Glenn Beck addresses Nick's query on AI-era success, emphasizing risk tolerance and prayer over rigid planning. He dissects Middle East chaos, distinguishing pragmatic Iranian politicians from the instability-hungry IRGC, comparing Israel's actions to a US response against a Mexican cartel. Beck clarifies the confusing "10-point plan," noting Vice President JD Vance revealed three conflicting versions, including an AI-generated draft and a maximalist social media rumor. Analyzing Trump's two-week ceasefire pause as a strategic test of Iranian factional control, he warns that if chaos-seeking elements dominate, negotiations become mere delays; true success requires pressure to fracture the regime in favor of survival-minded leaders. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Understanding The Current Conflict00:15:20
Today, we have some updates on around and how people have been hearing varying plans for the ceasefire from different sources and how to make sense of what's really going on.
Also, we took some phone calls today from somebody who was 24 years old.
Can I even be a success in America today?
And so much more.
You don't want to miss a second of today's podcast.
Here it is.
So, why does this feel so chaotic?
Why do we really not know what's going on?
When you watch something, and this is a normal human trait, we have this innately so we can survive.
We are not meant to live in chaos, and we're not meant to live in a world that is so unbelievably chaotic.
Complex.
So we're all looking for answers.
We're all looking for meaning.
We're looking for straight lines that make sense to us.
Draw a line and say, that's what's happening.
Unfortunately, in something like this, at this point, that instinct is going to hurt you because what we're looking at right now is not clean.
It isn't one plan.
It's not, you know, it's not just one guy or even two guys moving pieces across the board.
It is Competing interests stacked on top of each other, sometimes working together, sometimes working at cross purposes, sometimes colliding in ways nobody fully controls at all.
So let me just take this apart.
What are we looking at here?
We're looking at first Iran.
From the outside, it's easy to say Iran.
And it's one thing, one regime, one decision maker, one intention.
But it's not.
It's not.
You have the people who some of them are for the old regime.
I think the majority are against the old regime.
But we haven't even seen anything from them.
Then you have the politicians who sit across tables and speak the language of diplomacy and understand sanctions and markets.
Pressures and what isolation is going to cost us, and all of that crap.
Okay.
And those people are now the pragmatists.
They're the ones going, we got to keep the country breathing.
The economy is about to collapse.
I have a story on this coming up in just a minute.
I can quote them word for word.
The economy is about to collapse.
Then you have another group.
You have the Islamic Revolutionary Guard.
This is a completely different animal entirely.
They don't just fight the wars, they are the ones.
That run industries.
They control all of the ports.
They move the money.
They have built a banking and ecosystem that feeds off of chaos and instability.
The more tension in the system, the more relevant they become, the more indispensable they become.
And they're not dead yet.
So when you see a negotiation on one side and a missile on the other, the easy answer to say, they're out of control.
No, no, no.
Sometimes they are, sometimes they're not.
Sometimes they're doing exactly what they were built to do, apply pressure without triggering collapse.
Now let's look at the other players.
Let's just look at China because there was something going around yesterday going, China, you know, Donald Trump is playing and going after China.
And I think that's part of it.
But China's not in this for the ideology.
Let's look at China here for a second.
They certainly don't care about, you know, revolution and theology.
What they care about is flow of oil, trade routes, stability where it matters, instability where it can be managed.
No one, well, except honestly the IRGC, nobody wants chaos because it doesn't benefit anybody if you want to live in today's world.
Okay.
Iran is giving them away around all of the pressure to be able to keep them on their side.
That's discounted energy.
Okay.
But there's a limit to that because China doesn't want to fire.
It can't control.
It doesn't want a regional war that spikes global markets or forces choices that it doesn't want to make.
So the relationship with China is real, but it's not blind loyalty.
It's transactional, and it can tighten or loosen depending on the temperature.
Then you have Israel.
Israel, thank God it's in this war.
Can we just look at Israel for what it really is?
A separate state that thinks that it is, right or wrong, thinks that it is facing an existential danger, that these guys will wipe Israel off the face of the map.
It's a decision of not if, but when, which one's going to do it.
And they're not waiting around for anyone else to solve this.
They have their own.
Own interest.
You don't have to like them.
You don't have to agree with them, but they are a separate entity entirely.
They act when they believe they have to, and those actions also ripple outward whether anybody likes it or not.
Every strike, every response, everything feeds back into the system and changes the next move.
For instance, yesterday, ceasefire is over.
