War with Iran : US Forces Nearly in Position

0:00. . . A president will start a war with a ran because he has absolutely no ability to negotiate. He's weak and he's ineffective. Man, I bet we all wish—oh, it shows me not on screen. Yeah, I mean, we really wished that guy was president right now, huh? Because we're in the middle of negotiations with Iran, threatening the Iranian government.

1:01We have this very apt analysis from Donald Trump that the president is weak and ineffective, and that's going to lead to a conflict. So a lot to talk about on today's show, a lot we need to get into as we have this massive military build up with Iran, US nearly in position to strike a run, Trump's deadline, what about the Constitution and rebuilding Gaza? So starting off here with, of course, the most important news that is we are on the brink of war with Iran. This article from the Washington Post Day has some of the latest news. Trump appears ready to attack Iran as US strike force takes shape. The outlet explains that Trump administration appears ready to launch an extended military assault on Iran, current and former US officials said, as the Pentagon amasses an immense strike force in the Middle East, despite the risk of US combat fatalities and American

2:05installment in an extended war, the arsenal under assembly for weeds is awaiting the arrival of the aircraft carrier USS Gerald Art Ford and its accompanying warships. Those familiar with the matter said, after military leaders last week, extended their deployment and ordered the ships to return to the region from the Caribbean Sea, the vessels were approaching the streets straight of Gibbetar on Thursday, making an attack possible within days, said these people and who, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity about the military planning. And so what they are saying is Donald Trump now nearly has a second aircraft carrier strike group in the Middle East. As we are speaking, it is probably just entering or nearly entering the Mediterranean Sea. A lot of military analysts are pointing out that it is likely headed to the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. Once positioned there, the destroyers will be probably used largely to shoot down incoming

3:12Iranian missiles. The destroyers' launch tubes are capable of carrying Tomahawk missiles, but also interceptors fired from the Aegis' shore system and SM-SIT system. And in the past, these interceptors have been used to shoot down Iranian missiles, particularly during the 12-day war in June. And so they are going to be there. The aircraft carrier, the aircraft could cadot operations and Lebanon, cadot operations in Yemen and also maybe even cadot operations against Iran with some aerial refueling. And I think probably another thing about having all the aircraft on the Ford in the Eastern Mediterranean, this will get the U.S. and ample supply of aircraft to shoot down incoming Iranian drones, which will make it much easier for the interceptors to shoot down Iranian missiles, incoming Iranian missiles. And so this ship is apparently nearly in position.

4:12There is some speculation that the destroyers will need to be re-equipped. The mission that they were carrying out in Venezuela is far different than the mission they're going to be carrying out in the Middle East, particularly if they are their primary objective is to shoot down incoming Iranian missiles. They may have to swap out the Tomahawk they have for the interceptors. The destroyers have a limited number, I think 180, maybe launch tubes. They could carry 180 interceptors or missiles or some combination on the two. And when you're taking out drug boats in Latin America or cadunty military operations in Venezuela where there's a limited ability for Venezuela to fire back, there's not this major missile concern. Then you don't need that many interceptors. The launch tubes are probably filled with Tomahawts where the mission here is going to seemingly be the opposite. So I am looking at this, and it does appear to me that this means we are likely going

5:17to see strikes in Iran this weekend, if this major force power, a cornerstone of the US military, the aircraft carrier strike group, is still not fully in position. Now the US has put tons and tons of military assets in the Middle East aside from the Ford aircraft carrier strike group, and of course the Abraham Lincoln, which I believe the aircraft carrier is in the Arabian Sea. So that's kind of off the coast of Oman towards the Indian Ocean. And you have at least one or two destroyers that are actually in or near the Persian Gulf. And they may be there in an attempt to have interceptors to defend the US bases in the Gulf countries and the Emirates and Qatar in Bahrain, but also to try to keep the straight of Hormuz open. We know this is a major choke point for global oil shipping, and one of Iran's tactics is going to try to close the straight of Hormuz in order to spike oil prices and get

6:19the US to relent. And the destroyers could be there for that. So a lot of aircraft heading into the region, actually Matthew Ho, former guest of this show, really brilliant military analyst has explained that the deployment of the, I believe they're called EWAC, they're E3, they are aircraft that have advanced radar systems built into them. The military has a limited number, maybe a dozen in total, and not all of those are operational. We now have sits in the Middle East, so we're deploying a massive number of these aircraft in order to surveil the skies of the Middle East for this conflict. So a lot of forces in position, it seems like Donald Trump is ready to go on this. Now again, the question is timeline, what's going to happen here? There are negotiations going on, and this is what Donald Trump had to say about it today at the inaugural board of peace meeting.

