Today the dictator of Iran, the Ayatollah Khomeini, posted this. The title is why must the Zionist regime that's Israel, be eliminated from the region? And the most brazen thing about this is that he issues this while he's [00:00:15] negotiating, supposedly negotiating peace with the United States. Well, Israel will not be eliminated. What must be eliminated is Iran's axis of terror and its nuclear weapons program, not only for the sake of Israel, but for the sake of our entire region [00:00:33] and for the sake of peace in our world. So on Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted that video to X, and according to a report from The New York Times, he really isn't kidding about eliminating Iran's nuclear program. [00:00:50] Apparently, Israel wanted to strike Iranian nuclear sites as soon as next month. But President Donald Trump, with the backing of Vice President JD Vance, chief of staff Siouxsie Wiles, defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. [00:01:06] They decided to pursue negotiations with Iran instead of military force. And there's a lot more to this story. But, Jake, what are your thoughts so far? Okay. Buckle up, everybody. This is the New York Times reporting. Okay, this isn't me reporting. [00:01:22] It's the New York Times. So if what they're reporting is true and Trump prevented the attack. Wow. That's that is an amazing twist that a lot of folks did not see coming. And it would be very positive. And is it over? [00:01:37] Of course, it's not over yet. Netanyahu is always going to push and push, but also later in the story, you're going to see not only the details of how, we prevented Israel from doing this, not only the details of how much they wanted us to fight the war almost exclusively. [00:01:54] I find that super interesting. But also some of the folks within the administration who said, no, don't do this. Also super interesting. Yeah. This story has has layers to it. All right. So Israel developed plans to strike Iran in May. [00:02:10] And their goal was to lay was to delay the production of Iranian nuclear weapons by a year or more. So here's more on that from the New York Times report that we mentioned earlier, says almost all of the plans would have required the US help, not just to defend Israel from Iranian retaliation, [00:02:29] but also to ensure that an Israeli attack was successful, making the United States a central part of the attack itself. And Israeli officials thought that American officials would be on board with those proposals. The Trump administration debated the issue for months, and as we've [00:02:45] reported previously on this show, the Trump administration has been positioning military assets around the Middle East as a show of force to Iran. But a key voice of resistance emerged against that strategy. And that was actually Tulsi Gabbard. So in a meeting this month, [00:03:01] Gabbard presented a new intelligence assessment that said the build up of American weaponry could potentially spark a wider conflict with Iran that the United States did not want. Vance, Hegseth and Wiles all had concerns as well. [00:03:16] Even national security adviser Mike Wallace, who is hawkish on Iran, doubted that Israel could successfully strike Iran without significant American assistance. Eventually, a decision was made. Trump told Netanyahu earlier this month that the U.S. Would not support a strike on Iran, at least while negotiations are ongoing. [00:03:36] So in a statement delivered in Hebrew after the meeting, Netanyahu said that an agreement with Iran would work only if it allowed the signers to go in, blow up the facilities, dismantle all the equipment under American supervision with American execution. [00:03:54] It's very presumptuous. So Steve Witkoff, Trump's special envoy, directly negotiated with Iran's foreign minister last week in Oman and is set to do so again this week in Rome. But the Trump administration has sent mixed messages to Iran. On Monday, Witkoff stated on Fox News that Iran cannot enrich uranium [00:04:13] any more than 3.7%. And I'll tell you later why I'm laughing at that. But on Tuesday, Witkoff walked back that position and wrote on X that Iran must eliminate its nuclear enrichment program entirely. Iran's foreign minister stated that the shifting goalposts were, quote, [00:04:30] not helpful, but Iran would continue to participate in negotiations. If the negotiations fall through. Then the situation might actually get very, very dire very quickly. And here is why. In one discussion, Vance, with support from others, [00:04:46] argued that Trump had a unique opportunity to make a deal if the tasks failed. Trump could then support an Israeli attack, Vance said, according to administration officials. So, Jake, before I get your thoughts on