold on. I wanted to let's go. Let's go to the last one I sent.

Natalie, which is the Anna Paulina. Did you see this? This is on MSNBC. I thought you

now. I thought she was one of the better ones. And maybe I was just suckered by her good looks.

But she's been good on a couple topics. Most recently, the Epstein stuff. And then I saw this clip.

I was like, oh, man, I didn't really say, hey, how dumb she was and be how I guess bought and paid

for she is on this issue. Yeah. Rob always falls for. He thinks the stripper really likes him.

Sure. Let's play this clip.

Where can you just tell me really quickly where have they killed thousands of Americans in America?

I didn't say they killed thousands of Americans in America. I said that they have been

responsible for thousands of Americans being killed. And I think that that's easily something that

you can verify. I don't know. State sponsored terrorism for starters. Why do you are you serious

right now about that whole thing? I'm not going to list out exact exact. No, I'm just giving you

talking about. Are you talking about terrorism? Well, you can start off by the three that they

you can start off by the three that they just killed. Okay, the whole point you're now.

When you actually talk about the facts, but I'm not going to say it seems like you actually don't

have a good understanding of the facts. Congresswoman, you don't have a good understanding of the

I'm the one with everything's not you. You're kind of offering your opinion because you want

No, not at all. I've actually stood in the substance. No, no, not at all. We can talk about the fact that

America wants millions upon millions of dollars to the Iranian regime. Or do you not want to

address that because it's not supported by your opinion and your network? No, it's really even

something that we're going to actually get. Well, it seems like you just want to fill up. No,

it seems like you just want to fill up us. It seems like you don't really want to have a good

faith conversation. No, we would have invited you on the air. Every time I'm on with you. Yeah,

you keep coming on every time and you keep stating a lot of things that are incorrect. The United

States launched an attack on Iran, except for United States. The United States launched a war

against Iran right now. Iran retaliated, which American members. You can call whatever you want to

call it, but at the end of the day, the Iranians responded and killed three American service members.

So what we're trying to get at is you make an assertion on this air that it's not an invasion. When

America sends fighter jets and Israel sent fighter jets on the ground are not going to happen.

Congress will not vote on war with Iran because that is not something that we support and that

is not something that the administration actually wants a constitution that you want to talk about.

Says that in Article 1, but I guess you think Article 2 is more important.

Article 2 is when the U.S. citizens and our military are in direct imminent threat. The

president reserves the authority. Yeah, well, he hasn't made that case for the American public.

And that's the problem. And that's why he's supposed to give you classified intelligence.

He's not supposed to give it to me. He's supposed to give it to members of Congress.

He's supposed to go give it to members of Congress. That's exactly why members of Congress are on it.

You're only one. There are 435 members and 100 senators and others have not yet.

You're not the only one who gets to speak on the application prior to the strike.

Anyway, of course you were out of time.

I really appreciate you coming.

There you go. You don't want to hit the facts. They got a briefing.

Hear the facts.

I'm telling you what other members of Congress are saying.

All right, here you can turn this off. God, it is obnoxious.

And it is literally this is essentially what happened to me on Pierce Morgan today.

Like where they just try to fill a buster.

They're just like, I'm just going to keep talking man because I

and it's amazing dude, how pathetic she is.

Where she goes, he goes, oh, she's killed thousands of Americans.

Where have they killed thousands of Americans?

And she goes.

Number one state sponsor of terror.

Like she just, she just literally hits another Fox News talking point

because she doesn't like, oh, shit, I have to back that statement up.

You know, like what?

I don't know.

I'm not going to get into this right now.

I know you brought me onto the show and you asked me a question,

but I'm not going to get into that right now.

Are you seriously going to ask me to support my claim that they've killed thousands of Americans?

Terrorism.

All right, what terror attacks?

Where where are the thousand American deaths?

Are you seriously going to ask me that right now?

Really?

You're going to ask me that?

Well, we aren't a new show.

You did just say it.

Yeah, like what are we like, I don't know.

Yeah, like, and then she goes, they just killed three Americans.

Like, yeah, because you launched this war.

Like what?

You're going to wait.

You're using that as an example retaliatory strikes.

Like, all right, but that's a little bit different

than just coming over and killing random Americans on U.S. soil.

