Hey, Tucker, put out a statement that I think is factually incoherent about Mark Levin's position on Iran and Iran itself. The basic argument seems to be that unless you personally plan to fight in a war, then you can never be in favor of American military threat or intervention on any [00:00:16] level, which is a weird position to take, because I assume he doesn't take that position about the police, that unless you're a member of the police force, you have to be in favor of the police, never policing crime. All right, well, Tucker Carlson and Mark Levin are still trading blows over the issue of the Iran nuclear deal. [00:00:33] And now Ben Shapiro has weighed in on the fight. So Carlson and Levin have been fighting for weeks now over what the Trump administration should do about Iran. On Wednesday, Carlson wrote a lengthy post about Levin. Here are a few excerpts. [00:00:49] So Mark Levin was at the white House today lobbying for war with Iran. To be clear, Levin has no plans to fight in this or any other war. He's demanding that American troops do it. We need to stop Iran from building nuclear weapons. He and like minded ideologues in Washington are now arguing [00:01:08] they're just weeks away. If this sounds familiar, it's because the same people have been making the same claims since at least the 1990s. It is a lie. So, you know, we had stopped Iran from building nuclear weapons during the Obama administration. But then Trump pulled out of that deal once he got into office without having [00:01:24] any alternative deal to replace it with. But back to Tucker and his tweets. So why is Mark Levin once again hyperventilating about weapons of mass destruction to distract you from the real goal, which is regime change? Young Americans heading back to the Middle East to topple yet another government. [00:01:41] Iran has extensive military ties with Russia. It sells the overwhelming majority of its oil exports to Russia. Iran isn't alone, and an attack on Iran could very easily become a world war. And we would lose. These are scary people. Pray that Donald Trump ignores them. [00:01:58] All right, so pray for Donald Trump. Mark Levin responded here. He says he burps again. Yes, I know Carlson has become a loathsome ass who is increasingly unhinged and pathetic. Our nation's enemies love him, as do certain vile and weird conspiracy theorists he promotes. [00:02:15] Got him there. He also addressed Carlson on yesterday's edition of the Mark Levin Show. So here is some of what he had to say. Donald Trump and I are friends. Good friends. I try not to bother him. I don't ask to come to the white House. [00:02:32] I don't ask to go to Mar a Lago if I'm there. It's because he asked me and he asked me. I didn't meet the president to lobby for war with Iran. But I know who was in there, and I know who leaked this to their boy Carlson. [00:02:51] And I'm not going to forget it. Why is Tucker a special pleader for Iran? Why is Tucker a special pleader for Qatar? Why is Tucker a special pleader for Putin? Why isn't he a special pleader for the United States? Stop hiding behind our military. Stop hiding behind our people. [00:03:07] Forget about the establishment and all the rest. Who is this guy? If the US government knew Iran was weeks from possessing a nuclear weapon, we'd be at war already. Here's a guy lobbying against war on any circumstances. And by war, he means even limited tactical hits. [00:03:27] Not a full out war, but he. But he thinks a full out war is needed. Nobody's talking about that except him. All right, so we already showed you a little bit of Ben Shapiro's take on the whole thing. So here's a little bit more from him. I don't mean here that we are the world's policeman or anything like that. [00:03:45] I mean that civilians in the United States have opinions that they vote on, on what the Non-civilians do. We are civilian led country. The civilians get to tell the military what to do. The president is a civilian. He tells the military what to do. We are the voters. We elect the president. [00:04:01] We need to stop Iran from building nuclear weapons. He and like minded ideologues in Washington are now arguing they're just weeks away. So first of all, that's not Mark and like minded ideologues. That's Donald J. Trump at his president Trump. We need to stop Iran from building nuclear weapons is a Donald J. Trump position, [00:04:16] he says it goes without saying there are very few Trump voters who would support a regime change war in Iran. I agree, I would not support a regime change war in Iran that involves hundreds of thousands of American troops, Agre says. Most of them comport