this, I want to go back to these shifting goalposts that Iran finds so irritating. [00:05:02] And I just want to point out that Witkoff initially said that Iran would not be allowed to enrich the to the uranium above 3.7% before changing his mind and saying they can't enrich the uranium at all. I just want to remind our audience of something we once had called the Iran nuclear deal, a deal that was forged by the Obama administration. [00:05:20] And it was a deal that Trump disparaged and then promptly pulled out of during his first term as president. So there were four core terms of that original Iran nuclear deal. Iran would have to give up 97% of its uranium. They would have to reduce its number of centrifuges from 20,000 to 5000, [00:05:39] plus an additional 1000 for R&D. They would be subject to inspection from an international agency and the uranium they were allowed to hold on to. They were not allowed to enrich it above 3.67%. So this man just brought back the Iran nuclear deal [00:05:55] that Trump had originally pulled out of. The reason why 3.67 or 3.7 is significant, by the way, is because it allows for the uranium to be used as a source of nuclear energy. But in order for uranium to be used in nuclear weaponry, it would have to be enriched all the way up to 90%. [00:06:11] So I just wanted to point that out for everyone. Do with that what you will. But I feel like Trump doesn't actually want to deploy troops anywhere, even though he may threaten to. Maybe as a negotiation tactic with other countries, because he really has built up his reputation as being an anti war president. [00:06:27] Yeah. So lots to go over here. So number one, I got to give Trump a lot of credit here. I mean I I'm going to take the New York Times reporting at face value here. They it's seems to be really well sourced. And by the way, they wouldn't have leaked this unless they had made [00:06:45] a pretty definitive decision. Otherwise, they're giving away how they were going to do the attack if they had done it right. So this seems like a pretty solid story. And so, the jury was very much out on whether Trump was actually anti-war [00:07:00] or he was just pretending to be anti-war to get elected, but then would do whatever Miriam Adelson and the donors wanted him to do. And so, so far, he has done that in basically, you know, arresting and trying to deport any critic of Israel, that isn't a US citizen. [00:07:16] And now looking into some US citizens as well. So he's been as hard, right wing Israeli supporter of Netanyahu as you could find on those issues. That is why this is stunning and and terrific. So if he blocked an attack on Iran that is truly anti-war and we should all give him [00:07:36] a lot of credit for that and encourage him to keep going in that direction. Here's the, somebody I was wrong about. I thought Tulsi Gabbard would love the opportunity to start a war against a muslim country, to be honest. And I thought that all of her antiwar talk, you know, wasn't necessarily true. [00:07:55] And then she was also in a lot of ways, on Israel's side. But apparently she was the main voice against attacking Iran. Well, then credit where credit is due. So if she blocked that, that is that makes a huge difference because this isn't theoretical anymore. [00:08:12] She's now an enormously important person inside the Trump administration. And if she really delivered on being anti-war, instead of what we were worried about, then terrific. That I'm very happy about that. J.D. Vance on the right side. [00:08:28] Oh my God. Hegseth is on the right side. That's a bit stunning. There's wasn't a lot of, information about Hegseth, and I. I'd be surprised if he was fully on that side. Maybe he was just playing some politics. But J.D. Vance apparently did make a couple of strong arguments [00:08:43] against attacking, so credit there. Now, who are the bad guys? You know, he has mentioned Mike Wallace. Mike Wallace is a neocon. He's the national security advisor. He's the dumbass who did that signal gate and included, the reporter on that chat. And he's he. Yeah. [00:09:00] At some points, even he had lost the room and started to backpedal. But overall, he wanted to attack. He was on the side he on the side of doing what Israel commands. And apparently the guy in charge of Central Command general for us. [00:09:16] General Kurilla, is someone that Netanyahu really likes. And he wanted to do the bombing before Kurilla retired. Because apparently Kurilla is a war monger neocon and wanted to do the bombing. So those Waltz and Kurilla are the bad guys here. [00:09:31] Gabbard and and Trump actually deliver on antiwar. All of that is amazing. And yes, a little stunning. Let's hope that The New York Times is right about this. If they manage to prevent the