It's like, yeah, if you start a war with a country,

they might shoot back at you.

That is quite a different statement.

It's also just so rich.

If there's never going to be boots on the ground,

because Congress won't approve it.

Congress is supposed to approve strikes.

This is the first time hearing of a claim that they got pre-authorization.

Or that they notify.

No, no, they listen, man, there's, and it doesn't even matter.

It's not even Congress is supposed to declare war.

I mean, the president has the authority.

As she even says there, right, to repel an imminent attack.

But Rob, again, this most incoherent, and I mean,

this out of all the terror wars.

The justification for this one is the most incoherent.

I'm not saying they weren't all lies.

I mean, this one's based off a lot of lies too.

And all that stuff, you know, Gaddafi is about to go genocidal.

Was the argument for Libya.

Now, that was a lie.

But there's at least a coherent argument there

that we're fighting this as a kind of liberal interventionist.

We're trying to save people who are about to get killed.

You get at least like wrap your head around what they're claiming here.

This one, they're admitting that there was no imminent attack.

You know, did you see Rob?

There's another thing that happened since we recorded last.

Was that there are a few of the people in the administration

were floating out this thing that we had

intel that Iran was about to attack.

Then they were about to launch a preemptive attack.

And then the Pentagon came out and goes,

now that's about true.

We didn't have any of that.

So like, there's not even an argument here that there was an imminent attack

that was about to come.

And that's the only argument that would give him constitutional authority

to launch this at all, doesn't it?

And look, I mean, to claim it's not a war.

Isn't it funny like because they're essentially what they're arguing

is that Pearl Harbor wasn't an active war.

9-11 wasn't an active war.

You know, those were strikes.

You see how ridiculous that is?

Like we wouldn't, if any other country just started bombing us

and then killed President Trump,

we wouldn't consider that an active war.

Really, is that right?

Because also Rob, they're simultaneously saying

Iran has been at war with us since 1979.

Wait, so chanting mean things is war.

But attacking another country and killing their leadership is not war.

Again, I mean, if you can tell me that's not incoherent definitions,

then I don't know what do you mean by that.

Are you seriously going to ask me this right now?

Yeah.

It is good.

It is a good technique.

It does put me on the back foot a little bit.

You're like, well, seriously?

I mean, well, yeah, it seemed like a reasonable thing to ask.

You made a statement and I asked you how you can back that up.

Yeah, that does seem like a very reasonable thing to ask.

Yeah, yeah, I just don't, you know,

there's also been all types of reports that it is.

They're very concerned, like at the Pentagon about this.

They are, they kind of feel like we do right now.

Like they're going like, ah, shit, dude, I don't know where this goes.

And I don't know if this really gets out of hand.

A lot of moving parts in this and this is what they're coming out with.

Like this is what they got.

You know, as you, as you said at the beginning of the show,

which I thought was a very good way to put it,

is that you're like, look, people voted for Donald Trump to be the antidote.

To all of this stuff and, you know, when Donald Trump was campaigning,

which is, you know, all he's ever been good at.

But when he was campaigning to be president, you know,

who gave the keynote speech at the Republican National Convention?

There's Tucker Carlson.

You know, that's who he went with.

I mean, look, Tucker Carlson was by far the biggest conservative in America.

Uh, Donald, you know, Tucker Carlson had the number one show in all of cable news at Fox News,

the Fox News 8 PM hour.

And then he got fired and he leaves and he's bigger than he ever was at Fox News.

Tucker Carlson is currently, if you check the, the charts, he's number one.

It's the biggest news podcast in the country.

And he had Ted Cruz on and just fucking destroyed Ted Cruz and the entire country.

Like the entire audience looks at this thing and goes, oh my God, Tucker just obliterated Ted Cruz,

who's clearly loyal to Israel over the United States of America.

I mean, literally says the reason he ran for Senate was to be Israel's biggest defender in the Senate,

right? And then Donald Trump sides with him.

Man, does this seem bad?

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Did you see me ratio the shit out of Ted Cruz on Twitter yesterday, by the way?

Oh no, tell me about this.

Oh yeah, Ted Cruz, fuck it. Because this is the new world we live in now, Rob. How crazy is this?

That when they launch a war, senators have to argue with me on Twitter about why they should launch the war.