I want to get into that here in a little while, but let me just say why.
Why were they saying that?
Because Israel was hitting Lebanon.
And there is a dispute.
Was that part of the ceasefire or not?
I'll get into this later.
But let me explain why they are going after Lebanon.
They're not going after Lebanon or the Lebanese people.
They're going after Hezbollah.
And I want to forget about the Middle East for a second.
Let me explain this as Mexico.
Let's say right across the border there was, and this is not going to be a far stretch, right across the border there was a vile.
Awful, nasty drug cartel just over the border in Mexico.
And we knew they were doing more than just pumping drugs into us.
We knew that they were planting bombs and killing our citizens on this side of the border.
And we had had enough.
And we had said to Mexico over and over again, you got to control this.
You got to get them out of there.
You got to get them out of there.
And they never did.
And so then we said, okay, we'll do it.
And at some point, Mexico said, We're with you on that.
You got to get out this drug cartel.
You got to stop it and you got to get out.
But they couldn't really mean it.
They didn't have the teeth to do it.
They wanted that, but they're not going to be able to do it themselves.
And so, what would we do?
We wouldn't care if Mexico was with us or against us.
We wouldn't care if there was a big global war that was happening someplace else.
If our people were being killed by this drug cartel terrorist group, we would bomb them.
That's what Israel is doing.
I'm not saying it's right or wrong.
I'm not saying you have to like it.
I'm just telling you what it is.
That's why they were bombing, because they have Hezbollah, which, by the way, is a proxy of Iran.
Hezbollah.
Right across their border.
And they've made it very clear we're not taking it anymore.
We are wiping all of this out.
Okay?
And these groups like Hezbollah and everything else, they're in this gray zone.
They're actually connected, they're an arm of the IRGC in Iran.
But everybody wants to keep them in the gray zone.
But they're operating with the money and the consent of the IRGC.
And they extend the battlefield, they blur the responsibility.
They make ceasefire a word that doesn't mean what everybody thinks it means.
So when something breaks, when missiles fly, when agreements look like they're ignored, the temptation is to say, somebody violated something.
Somebody broke the deal.
And it is weird to me, as I told you just a minute ago, how many bombs and missiles and drones the IRGC sent over the border of other countries yesterday.
And the same time that Israel was bombing Lebanon, and that's a clear violation, what Iran did is not in dispute.
That's a clear violation, but no one reported on it.
Which then goes to why?
Why?
What was the motivation of almost everyone in our press yesterday?
What was the motivation of those who are podcasters and influencers to not mention that?
I'll tell you what.
Israel is doing, and I'll tell you, you don't have to like it, but that's what they're doing.
But I'll also tell you, this is what Iran was doing.
And I'm not saying one is better than the other or one causes the other.
I'm just telling you the facts.
Why would no one do this?
This is where the hot take influencers and podcasters are coming in because they'll all say there's a master plan, and it ranges from Donald Trump has sold us out or Iran, I mean, Israel is selling us out or whatever.
Whatever.
Okay.
And they'll make it look like everything is being controlled and, you know, one person is pulling all the strings.
It's satisfying.
It, it honestly, it helps you reduce the chaos in your own mind.
And it, it, it helps you feel perhaps more secure because we need that reduction in chaos.
But most of the time, it's not right.
It's not right.
And it's not right because we don't have all of the facts yet.
And also, power at this level, when it is this complex, is not a single mind playing perfect chess.
It is moving through advisors and priorities and different countries and public pressure and limited information.
There are strategies, there are patterns, but there's also just reaction.
There are moments when decisions are made with incomplete picture.
And that's happening right now in real time in all of our information systems.
So let me go through this because there are constraints here in America.
And there are things you need to understand.
And then I want to go through some of the things that people were saying and I want to explain them to you.
Not justify anything, just explain them to you so you maybe can reduce the chaos in your day and understand this a little bit better.
Okay.
So we have things that are really constraining us.
Here in America, we're constrained by our war fatigue and our economic risk.
Alliances that we have that have to be managed, not commanded.
And everything we do carries weight beyond the immediate target.
So when you're looking at the news of the day, especially when it comes to the war, you have to understand you're not watching one or two entities.
You're watching a very crowded room.
Different players, different goals, overlapping strategies, some of them pushing towards stability, others benefiting from tension, few trying to shape outcomes that nobody fully controls.
Iran's not a voice.
China isn't a puppet master.
The United States isn't operating without limits.
