Leighton Smith Podcast #320 - March 18th 2026 - Patrick Basham

0:00You're listening to a podcast from NewsTorx ZB. Follow this and our wide-ranger podcast now on iHardRadio. It's time for all the attitude, all the opinion, all the information, all the debate. Now, the latent Smith Podcast powered by NewsTorx ZB. Welcome to podcast 320 for March 18, 2026. Patrick Basham, Director of the Democracy Institute in Washington, D.C. has gested many times since the first visited New Zealand and appeared on the radio program in 2013. More recently, his organization has conducted surveys for the London Daily Express, the results of which have been very accurate, they're mostly political. This was on the Iran War and indicates less support from the American public than President Trump would appreciate. This lengthy discussion on the Iran War was, I have to say, fascinating,

1:04whether you're a Trump supporter or a critic, there is something in it for everybody. And I'll be very interested in your feedback. But first, yesterday I received a text. It was sent to me 10 minutes after the official announcement was made. New Zealand formally rejects WHO pandemic treaty. I texted back to my advisor and I said, wow, and I got an immediate response that said, big wow. And both of us were very happy. So were a lot or so, a lot of other people, of course. So today, the 18th of March, the epic times rights. New Zealand has formally rejected amendments to the international health regulations, the IHR, which lay out how the World Health Organization, the WHO, member countries will handle future pandemics. New Zealand's Ministry of Health described the IHR as the principal international legal framework for preventing and controlling the spread of disease between countries.

2:07Foreign Minister Winston Peters announced the decision on X on March 17, saying his party has always said that any decisions about the health of Kiwis should be made from Wellington, not Geneva. Quote, we have fought on your behalf for these IHR amendments to be fully rejected. We made a promise to put the national interest of New Zealanders first to maintain our sovereign decision making and to push back on globalist bureaucrats and we have kept that promise. Peters said New Zealand's permanent mission to the UN had informed the WHO's Director General on the decision. Now for those who are unfamiliar with it, the WHO's new amendments were passed in June of 24, but were not binding on member countries, giving those who disagreed the option of opting out without leaving the organisation. At the time the amendments were passed, the Director General, Dr Ted Ross Gabriasis,

3:09said the decision demonstrated a common desire by member states to protect their own people and the worlds from the shared risk of public health emergencies and future pandemics built on commitment to equity and understanding that health threats do not recognize national borders and that prepared this is a collective endeavor. Now that 62-page document introduced a definition of a pandemic emergency which would trigger obligations for international collaboration. Countries that agreed to the amendments would have to report potential public health emergencies within 24 hours of becoming aware to respond to WHO requests for a similar timeframe and to consult WHO on appropriate health measures for events that do not require notification but may still pose a risk. It also empowers WHO's Director General to declare emergencies, including pandemics

4:11which then obliges countries to implement prompt and effective public health responses, including measures such as isolation, quarantine, vaccination and treatment. And so it goes on. Several of the clauses imposed compulsory obligations on states, including the establishment of a national IHR authority which would coordinate the implementation regulations and if necessary by adjusting their domestic legislative and or administrative arrangements. Governments were also obligated to develop response plans and would receive technical guidance from the WHO. You can read into that whatever you want but it's ultimately for instance would receive technical guidance would be more like bullying. Now you'll be interested to know that there is not an entire agreement about this. A response to New Zealand's announcement groups such as voice for freedom

5:15and New Zealand doctors speaking out with science were supportive of Peter's announcement. NZDOS is an association of medical professionals challenging the safety of COVID-19 vaccines. Yet Helen Batusa Harris, associate professor at the University of Auckland and co-director at the Global Vaccine Data Network, said that while Peter was correct to emphasise national sovereignty and transparency in treaty commitments, the suggestion that the WHO agreement threatens that sovereignty is inconsistent with the actual text. Did you say that if anything, the treaty goes out of its way to reaffirm state control over public health decisions. The WHO pandemic agreement is like a global fire alarm system that shared those as ladders and escape plans. So no country is left to battle the blaze alone, she said.

6:16Health Minister Simian Brown has not commented on the measure and the Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is away overseas, of course. Bottom line is that those with experience and hindsight are aware of the pressures that can be brought to bear on individuals and countries at particular moments and time. And I congratulate Winston Peters and New Zealand first. And it goes to show that even politicians can learn things about behaviour. And while many will say that it was Winston's fault that we had the worst government we've ever had, at least his moves to rectify that mistake have become obvious. Now at the end of the podcast, there is going to be some interesting commentary too on the around war that you would not have heard anywhere else. But after a short break, Patrick Basham.

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8:21In June of last year when I interviewed Patrick Basham, I got some considerable feedback. Well, that's not unusual, but there's one short note that I got from Paul who wrote the following. The most coherent and valid discussion of the Trump presidency, the Trump administration's domestic and foreign policy, etc. Which leads to the obvious conclusion of, yep, he's fixing America, brilliant podcast. Now, I think that summarized the feeling that a lot of people contributed. But that was the shortest and easiest one for me to deliver. So, with that in mind, the director of the Democracy Institute in Washington, D.C., it is once again a great pleasure to welcome you to the Latent's Earth Podcast and you are always appreciated. Thank you, Lee. No, I was appreciate the invitation. I was looking forward to an opportunity to speak with you and indirectly with your final audience.

9:23Indeed. I was going through some new articles this morning as they arrived. And I saw a headline that doesn't have any detail to it because it got closed off. It was a pay as only. But he was the headline every week in 2026, it felt like a year. Top golden macro trader ruminates on everything, everywhere, all at once. And so far, there's no letting up and nowhere to hide. How does that describe the scenario that you're confronted with every day in Washington? Oh, pretty well. I mean, the old saying about sometimes nothing happens for a decade. And then the decade happens in a week in terms of events and important things. It's very much that way. It's felt that way really ever since Trump was re inaugurated in January of last year, things have domestically and on the foreign front, you know, just seemed to continue to gain momentum in whichever direction.

10:24I think everybody, whatever their political views, whatever their alliances or sympathies feel that a lot is happening. But it's not apparently going to stop more of the same. And of course, events of the last fortnight or so have just reinterested. How is Trump fearing, do you think? Are you joining politically in terms of how he's fearing across the country? Yeah. Specifically. Yeah. Not great. It's, I mean, it's always important. It was often useful at least to step back and say, OK, however he's doing. How is he doing vis-a-vis, you know, your, your standard resident or at least his predecessors? And if you do that and you take the average of all of the published opinion polls, you will see that Trump has an approval rating. There's a little bit better than Obama or Biden or George W. Bush had at this time.

11:25At this same point in their second term. So you have to say, well, that's not too bad. And it's not too bad. It's also just not too good. And it also, just looking at it like that, ignores the fact that Trump was doing far better last year than he's been doing this year. I mean, you know, most presidents, there's something of a honeymoon period. He didn't get that in his first term, but he did get in his second. And they really hit the ground running with all kinds of policy directives and instructions and initiatives that really, really followed on from their campaign, explicit campaign promises in 2024. And the public, his, his voters responded to it, but also there were others who hadn't voted for him, who started to take a second look at him. And the poll are polling and other polling tend to reflect that. But over the last several months for a variety of reasons, much of it, prior to the Iran war kicking off a couple of weeks ago,

12:32Trump's numbers have dipped, it dipped in our polls, it dipped in, I think, pretty much everybody's polls to varying degrees. So he's gone from being a comparatively popular second term president to sort of average level of popularity for a second term president, at least in terms of his most recent period of this centuries, presidents that we have the data on. So it's, you know, he's at a glass half empty or a glass half full. I think for most, if not all of those who didn't vote for him, especially those who didn't vote for him three times, they can't believe that 40, 45% of the country thinks he's doing a good job. But for those who did vote for him, I'd say about half two thirds think that he's doing a better job than he's given credit for. Whereas about a third think he's actually quite fortunate to be where he is in the polling,

13:36because he has, particularly this year, the last several months, I'd say, late 25 into 2026. He has disappointed them sufficiently and continues to do so. They think he's actually sort of getting away with it a little bit more than they would actually like to see. So is this, is this born out of, shall we say, political beliefs on those individuals parts? Or is it born out of confusion? It's, well, I think it's, I mean, it's born out of a lot of things. I mean, to simplify it, not because your audience needs to be simplified, but because it's my brain can only deal with this in simplistic terms. I think there's at least three or four primary reasons for this. One is, as you touch on there late in your question, is that America remains very divided and the divisions are really hard. They're really set in. So it's almost impossible for a candidate or a president to be voted for,