The fight. He threw the first shot. Yeah, Ted Cruz here.

I missed it. So you got to tell me this. This is great.

Okay, so Ted Cruz here. Let me out.

Because I did see that at least on my Twitter, I never know if it's the like my personal algorithm

or if that's what it's showing on all Twitter, but I'm like the sidebar where it shows new stories.

You were trending for arguing with with some other guy, but I would have thought that if there was

a Ted Cruz moment that that should have been what registered.

Yeah, this is, this is what Ted Cruz said to me.

So I called Donald Trump a traitor.

One word tweet. I just said traitor and that tweet went super viral.

So I was, you know, it's got like 75,000 likes on it.

So I was trending for that.

And so then Ted Cruz, now I missed this for like eight hours.

It's like, I don't know. I think it was like late at night or whatever.

Yeah, it was one in the morning.

So I missed this. I was asleep.

So he's, you know, it's, he texted me this at one in the morning.

I wake up at like six a.m. I don't check my phone first thing.

You know, I get the kids breakfast and do all that.

So it's like, maybe seven in the morning or something when I see this.

But so he, this is what Ted Cruz responded to me.

He goes, understand this imbecil thinks Trump is a traitor.

And then he said, he's a leftist masquerading as right of center.

Which I just thought, that's, that's what I masquerade as right of center.

I'm a fucking anarchist, dude.

It's like, what are you talking about?

That's how I always, that's how I always try to present myself, Rob.

It's just a little to the right of the center.

You know, I'm a, I'm just kind of like a centrist,

but like a little maybe one click to the right of the,

is I'm in a bullish it all guy.

You know, whatever Ted Cruz doesn't know anything.

But that's what he had to say.

That's also right of center.

So you mean what a lot of voters would actually want?

Right, right.

He's not, he's not the extreme right wing that Donald Trump decided

that he would actually be once he got into office.

So how dare you call Donald Trump a traitor for going,

and I don't even know his work extremely right.

Maybe I don't know.

Yeah, I mean, whatever in his, in his, yes,

if you let a bunch of Jewish, Jewish atheist former communists

convince you that that's what right wing is,

is to be for war all the time or something sure.

But so I, I, dude, I responded back to him.

And I said, Americans are dead because of the war of choice

for Israel that you support.

You're both traders.

I did love you as the penguin and Batman returns.

And then I said, hey, remember when Trump

trashed your wife and you took it like a bitch

and still supported him.

And then I just said, are we done here?

And dude, I mean, I fucking just ratioed the shit out of him, dude.

Like I was just, there was like within minutes.

He had, he had, he had, literally, by the way,

if you know, I have Twitter worth, this is all dumb.

But if you know what Twitter works, it's like,

you're kind of behind the ball if you miss the tweet

for like 10 hours, you know what I mean?

Before he was like, I mean, it was like within minutes,

just fucking ratio to, and I don't know, whatever.

It's all dumb, it's all dumb Twitter fights,

but it is a weird, it is a weird thing about the new reality

we live in where like he felt like he had to come take me on.

And then also you're like, oh, you come, he calls me an imbecile.

It's like, dude, you want to be vicious here?

Like is that what you want to do?

Do like vicious insults?

Like, all right, I'm going to come a lot harder than imbecile.

I'm going to bring up that Trump called your wife a dog face.

Remember that?

Remember when Trump said your wife had a dog face?

I think you still supported him because he's fighting a war for Israel.

Yeah, geez, Ted, that's rough.

In defense of Ted Cruz, not everyone is wealthy enough

to buy women off of Epstein and import them for me,

Eastern Europe.

So, you know, it is not not everyone had that kind of in.

Well, inflation is really hurt.

Inflation is really hurt people who are in the market for that.

What I find shocking with Ted Cruz, maybe I know we have other clips,

maybe we can get to something that Ted Cruz clips here in a second,

but it's too full.

It's one, I mean, he's claiming to have had heavy influence on Donald Trump here.

And it's exactly what we've been talking about.

This is what we thought we were re-buking in the Republican party.

But also, he's supposed to be the smarty-pants guy in terms of like the Republicans.

And I mean, he couldn't have looked dumber with Ted Cruz.

They didn't know the size of Iran.