7:21One of the keys to it was when we took those beautiful, magnificent, we just ordered 22 more of them, updated model, the B2 bombers are incredible. I never understood the B2 bomber, I'd watch it, it's a wing, and I've never quite understood that, Johnny. I'd look at it, I'd say it's beautiful, but what does it do? It carries very big bombs, and it went into Iran, and it totally decimated the nuclear potential. And when it did, when it decimated that, all of a sudden we had peace in the Middle East, because there was a black cloud hanging over the Middle East, and if that wasn't done, that cloud would have been there. And countries like Saudi Arabia, countries like Qatar, countries like, nobody could have signed, you could have had that threat, nobody could have had, you couldn't have had peace in the Middle East. So now we may have to take it a step further, or we may not, maybe we're going to make a deal, you're going to be, you're going to be finding out over the next, probably 10 days. So a lot in there that I do want to talk about, but I think the most important thing is

8:26what comes right at the end, you're going to find out over the next 10 days. And this seems to me as Donald Trump setting a deadline for the Iranians, saying you have 10 days to make a deal, or we're going to strike. Two reasons why I think this is the case, one, later in the day on Air Force. And one, he said the same thing, he said 10 to 15 days, we're going to find out about negotiations. And then really bad things will happen to Iran if they don't make a deal. And look, you could say that this is all bluffing and bluster. This is Donald Trump. This is the art of the deal. He's not actually going to go to war. He's just making these threats in order to get a better deal from the Iranians. However, we have very recent history that tells us the opposite. If you'll remember last spring, Donald Trump issued Iran a since the day deadline to make a deal with the U.S. During those since the days, the U.S. and Iranian officials engaged in five rounds of talks. The Iranians showed a lot of flexibility, a lot of willingness to make a deal to come down

9:30from demands that they had had after the U.S. withdrew from the former nuclear agreement that it had with the U.S. And even with all of that, when the since the day deadline inspired, Donald Trump allowed the Israelis to attack Iran. And so I do think we need to really take him at this word on this deadline that he's telling the Iranians you have ten days to make a deal. Of course, it's insane. These deals take a long time to negotiate. There's very technical details that need to be worked out. You know, timelines going back and forth, compromise. Of course, you know, Donald Trump and the Ayatollah themselves aren't talking about. So there's just, you know, logistically, you send U.S. representatives to the Middle East, start to Geneva, to meet with the Iranian officials, both sides then have to go back home. Also look at the U.S. negotiators for Iran are the people also trying to negotiate and to the war in Ukraine. So they're kind of busy working on getting other deals done as well.

10:34So a 10-day deadline, just even if Iran really wanted to make a deal with the U.S. Unless they're just willing to sign what's put in front of them by Washington, this does not set up the conditions to get a deal done. And it's really unfortunate that the president doesn't have the attention span necessary to negotiate a deal, right? This is one of the reasons people voted for him for presidents because he was out of the deal. He was going to get a good deal with the Iranians. Obama was a bad deal maker. He heard America with his bad deals, but Donald Trump's this great deal maker. But the thing that Donald Trump doesn't understand is how geopolitics work whatsoever. So, you know, it's not only that he can't make a deal with the Iranians, he can't make a deal with the North Koreans, he can't make a deal with the Russians, he can't make a deal with the Chinese. He struggles to even make trade deals with American allies and partners. Others are almost completely relying on the U.S. dollar and the U.S. military.

11:34He struggles to even maintain those agreements. So he's not a deal maker. He's not good at this. And of course, he's setting conditions up, I think, maybe intentionally, maybe being led by the Israelis for a deal not to get done here, and then he's going to end up going to war. Now, it's almost unbelievable that the president is setting these deadlines. This really important policy decision, how long the Iranians have to negotiate before we bomb is an incredibly important question, and you know, it should be an entire press conference where reporters are able to ask questions like, why this deadline, what if thoughts are progressing, would you still make a strike? And he does it in this rambling address where he's talking about how he can't understand how the B2 flies, because it looks like a wing to him. It's just, it's all absolutely unbelievable. Now another part of all this is Donald Trump pretending like American bombs bring peace.