with the Pentagon's own estimates. Many Americans would die during a war with Iran. Now, again, he is characterizing a war with Iran as full scale invasion of Iran. [00:04:35] Yes. If we if we did a full scale invasion of Iran, many Americans would die if we hit the nuclear facilities. That is a far less likely possibility. And if Israel does it and we're not even involved, is it even lower possibility? All right. So we're seeing a lot of infighting lately. [00:04:52] And I don't want to celebrate it too much because in this case, we're talking about an issue that could have real life consequences for millions of people around the world. And part of me hates it because it makes me say things like, oh, I'm with Tucker Carlson on this one. You know, it just feels like a lot of Republicans are attempting to disagree [00:05:08] with Trump and his policies because, you know, there there is real life consequences to his policies, but they're unsure of how to go about doing so. Like, this is new territory for them. They're worried about alienating their own audiences from one, because they have built up these incredible audiences by being [00:05:25] so sycophantic towards Trump, and for by parroting all the Trump talking points. And they're still trying to appease Trump's ego with all of this. They're not really criticizing him. They're more pleading with him to take their side and to see things their way. [00:05:40] Brett, I'll start with you. What do you make of this debate? I'm not asking you to take a side, because, you know, I wouldn't do that to you. No, I take I'm. I'm with Tucker Carlson here, boys. That's where I'm at. I, I don't like the war stuff that we do. [00:05:58] Now, bear in mind, Tucker Carlson, is someone who doesn't have discussions about politics. He has political discussions. Right. So Tucker Carlson is going to sound like he's being like, let's think this through. Let's see how it is. But, you know, I'm just asking questions. [00:06:14] I'm just an intellectual having a conversation. No, he's always got some kind of thing he's doing. And in this scenario, it's what is he feeding on? Because he's a he's a guy who, after he had one ill fated experience with Jon Stewart on Crossfire, lost a series of jobs and disappeared. [00:06:34] And that was the scariest thing for him because he is a creature that if a camera's not pointed at him, he ceases to exist, falls into a black hole, and only if a camera finds him in there does he have life again. So he never wants to relinquish relevancy. He never wants to relinquish spotlight. [00:06:52] This comes at the expense of any semblance that he would be guided by actual principles. Instead, he's still smart, so he puts together what seem like his principles that are defensible, but only insofar as they are strategically beneficial for him in the discourse. [00:07:08] Right? So in this scenario, he just finds that there's a lot of people out there that are against war. And that's simple and that's quick. And if I just keep it that simple and quick all the time I have and I just do that, that's a big audience. [00:07:25] He doesn't, you know, any conversation about whether you're going to be interventionist or isolationist. Isolationist military militarily comes with externalities. Like, if we don't do stuff in the Middle East, someone else is gonna that will happen, probably at the expense of certain American interests. [00:07:43] But these guys having this conversation, Mark Levin's the most like thinking the most kind of person, but it's still an unpopular position. It hasn't really gotten us anywhere, and Americans are tired of it. So regardless of whether it's strategically the best thing [00:07:58] for the security of Americans. No, no, no, this is a political discussion. This isn't a conversation about politics. You know, Tucker Carlson is just going to always already be the purest person in the discussion about not going to war as an American. [00:08:16] Generally. That's what that's what I'd say. And he's found ways to do it a lot, and he's doing it here. And incidentally, I think there's a lot of people who watch this show are like, I too don't like war. Yeah. As you alluded to it a second ago, this conveniently allows Tucker Carlson to just be like, you want to come to me? [00:08:32] No skin off my ass. If you if you decide to take the bait here. But by and large, I can I why can't I use it as a wedge issue with Republicans, which I think that people on the left should absolutely do to try to break up their bloc. And if we get more people over here being like, yo, there's a lot of ways we could [00:08:48] be cool, awesome