I get tripped up on him.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I get tripped up on trivia questions like that.

And I could have told you that in a heartbeat.

I don't know exactly 90 million.

That's what I have on the top of my head.

Maybe it's between 80 and 100.

It's 92, 92, 92.

I'm just saying I'd have 90 on the top of my head as the number.

But to be pitching a war with a group of people,

you don't even know the size of the country.

You have not done your homework, sir.

And in this interview, I noticed a line where he was talking.

He said, I've not seen the latest intelligence.

I'm whether or not Iran was using their stockpiled Uranium

to earn rich Uranium to make a bomb.

And it's like, how can you be uninformed on that?

I can't imagine that there isn't some intelligence on that.

And you're not even informed on the latest intelligence.

How's that possible?

Well, also like, I think, you know, it's like,

when I come on this show or I go on another show to oppose a war,

I always feel like I got to know what I'm talking about, you know,

like I got to really have this information down.

And I think it's reasonable to say

that there's a much stronger onus on you

if you're supporting a war, right?

Like a positive action is there's much more of an onus on you

to really be sure where it's like to just be like,

let's not start killing people is kind of a different proposition.

But yeah, it's pretty amazing.

He went into argue with Tucker Carlson about regime change in Iran

and didn't have the basic facts.

Tucker asked him the ethnic makeup of the country.

And he had nothing like it's really is something.

Anyway, yeah, let's get into some of the Ted Cruz clips here.

I know Rob, I think there were a couple different ones.

Do do do.

Well, that's interesting.

Sorry, just getting.

I emailed to I go with the one I emailed first.

Well, I, yeah, you know, I sent one also.

Let's do the one I sent, which I think is one of the ones that you sent.

But it's the Ted Cruz claims that there's no intelligence

is the start of the tweet.

Let's let's pull that one up.

And yeah, let's watch this.

Can you tell us now if you believe that there was an ongoing nuclear weapons program?

One of the top arms control arms control experts out there.

David Albright has written there should be an immediate priority

on rapid response operations to secure Iran's nuclear stockpiles right now.

Can you assure the public that it will be secured?

And if so, who is doing it?

If there are no Israeli or US forces on the ground?

So there is no doubt that a year ago,

Iran had an active and ongoing nuclear weapons program.

We took out the vast majority of that at the end of the 12-day war.

That US intelligence assessment was not made public

if that is what was briefed to you.

We took out we launched targeted bombs at the end of the 12-day war

where we dropped the equivalent of about a third of a nuclear weapon

on those underground facilities.

Facilities like Fordo, which is built into the base of a mountain.

The bunker buster bombs we used, Israel doesn't have those bombs.

No other country has those bombs.

We took them out last year.

The Iranians were still hell-bent on rebuilding them.

And one of the things we are doing right now is taking out their missiles

in particular the southern missile belt.

Right now Iran is building roughly 100 missiles a month.

They are actively building missiles to threaten their neighbors.

They're firing some of them right now at their neighbors.

At our allies.

They're illustrating powerfully.

They're attacking virtually every Arab neighbor that surrounds them.

They are firing missiles that it's almost like they want to illustrate

to the world just how malign they are.

But in terms of containing the risk,

who's securing the nuclear material that you say still exists within Iran?

Who's doing that?

Look, the quantity of nuclear material,

I didn't say anything one way or another on that.

What I said is they were building nuclear weapons a year ago

and our bombing took that out.

They also had an ongoing desire to rebuild them.

I don't have present-day intelligence on what progress they had made

towards rebuilding nuclear weapons since we bombed their facilities.

I have no indication that they were anywhere close to getting nuclear weapons

because our bombing was devastating.

And Margaret, that's one of the reasons I urged President Trump now is the time.

You know, dictatorships survive because their perceived is invulnerable.

And in this instance Iran decisively lost the 12-day war

that weakened the regime and set up what the President is doing now.

Dude, if you just think about all of this, Rob,

I mean, by the way, you made the most important point there,

which is like, you know, dude, you don't know.

You're not up on the intelligence?

I mean, by the way, David Albright, who she referenced there,

the report that they're referring to was the group is rather unfortunately named

ISIS. But I think they call themselves the good ISIS.

They're the Institute for Science and International Security.

It's they I believe in a new name.