war, that's a huge win, huge win, and give credit on another factor. [00:09:49] I mean, there have not been very many presidents in my lifetime that have ever defied Israel on anything they have ever asked for. Barack Obama defied them on the Iran nuclear deal, which he deserves a lot of credit for. And now Trump seems to be defying them on striking Iran. [00:10:07] And yes, last thing for now, is I agree with you on that Iran nuclear deal. That was a Obama's deal was fantastic. They could not enrich uranium past 3.5%. Whichever. Whatever stockpiles they had were shipped out of the country to Russia. [00:10:23] We had their nuclear program completely contained because I don't want Iran to have a nuclear program and I don't want war. And Obama had somehow pulled off this miraculous, wonderful peace deal where we got exactly what we wanted. Since Trump took us out of that deal, which was a terrible mistake back in 2018. [00:10:42] Now Iran is enriching uranium at 60%, and they're much closer to having a nuclear program. After all these years, because they had no incentive to do a deal with us. So they went in the other direction. So it's time for Trump to make up for that mistake, do an actual peace deal and, [00:11:02] and and be a strong leader for America and not follow Israel's orders. Yeah. And this whole thing, this whole story, there's so much geopolitics that goes into this. There's so many different angles to consider whenever we're we're talking about anything in the Middle East, really, because everybody has allies everywhere. [00:11:20] And we do have to consider that Iran usually is backed by Russia on a lot of things very presumptuous of Israel, although you really can't blame them for being so presumptuous to basically just decide to deploy American troops to Iran on their behalf because they wanted to. [00:11:35] But, you know, it's like what you said, how many American presidents actually defy Israel or don't give them exactly what they asked for or what they want? So why wouldn't they just ask for American troops to be deployed to attack a foreign country? So I'll take a win where I can get one. Nobody wants there to be a war, ever. [00:11:53] I am very happy with this outcome. Do I trust the motives? No, I don't, you know. But at the end of the day, that's not really what matters. I'm just glad that conflict was averted. Why ever it was averted. And that's where I will leave that. [00:12:08] Yeah. One last quick thing on this, because it gives you insight into how Netanyahu thinks and the current Israeli government thinks. So throughout the article, they explained well, in the beginning Israel wanted to do a commando raid and and then a bombing run, but then they thought they might have trouble doing [00:12:25] the bombing run on their own. Which, by the way, I saw this really interesting interview with Jeffrey Sachs. Earlier when Israel had tried to strike Iran the last time, and he made the point that Iran was surprised by Iran's air defenses, Israel was surprised by Iran's air defenses, and they couldn't go as deep [00:12:42] into the country as that they had hoped. And so if they were going to attack their nuclear program, they needed American planes to do it. And it turns out he was exactly right, because this New York Times article explains, the Israelis realized they couldn't do the bombing raid on their own. [00:12:58] So I'll give you one of these quotes, but there's multiple quotes like this throughout the piece. To be successful, Israeli officials wanted American planes to conduct airstrikes protecting the commando teams on the ground. And then later they were like, well, I don't know if we're going to have commando teams, so why doesn't America do all of the airstrikes? [00:13:17] And oh, by the way, after Iran retaliates that America should defend Israel and then hit him again and again and again. So yeah, we would be a quote unquote central part of the attack. As in, it turns out we would be the attack. [00:13:33] That was basically Netanyahu saying, hey, America, I'm ordering you to attack Iran. And so if Trump said, no, you're not, I'm not attacking Iran. I don't care what you ordered me to do. You have to give him a world of credit for that. Yeah, I think that's fair. [00:13:49] Also, just for the viewers, I know we have to wrap up this hour, but you were giving me some credit for my name. You really like my name. So I looked up what your name means. And just for everyone to know, your name means war or battle. - So there you go. - That right, sister? [00:14:06] - That's pretty fitting. - My name is a flower. So also fitting. What a team. What a team we are. So indeed. Indeed. Every time you ring the bell below, an angel gets its wings. Totally not true. But it does keep you updated on our live shows.