14:40like to prove by 60% or more of the country, the sort of things that Ronald Reagan would achieve or that kind of popularity just doesn't happen. There's just too many people who are never going to give the other side a look in, at least not for the foreseeable future. So you've got that. And that is always put, puts a lid on anybody's presidency, but it does on Trump's for sure, especially is because he continues to receive the most negative terrible media coverage of any president anyone can remember. And he's always had to battle against that, and that is always limited his appeal. For a variety of reasons, some of which are to his credit and others are to others credit or sort of cultural, political, economic trends, he's been able to get around that, rise above that, obviously at least twice out of three times, if not all three, depending on how you like to count the 2020 election. But it's also about what he has and hasn't done, and within that,

15:45parenthetically, what he's perceived to have done or not done. So you have, you know, on the folks who are never going to give him a chance, never going to give him a second look or a third look, you know, they either think he hasn't done anything or he's done a lot of things that are terrible. So we sort of put those aside, you can't get anywhere there. What he has done unquestionably is achieve some of his campaign promises, particularly on immigration, securing the southern border. That's those sort of, there was a core issue in terms of why people supported him. That's almost ancient history now, isn't it? Well, the thing he was so successful so quickly, that it's less of an issue than it was. However, the caveat, and it's an important caveat politically, electorally, is that while the southern border was secured almost overnight, the deportation issue is still, they're still humming along, because the administration has made efforts to deport,

16:49and they have deported arguably a million to two million people. But they don't seem to be particularly enthusiastic about carrying on until they, you know, capture and release on the other side of the border, the remaining 15 to 20 million, which is worrying a lot of his voters. Now, there's a couple of million self deportees, who sort of saw the writing on the wall and have high-tailed it, and probably wall will do so. So even on the issue that you would think on paper would be the one that he is strongest with those who voted for him. There are caveats there, they're not sure whether he thinks he's sort of done enough and it's not worth the fight that it would take for the rest of his term. And then you see, there was so much of the energy and enthusiasm, and all of the initiatives that Doge worked early last year. So much of that, the air went out of those balloons,

17:51a large part because of the Republicans on Capitol Hill who wouldn't ask the legislation that he wanted and that his voters wanted, also partly because Trump has decided it seems on many of these issues. Oh, well, I can't get what I want or I can only get part of what I want. So I guess that's it. You know, we move on, you can argue whether those are smart political calculations or not. But the bottom line is those things that his voters wanted haven't happened. And then there hasn't been seemingly much effort, if any, to deal with all of the political issues of the previous several years. The persecutions of Trump, all the law fair, the Russia hoax business, or the mess that COVID was, all of these things, the 2020 election, the persecution of his supporters, the most ordinary people in prison for years,

18:53all of these things were explicitly told to his voters, his would be voters, that something would be done. And on most of those, those fronts, on those files, little apparently has been done, or at least little appears to have reached an obvious conclusion. I mean, there haven't been prosecutions. That'll only be going to prison. These sorts of things that his voters thought were a given. After all, when they try to kill you twice and they try to bankrupt you, they try to put you in prison, and you beat them anyway, so fair and square, you figure the guys, you know, not going to pull back from the rest of the fight. But there's a perception that either he has, or at least the people he has appointed in those roles that would be the obvious ones to go forward with that kind of work, haven't, for one reason or another, decided to do so. And so that's very disappointing to put it quite euphemistically for a good chunk of his voters. Indeed. Could you not reef home to the, well, let's isolate them.

19:55The Supreme Court, for instance, for their approach to dealing with those issues. And as they climb up the scale of courts and get closer and closer, it becomes, shall we say, more obvious that the power of judges in the United States is way over what it should be, and they're getting away with it. Absolutely. And if you embroider yourself in his thinking, I'm trying to put my mind into his head, his thinking might just be that I can't spend time on stirring the pot this way because it's not going anywhere, and it's likely to get beaten in the end anyway by the Supreme Court, and therefore we're bugging. Sure. I mean, first I would say something specifically on the court problem, and then maybe make a large, hopefully, make something of a larger point but how that ties into other issues and other calculations of Trump himself. We know in the courts, there's no question that the Democrats decided that,

20:59in 2020, they were able to find enough extra ballots to quote unquote, be Trump. 24, they weren't. So what can they do to stymie him? Well, we use the court system, which is full of liberal judges and far more anti-Trump Republican judges, quote unquote conservative judges than Trump judges. And in part, because while Trump was president 2017 to 2020, he appointed a lot of folks who didn't really care for him, but he did what he was advised to do by people who quote unquote knew better. And that's a theme of his presidency in terms of personnel decisions that have come back to haunt him, however well intention he may have been. And so the courts, the judges have taken it upon themselves, cheered on by the Democrats in the media to stop, halt, push back against as much of Trump's second term agenda as possible, right? And they have been quite successful at doing that.

22:00And to be fair to Trump, he can only deal with that hand that he's dealt in terms of the courts, and they have to go back and redo the legislation or try somewhere else, make a different argument with these kinds of things. And we get the situation recently, fairly recently, with the Supreme Court throwing out his tariffs, most of his tariff program. Now, of course, that is, this is one of these double-edged swords in terms of where one fixes blame, because there's no question that the Supreme Court, the judges who voted that way, you know, looking to give him a black eye. But at the same time, he was warned, and without boring your audience by getting into the weeds on this, that the way they went about the tariffs, was unnecessarily sort of provocative to the courts. And he could have, if he made the effort to get congressional approval prior, then this thing would have, even if they had been pushed to that level, it wouldn't have survived the Supreme Court level, but he didn't, and there we are.

23:02So what he has achieved is less than he would have, if the court system, the judiciary in America was more balanced and fair-minded, if there was more justice in the judicial system, there's no question about that. But at the same time, he has chosen to pick his fights. Now, if you're a president in the electoral landscape, political landscape, I've described for your audience where it's either side of 50%, either way, then you can make an argument, as I'm sure the White House is doing, that we have to, we don't have so much political capital, so much time, we have to pick our fights. The fights that they haven't picked are either coincidentally, ironically, the ones that are nearest and dearest to many of the voters. And so many of his voters voted not just for a form, but for radical change in Washington, right?

24:03So they loved it when they started firing government workers. But where are the top level government people who acted like kings for four years and in eight years under Obama? Why do they still have their jobs, that type of thing? So it's, there's something for everyone to get mad about, there's something for everyone to be happy about. But the bottom line is, you sort of put that all in the blender, and what comes out is Trump in this prior to the war anyway, the Iran War, in the position where he is not weak politically, but he's not as strong as he was or as he could and should be. Which makes things rather difficult for him and confusing for so many people. I want to turn our attention to something that I talked about in the podcast last week. And it was something that not many people know about, even now.

25:03This was the interview that Mark Levin did on his talk program with Trump's Middle East envoy, Steve Whitkopf. Right. May I ask you, have you heard that? I've seen clips of it at the time, you know, shortly afterwards, but I can't claim I haven't watched the whole thing now. Steve Whitkopf did something for me, and I know it's having the same effect on a hell of a lot of people, not necessarily in this country, but in other places, where Whitkopf did this interview with Mark Levin and described the meetings that he'd had, specifically the last meeting that he had, along with Trump's son-in-law, because the two of them were a team, and this was with the two representatives from Iran. So they were head-to-head in the discussion. He described the first comments that were made to them

26:04in this last attempt were laying it on the line, that the Iranians had enough 60% grade to make 11 bombs, and they had the right to do it, and they would do it, and they weren't surrendering it, and they would never surrender it, and they laid straight out on the line, it was obvious, that they were not going to participate in any deal. And so the two reps for Trump went back to Washington and told the president what they'd said. Now, he said that Whitkopf said they had been grilled by Trump, looking for the truce, and once it was established that there was not going to be a peace deal, Trump pulled the plug. He certainly did that. Or pushed the button might be a better way to do that. The reason I'm raising this is because to understand why he's done it, is really the reason. Why did he do it, and why did he do it now?