12:35This is the exact opposite of peace. If you bomb a country, you didn't bring peace to the Middle East. You brought war to the Middle East. And even if there was a ceasefire and end to the fighting in the short term, he opened up a whole pandora's bots of problems that we're going to have to deal with as a result of the fallout of the Israeli and American bombing campaign of Iran over the summer. And we're seeing a part of that fallout now. It was only six, seven months ago that Donald Trump was telling the American people that my great operation, Midnight Hammer, resolved all the problems in the Middle East, decimated the Iranian nuclear program. No longer would Iran pose any kind of threat whatsoever to the United States of America. And now he's spending billions of dollars to have won the largest American military buildups in history in the Middle East to resolve the Iran crisis that's, you know, once again, it's all fictitious. There is real no American concern here, but, you know, they now believe they once again

13:38have to bomb Iran. And of course, that is one of the most depressing parts of all of this is we could just not do this. Not as if if we don't bomb Iran, Iran tomorrow is going to go with to war with Israel. There was never a threat of that. Iran at this point isn't working on nuclear weapons. They're not even enriching uranium because all their facilities were destroyed. And the Iranians are coming to the United States and willing to say, look, we will agree to another agreement like the Iran nuclear deal that imposes limitations and inspections on our nuclear program to ensure that we're not building a nuclear weapon in exchange for sanctions relief from the United States of America. So not only does Iran not threaten us, does Iran not have an ability to deliver a nuclear weapon to the United States, and they don't even want to, right? Like this atop priority, a top concern of Iran isn't attacking the United States of America

14:39again into the war with the United States of America. Hell, you know, I know that the Zionist conspiracy is if Iran had a nuclear weapon, then they would immediately wipe the state of Israel off the face of the planet. And all of Iran's goals deal with eliminating the state of Israel. And they just can't tolerate Jews in the holy city and things like. And that's really not the case. The Iranians have shown time and time again, restraint. At the end of the 12-day war in June, more and more Iranian missiles were getting through every day. The Israeli interceptor, the American interceptor, stoppiles were depleting at a far faster clip than the Iranian missile stoppiles war. And so if they really want to try to destroy the state of Israel, they would have done it in June. It's clear that Iran wants to address its problems at home. And I mean, look, even when it comes to their regional ties and point, they didn't fight that hard for the government, Bashar al-Assad.

15:40Once Jolani's forces ran over there, they haven't helped out his bala, even though Israel violates that ceasefire almost every single day, killing a lot of people in southern Lebanon, the Iranians aren't doing anything about it. And so it's very clear that the Iranians don't want a major conflict with Israel. That one of their concerns isn't wiping Israel off the face of the map. Their concerns are domestic and restoring their country because they are having massive economic problems and gain some sanctions relief from the West. All right. Now I think one of the big questions here that everybody is just kind of missing is, did Congress declare war? If Iran isn't going to attack the U.S., has no plans to attack the U.S., has no capability to attack the United States of America. How is it that we are about to go to war with that country with no declaration of war?

16:41Any statement from Congress, authorization for U.S. military force? At least maybe saying that, oh, here's $10 billion in a fund in case there's a conflict with Iran, there is no amount of congressional support or authorization for this whatsoever. But I want to play a couple clips of congressmen talking about a potential conflict with Iran. Here's Ted Cruz first. Order of Virginia. He is the vice chairman of the intelligence committee. You know a whole lot more than I do about this, sir. What can you tell us? Well, Katie, I think it's appropriate that the person has all the options on the table. All right. So that's Mark Warner, not Ted Cruz. That's my bad. I went out of order. Producer Chris had it right. So Mark Warner there, Senator, he has the ability to slam the president. The president is violating the Constitution. This is something that we could impeach him over.

17:41These Democrats have a tactile Trump for everything that they could. All these trivial matters for all these years. And here they have Donald Trump trampling over one of the most important candidates of the Constitution. That being the war powers, right, that this was supposed to be held in the hands of Congress, held in the hands of the people. And rather than that happening, they're just seating all of this ground to the executive. Now, you know, Ted Cruz, who's up next, this guy is Mr. Constitution. We have to follow the Constitution. He's a firm Republican conservative. This is what he has said. Trump gave the exact same offer to Maduro. You can leave. You can live a life of wealth and opulence away from power. And Maduro told Trump, no. And on January 3rd of this year, we sent the Delta Force down there.