I listen, I think they named themselves before the Islamic caliphate,

but I agree with you, Rob, that's kind of when you pick a new name at that time.

So they can probably, but anyway, but they put out this report.

It's worth reading. It's about 40 pages long, but this was their like intelligence

assessment of, you know, like where the nuclear capabilities of Iran were at.

And what they essentially were saying is that so their argument, what they believe,

should say their argument, what they were saying at the evidence leads them to believe,

is that essentially that the attacks in the 12-day war really did fuck up

Iran's nuclear capabilities, which you know, it does not

doesn't seem that hard for me to believe. I mean, it was always kind of like Donald Trump

was always bragging about how they'd been obliterated.

And then you kind of take that with a grain of salt because you go, yeah,

he's going to brag about whatever he does and say it was the biggest,

most tremendous thing that's ever been done.

But, you know, bunker busters really do. I don't know if you've seen any of those demonstrations,

Rob, of how bunker busters work, but they really do blow shit up and destroy them.

And so, okay, that seems right. And essentially the rest of the report was saying that like,

Iran really hasn't been doing it since then.

You know, now these are still the guys who are arguing. You got to make sure you get this

nuclear like material if you're in there. So anyway, but just for background, people want to read

that report here. The report, if you're interested in looking it up, it's the Institute for Science

and International Security. And the report is called Comprehensive Updates Assessments of

Iranian Nuclear Sites five months after the 12-day war. The idea that I'm going to try.

Ted Cruz hasn't read this. Ted Cruz hasn't read a 40-page paper on the latest assessment of all of

this. Like, he just doesn't know. And like, it is, dude, it is, like you said, it reminds you of

the Tucker Carlson thing. It's really one of the things that was why Tucker Carlson did such a

valuable service to Americans by having Ted Cruz on is that he did have this reputation as the

smarty pants. This is the guy who's argued cases in front of the Supreme Court or whatever. And

he's really the very smart one. And he doesn't know anything. They'll advocate for a war without

even just having the fundamental details down, or even like bothering. Again, it's 40 pages.

It's kind of dense, but I read it. The Senator can't be bothered to. Anyway,

Rob, again, the incoherence, the painful incoherence of this whole thing is that, so essentially,

we're arguing that they had a nuclear threat. We took the nuclear threat off the table.

We still have to be worried about the nuclear threat. It's okay. And then in the other one,

if you might notice this one, Rob, this is a big thing that they also say to now, right? Is they

go, you know, this thing you said at the end, dictatorships rely on the perception of strength.

By the way, a little bit of an aside, is that only dictatorships? What's all this piece

through strength stuff that all you Republicans keep talking about? I guess we all kind of like

to project strength or whatever. By the way, another aside, I'm the piece through strength part

that the Republicans have been saying since Ronald Reagan. When do we get the peace part?

I've seen a lot of strength. I've also seen permanent militarism waiting on that peace part

of the whole equation. Anyway, but here's the problem they have, right? And this is the reality. Why now?

Why right now are we launching this war? When obviously the Israel-Abi Benjamin Netanyahu,

the Republican establishment, they've wanted this war for a long time. Well, the reason it's going

on right now is because the, well, the perception is that the regime's been weakened.

You know, this is why they wanted to do it when the protests were happening, but they couldn't

get the military hardware there in time. And so this is why Voice of America is on radio right now,

telling the Iranians to rise up and overthrow their government. This is why Donald Trump,

when he announced this war, told the Iranian people to rise up and overthrow their government,

because they perceive the regime as being weak. That's what Ted Cruz just said to you there, right?

They rely on this perception of strength, but after the 12-day war, they're pretty weak now.

Look, their weakened, Hezbollah has been weakened in the region with Israel's kind of

decapitating cell phone or pager strikes or pager bombs. The 12-day war was a real embarrassment

for Iran. They really just took it and didn't do anything while we did evidently destroy some

of their nuclear program. It wasn't a weapons program, but don't let that fuck with you.

And the economy is terrible. The sanctions have been crippling, and there's been mass protests

in the streets, so they're weak, meaning now's the time we could try to overthrow them.