27:06It's seen more than one headline, well, why did he do it now? The answer is in that interview, and it's as plain as day. So you're left with a choice, if you're making a personal choice, of accepting that Trump was right or Trump was wrong. And it's very hard to accept that he was wrong. And there is another headline that I'd refer you to, Britain can learn from Trump's moral clarity over Iran, published today in the spectator. And that in itself is a very intriguing article. What do you say that the use of moral clarity is applicable? I wouldn't. It's not that one can't support the war on Iran on moral grounds, or that in the past, you know, people haven't made strong cases, you know, with morality is central to their perspective. It's that Trump's decision, and his and others explanation for the decision,

28:10has been so all over the place that there has been, there's been really no attempt to buy the White House administration, to make the case in those terms, right? I mean, what you have relayed in terms of what is known that Kushner and Witkov told him is one of the answers he's given to why did you do this, right? Partial answer, the way to do this. Maybe why did it? We don't know, because the answer keeps changing both from him and from his secretary of state, or his press secretary, or et cetera, et cetera. And so, so many of the answers have not been couched in moral, well, not have been couched into moral terms, that it's I think it's hard, certainly in the moment, to make that argument. I mean, this is politically, it was looking bad for anybody,

29:12for him or anyone who tempted to go after a ran at the moment, rightly or wrongly, that's how Americans felt about it, in the week to pre-seeding. But that has been, in my view, our polling, not all the polling, but enough of the other polling, I believe, has shown that that hasn't changed much, if at all. Partly because there was never a case made before the war, and there has not been a uniform case made since, because whatever case you make, whether it's a particularly weak one or a particularly strong one, you sort of need that to be the one, right? But when there are sort of side depends who's counting, six, eight, ten, twelve, different reasons why the reason we did this, we're doing this, it's difficult to, you know, accepting that half the country is almost half the country is going to oppose him anyway. It's difficult to get anybody who is persuadable to think, oh, okay, let me think about that for a second,

30:13maybe he's got a point there, when it's not quite clear, you know, what his point was. So it's just been, the optics have been politically, the optics have been absolutely horrendous, and they've given the impression of really just making it up as they went as they go, and of not having either militarily or politically having planned this out beforehand, and what I think is particularly hurt him, well, especially hurt him is the fact that a good slice of his voters can't get beyond the fact that this is explicitly what he said repeatedly for years, including quite recently, he would never do, is the fact that it is clear that what they thought would happen, if they acted with this sort of moral clarity,

31:14is not what did happen, and they didn't have, whatever the utility of their plan A, you would presume that at that level, you would have just in case a plan B, maybe a CDE and F, and seemingly there was no plan B. So it's been a really, really tough sell, and it's hard to see how it doesn't continue to be so, for as long as, you know, the U.S. remains involved. You're making it difficult for me. I. I'll experience him. I interviewed him once right at the beginning of COVID. He made it in just in time to promote his book on marijuana. Andy Marijuana. But I have his collection of novels, which run second for me only to Daniel Silver in the characters and the stories they tell.

32:15But that's just by the buy. But he's written today again. And I think, if I can insert this now, I think this is part of the problem. So much that keeps coming out. So much that gets fired at the public and at Trump for various things, various reasons, various explanations because there were so many people with various opinions. And our experience, and of course, is one of them. But here's what he wrote. It's not just about the straight of hormones. Here's a slightly more detailed version of a thread that I just posted on X. What they're not telling you, because they don't want to scare you. Iran can already, his emphasis, Iran can already make a nuke with its current uranium stock. Depending on its engineering school, this would explode either as a subcritical dirty bomb, killing thousands and leaving swathes of Tel Aviv and Manhattan uninhabitable for decades,

33:15or a Hiroshima-sized nuke, killing hundreds of thousands and likely leading us to retaliate with nuclear strikes that would destroy Iran. The truth, even if you'd rather not hear it, and I'd rather not write it, if it makes a bomb, Iran will not know how big it may be until it detonates, and he goes into a bit of detail. But he fronts up with a reasonable theory, I think, a contributory argument, you say? Well, the problem, okay, just, if you bear with me, if you're willing to spend with me for a moment, just to give a little preface here. In terms of just so everyone is reminded where I'm coming from. I mean, I've long always considered since the revolution, I mean, I consider around to be a bad actor in the region and globally. Sponsor terrorism, repressive at home, causes much trouble as they can in the region, would like Israel not to be there if they could help, you know, if they could do anything about, et cetera, et cetera. No fan of Israel, and I think we've, from my memory, served me late,

34:15and we've spoken at times over the months and years, where I've been castigating Obama and then Biden for their appeasement of Iran, and praising Trump during his term for standing up to them. So I, you know, just to sort of put my chips on the table in that regard. And in addition to that, the Trump administration overall is a million times better than what proceeded and what would have happened if Harris had taken over. And I would like Donald Trump to do as well as possible and be as popular as possible. But, however, that said, the truth of the matter is that for a couple of decades, there has always been at least one very bright, informed person or government official or prime minister or someone somewhere who has told us that Iran is two weeks away from having a bomb, okay? And last summer, the 12-day war, as it became known, at that time, insiders were saying, oh, yes, you know, yes, we're negotiating, and Trump says the negotiations are going well. We've got to do something about it. We did.

35:15We started with a little negotiation. We just started bombing them, you know, in a more targeted, sort of specific, localised way, in terms of their facilities. Now, that, that very time, the likes of Tulsi Gabbard, in charge of national intelligence, the likes of the Israeli government, we're both telling Trump that Tehran is at least a year or two away from capability of doing what they, we fear they might want to do to say Israel. Now, he took a preemptive act, did a preemptive measure, and you, you know, say, okay, and he said that was the end of it. They're finished with, you know, that tune has changed. That's another thing you see. When you say you've got them, you did it successful in and out clean, as it were, and then several months later, it's, we've got to stop it, hold everything, because we've got to go in there and bomb the heck out of that country. That also is a little tough for people to understand, appreciate why, why we got what, I thought we did it. We haven't. We have to do it again.

36:15Okay. And then you have the problem of, when they first came out with the reasons for doing this, there was stuff about regime change, which seems to be central for some people. But Trump would say, well, I'm imminent threat to America, and then it was an imminent threat to Israel, and then it was an imminent threat to US interests in the Middle East. And it turns out, well, in real time, that the Pentagon and the CIA, for example, were both telling Trump all along, it's 10 years till the Iranians, that's another Freudian slip, 10 years till the Iranians will be able to do anything to us in America, and it's several years before they can do anything to Israel. And the reason that, Trump would say, yeah, but they're threatening to, you know, to bomb our bases. We are, they're saying that if we attack them, they'll bomb our bases. And it turns out, we attack them and they bombed our bases. So it's not a question. I mean, most Americans are not, don't need persuading that Iran is a bad actor.

37:16And we wish it was a different government and we wish that they weren't who they are and they haven't behaved the way they have behaved. But that's a million miles politically from persuading most people that suddenly, everything has to be put on hold and we have to risk everything, economically, politically, in terms of domestically, to do this, especially when addition, when Trump quite explicitly says that, well, you know, yeah, it is kind of risky doing this sort of thing. But, you know, the Israelis want us to do it. You know, that's okay. It doesn't compute for most people. Now, maybe, you know, historians will look back 10 or 20 years from now and say that it was exactly as Trump said it was, and it was all necessary. And we haven't had a peep out of Iran since. But in real time, which is the only context in which most people can try to assess this, cost-benefit-wise,

38:17it appears to be, contrary to what Trump says some days, it does appear to be not a war of necessity but a war of choice. And as a war of choice, then everyone then starts thinking, well, should we have chosen, chosen to go this route? And most people think on balance, well, no, especially as it hasn't, it's not as if it's gone well and there are always costs to a war, even a successful war. It's gone well and we don't like the costs. It's not gone very well so far. And it doesn't look like going any better the further we go. So, you know, it just doesn't play, doesn't pass the sniff test for most people. Well, maybe those people should see their doctors. Right. And that's just not to bore you with the, with too much detail. Historical test. You can't do that. Is that a dare relate?

39:17Yeah. Is that, is in foreign, one of the things that was explained to Trump beforehand and before other people came in the room and explained the health things that were different. And one of the things that was explained to him is that wars go a very predictable way, with probably the exception only of the Second World War, go a very predictable way in terms of the American public opinion, right? Whatever the level of support for the war going in, and sometimes it's quite high, and it always declines. Sometimes quite quickly, sometimes gradually, but always declines as blood and treasure, you know, start being tallyed up. Okay. So that's, that's number one. So wherever you are now, Mr. President, you're only going to, the war's only going to get less popular. Now it's important then to note that, despite the polls that Trump was relying on, most polls showed that, you know, it was two thirds, one third against beforehand, and at the outset. So you're starting out from a weak position.