18:41We apprehended him. He's going to be prosecuted. Nicholas Maduro will die in prison. The Ayatoll and the Mollis have a choice. Do you want to be forcibly removed? Or do you want to accept the opportunity to leave? I hope the Ayatoll has more sense than Noriega and Maduro had. So if you support this, Ted Cruz, introduce a declaration of war against Iran. Give the president a explicit authority. Go on record and vote to send our young men and women to the Middle East for war with Iran. And we'll all know down the line, everybody will know that this was a war for Israel, but it provided no benefit to the American people whatsoever. That tens maybe 100,000 of our troops were put in harm's way in the Middle East to wage a war against Iran. Billions maybe trillions of our dollars will be spent to wage a war against Iran all for the state of Israel. And none of this should be surprising, of course, because Ted Cruz told Tucker Carlson that

19:47his number one priority when he arrived to Congress was the state of Israel. If you want this war so bad, Ted Cruz, go on record, give Trump a declaration of war and say that you supported, if you supported, if not abide by the Constitution and tell the president that you cannot go to war when America wasn't attached, when America wasn't threatened, when there was absolutely no excuse for whatsoever. Now there are still a couple of good members of Congress out there. This is Rokana and he has, along with Thomas Masi, introduced a war power's resolution that would tell the president that he can't go to war with Iran. Now I don't think that this is going to get passed and even if it does get passed, Donald Trump is going to veto it and they certainly won't have the members of Congress necessary to override the veto. Additionally, that process is probably going to take longer than it will for Donald Trump

20:49to actually start the war. Hell, he may just accelerate it in attack Iran if he's worried that too many Republicans are going to vote against it. Maybe they're willing to vote to constrain the president to stop the president from doing something bad, but they would never actually go against the war, the president's war, but once it's going on, other than probably Tom Masi and Rand Paul. So I really do think here that we are in trouble, that we are definitely headed towards war and there doesn't seem to be a whole lot that is going to stop it. And unfortunately, not even the American people, this was posted by Trita Parcy today. I believe it is a Quinnipak poll and it finds that only 18% of Americans overall want the U.S. to go to war with Iran, 70% are against it. So this is just absolutely clear that the American people don't want this.

21:51It doesn't benefit the United States of America. As we talked about some of the demands for Iran on limiting the range of the missiles, American troops in the Middle East in the range of Iranian missiles. It doesn't even make the American troops in the Middle East any safer. And once again, Iran poses no threat to the United States. So I'm worried that we're headed to war. I'm at least a little bit hopeful that we're going to have another week that we're going to get loud and make demands, try to really get it through to our representatives that we don't want this conflict, maybe one of these war power resolution shuts it down. Donald Trump is giving his state of the Union net suite. So maybe he'll at least wait till after that. And if there's a lot of pushback, maybe his policy could change one good thing about Donald Trump. The man can change his mind from time to time. But this is a lot of military resources and assets in the Middle East. And it seems very unlikely that this is all just a bluff. And the president is prepared to bat down.

22:54Next up here, this is Marco Rubio speaking at the board of peace meeting about Gaza. In addition to remove someone from our country after we take away our visa, that belongs to other agencies of our government. As far as judges are concerned, judges, that's a different branch of government. They're not going to tell us how to conduct the foreign policy of the United States. If they have an issue with the process by which someone was removed, then obviously that's an issue for other agencies in our government that are involved in enforcing that. All I can apply into you on is taking away someone's visas. And no judge is going to tell the executive branch how to conduct foreign policy because that's not not up to judges, that's up to the executive branch. So that obviously was the wrong clip. Can we roll on to the AOT, Trump talking about AOC on Air Force One? You took a little bit of a swipe at AOC today. And I was just... I don't know how performance was horrible. I was surprised, actually. I didn't know she was stupid.

23:54So how would you have answered the question that she was asked about whether the U.S. should support Taiwan at the river attack by China? Well, I was just saying that it's not your business right now because I wouldn't answer that question anyway. I wouldn't respond to a question like that. It's war. When it comes to war, you don't talk about your strategy. She could have done that very easily. She had no idea. I don't think you knew what Taiwan was. That was the problem. You don't talk about military strategy. It's kind of taken a busy pass on that one. No, it's not a good answer. Could be death-defying. It's like suspect that will be used in every campaign for the next 30 years to get to. So, Donald Trump here. I mean, he has Donald Trump. He is funny in his way. And you kind of remember how he got elected to be president of the United States of America when you see him play a clip like this. At the same time, one of the unbelievable things here is he just criticized AOC for not being able to articulate policy about Taiwan and China.