But there's another problem with that, Robert really undercuts the whole necessity for war,

because if they're weak, then they're really not that much of a threat to us. And if they're weak,

then they certainly don't pose an imminent threat, which would be the only legal justification

for Donald Trump to do this in the first place. And so here you have, and I've really,

honestly, I don't think I've ever seen a war like this, and I've seen a lot of wars,

and I've been pretty focused on them for like the last 20 years of my life. I have never seen a war

where every goddamn propaganda point contradicts the next propaganda point.

You know what I'm saying? Like you just let them explain it, and they contradict themselves

with the whole thing. Well, if they're weak, then they're not an existential threat.

Well, we have to liberate the Iranian people. Well, what comes next? Well, we don't know what

comes next, but we can't let the number one state sponsor of terrorism have a nuclear weapon,

but we obliterated their nuclear program. Like what the fuck, Rob? Which one is it?

Well, that's what stood out to me the most the last time was when they said they have all this

in rich Iranian. We don't know where they put it. They were also two weeks away from getting a

bomb, and we've totally removed their ability to get a bomb. And I was just like, not all of this

can be true at the same time. Yeah, yeah, right. And now we seem to be walking the fence once again

of going, no, we were very successful when we hit them, and they still have the potential

and desire for a bomb, but we don't even know what the intelligence is of whether or not they're

getting one. And of course, this all just ignores the fact that seemingly they had a religious dictate

that they didn't want to get a bomb and have never been interested in it. Yeah. Well, at least

that's what the now deceased Ayatollah always said. I believe that wasn't the position of the

previous Ayatollah. And so we'll see what comes next. Who knows? But there is no question, right,

that we had the JCPOA, that Barack Obama and Europe and the Iranians negotiated this deal,

they were staying between three and five percent of enrichment. And we had a whole new inspections

regime that came in. Now, by the way, the original JCPOA, which really was the best thing that Obama

did in his pathetic disastrous presidency, but the whole thing was always a fake agreement anyway.

It was never about Iran's nuclear weapons. We all knew around that the CIA had assessed back

since like 2007 that the Iranians hadn't even, we weren't even trying to get a nuclear weapon,

let alone where they close to it. And the whole point of the JCPOA was to take away Benjamin Netanyahu's

pretext for war. And that's why he hated it so much. And so the whole thing was like we had a

whole new inspections regime. We knew exactly what they were doing and we lost that after the 12

day war. But there's just the idea that they're developing a nuclear weapon has always been,

look, Benjamin Netanyahu has been saying this since the fucking 1990s. Since the 1990s, he's been

saying there are three years away from developing a nuke. He had that cartoon bomb in the, in the

UN like that this is like 15 years ago or something. I don't remember it 10 years ago, whenever.

But it's like this is all it's all just complete lies, all complete war propaganda. All right,

guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Pro-On by El Nutra. Pro-On

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life dot com slash POTP. All right, let's get back into the show. Here, let's play one more clip

of Ted Cruz. This one played one of the clips from the email that Rob sent because there was

another clip in there that was pretty good too. I like the one where he's just really talking about

I got to talk to Trump before this attack and basically convinced him this is our best opportunity.

Do you remember which, yeah, that's the first one that I emailed. I think it's this.

I have to ask about the differing views, let's say, inside your party about whether this is the

right thing to do. Starting with the president himself campaigning on and saying it is an

inaugural dress that there would be no more wars and there were a fair number of Republicans who voted

for him liking that promise. Tucker Carlson is somebody who liked that promise. He told ADC that

the president's decision to strike Iran is quote, absolutely disgusting and evil. The response?

So I will say your quote of the president was slightly off. He did not say there would be no more

wars. He said there would be no more forever wars. Those are very different things. I am

fatically agree with him. You are not going to see a major US troop presence in Iran. He and I

talked about that on Friday. Talked about Israel leading many of the attacks. We talked about

targeted airstrikes taking out the military capacity of the regime to attack the protesters.

And I also urged arming the protesters so the people of Iran could fight back because they were

not going to happen. That was one of my questions. Is US going to help them?

I hope so. I do not know for sure. I did not get a clear answer on that. That is what I advocated for.

Look, Tucker Carlson, as president Trump has said, Tucker Carlson is a cook. He's a cook. He's an

isolationist. His views are fringe. And Tucker Carlson has just passed the entire Trump presidency.