40:17Number two, that rally around the flag effect, which can be real, where people go, oh my goodness, we're at war. I mean, we must support the President, which some polls say there's been a little bit of others don't, that always fades, that always fades quite quickly. And thirdly, and this is really the most depressing thing, if you, just in general, if you're in favor of it, times America intervening militarily around the world, is that no matter how just your cause might be, no matter how successful the war is, and how successful it's seen, it's perceived to have been, it's still, you still don't gain politically from it. A President can only survive a war, survive foreign policy generally, he can't really gain from it, only in the most short term sense. And so Trump started out with an unpopular, but what would be, you know, if the President does this, what do you think? We don't like the idea. He does it, doesn't explain much about it beforehand,

41:17can't get a story straight while it's happening, doesn't seem to be going that well. None of the evidence is that he, or the war itself, are gaining in popularity. You know, and so, you've got the situation where, this is why so many people, not everybody, but so many of the political people in the White House are telling him, you know, whatever is right or wrong about what you, we have done, you need to pull the plug in as fast and dignified a way as possible, because, you know, domestically, we're going to get, we're going to get crushed, and we don't know how long that crushing will go on for. Right? And it's, so, rightly or wrongly, this is not, this has been a very, very bad move politically for Trump, and most frustratingly, for his supporters, is self-inflicted. Now, I'm sure he had the best of intentions, but that's how it's seen, and it will take quite a turn around both in the Middle East and in terms of people, in terms of public opinion,

42:17for that to change, but as I've been saying, there's no historical evidence that even if it goes from being a, you know, this isn't going so well, kind of a war, oh, my goodness, that was ended up being a cake war. Doesn't mean that come November or November of 2028, then anybody is going to give him any credit for that. So, you're suggesting he's on a loser? Oh, absolutely. No question about it. And I think he knows, I think he knows he's on a loser. I mean, see, this is somebody who took his credit, and long before he was, you know, in politics, always argued against regime change wars, forever wars, endless wars, all the rest of it, particularly in the Middle East. And whether you think that's correct or not, he had a principled position which he stuck to and articulated and unciated very well. He did it all the way through all three of his campaigns. One of his last conversation with Charlie Kirk was Trump promising Charlie Kirk that he would never do what he's done, because Charlie Kirk, in recent times,

43:17he was his, you know, in policy terms. Charlie was involved, you know, obviously, in interested in a lot of larger cultural issues, but in terms of policy, the thing that mattered most to him is that we didn't start a war with Iran, because he force saw what many of us do in terms of the negative, negative ramifications. Trump promised him he wouldn't do it. And Trump has, is now in a position where he's gone against, not just what a lot of people told him he should or shouldn't do, but he's gone completely 180 against what he always said. I mean, along with being in favor of tariffs, I'm trying to think, I'm trying to think of an issue that Trump so long held on to. It was a signature issue. And he, I think, recognizes that he has been persuaded kind of at the last minute, whether it's Whitkopf and Kushner, whether it's Rubio, whatever the specific reason,

44:18that he was persuaded the last minute, and maybe it was, you know, the late at the last phone call he had from BB Netnaiu, but that he probably shouldn't have done what he did. But now he's in it. He doesn't know how, like most of us, you make a mistake, you realize it fairly quickly, you've made a mistake, but often it's too late to change it. And so how do you minimize the damage? And what he appears to be doing, I don't think it's what he wants to do, what he appears to be advised, in a sort of military, strategic sense, is to do what most leaders do in these situations when it isn't going well, which is double down, and see whether blowing up more buildings and killing more people didn't have the effect that blowing up half as many buildings and killing half as many people didn't have, in terms of the larger picture and the apparent goals. When if he would only declare victory, point to one of these things, one of the reasons he's given for doing this

45:19and say, look, we achieve that. We put him back in their box. We're victorious. We're on our way home. We never, we never meant to be here for the rest of our lives. He would have a chance to climb out of this political trap that he set for himself. I'm wondering whether he can conclude this militarily by going all out. Would you say that there was no chance whatsoever of using a small nuclear weapon? I would say, I say this very little, but there are, there are one or two neocon advises to him who would be able, would be able to do that. They would be able to advise that he did that if they thought it was necessary. So I wouldn't rule it out completely. But no, I mean, this is a classic case. I mean, this is if a rack was difficult to conquer and achieve successful regime change in, and if Afghanistan was, I mean, they are picnics compared with what

46:19Iran would be for all kinds of reasons, some geography, to population, to topography, to the culture, to the military preparedness, and all the rest of it. The only way you could win this thing militarily, I mean, it's a, it's a question, it's a case. But this is one of these situations, and I think where, we know one country or two countries have so much more at their disposal, right? In, than the country that they are attacking. And they win almost every battle, but they end up losing the war. Because we didn't say, as we did last summer, we're doing this to knock out this, this and this, so they can't, they have to build back that, that and that. And they'll be, and they'll be mad to do so, because we'll come back again. We're saying, regime change, liberate the people, and take care of the nuclear program, and bring prosperity, and this, and the other. We've set the bar, this is, I mean, this is to talk about, over promising and underdelivering. We've set the bar so high,

47:19you almost can't help, but not win. Whereas the Iranians, that is the regime, all they have to do is survive. And they've won. And that is what they clearly are doing. And having prepared, see, we've, one of the mistakes, it's human nature, but you think at that, at this high level, that high level, it shouldn't happen. You know, we, it's very hard for us, when people, when we disagree with people, especially when we think we have the bad people, and we don't actually know them, but we know the reputation, they know they do bad things, and evil things, and all the rest of it. We also tend to think that they are incompetent as well, as if the two, aren't, mutually exclusive. But they are. Some bad people are incompetent, and they end up getting caught, and they end up spending their lives in prison. But they love very bad people who are quite competent, and quite right, and quite tactically and strategically, or, you know, skilled. And they do very well for themselves. Thank you very much. And so when we have a bad actor,

48:20like the Iranian regime, it's, it's, all the evidence so far, is that, all the evidence so far, is that, the, the most influential voices, the deciding voices, in, with, with and around Trump, before he, making this decision, we're telling him, that, not only are these guys bad, and they pose a threat, and we just can't put up with this narrative anymore, and Israel shouldn't have to live with this, this nightmare, in their own backyard, all this kind of stuff. But, they don't know what they're doing. They're just literally going to lay down their arms, hence the call for, for the revolutionary guard, folks to give up their arms, and, you know, you won't be, you won't be punished. You know, we'll decapitate the regime's leadership, and the whole thing, the people will rise up, everyone will be happy, and all the rest of it, right? Because these guys have, because the Iranian regime hasn't done a clue. You know, there's, there used to say they can't organize their way out of a wet paper bag.

49:21But of course, the opposite is true in the taste of the Iranians, which is part of the reason they've been so successful at being such bad actors for so long. So, you know, they were ready. They were as ready as you can be. You have a situation where Israel and the US, because think of it like as a poker game, Israel and the US, began with quite strong hands, right? I don't think they've played them very well, but they had strong hands. The Iranians had comparatively weak hands, not, not, not, bought terrible hands to play, but much less, value than the Israelis and the Americans. But the Iranians have played them artfully. They've played their hand really, really well. And not because they were spontaneously, oh, let's suddenly, off the top of my head, let's do this, this and this, because they planned it out. They knew exactly what they were going to do and how they were going to do it. And they knew what the Americans would do, which is what the Americans always do, shock and awe. Let's just, you know, if we kill enough people and blow enough things up, everything will be fine.