24:56And rather than giving a very brief and simple answer about what the U.S. policy is, he goes to none of your business. Now, I got to say that's a significantly better answer, firmly saying that it's none of your business in American politics today is a much, much better answer to give than AOC is stumbling through and not being able to articulate an actual intellectual answer. Also you have the dynamic here with Donald Trump that people don't care as much. If he's actually able to articulate policy or not where AOC presents herself as an intellectual as somebody who is really deeply understanding of these issues and able to understand all the different dynamics and put together this really empathetic and coherent and intelligent policy. And when you actually listen to her speak, you realize that that's not the case. It's also just really unfortunate that we now have a country where nobody in our political

25:59leadership is able to actually really discuss and talk about foreign policy in a way that actually represents what the policy of the United States is and is able to mount a defense for it. You know, there were people in the administration previously in previous administrations, you know, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, who were much smarter and much more capable people, they were evil. They had awful policies. It's not a judgment based off of that, but just the general understanding of what foreign policy is supposed to be and how few people who are responsible for implementing for funding, for endorsing that foreign policy actually don't understand it whatsoever. So I believe we got the credit of Rubio here now. So I do want to roll this and talk about Gaza for a minute before we wrap up for the week. This can serve as a model for other complex and difficult situations so they can be solved in the same way.

27:00But right now the focus is on this one. We have to get this right. There is no plan B for Gaza. Plan B is going back to war. No one here wants that. Plan A, the only path forward, is one that rebuilds Gaza in a way of enduring and sustainable peace where everyone can live their side by side with one another and never worry again about returning to conflict, to war, to human suffering, and to destruction. So this is absolutely insane. There's no plan B. If this doesn't worth them, that's it. When the party that the US is backing, Israel actually actively doesn't want it to work out. They've continued to bomb Gaza every day. They're sitting there at this board of peace meeting as Israel is bombing Gaza and they're talking about how Hamas needs to disarm. That if Hamas doesn't arm, then they're just going back to war. Why would Hamas disarm when Israel isn't even abiding by the current truce? Now there's this whole Fitch in that Hamas agreed to disarm as a part of the Atomah deal.

28:04Trump says it over and over, Netanyahu says it over and over. But when that deal was signed in October, even American officials were saying that we haven't resolved the disarmament issue. And Hamas was explicitly saying that they would only disarm as a part of the creation of an independent Palestinian state. And now the Atomah agreement does say that there should be a pathway to an independent Palestinian state. However, since that agreement has been signed, Israel has done everything in its power to make sure there can never be an independent Palestinian state. They approve new settlements. They declare large sections of the West Bank state lands. It's given Betzal small church more and more power as far as he could declare whose property deed in the West Bank is valid and not. And oh boy at the Israeli government doesn't like this Palestinian owning the home. They could say this is a naturally your land and evict that person and take their property.

29:07These are things that we're seeing increasing in the West Bank to ensure that there's never going to be another Palestinian state. And now another, they're just will not be one. They'll actually prevent the creation that that's what the Israeli plan is. And so under that condition, Hamas obviously isn't going to give up their weapons because once they lose their weapons and they don't have a state, they'll be just driven out of their homeland by the Israelis and they'll be resettled. And I'm sure Donald Trump will get a nice parcel of land on the beach to build some nice resort tower. The Israelis will build a lot of settlements. They'll wipe away, they'll erase any memory that there were once Palestinians there just like they're slowly doing in the West Bank, slowly stringling the Palestinians in the West Bank. And so that they have this whole conference in Washington DC today where they're talking about what the Palestinians must do to have peace, to have guys rebuilt as the country

30:08that they're backing as the country that the U.S. is sending billions of dollars to is violating the ceasefire in Gaza is such a stupid joke and such a, you know, just performative, right? That's what this whole thing is. It's a big institution. Donald Trump gets to be the chairman of it for life and puff out his chest and break about how he's the leader of the board of peace. And when in reality, all the board of peace is doing is covering for the Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people of Gaza. All right, everybody, that will do it for today. Appreciate you all so much for tuning into the show. Be sure to subscribe to the channel to like this episode, to share this episode. All of that stuff really does help us out. We are breaking through the algorithm where gaining followers, we're gaining momentum about that only happens because people are liking and sharing and subscribing to the show. So be sure you do that and we'll be back. Great lineup of shows next week, including the return of Colonel Douglas McGregor.

31:10A president will start a war with Iran because he has absolutely no ability to negotiate. He's weak and he's ineffective.