Regarding the ongoing situation in Iran. I know there has been a lot of speculation amongst all of you in the media regarding the president's decision making and whether or not the United States will be directly involved. In light of that news, I have a message directly from the president, and I quote, [00:00:16] based on the fact that there is a substantial chance of negotiations that may or may not take place with Iran in the near future, I will make my decision whether or not to go within the next two weeks. It was strange, admittedly, to get updates about the possibility of [00:00:32] war from the press secretary rather than from Truth Social, but we'll go with it. So it could be two weeks. But is that actually him looking for diplomacy? Is that him buying a little bit of time to set up our attack? [00:00:48] - Jake, what do you make of that? - Yeah. I'm so curious what you guys think about it, because I think he's trying to, he's basically saying, all right, MAGA and neocons, you guys fight, and then whoever wins and is more popular, I'll go on your side. [00:01:03] That's my read of Trump and why he's doing this two weeks. Plus, he wants to get Iran back to the negotiating table so that he can declare that, oh, you see that I was a tough guy and then I got peace. Oh, that'd be a perfect for Trump's, brand. [00:01:19] Right? I'm both tough and anti-war. So he's trying to thread that needle. Whether that will work is an entirely different question. Which side is he finally going to end up on? Different question. How is MAGA going to react? Different question. [00:01:34] And those are all the questions we've got to tackle. Yeah, yeah. At the end of the day, look, if we do not directly enter into the war then on that he gets, I guess a little bit of anti war, although that's just maintaining a status quo of Biden didn't go in. But he also said that, you know with me as president we have stability. [00:01:52] People don't do attacks like Russia did with Ukraine and with Hamas and everything. Except that's not the case. Israel felt totally free to attack whoever they want. This isn't even the first place in the last in the. Since he became president. So he doesn't have to answer for that. Yeah, I just got to jump in real quick on that, guys. [00:02:08] It's even worse than that, right? Because he always says like, oh, that war would have never started if I was president would have never started, right? But in this case, not only did it start under Trump, but Netanyahu defied Trump in starting the war. He said, I don't care what you think. You know, I don't work for you. [00:02:26] You work for me, and I'm going to start this war, and then you're going to have to think through for two weeks if you're my bitch or not. And so that's the decision Trump's trying to make. So don't tell me that wars wouldn't have started under you when a giant one just started. - And you're thinking of joining it. - Yeah, exactly. But let's try to work through some of the insider information to figure [00:02:44] out how likely it is that we will actually get ourselves involved in this war, because there's evidence that points in both directions, and I'm not 100% certain I know exactly what he's thinking. I'm not certain that he knows exactly what he's thinking. But anyway, some are saying in the administration that the the two [00:03:02] week timeline is that he is very worried, seriously worried about the lasting impacts of regime change, which would be nice. It's good to see a president actually thinking through what happens after a regime is toppled. He apparently doesn't want to turn Iran into Libya, said one insider familiar [00:03:20] with the deliberations that are going on. He apparently in recent days has specifically mentioned Libya's decade long plunge into anarchy. In 2011, after the U.S. Joined a NATO bombing campaign to oust gadhafi. That's according to three different sources. But and this is where it's much more typical Trump administration stuff. [00:03:38] They do believe that if we engage in war and the regime is toppled and stuff like that happens, it isn't actually his fault anyway. The insider said Libya was a much more extended kind of bombing commitment, and it ended up being regime change. If the regime falls in Iran, then it's not on Trump, because that's not [00:03:55] the goal of his very limited strike. I would love to have an actual man in charge. If we're going to have something that looks like a man. Somebody who takes responsibility for what they do. Your goal has no like it doesn't matter if you strike them, if you, for instance, [00:04:12] as they're now talking about, potentially do assassinate the leader and it does fall into a civil war, massive infighting, failed state or whatever. Like it is very small comfort to say. But that wasn't my goal. It was limited striking. It was just a decapitation attack. [00:04:28] And so no, they're not going to take responsibility if that ends up happening. But I do like hearing that at least it's something they're thinking about. And so some people are saying that it isn't actually about buying time for diplomacy. And it could be Trump is still saying he wants some kind of deal. [00:04:46] Although right before we went live, he said that Europe, I guess, isn't allowed to talk to Iran