Okay. This was a different clip, but it's great. So first is there's a hard pivot from the

pitch of no new wars to no forever wars. I don't remember that being the conversation. And now

what Donald Trump said was no more regime change wars. He's lying through his teeth already,

but keep going. Sorry. I thought there was even just chatter of no new wars. Like, oh, yeah. He said

that too. No, no, no. He absolutely bragged about no new wars. I'll keep you out of wars. All

that stuff. Yes. And so now we're getting a hard pivot to it was no forever wars. I don't

remember that being the conversation. And now this is. I'm sorry. Yeah. I'm sorry. Rob,

keep your thought, but just keep your thought. But it's just it's important to be said that nobody

ever says they're for forever wars. Like what does that mean? No, Dick Cheney said it'll be weeks,

not months. None of them ever say we're for forever wars. And by the way, like, and I mean,

this none of them ever really are like no one wanted like no one who wanted to go to war in Iraq

Oh, dude, I bet we'll get 20 years out of this thing. No one went into a gap. I mean, maybe some

weapons companies or something like that. But like, there's just there's no distinguishing yourself

from anyone else by saying that. I'm sorry. Anyway, keep going. And now I mean, this is just

straight out of the COVID propaganda book of trying to pretend, hey, you're insane and everyone's

getting the vaccine. And now he's trying to pretend that nobody in the Republican party has Tucker

Carlson's views. Tucker Carlson is the fringe view. And really, Americans are not isolation

and that's not true. Bullshit. That's why Tucker Carlson is as popular as he is. And that's not

the mainstream of the Republican party is not for fighting these foreign wars. They were for America

first. Let's deal with our problems over here and quit wasting money over there.

Yes. Again, go check the the charts in the news podcast. Tucker Carlson is number one,

number one. Okay. And so yeah, the idea, right? This is on the level of Brian Stelter saying that

Joe Rogan is a fringe figure. Like, yeah, okay, if you want to try to play that game, dude,

the the and look again, this is an and we got a wrap on this. But I will say the idea of labeling,

oh, the majority of people, they're not isolationist cooks like Tucker Carlson. But like,

like they always go to this isolationist thing. And look, I think to be completely fair,

I think Tucker is certainly much more of a protectionist than I am. Or you are,

we're like really free trade guys. But isolationism, this is, this is a total red herring.

Like, this isn't on the table right now. This the United States of America is the

the biggest empire in the history of the world. We have, you know, bases in, you know,

we have thousands of bases and hundreds of countries all around the world. We still occupy

Germany and Japan and South Korea. We have bases as we've found out, right? Everybody paying

attention to the news is learning where we have bases. And where do we have bases? Oh, everywhere,

all over the goddamn place. This isn't a conversation between isolationism and, you know,

interventionism or something like that. This is a conversation about whether we should launch

another stupid regime change war of choice. That's the conversation. But of course, Ted Cruz can't

frame it as Tucker Carlson is a cook who doesn't want us to get into another regime change war.

Because then that cook would sound like super majorities of the American people.

The, oh, and look, even right now, even then it's pretty amazing, dude. Even right now,

when, look, there's dead Americans and there's some blown up stuff, but there's only a few

dead Americans so far. And even right now, Donald Trump barely has majority support of his own base.

They think about, he's, let's say so, it was like 55% of Trump voters that like, okay,

we'll support the president so far. And if this thing starts getting bloody and costly,

that number's going down and down and down. And if you look at independence or young people or

Democrats, this thing is wildly unpopular. So to try to pretend that somehow the guy with the

biggest podcast in the political world represents this fringe view by not wanting to fight yet another

regime change war in the Middle East, when all of them have been catastrophic so far is just, yeah,

this is what they got. This is what they got. Ted Cruz, I mean, I guess it's worth saying,

not that it's ever going to happen, but it's like, hey, Ted Cruz, you know, call me an

imbecile on Twitter. Come on the show, buddy. I promise, completely good faith. I'll be nice,

no insults. You could insult me as much as you want to. I won't insult you one time back.

I'm just going to ask you a really substantive questions and we'll see what your answer is.

Let's see who the imbecile is. Let's see. All right, we got a wrap there when I'm sure there'll

be a lot more to talk about. So we'll catch you guys tomorrow. Peace.