50:21And it's, you know, so we've, we've massively, massively underestimated and underappreciated our enemy. And, you know, this is a result, but the fact that it's happened just decades from the Afghanistan debacle and the Iraq debacle, and at the instruction of the person, one of the people most aware of what went wrong in America's meddling in the Middle East and was most committed to it not happening again. It's beyond baffling for most people on his side of the political aisle who took him at his word that he just wouldn't do this kind of thing again. But let's assume that the facts are right with regard to that, that Wichoff report. Let's assume that it's all true that there are only two weeks away from converting 60, 60 proof,

51:21my terminology, I think. But 60 proof into a proper weapon. Only a couple of weeks. And in those two weeks, nothing else has resolved. And so the next thing you find out is that they've pulled a Hiroshima on America and New York's gone down the toilet or something. That's the reference most people make. Right. What would you... How would you get over that in any which way, whichever side of the argument you were on? That's the logistics of it, is it, where? Yeah. Well, I mean, again, it presumes that they are the Iranians in this case. You could talk about the bad act to regimes around the world, current and recent history. It presumes that they aren't acting a very different way

52:22to most human beings do. So that is, it presumes that they are suicidal. They are. Right. Okay. That's a fair, I mean, that's a fair response. That is a, you know, that's sort of a topic worthy of serious debate. I would say that there is no question that they, that the more devout followers of the faith are willing to die for the cause. But I don't think there's a lot of evidence that they, that the country is willing to die, sort of proactively for the cause. That is, we're worried about them doing something to us or to Israel. Now, the reason they have, I mean, that they have, they want nuclear weapons for two reasons. One, they're the baddest actors among them would like to have that in their back pocket in case they thought they could get away with

53:22doing something to Israel or they could somehow reach America and the American president was not up to the job and wouldn't wipe them off the face of the earth, right? There's always the possibility that people are, you know, misjudging us just as we misjudge them. But there's also the element of the regime as there are in most such regimes where nuclear weapons gives them security. It's a, it's a, it's a literal security blanket. It inoculates them, right? I see one of the problems with our, then we, we told, as we go back too far, but, you know, when we told Kadafi and Libya are the acts of evil after 9-11, you know, give up your, give up your, your nasty tools and instruments and everything will be fine. And of course, they did, he did and we killed him anyway. So the message, the message for decades has been well heard around the world in these nasty back waters and back alleys,

54:24as it were, that the own, America can't be trusted. Whether you think that's true or not, we have to understand what the bad actors are thinking. And as far as they're concerned, to a man, is it worth, if I may speak some politically incorrect, to a man, to a government, to a regime, they are adamant that America can not be trusted. And the Iranians would say most recently, well, last summer, we were negotiating with them, they started bombing us. This summer, we were negotiating with them, they started starting bombing us. All these sorts of things that, that have built up their view of us, however wrong that may be, inaccurate that may be. They believe that the only thing that, the only thing that ensures their survival, is nuclear weapons. They believe it's why we don't like the guy in North Korea, but we kind of leave him alone, don't we? Why is that? Well, the Biden installed a coup, the Democratic elected Prime Minister of Pakistan, but we've never really done a lot about Pakistan,

55:26because what they got nuclear weapons, don't they? We can't let the Chinese push us around most of the time, because well, you know, they got a lot of things, including nuclear weapons. So the Iranians, for bad actor-raised genes, it's a race, it's a race from their point of view, a race to survival. We think of it as they're racing to how quickly can they get those weapons, so they can hit us and our allies. And as I say, some of them may be thinking that absolutely, but for most of them, it's how quickly can we ensure that they never attack us, because they know they can't? So if we know there's two weeks to go, it only takes one phone call to ensure that they understand what happens if we get the slightest whiff that something is a foot, right? And, you know, it's the mutually assured destruction that we used successfully with the Soviet Union for a generation. Okay. Then I've got to pick... I have to interrupt and pick up on this. Yeah. And I'll utilize this quote before I forget it.

56:29But it only takes one nuke to ruin a day. Now, the point that I was going to make, though, is with your argument about Iran wanting it for self-defense, for instance, why would they need it? Why would they need it? If they are a peace-loving country, and they just want to be left alone, then they will be left alone. No one's going to... If they're not a threat to anybody, no one's going to bother about them. But when you've got an administration that started its career back in, when was it, 89 or 99, with taking over the American Embassy, and then they have killed so many of their own Iranian people. And only recently, for the last episode, where the numbers are unknown,

57:31but I've heard every number from 10,000 to 50,000. I don't believe the 50, but I could accept 30 or something. But the point being that they just go out and wipe them out in the street with machine guns. Kill them. Their own people. What sort of government is that? Does it care about its people? Obviously not. So what is its motive? And the motive is, because they believe that it's their responsibility, that L.R. has instructed them to basically take over the world. Well, it's a combination of religious, religious fanaticism, and then it's just straight human nature in terms of desire for power, right? And their view of taking care of their people is very different to, hopefully, or view of taking care of our people. But I mean, just go back to that issue in a moment, latent about how it is there

58:31and what people think of it there. The issue of the nuclear weapons, and we have allies with nuclear weapons, and we have enemies with nuclear weapons, and I've had both for a long time. No one has attacked us, or are allies with them, right? I would suggest that's a rather strong stream of evidence that the threat, the known threat, the known ultimatum that our enemies or bad actors have, carries the day so far. You know, the weight of the evidence is in favor of those, say, who say that these people are not suicidal. It doesn't mean that none of them are suicidal, but the ones who actually control the button that counts aren't. And so I don't think we have to, again, we have to recognize that they are acting

59:32in what they believe to be their own self-interest, which is what everybody does except most western nations, right? And part of the reason we don't do that is we don't understand why they're acting the way they are. I guess what I'm trying to suggest to your audience is that we may hate everything that they do and say, but some of the things they do and say make sense given who they are in their position in the world, their position in the Middle East, et cetera, right? And the nuclear program, I'm not trying to suggest that what I'll say next is the number one reason for it, far from it, or that that should be the, oh, we should say, well, there's no problem then, but it is also in a society that's so nationalistic, it is a symbol of national and cultural pride, right? That they have something that they will have hope to have, something like that at their disposal, that they have achieved that against all the odds,

1:00:32you know, so whether it's the Pakistanis, the North Koreans, the Chinese or whoever it is, the French arguably, you know, this is something that we say, you know, signifies symbolizes that we count, right? And that's another one of the reasons why they have it. But everything we're doing is encouraging them to get there as fast as possible. And you may say, well, they're going to want to get as fast as possible anyway, so it doesn't matter, right? But we don't have, we have no evidence that they, we are, I think our own, it's not them, I'm not suggesting that they said to us across the table to, to Whitkopf and Kushner, look, you know, we'll never use this stuff, we're never actually going to do it. I'm not saying that at all. What I'm saying is that our own experts said, they're not going to be able to do this to us for a decade. They can't do it to Israel either, right?

1:01:32What Trump has done, and maybe he'll be proven correct in the long term, what he's done is he said, he has said that the military people and the nuclear people and the technical people who we pay the big bucks to let us know where hell's going on. I've told me one thing, and I'm going to go with my gut or I'm going to go with what Kushner and Whitkopf picked up, you know, Manoeu Manoeu across the table, and we're going to, we're going to go for it. And the chief of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the head military man, the president's main military advisor, he, not only could he not guarantee, he didn't even get into the regime idea, which was never going to be achieved, but he said, I can't guarantee you that even militarily, we're going to win this. I mean, we should, probably will, but I can't guarantee you that we will, or how long it will last, or how many people will die, or how much it will cost, and all the rest of it. And, you know, it was, when it's, when it is, from my perspective, a war of choice,

1:02:34you want to be a little more certain, a more certainty on a number of these things before you go forward. And one of them, of course, is the real elephant in the room, is the regime change business, which was when I woke up on the Saturday morning here, and a few hours earlier, I guess the, the tax had begun, and I was reading Trump's initial statement and he had about, you know, what was going on. And I was absolutely gobsmacked, that he had lined the regime change part of it, because I thought, if he ended up doing this, he would say, we kind of missed something last summer, and those buggers are back at it again, and we're going to go in, and we're going to take it, do what we've finished the job. And I, and fair enough, okay, let's hope that works, and all the rest of it. But he actually had lined regime change, and that's been central to most of the explanations and the answers to, what are we, what the heck are we doing there? And then that presumes, of course, that the people in Iran, if you bomb them enough,

1:03:36they will welcome you as liberators and want to overthrow their government. Maybe they should, but that's in human history, that doesn't happen very often, right? You know, we could bomb them into liberation. This is, this is our argument, actually. Yeah. And of course, it's not our argument, arguing it's myself for a moment, because what we were saying, what we were thinking, we weren't thinking we'd have to bomb them into liberation. We were thinking we'd kill the top guys, the people we'd identified as the, people we could've caught on quote, unquote, work with, would take over, the people would rise up in happiness, and it would all be over by Sunday night, Monday morning, stock markets good, everybody, you know, bang, we're in, we're out, Iran has been saved, Israel has been saved, if we've been saved, because we didn't understand bizarrely, we didn't understand Iranian political culture, why Iranians, our Iranians protesting against their regime, the pride of the war, yes, why?