and Iran doesn't want to talk to them anyway. But others are saying that it's just to buy time to set up for the actual attack. Apparently it would provide time for a second American aircraft carrier to get into place, [00:05:03] so that if we do the attack and we need to defend against the counterattack, we would have more material in the area to do that. It would also provide Israel more time to destroy the air defenses around the site that we would be attacking with our bunker busters. And so there really is evidence to support both conclusions [00:05:21] that this is serious or that it's not. I mean, the third sort of related topic to the last one is, it's two weeks to get Iran to put down their defenses a little bit. And in three maybe, maybe you wake up tomorrow in the middle of the night, we launch the attack. I mean, he would. He's definitely not above lying. [00:05:38] No. For sure. And look, guys, there's a good argument to be made that it's to prepare. And I was going to say the same thing as John. It could be just to do a surprise attack. Oh, we're going to come in two weeks, just like Israel did a surprise attack on them in the middle of our so-called peace negotiations. [00:05:54] Right. So it's not like they didn't just do this like a minute ago. Having said that, I don't think that's what it is. Why? Because Israeli officials are mad at the delay. They're like, we already gave you an order, and now you're going to take [00:06:09] two weeks to do our order. How dare you? So when I see quotes like that, and obviously I'm paraphrasing, okay, in the press, with Israeli officials upset at the American government for delaying us, then I think, okay, no, he is actually delaying. [00:06:25] And unless it's like an enormously elaborate surprise attack and they've coordinated the Israeli officials pretending to be upset. But I tend to doubt that. Trey, what do you think? Well, I think we can all agree. You know, generally, as Americans, we can rest easy in the comfort of knowing [00:06:41] that whatever decision Donald Trump ultimately makes, it's sure to be the most level headed and diplomatic option available to him. No. Obviously terrified. I feel the exact opposite. I, you know, it's he probably is trying to have it both ways. [00:06:56] I think maybe there's something to like. You said, Jake, about having them fight it out. Kind of. Give it a minute, see which side comes out on top. But I'm, In spite of what I said a minute ago, very confident that whatever he ends up doing, it's not going to be great. And as far at least, like John mentioned, at least even somewhat acknowledge [00:07:14] that regime change is sometimes bad. I feel like we've had a pretty poor batting average with those as a country, but doesn't stop us from stepping up back up to the plate usually. So, I'm not feeling overly confident that we'll avoid, you know, [00:07:29] World War Three potentially, or whatever, but, I certainly hope so. I hope that level heads prevail. But, I don't know. We'll see. Could be just kicking the can down the road and waiting for it to shake out somehow in some other fashion. I don't think it's whatever the shrewdest thing is he could be doing. [00:07:46] I don't think it's that. So. Yeah. In terms of the kicking the can down the road, it's also possible. I mean, there was initial reports that, he, he didn't want Israel to do this. That's now very well established, no matter how much Caroline Carolyn Leavitt would pretend that this was always the plan. [00:08:02] And then he saw that Israel was pretty impressive in the first few days, and now he wants in on it. He's feeling like FOMO or whatever. And so if the two weeks go by and it's still going well, then maybe he thinks, well, this is a pretty safe thing. I can get us involved or whatever. [00:08:17] And he's not going to want to look weak by virtue of the fact that Israel has just been doing this. Or alternatively, if it starts to fail and the perception is that Israel needed Trump's help, but he didn't provide it, then he could look weak in that respect, which is why I just believe [00:08:33] that it seems inevitable that we're going to do something now. Are we going to be marching 50,000 soldiers across the border? I don't know, but, you know, it's a massive country with a big military, and these sorts of things can balloon out of control, I think. And we already know that he approved some sort of strike plans, [00:08:49] including potentially the use of these bunker busters. I feel like that's pretty much a lock at this point. Again, I really hope that I am wrong, but I think it's entirely possible that he does that. And if he does that, then it's almost certain that there will be reprisal attacks against the United States or its forces or its allies. [00:09:04] And that's very consequential. He could have been in signing these orders, signing the death warrant for a lot of our soldiers in the region. And he has to know that. And for him to do this when it didn't even seem like this is really like he wanted to be involved, like I'm always I'm always ready to badmouth and give him the least charitable [00:09:24] interpretation of his motives. - And that's. - True. I have Trump Derangement Syndrome, but it doesn't seem like two weeks ago he was hot for war with Iran. I'll