folks and not go to war. There's a whole like manosphere of blog of of podcasts about exactly that sentiment. So and those guys have said they like Bernie Sanders, somewhere in there is a way to kind of shake loose. [00:09:04] Some of these guys have gotten sucked up into Trump's orbit because of all the infighting of a very clear wedge issue, which is the Iran nuclear deal. - Sorry for talking so long. - No. Yeah, I'm so offended. Okay. So, look, do, you know, I said that Republicans would fight amongst themselves [00:09:23] and they would challenge Trump. I think that they have spectacularly. Obviously, Elon Musk just did on the budget and many others are. They did on the Qatar jet. They certainly did on the Epstein files, and also on his ridiculous idea to clear out Gaza with using American troops. [00:09:41] So Magas pushed back on a lot of that stuff. But this is not one of those. This is a situation where Trump has not made up his mind yet. And so that's why Tucker's pushing so hard. Mark Levin and Ben Shapiro are pushing so hard. By the way. I've got to note. I mean, I did not see that coming. [00:09:58] Ben Shapiro coming in on the side of Israel. Wow. That's got to be a first shocker to me. Of course, Ben Shapiro comes in while Israel has told us to attack Iran. So obviously we should attack Iran. Of course you think that, brother. Everybody saw that coming. [00:10:14] Now, he used this thing about pretending that Trump's on his side. No, Trump told Israel already that we are not going to attack Iran. And then Israel said, no, but I'm going to send in Mark Levin to the white House and send in everything I got to convince you to do it. And then he went back to saying, oh, well, maybe that we should get rid [00:10:33] of the whole enrichment program in Iran. So he's very much up in the air here. And did Mark Levin go to the white House to talk to him about that? Obviously, first of all, Mark Levin never cares about any other issue but Israel. I'm not sure I've heard him talk about anything else. [00:10:49] So like he's 99% of his significantly large head. I don't know about what's in it, but the outside is about Israel. And so and you can tell too, because he said in that little rant, - I know who leaked it, and there's going. - To be consequences. [00:11:07] Well, okay. Wait then. So if they did leak it and they leaked it accurately, then apparently you were asking him to attack Iran. So Tucker was right. And I have to say, I don't know what. He kept calling Tucker. He kept calling him a special. Peter. [00:11:25] Peter. I thought he was saying it was hard to hear. It was, but it sounded. Like he was saying he was pleading for somebody. Oh, pleader. Special pleader. Maybe. Or a special pleader, which sounds kind of questionable. I heard that Trump was the one with the special Peter. Maybe it was a Peter, which is the blackface elves [00:11:43] that take you to Spain, according to the, Amsterdam legend of Christmas. Yeah. All right. Look. That is. We've covered that before, believe it or not. All right. So, look, last thing here. Whose side am I on? It's not even close, guys. [00:12:00] Policies, issues. Let's focus. Yes, we hate everything else. Mark Levin says, and Ben Shapiro says. And Tucker Carlson says on this. Is this a tough question for people on the left, for progressives, for populists? No, we don't want to go to war with Iran. It has absolutely no upside. [00:12:16] And Trump apparently is working on a deal where we would get rid of their nuclear program. And we would and we wouldn't have to go to war at all. It'd be a giant win win. And Israel hates it because they want to drag us into this war. And so that's why Shapiro and Levin are acting the way they are. [00:12:33] And then that last line by then was hilarious. No, no, it wouldn't be a full war. It would be a limited tactical strike. And I'm sure that after you destroyed all their nuclear facilities and energy facilities, Iran wouldn't hit any of our bases in the Middle East, [00:12:49] and that wouldn't cause us to hit them again and then them to hit us again. And next thing you know. Oh, look at that. We're in a war with a country four times the size of Iraq. And how'd that work out for us? So I'm a hell no on this war. Levin and Shapiro love every war, especially every war [00:13:07] where we attack an enemy of Israel. So not close. I hope Tucker wins and Trump does not go to war. Yeah, you have to use words like targeted and tactical to sell it to the American people, because an attack is not a war. [00:13:23] Don't worry. You know, retaliation isn't a thing. 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.