1:04:37Because they want to overthrow the itoal and all of that? No, some do, most don't. It's because the economy sucks, and the standard of living has been going down for some time, partly because the itoal is, you know, they can't manage their way out of a paper bag, and also because the sanctions that we've got on them, the point of the sanctions is to squeeze hard and harder on the people till they rise up. Well, the people haven't risen up, but they are mad as hell, both at us, and at their rulers, that they can't have a decent, at least an economy, but being upset about your economic situation is a million miles from being willing to take up arms to overthrow the regime, and, you know, do what those American bombers are, you know, helping us do. So, you know, every which way, we've just completely misread it, and so we've made what was always going to be a really tough lift, a really heavy lift, into so much harder than it was always going to be anyway.

1:05:38Sort of from an improbability, I would say, if you said to me the day before, we're going to start this tomorrow, how probable is it that we succeed? I would say it was improbable, but it's possible assuming that we had it all planned out, we had, you know, all kinds of backups, we had all the externalities, and all the ripples on the pond, we forced saw those, and we knew what we would do, but it turns out we didn't, right? I mean, Trump's been quite open about the fact that we didn't expect them to fight back. He's actually said that. They just thought, let me just not. They didn't expect them to bomb American bases. They didn't expect them to close the straight of Hormuz. They didn't expect. Oh, I think I said. I'm sure that Hormuz was on the list. Oh, well, okay, here's the thing. It was just yesterday, that Trump's press secretary said that, so they had to do this, because they knew that the straight of Hormuz would be closed. Why would it be closed? Well, because if they were attacked, they would close it.

1:06:38So we attacked them and they closed it, right? I mean, the fact that his press secretary can't make a good case for it. It doesn't mean there isn't a good case for it out there. But I'm just saying that it's just, it's symptomatic of how we just haven't, we just haven't thought this out at all, right? And then now, the world is being held hostage economically, or it looks like we'll be held hostage economically. And it's, so the ripple is on the pond. It's like it's going to be a tsunami if we don't pull the plug on this. And it's, again, it's all by choice. None of this, obviously. If you think that we were five minutes away from bombing New York, that's that. I mean, you go with that and you deal with the consequences. For those of us who don't, for those of us who don't, the consequences were never entirely predictable, but largely predictable. And now we all have to live with them. It seems.

1:07:38All right, so let me ask you, respectfully, for a short answer to this question. What you've just described, is that arguably an equivalent in today's world, to Troy and the horse? I think it's, actually, you know, if the top of my head, I would say in the, the gold brevity here that you suggested, I employ, I would say that that's a, that's a, that's a pretty good, um, maybe a bit crude, but it's a pretty good analogy. Again, it's that, you know, making the most of your weaker hand, and not just saying, not just saying, okay, there's no way we can beat you militarily, which is true. Because after all, as you say, as you said earlier, Layton, come, come push comes the sharp, we just nuke him, right? And they know that. But we actually are not going to just put our cards down,

1:08:39you take our chips, and that's it. We're actually going to make this a fight. We're going to make this, because the gold for them, they survive, that they win by surviving, as I said earlier. Their survival is based on keeping, on extending this was long as possible, because, you know, because, um, counterintuitively, the way it works out militarily, nuke's aside, is that we, they can laugh, we can't laugh anything like, as long as they can, in terms of lobbing bombs at each other. And so, as long as they can do that, we're in a tough spot, and the world's in a tough spot. So, yeah, I think the, I think they have, they have outthoughtous, out strategized us. And that is, we're good for them, and given some points on that front, but I mean, it's really, really embarrassing, embarrassing, and, uh, really, you know, unimpressive. And this from a man, this from a man who was a, a Trump supporter.

1:09:40So, what you're doing is being honest, and stating it as you, as you see it. And I admire that. Well, I appreciate that. And you're not even bothered with the fact that I won't speak to you ever again. Well, it bothers me, but not that much. So, um, look, if this, if this, if this is produced to stop speaking to me, then that will be a, more on a different level then. Oh, you, um, you've also, eh? Okay. Yeah, me too. Now, I'm, we've, um, we've overshot a bit. I'm now trying to limit, limit my, um, or restrict my, my interviews to about 45 to 50 minutes. Um, but, um, I make exception for you. The, I've got one other question on, on another little matter. Sure. Because it intrigues me. And, and I get asked this quite a bit now. The battles that are going on in American politics, in, in Republican politics,

1:10:40the, the Marga battles, if you call them whatever you want, you know, to which I refer. And the, they're ghastly, horrible. And the things that people, the things that people who I, um, shall we say, followed in a, you know, shallow sort of a way, um, who, who I've had respect for, uh, just off the planet. The hatred is unbelievable. Mm-hmm. What's going on? Uh, well, it's, uh, some of the, some of the, uh, negative sides of human nature are on display, aren't they? And just because, we know, just because people are high-profile, successful, well-off, so it doesn't mean that they aren't, uh, buggers when it comes to, uh, they're getting into with people. And it's definitely, I mean, on both sides of this war, uh, there are prominent people who have been lobbing rhetorical bombs and very personal ones at one another. Yeah.

1:11:40Um, I, at this point, I can't, I haven't been involved in it, um, and I've only been a sort of indirect victim, uh, uh, uh, uh, or see what you're talking about, but yeah, really, really prominent supporters of the president, whether in the media, or academia, or, um, you know, and social, uh, social media podcasts, et cetera, independent media. I've just been going at one another a leather and tongue, um, you know, since before the war started, and it's just got worse and worse ever since. Um, um, and we've seen this, you know, almost recent poll, right? We, we're really drilled down on Republican voters. voters, how they classified themselves and based on the, and how they thought of the, how they saw the war pose or support. And it's really quite striking because your newer Trump voters, the people who came on in 24 because of Kennedy and Gabbard, the younger

1:12:43minority, more working class, more independent, never voted before, either because they were too young or just never thought there was anyone worth voting for. Those folks who made the difference for Trump's victory over Harris, those are the ones who are the most disappointed, not the only ones who disappointed, but they are the most disappointed. And because their political attachment was only to Trump, not to the Republican party, and to Trump, it was only one time. They're the ones who are peeling away. They're the ones going to be very hard to get back. They're the ones that may not shop in the midterms, may not shop in three years time for the presidency. It's so it's your older, your boomers, your Republican voters who watch legacy television, read the New York Times, Washington Post, those folks are very supportive of this. But the younger and more alternative media consumers, they're the ones who are most opposed on the Republican side.

1:13:49It's a huge problem for the Republicans with just several months until the midterm elections. Indeed, speaking of such things, and finally, you have been in the habit of going to the Middle East in about six months time, that time of the year for the last few years. How's it looking for 26? In terms of going? Yeah. I mean, if it's held in the thing I go to, the investment conference is held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. So at this point, I don't know, we just don't know where things will be. I mean, if they put it on, I will go. If they rebuild it, I will go. Of course, it's interesting here because the Saudis have been, the Crown Prince has apparently been one of the strongest voices in favor of not only doing this, but of doubling down in Trump's ear since it kicked off. So it just shows you how successful, for my point of view,

1:14:52perversely, but how successful Trump was in his first term and in his first year of his second term, it isolating Iran from the Gulf states and the kingdoms and getting them more aligned with Israel and further and further away from Iran, which is all good news for my point of view. So there is actually one more thing that I needed to ask you, or I'd be in trouble. The Iranian soccer team in Australia, there was a question about whether they should stay in Australia or not. Trump notified Albanese that if Australia didn't do it, America would, but he said you should do it or you must do it, or I don't know whether he made any threats, but in the end, and it didn't take long, Albanese approved it. Now, what's happened since, and I'm not giving you this in necessarily the right order, but what's happened since, is that the number of them, and I think they're at least nine, who are in Sydney,

1:15:57the number of them is now down to two. And by the time that this gets broadcast, it may well be nothing. And that's because, well, can you guess why? Well, they hail from a country with a very nasty regime that acts badly towards not just many foreigners, but many of its own people. So they are a negative externality. They are a cost of this war, in this case, inflicted by their own side, right? So how could anybody support a government like that? How could anybody think that that's administration, which got there by foul means in the first place, should be allowed to continue? Well, it's the old story, you know, if we, it's hard for us, sometimes it's hard for us to say, my god, how do those Canadians be so stupid, or those New Zealanders, you know, they don't know who they do or don't vote for, or whether they protest or not about certain