give him that credit. And so for him to be manipulated or led into it is even more pathetic than him just being the hawk that he could have been or some other [00:09:40] Republican president would have been. And so it really is feeling like we're going to be dragged in. My best bet is we're going to engage in we're going to try to destroy Fordo and depending on Iranian reprisals, maybe get drawn in and maybe it becomes a bigger thing, maybe it becomes a thing [00:09:57] that involves years of conflict. I don't know. But, there is the Steve Bannon factor. I know we're going to be talking about that later in the show. - What do you think? - Yeah. So I'm going to touch on that a little bit. Two things I want to go over. So where do the different parts of the Republican Party stand. So and who's the most culpable. [00:10:13] So the worst of the whole lot are the Republican politicians in Congress outside of Thomas Massie. They're all warmongers. Marjorie Taylor Greene is on the bubble. She hasn't joined the War Powers Resolution, which would prevent the president from declaring war. [00:10:29] So right now, she's full of crap. She hasn't taken action to actually oppose the war. She tweeted. Oh, yeah, she tweets. Right. And then look, by the way, that's better than not opposing it. And so and she's doing that because her own voters are pushing her to do that, [00:10:46] which I'll come back to. Okay. So but the Republicans are 99% corrupt other than Tom Massie. They all love the idea of this war. And can't wait to serve AIPAC loyally. So that's a stone cold fact. If you're a Republican voter out there and you want to defend [00:11:02] your precious little politicians, go look at their voting record. Go see if they joined Massie in the in trying to assert constitutional authority for Congress to prevent war. They didn't. Okay. So that's clear. Trump is kind of he's in the middle. Why? [00:11:19] Because he's a good guy. No, he's in the middle because his base, in my opinion, is largely against the war. But his donors are all for the war. And so he's like, oh, and then he's got surrounded himself with a bunch of neocons that Miriam Adelson asked him to hire. And they're all like, sir, this is very dangerous. [00:11:36] You look really weak and pathetic unless you just absolutely destroy Iran. I mean, are you going to look so silly and not trump a bunker buster? I mean, you're looking weaker by the minute now. And, you know, Israel did this brilliant strike. [00:11:52] Okay, so let's just pause there for a real quick story. So, part of the reason that we first put out a statement saying he didn't have anything to do with this. Marco Rubio did that on the first night, and then by the morning, Trump had changed to, oh yeah, yeah, we were involved. We gave them intelligence. We deserve credit. [00:12:08] Wait, why credit? Because Fox News ran a segment that morning saying that Israel strikes were brilliant and strong. So Trump then thought, oh, I want to be brilliant and strong. I was in on it. I was in on it. It's my credit for that. [00:12:24] It's like he's such a simple minded guy, right? But the fact that there's a countervailing force is what's so interesting because that never existed. Guys, I were the longest running show in internet history. I covered the Iraq War before it got started. [00:12:41] There was no countervailing force. None. Zero on the right. They were all like, yeah, let's attack. Okay. 100% of them, including Tucker Carlson at the time, including Donald Trump at the time, all of them. Okay. [00:12:57] Some of them switched a little later some of them switched way, way, way later, decades later. Right. And pretending they were against it? No, they were all for it. Okay, so now finally we get to the MAGA voters. So no more than half of them are actually anti-war. I know that a lot of people on the left are like, no way, no way, you're crazy. [00:13:15] They're all cult. So we're going to talk more about it later in the show. But guys, why would the voters lie? Like, it's not like MAGA shy about their opinions. It's not like they're worried about offending you. Like, and all the other issues are like, yeah, God damn immigrants. [00:13:31] Round them all up. Send in the Marines. Right. They're not shy. They have. No, they're not a politician. They're not taking donor money. They have no reason to lie to you. No, they really don't want the war. Like. And if you say. Oh, yeah. Right. They all work for Laura Loomer. Do they? Because Laura Loomer is fighting Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon. [00:13:49] So if they all follow her orders, does that mean they MAGA hates Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon? No, they're actually split. They're actually split. So now that doesn't mean they're not going to fall back in line. We'll talk about that later in the show. Okay. So now what do I think's going to happen. [00:14:05] This is the hardest one of all because it's I mean Donald Trump nailed it. This is hilarious. Beginning to a sentence. Wait for the second half when he said, you know, nobody knows what I'm going to do. I'll probably decide in the last second I like to do that. I'm like, yeah, that sounds like him. Yep. [00:14:21] So even Donald Trump doesn't know what he's going to do. So