Israel isn't sitting still or controlling all of it.
The proxies are not background noise.
All of it is one giant stew.
And if you try to reduce this, as people have been trying to do, one villain, one genius, one plan, you are going to miss the signals that actually matter.
And I did my homework on this yesterday because I thought of something that really kind of scared me.
And I thought, oh, I haven't even thought of this.
And I started doing my homework on it.
And I think we're okay.
But with that one understanding, it gave me a completely different view of even this 10 point plan, which we don't even know what the 10 points are.
Okay.
We don't even know.
But you got to look for the small shifts and the pressure points and the moments where things can tip, not necessarily because somebody intended it, but because the moving parts lined up in the wrong way or the wrong time.
Or worse yet, I've been telling you this for a while world wars are not started by one party.
You know, just being crazy.
It's usually started by one party just making a bad miscalculation.
That's how situations like this get away from people.
And that's why I urge podcasters and everybody else slow down.
Slow down.
You don't have to be right today.
You don't.
Just try to make sense.
Try to help people understand what is happening right now.
Because if we don't, if things like this get misunderstood, The next move is usually made with far too much confidence.
We have to understand it first.
And we have to understand first that we don't understand it.
That's why I think we need to slow down.
This is what I think the media, new and old, is missing.
So let me get to the problem that hit me yesterday.
And I think I have a happy answer after doing some homework.
But our side is being run by the world's best deal maker, right?
I trust that guy to sit down at the table against anybody and make a deal and think that deal is going to be in our best interest and we're going to get the best deal we could possibly get with whomever he's sitting across the table.
Okay.
But he's used to sitting down with people who are buying buildings or, you know, even nations that nations want to survive.
There is a group of people in the IRGC that they think their win is death and chaos.
We're judging all these non-existent 10-point deals and talking about deal-making, but what if the people that actually have control don't want a deal?
They want the return of the Mahadi.
How should we be negotiating if we knew we were playing against those kind of players?
Humility Changes Everything00:07:52
You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program.
I'm really bummed that we, um, I didn't have more time to talk to Nick, uh, on the phone who asked a question.
You know, I'm 24 years old.
I would, Nick, call me tomorrow.
I'd like to talk to you some more.
24 years old, can I still be successful in America?
Uh, and my answer is yeah, you absolutely can, but it requires a different mindset entirely, especially with AI coming.
It's going to be, it's going to be difficult, challenging, but everything has been everything.
My whole life has been challenging.
You know, think, be, think about the people who were, were, uh, Farmers that, you know, there was no electricity.
There was, you know, and then all of a sudden everybody moves into the cities and there's refrigeration and everything.
Think about how they're just, their whole life, their whole cities collapsed.
They had to adjust and they did.
And it's, my dad used to say, life is nothing but a series of adjustments.
You either adjust or you go nuts.
He went nuts in the end.
No, I'm kidding.
But it's true.
And I'm listening to Jason talking to the insiders right after, you know, we went into the break.
And Jason does a show within the show.
When I go into commercials, he's usually talking about other things and getting to facts and details that I just didn't get a chance to get to.
And he started talking about, you know, how he's the American success story.
And I was listening to you, Jason.
I'm like, you know, I think you're right.
I think you, I mean, you are another great example of, you know, I have a reason to be, you know, you didn't set out to do something like this.
And all of us, you know, and you like, But you didn't even see your success come.
I did, but you didn't even see your success coming, did you?
No, and I didn't describe it as me being the actual success story, but I guess you could look at it that way.
I feel like everything that I've done, my life and my mom, as she's listening to this, is going to be cracking up because everything in my life has been one crazy impulsive mistake after the next massive risk, learning the hard way.
But I never would have any way, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Can I tell you something?
I think that's what is the difference between people who have big success and no success or a little success.
Yeah.
Your tolerance for risk.
Yeah.
I am somebody, I'll put every chip on the table.
If I believe something's right and I pray about it and I feel it, I'll put every chip on the table.
And that's risk big, win big, risk big, lose big.
Know the odds before you put your chips down on the table.
But if you want to win big, you got to risk big.
Anyway, go ahead.
It's very true.
And when I was discussing what Nick, what I would say to Nick is what I would have said to my children is you have to start very, very early.
A lot earlier than I did when you're looking at what you want to do in your life.
But even through that, through working, working very hard, even at a young age, younger than I had to, constantly making mistakes, constantly falling, constantly picking yourself back up.