1:16:58piece of legislation? But we usually don't even bother to think why it is that people do or don't do things in other countries, particularly countries that are, you know, renowned for their repression. You know, most people didn't say boo in Hitler's Germany. Most people didn't say boo in the Soviet Union. I'm sure far more people, he quiet than saying a thing in Iran, you know, for the same reasons, historical reasons. There's this thread runs throughout history. But that is, that is different. Whether the regime is a good one or not is totally different, in my view, from what we do about it. We don't like them. I don't think it, I think history tells us, in recent history, that it makes no sense, in fact, it's incredibly costly to all of us when we say, they're bad, they don't like us. If we can, we should change their government, right? Because

1:17:59it usually doesn't work out. And one of the many reasons that it usually doesn't work out is that the people themselves aren't either keen on the type of government we think they should have, because we all think they should have governments like our governments, obviously. Well, actually, no. I'd give them something better. Yeah, well, indeed. There's that. And then there's the fact that if your country, if America or New Zealand was under attack from a bad actor, it's unlikely that most of us, no matter what we thought of our current leadership, would say, my God, yes, come here liberators. It's just not how, right, you're wrong, it's just not how human beings respond to being blown up. It just doesn't play out that way. Almost all of the time. And when you get to the, whether there were murmurs straight away

1:19:01that the Iranians shouldn't be at the World Cup and whether they would want to be there, and all this sort of thing. And I mean, my big picture response on this, when I'm surprised, you're not late news, I'm completely against any of this use of politics when it comes to sports. I'm against the anti-racism campaigns, not because I'm pro-racism because I don't think it has a place. I think it starts, it gets very difficult. It makes all kinds of problems. And so the day, the day that the Russians invaded Ukraine, I wrote a piece for the Epoch Times, arguing against the bans on Russian players in the National Hockey League and making Chelsea's Russian own and sell the club and all this kind of thing. Because what it, not only does it make a mess of everything, but what it always demonstrates historically, it's unbelievably hypocritical. We are at what double standards we have, because we always employ these heavy-handed tactics on athletics and sports in general. When they suit us and other times, it's fine. We just ignore it completely. We have Olympic

1:20:06games in Beijing. That's fine because for one reason or another, we don't like to talk about, we think we're better off for that. But we can't do this here or that there or they can't participate. And it's really arbitrary and it's really naked crude politics. And I don't think it, no, the service as well, nor does it look good on us. Patrick, well said. Appreciate it. Again. And thank you. Thank you, Leiden. Now, I went to the mail room for number 320 with Mrs. Producer Good morning. Hi, Leiden. How are you? Good evening, wherever you are. I'm very well. Thank you. In fact, after a very good night's sleep, I feel even better. It is the morning of podcast release number 320. You're an example of how quickly time flies. I don't need an example. I'll give it to you.

1:21:11Do you remember? This is 320. Do you remember when we got to 300? You'd go, wow. Who would have thought? Well, that was, if you want, 20 podcasts, a available podcast back. But it's been longer than that because we haven't been, you know, that was during the summer period and one of you. But nevertheless, it's just flashing by. As I'm sure, as I'm sure President Trump is finding. Now, why don't you, Leiden? Our lady, Dennis has written to you about the COVID inquiry. He says the COVID inquiry should raise serious questions about Chris Hickins leadership. So he starts by saying, before you read the report below, I feel it important for you to read my submission to the commission that, like others, were ignored. It is particularly galling to know about a huge amount of overseas research that highlights the damage the jabs have done that we are ignoring, even though I had forwarded this to many MPs. I understand ACC have paid out millions to jab injured people.

1:22:18As a retired pharmacist, I became aware in 2021 of a significant number of overseas medical experts who were questioning the safety and efficacy of the jabs. Remember, it is important to understand these jabs are gene therapy and not like traditional vaccines. So using the term vaccine to describe them is misleading. Concerned with what I was discovering, I immediately said about to send details of opinions and research to a number of members of parliament, but sadly just a handful personally acknowledged my efforts. The extensive information I submitted continues to today and includes significant scientific articles and expert opinions. It is concerning to me that publicly there was little or no debate and all we heard from the government and most media outlets that the jabs were safe and effective. Debate and review of information is a critical part of scientific research. The fact that the Pfizer contract details

1:23:21were not made public was also of concern, especially as I believe under the emergency use only conditions that were applied, alternative therapies like immune boosting products and Ivermectin were not allowed to be talked about. A couple of years ago, I read Robert Kennedy Jr's book The Real Anthony Fauci and the likelihood that the virus came from gain of function research in the Wuhan laboratory with funding coming from the USA where this research had been outlawed for very ethical reasons. It has been very clear that authorities and politicians are refusing to take a serious look at the adverse effects of acting many people. It is noteworthy that in the UK the government has paid up to £100,000 to some jab injured people. I am saddened that it seems authorities and politicians and the media are trying to cover up what I believe has been a very significant failure to do the right thing, unlike the way the Swedish

1:24:23government approached the problem. Continuing to cover this up is a real travesty of justice and I sincerely hope that those responsible will be held accountable and they will be forced to reveal any behind the scenes money they received as incentives. And that is from Dennis, retired pharmacist. Dennis, that was brilliant actually. And while Carolyn was reading that, I was sitting looking at a headline from the epic times, inquiry praises a Dern's COVID response. That would be the biggest joke of the century. And then it goes on and says, well, start again, inquiry praises a Dern's COVID response. But says New Zealand is still bruised and divided. What a cop out. And that's why inquiry is not infrequently useless. There is a cowardice amongst people who sit on their benches. I think in many cases anyway. Now, Claire writes, your interview with Robert

1:25:27McCulloch was enlightening. The New Zealand constitution is not worth the paper. It isn't printed on. It's much like the red queen and says it could mean anything that you wanted to mean. What he's announced recently that it was closing several frozen food factories. One reason cited was high compliance costs in New Zealand. Not said was our high minimum wage, which can be crippling for companies. And also the many holidays and sick days here. I'll go along with the latter, certainly. Several years ago, a friend with a small business said he had to pay his workers for about 40 days before they earned him a cent. And that was before a maturiki, which I'm in favour of, but only if another holiday, such as the King's birthday, is removed. More and more businesses were closed in the years ahead, pushing more and more bright Kiwis offshore. When was the last time that there was a comparison drawn study, a comparison study between New Zealand and

1:26:34Australia and incomes, wages, how things work in this regard and why one is better than the other. Mind you, they're not doing quite so flashly at the moment. Claire, thank you. Appreciate it. Layton Collins says he starts actually with a quote and the quote is, you can crucify freedom, but the human soul knows no shackles. These words, says Colin, addressed to the Soviet Socialist Elite, accurately described the absence of fundamental freedoms for people living in the 1970s in the USSR, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Protest artists, Julian Olig wrote these words on a public building in Leningrad in 1975 and saying this truth contributed to each writer receiving prison terms of over five years in labour camps. In 2026, as we prepare to vote in our general election, let's embrace the fact we live in a Western democracy. We are not under the autocratic rule of a socialist elite as the USSR

1:27:40was in the 1970s. In New Zealand, our style of democracy gives us the best opportunity of any political system to use our freedom to express our human soul. That beautifully written. Who was that? Colin. Colin, I sort of fell myself saying, no, I don't quite agree with that. A couple of times through there. For instance, can you read the bit about the last bit again? I do agree. In New Zealand, our style of democracy, our style of democracy gives us the best opportunity of any political system to use our freedom to express our human soul. Okay, so where was that during the lockdown? That's my point. It comes with limits or it comes with abuse. Colin does say the best opportunity. Not every opportunity. There's room for improvement. I think we all know that. Very interesting discussion, thanks, Layton, with Robert McCulloch. I still struggle with the AML impositions on innocent

1:28:45citizens, while gangs, et cetera, continue to, well, continue with the illegal drug trade. I think Robert may have misunderstood your question about who was responsible for the sudden emphasis on banks providing cash facilities because his response related to digital currency. While I accept there are downsides with a digital currency, there could be some benefits if it could be used in conjunction with retaining separate bank accounts. As I recall, Robert talked about the RVNZ check accounts, whereas my interest is in savings accounts. During the COVID era, Reserve Bank of New Zealand was paying interest on funds that banks lodged with the RVNZ, as well as offering low interest borrowing facilities. According to Dr. Google, they still pay the OCR on deposits the big banks make. That is way better than us mere mortals can get for on-call deposits with the banks. Kiwi bank is probably the best of the major safe banks