we're all guessing based on what we think we know about Trump, his base, his donors and all this stuff. So what's my guess, 7525 that he bombs them. Okay. So why. Because Iran is not going to come back to the table [00:14:38] and do an unconditional surrender. That's what Trump wants. Now before they almost had a deal where Iran said, oh, we'll stop enriching uranium at the military, where we get anywhere near the military level, and we'll enrich uranium under controlled circumstances [00:14:54] monitored for just energy purposes, which is what they were doing in the past, which is basically the Obama deal, right? And Israel said, no, we veto that deal. You have to take away their entire uranium program. But that for them, for whatever reason, is a red line and that they view [00:15:09] that to be a national humiliation if they have to do that. So it is very, very unlikely they'll do that. So since Iran is not going to come back and go, okay, we beg you, we surrender, we surrender. Dear Donald Trump, he's probably going to take offense to that. He's going to be easier to manipulate. So 75, 25 at least he attacks. [00:15:29] And MAGA is not helping at this point because they're retreating. A lot of them like Bannon and Trump and Bannon and Tucker. I'll tell you in a minute, are are not in a minute, but a little bit later in the show are are beginning to retreat. Okay. So last thing is then what do I think is going to happen [00:15:45] after the bombing if that happens? Well, Israel is going to say not good enough. You didn't destroy their whole facility. You should have dropped a nuke. You should have done ground troops. You should have done regime change. And Israel might assassinate Ayatollah Khomeini, as they are threatening to do now. [00:16:00] Okay. In which case we'll be in the middle of a giant mess, and then Trump will get more and more and more unpopular. MAGA will then the half of MAGA that hated the war will go. What the. I thought we were just dropping a bomb. And now we're in the middle of this giant mess, just like we didn't want to be. [00:16:16] Right. And this is the Super Bowl prediction. And I understand there's a series of steps to even get to a place where this might happen. But if all that happens, I think that Donald Trump will leave in the middle of the war and Israel will be like, wait, what? [00:16:32] You can't leave in the middle of the war. We're in this war together. And Trump will be like, I don't know. It's costing too much. MAGA doesn't like it. It hurt my popularity. Where's my new bribe? If you don't have a new bribe, I'm gone. Yeah. Okay. That's my guess. Well, we'll see. I hope none of that happens. [00:16:48] - I hope we don't bomb them. - I also hope we don't bomb them. But I'm also not overly optimistic for, like, 75. 25 is probably pretty. Pretty good odds. Because, like, when the last time we chose not to bomb a place. We gotta spend all this money on all these sweet toys. There's a lot of people in DC that just really like to use them, you know? [00:17:05] War is War is a big, big cottage industry over here in the US. So, I mean, I'm always worried that we're going to leap into another one. I agree with you too. Like I'm also glad that there just are even factions, like you said, a countervailing force on the right right now. [00:17:20] And it's been weird. It does make for like strange bedfellows, because so far the ones who are like against it, a lot of times it's the more typically loonier type of, you know, Republican, the more hardcore like MAGA types. So it's been put me in positions I never thought I'd be in before, like watching [00:17:36] Tucker Carlson dress down Ted Cruz. And I'm sitting there thinking, like hell, man, Tucker's spitting. Get him! Tucker! It's like, I never thought I'd think that. But that's just a testament to just how much Ted Cruz sucks. But, like, it is, it is. You know, it's weird sort of agreeing with him on anything, but this is we're talking [00:17:54] about war here, and it's like whether, whatever their motivations are. Because I know a lot of people said about Tucker. And some of those times it's like, it's just because he's a Russian stooge and that's what Russia wants or whatever. But it's like, you know, it's still kind of they can fall backwards into being right about any one given thing. [00:18:09] You know, they say about broken clocks and blind squirrels and all that. I just don't want there to be war. But I'm worried that there will because like you guys said, it just it just feels like the thing that we would do in any administration. But this one in particular, also, I'll say this is seems like maybe one [00:18:24] of the worst times in any of our living memory for a new war to start, given the leadership at the top of our of our military right now, they don't exactly inspire confidence. So that's also alarming. But, yeah, it's, we'll see what happens. [00:18:41] But I'm not feeling great about it. I mean, at the very least, thanks that leadership will finally have a bit more transparency during the war. I mean, if you're curious how it's developing, just get in the signal group, get all the details as they develop. Every time you ring the bell below, an angel gets his wings. Totally not true, but it does keep you updated on our live shows.