But beyond everything else, constant prayer to God and telling Him, just put me in that place where I can best serve you.
I'm going to do what I can, but I'm not asking for wealth.
I'm not asking for success.
Just put me with the people.
In the location to where I can best serve you.
Glenn, I will testify to you right now.
I would not be here today on your team.
I would not have found my way to you.
I know in my heart and soul if I would not have had that prayer twice a day, every single day.
And it does open up doors to you that you never would have thought would have happened.
That's got to be part of your path through life.
When you're looking at success, when you're looking at the American dream, that's the pathway to the American dream.
But I will tell you this, Jason, let me use you as an example.
You know, you just said you got to start really early.
My children don't know exactly what they want to do.
You know, you're in high school, you're in college even.
You may not know what you want to do.
That's all right.
But whatever you're doing, do it the best you possibly can and learn it.
Don't take anything as, I remember the time my life really changed.
I was an alcoholic.
I was an egomaniac.
I had been running all of these stations and I find myself.
You know, on the outs, and I'm now at the station, and I have to answer to everybody.
And this guy knows I'm an egomaniac, and I had been praying for humility Lord, give me humility.
Give me humility.
Well, Lord will answer that one like with rockets.
And so I'm this new guy comes in, and he is now the boss of me, and he's like, I want you to do what they're called dubs, the lowest rung of the ladder of radio.
And I'm 35, and I'm like, what?
And I left so angry.
And then it dawned on me, oh my gosh, this is what I've been praying for.
And I went in the next day, drove him out of his mind because he thought I wasn't being serious, but I was.
I said, thank you.
I am going to be the best dubber anyone's ever had.
Okay.
And I really took it seriously.
And that was the day my life changed.
My career changed.
And if you do this with whatever, you will not believe how many doors will open.
You, if you.
Are always focused on whatever it is you're doing, even if you despise it, you will open so many doors.
And then you may not walk through that door, but because that door is open, that may be something that leads you someplace else.
And you never know it.
You never noticed.
Mike Rowe, who I love, and you know, I love him too.
He said he's famous for giving this career advice to follow opportunity, not your passion.
Yes.
But be passionate about the opportunity you're given, and more doors will open.
I've seen that to be true since I was 20 years old.
You don't realize that everybody's looking for a specific door to open.
But I have to tell you, I wanted to be successful in radio and I knew exactly how I was going to get there.
And that led me nowhere.
Okay.
Led me to mid success and then eventually alcoholism and everything else.
When I let go and I'm like, I don't care, I'll just go through the door that you want me to go through.
Success came so rapidly because I'm no longer in control of it.
I'm just doing what I'm supposed to do at this time and I'm doing it really well.
And I'll tell you, Jason, you know this.
You've been with me.
And how many conversations?
Because you worked with me on security for a while.
You were my body man.
And that's how we really got to know each other.
And how many conversations did you hear me have with people?
And we would walk away and I'd go, well, there's a millionaire that's never going to make a dime.
Yeah.
You remember that?
Yeah.
I would meet so many people that would be so stuck on, I'm doing it, I'm doing it my way, and it's going to happen this way.
But I'm not going to do this and this and this.
The minute you start putting limits on the universe, it's not going to happen.
It's not going to happen.
Once you say it's my way, it's not going to happen.
You have to be so open and so willing to do whatever it takes.
I mean, in an ethical way, do whatever it takes.
If that's what you want, if that's what you want.
Faith And School Accommodation00:03:23
I mean, I can testify.
Glenn Beck wasn't my passion, but he gave me the opportunity.
And now he's my passion.
Way.
Wow.
Isn't that sweet?
Isn't that sweet?
Remind me.
HR tomorrow.
Remind me about that.
Let me go to Vanessa in Tennessee because she says her kid goes to Overton High School.
We were just talking about this high school in Tennessee just about an hour ago.
And she has some insight, obviously, about Overton High School.
Hi, Vanessa.
How are you?
Hi, good.
Thanks for taking my call.
So, did the story we tell get it right?
Is the story right that we read?
Yeah, I think so.
I think that I definitely know that Overton has done all those accommodations for the Muslim students and for Ramadan.
Now, do they do that for other faiths?
Yes, I would say that I think they do.
I don't think, I wouldn't say that I know what a Christian.
Practice would be that would quite be the equivalent.
Do they have a Christmas concert or is it a winter concert?
We do have, well, our winter concert is often in January, but they do do a holiday concert where they'll do Christmas songs.