1:29:49at 1.5%, but well short of the OCR's 2.25%. You've got to be confused with the Kiwi bank and 1.5. I'm getting a massive 1.8 at the moment on a term deposit. 1.8, who would have thought? Anyway, if the RVNZ digital count gave us the same facilities as they provided the big banks, including on-call savings accounts, it would be worthwhile if we could choose the facilities we want without being committed to use RVNZ for everything. Go along with that. To illustrate the concept at present, I use Kiwi bank for most on-call savings and then transfer the funds to Westpac to make payments. I might be a bit short in information, but I don't quite get the purpose of that. No, if you feel like it, give me more. And Mrs. Producent, would you like to have

1:30:51a look at that one? Malcolm says, we so look forward to Wednesdays and your excellent podcasts. Really enjoyed listening to tonight's guest and would love to know what, as an economist, Professor Robert thinks about governments printing money. To me, it is theft from hardworking folk who have money in the bank as it waters its value down. It should be illegal as I'm damn sure I'd be put in jail if I did it. I understand Grant Robertson printed millions of dollars when he was Minister of Finance. I wonder if this coalition does it too. Thank you again for your wonderful podcasts. Malcolm, very nice of you. That's been happening for a long time, of course. Not a lot has changed except the extent to which some governments extend themselves or to themselves even. And finally, when Robert McCulloch said that national and labor are full of chums, I cast my mind back to May last year when he decided to shut down his Earth Kiwi blog due to threats from national, labor and big business. New Zealand

1:31:56incorporated such as big bank supermarkets and building firms. I reckon the pressure was so intense that it probably caused occasional wobbles in the way he carried himself. What I do like about Robert McCulloch is that he speaks his mind and he doesn't care who might be offended, whether the left or the right. It's part of the process in seeking truths and I agree with that completely. There is a bit of an ideological civil war for truth going on in the centre right lately. With prominent figures, and I raised this in the discussion today, of course, with Patrick. With prominent figures like Ben Shapiro, Douglas Murray, Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens and Megan Kelly, all verbally sparring vehemently. High conviction robust debates are healthy because out of the ashes of the debates emerges the real truth. Well, sometimes. But they just need to be careful, not too inadvertently, turn into new leftists by employing leftist tactics such as

1:32:59the platforming hate speech and the suppression of truth. When truth is surrounded by lies, we need to fight real hard to get to it. Roll on election promises. You know, going back to that list, Mrs. Producer, Ben Shapiro, Douglas Murray, Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Megan Kelly. Megan Kelly was the, I'd have to say, was the least of them to me because she wasn't really there all the time. But they're all, they've all been sparring. They've all been pitching about each other and they're all being unkind about each other to put it politely. This is producing against a bit offended if I use some language. And I have to say the only ones that I still have any faith in are Ben Shapiro, Douglas Murray, full stop. Tucker Carlson, when he was on Fox, I thought it was great. I think he's gone slightly crazy, slightly might be an understatement. And Megan

1:34:06Kelly and Candace Owens, I'm sorry. When she was, when she was declined entry into New Zealand, she was, wasn't she? And it was cancelled. Her visit was cancelled. I was not paying a great deal of attention to her. And I thought, well, that's a bit rough. Spend a bit of time listening to her these days and you think, maybe it was a good thing. Never the less free speeches, free speech, producers, thank you. Layton, thank you for yours. Thank you. And we'll see you next week. Layton Smith. Now to conclude podcast 320, I said at the beginning that I was going to add some further on the on the war. And there are two things to bring together. One is that I asked Patrick yesterday a question about a nuclear device and whether that could put paid to the war once and for all. Would it happen? Or is it likely? And he gave us a good answer. Then I was looking for

1:35:09something else when I came across some in my list on the computer. I came across Martin Armstrong's site. And as I do on occasions, I had a good look at it because I hadn't seen it for a few, I don't know, a couple of weeks. And out of that came something that I thought was very interesting. Starting with the fact that the headline was Iran's war tactics and risk of nuclear war. So what I want to do is because he answers questions on a daily basis, or his clientele, is quote you this question and then have a look at it. And I probably should edit it, but I'll just read it as it all is. Question is, well, it looks like David Sacks has publicly stated that there can be nuclear war if Israel runs out of ammo and is on the verge of being defeated. You warned about this. You have not commented on whether Netanyahu is dead or if Iran has sunk

1:36:10an American destroyer. The supreme leader they killed had agreed no nuclear weapon and said that was against his religion, which is BS, of course. It seems Netanyahu is the dark evil in the mix, who is intentionally leading the world into the end times. Nobody has contacts like you, nor are they as objective. Would you address these questions? Signed Frank T. And here is some Armstrong's answer. There is no question that AI is complicating everything. I do not believe Netanyahu is dead. I've said he's a very dark soul and a staunch neocon who wants the destruction of Iran no matter what. There is no way Israel would admit that Netanyahu is dead publicly for that would create panic, to say the least. The same is true about Iran reporting that they didn't sink a destroyer. There's no way that the Pentagon will publicly admit to that either. We know that Iran has amassed a major stockpile

1:37:14of ballistic missiles and drones, and they would use them to overwhelm the Israeli defence, pushing them to the point that they are running out of interceptors. They can inflict massive economic losses on Israel and strike at the very heart of their morale. Let's make one thing clear. The neocons in league with Netanyahu have pushed Trump into this war, with the promise it will be short and sweet. It's always the same scenario. Even look at Vietnam, President Lyndon B. Johnson was not told the war would be brief. When he committed the first ground troops in 1965, he stated the initial deployment would last only about six months. There was zero planning for the closing of the straighter filmers. Of course they knew this would be a choke point. The problem is that they assumed that they would score an easy fast victory. Granted, they struck some 7,000 targets and have degraded Iran's conventional capabilities. However,

1:38:16a single terrorist with a shoulder-mounted missile can take out a ship. Iran has been reduced to missile. Iran has been reduced to missile warfare, terrorism, activating terrorist cells, and cyber warfare, even with Iraq taking down the leadership did not end the war. General Jack Kean warns US cannot cure straights of a moose alone as Iran tensions surge. While President Trump wants NATO allies to join the fight to keep the straight open, most are rejecting his call like Australia. I'll move on. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has directed US diplomats around the world to urge foreign governments to move expeditiously to diminish the capabilities of Iran and Iran-aligned terrorist groups from attacking our respective nations and citizens. Close quote. Armstrong adds this war is by no means going to be brief. Then moves on to economic warfare, which I won't touch. And from there, the part that does

1:39:24matter. For the sake of this part of the conversation, the question becomes at what point will Netanyahu push the button? Will he even tell Trump in advance? That numbsong rights I have studied history intently he has, actually. The only way to achieve peace is that you must listen to the other side's demands for their security. This is why NATO and the EU refuse to come to terms with Russia because they refuse to listen to what security concerns Russia has regarding Ukraine. Here with Iran, why they're rejecting a ceasefire is simple. There is no negotiation whatsoever that listens to their concerns. They have articulated that the US should close all bases at ex at the Middle East. I think you would soon see John Bolton's head spin around while spewing out a green fluid. The solution is not that hard. All the Gulf states, whether US has bases, have proven that instead of providing security they become targets. They have not benefited from

1:40:25having these bases and now they stand in the way of peace. So how do we get around this problem? Those Gulf states must be take their sovereignty over those bases and guarantee that they will not be used to launch future attacks on a run without their permission. The US keeps the bases but they cannot operate unilaterally as is the case in Europe. The only way to ensure lasting peace is that Israel must accept a Palestinian state. This has been even voted for in the United Nations. The only reason it does not take place is because of the United States. Unless this is done, it's hard to see how there can ever be a lasting peace. This has been the primary reason why Netanyahu has wanted to overthrow Iran. He assumes that the elimination of Iran will prevent any Palestinian state. Let's face the facts. Unless some state is established, there is no hope of ending terrorism

1:41:26and war. Now I disagree with much of what he's said while I've just read. Very good with economics than some other things. But in this particular case, I think he's missing, well, I think he's missing the signs but I could be wrong. What would I know compared with him with his backup? An information and machinery and all sorts of things. But I still don't agree with much of what I just read, just to confirm it. So that will take us out for podcast number 320. If you would like to write to us, latentatnewstalksibb.co.nz, Carolynatnewstalksibb.co.nz, we show that we turn shortly with podcast number 321. In the meantime, thank you for listening. And why don't you send us a note?