They also have done hymns during the spring concert.
Played like not Christian Christmas songs, but straight hymns.
We partner with a lot of churches that come in and do stuff.
They also have a lot of like Christian Athletes Association and Young Life and groups like that on campus.
Good.
I would say they also do like group prayer, Christian prayer.
We just had a student tragically lose his life, and they've had lots of space for kids to meet and pray and have Christian counselors come in and other counselors, I'm sure.
But I mean, there are certainly lots of.
Sorry.
It to me sounds like Overton High School is at least trying to do it right.
And that's fantastic to hear.
Fantastic to hear.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, there's definitely problems at the school.
But in that regard, I think they are pretty open to trying to accommodate other things.
Like I said, I don't know, there were a lot of kids who fasted for Lent.
We have a large Hispanic population with lots of Catholic people and other Christians who do Lent.
So, but most of those kids, you don't, it's not a timed fast.
It's a, you know, restrictive what foods you restrict.
So, right.
Okay.
Well, good.
Ricky is looking at me.
Pushing Back Against Lies00:02:59
Hang on just a second.
Yeah, because I didn't hear about that in the newspaper.
I didn't hear about that either.
Right.
Like they were bragging about all of the accommodations that were made for Muslim students, including, you know, changing the bell schedule.
I just don't remember reading about that for the Jews or the Christians in the Nashville newspaper.
That's all.
Why do you suppose that is, Vanessa?
What newspaper was it out of?
Look it up.
Ricky will look it up here real quick.
Yeah, she'll look it up real quick.
The Nashville Banner.
Yeah, that's a pretty, I think that's a pretty liberal newspaper.
So it doesn't surprise me that they would put out an article like that.
But it'd be interesting to see anybody who is not a left winging, you know, kind of to do a balance story on Overton.
I'd love to see somebody in Nashville look at all of it and say, no, no, no, this is the way it is.
I don't know what news source in Nashville is not liberal.
They're all very liberal, which is unfortunate.
Yeah, yeah, I know.
Vanessa, thank you very much.
I appreciate it.
Just watch yourself.
There is a.
You know, I don't know if you've seen the special yet on the blueprint of our own demise here that's coming from the Islamist movement.
But, you know, people who are Muslim, fine.
People who are Islamist, political Islam, that believe in Sharia law, and that is the real danger, and it is everywhere.
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Pause Before You Read Headlines00:15:49
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You know we've been fighting every single day.
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Now let's get to work.
So, yesterday on the tarmac in Hungary, the vice president was speaking to reporters and he was just asking, you know, could we get some honesty from the press?
And he was talking specifically about the multiple versions of the 10 point plan because somebody had asked him about the 10 point plan.
Are we willing to accept this?
Listen to what he said about Iran, sir.
So, let me just say given the guys are going to ask about Iran, let me just say a few things actually.
So, number one, I think it's very important.
For the American media to be honest with the American people on this particular issue because it affects not just, you know, the normal issues of public policy, it actually affects peace and war.
And here's what I mean.
So, in the past couple of days, I've seen a lot of reporting from the American media about the 10 point proposal that the Iranians have made.
Now, as I know because I've been involved in this, there are three different 10 point proposals, at least, that I've seen floating around.
The first 10 point proposal was something that was submitted.
And we think, frankly, was probably written by Chat GPT that was submitted to Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.
That immediately went in the garbage and was rejected.
There was a second 10 point proposal that was much more reasonable, that was based on some back and forth between us, between the Pakistanis, and the Pakistanians.
That is the 10 point proposal that the president was referencing in his truth yesterday.
And then, frankly, I've seen a third 10 point proposal that's even more maximalist than the first 10 point proposal that's been floating around various social media channels.
Now, here's what's interesting about all this I've seen Various organs, such as the New York Times, CNN, and others, pick up and run the original 10 point proposal based on little more than a random Yahoo in Iran submitting it to public access television in the country of Iran, and then them saying that somehow represents the negotiating position of the government.
Okay.
See what he's saying here?
And my job is to help you try to make sense of the world.
And nothing in the world makes sense.
And especially in war, and war with this kind of media, and war with this kind of access to the internet, and everybody has an opinion.
And then you add on top of it AI.
I mean, it's going to get more and more confusing every day.
So I'm trying to.
Not tell you what's right or what's wrong.
I'm telling you right now, slow down.
Slow down.
He's talking about the 10 point plan.
And yesterday, we were arguing, I wasn't, but many people were arguing the president is going to, he's just going to let them charge for oil and he's going to let them have the nukes.
Well, that would be a disaster.
Okay.
You don't even know which 10 point plan is real.
Now, yesterday, you might have thought that you knew which one was real, but you know today, you don't.
We have no idea which one is real.
There are multiple versions of this.
And so all of that energy was wasted yesterday.
But let's just say that we did know that there was only one version of the 10-point plan.
Should we argue about it and dig our heels in it right now if we knew there was one?
My answer would be no, because we're missing one critical piece of information.
Who are we dealing with on the other side?
Hear me out on this.
You have to reset your instincts entirely before you even start this conversation.
Because most of us in America, we think negotiation is about finding the overlap, you know, finding the places of commonality.
You figure out what the other guy wants, you give a little, they take a little, they walk away with something, and it's good for both.
I mean, if it's a good deal, it's good for both parties.
Right?
But that game only works if you're all playing that game.
But look at what we're dealing with right now.
Donald Trump has just announced a two week pause, ceasefire, bombing stops, window opens.
By the way, the ceasefire held yesterday.
And everybody was upset.
He's going to stop.
He's going to stop.
He's negotiating.
Hear me out on this.
This is a negotiator's move.
You create space, all right?
You lower the temperature, you heat it up, heat it up, heat it up, heat it up, and then you lower the temperature so either side can step back without losing face.
You can give everybody an exit ramp, okay?
And in business, this works all the time, all the time, because you know the guy on the other end of the table wants to make a deal.
But what if the guy across the table isn't just a guy?
What if it's a system that doesn't want any deal?
Even worse than that.
This is what you're seeing this week.
And this is so critical.
The politicians in Tehran are signaling restraint.
Elements tied to the IRGC, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, they're not.
It was the Guard Corps, the IRGC, that were lobbying missiles over to the Gulf nations yesterday that nobody reported on.
That was the IRGC.
Looks like a violation.
But I actually think it's something more dangerous than a violation.
This is the system arguing with itself in real time with weapons.
And if you don't understand that, you misread everything.
You know, Trump, whether you like him or not, has spent a lifetime dealing with people who.
You know, want something that you can measure.
You know, maybe it's building its real estate, whatever, a golf course in Scotland.
But he's never been in Scotland negotiating on a golf course and had somebody there that's like, oh, I'm going to vaporize Scotland and you.
Okay, that's, I mean, how do you deal with that person?
You don't have any common ground.
Iran is not one system, it's at least two.
And there appears to be part of it that wants to survive, discounting the people.
Just the regime itself.
Part of it wants to survive.
That is the part that Trump is negotiating with.
Okay.
And they want to keep the lights on.
They want to maintain control.
They want to live.
And then there's the part that sees chaos as the answer.
Okay.
The IRGC.
Those are the Twelvers.
That's the Shia sect that wants to hasten the return of the Mahadi and the promised one.
Okay.
That worldview is not about, you know, Keeping the power on and quarterly results, that is washing the world with blood.
You don't close a deal with that at all.
That side, you have to kill or defang and cage it.
Those are your only options.
So, what does somebody in Donald Trump's position do when the other side is split between those?
One, you don't negotiate with the country.
You start negotiating with the fracture.
You give the survival minded faction enough fear and then enough hope to hold on to.
Just enough incentive to keep them engaged.
At the same time, you make escalation for the IRGC not painful, absolutely catastrophic.
If you hit it, you hit it hard.
Be careful.
You hit it too hard, too fast.
You could actually unify the system against you.
Notice that's what everybody was saying.
He's going to wipe out all of the Iranians and turn them all against us.
Yeah, he could have if that's what he was going to do, but that's not what he was doing.
He was negotiating.
That's not what he was doing.
That's why he backed up, stopped, stopped before he did that because you can't unify the system.
If you do that, the ones who are the strong ones, the ones that just want to destroy everything, they become in charge.
This is one reason why the pause came.
So, what do you do with a two week pause?
Well, you do a couple of things.
And everybody in the last couple of days has been saying, two week pause, that's going to get them time to regroup.
Yes, good.
Our side just kept saying, Taco, Trump chickened out.
He's a war criminal that chickened out.
But if you understand, this isn't a normal negotiation.
You realize this isn't weakness and it's not surrender.
This is somebody trying to test which part of Iran is actually in control.
If you're dealing with a fractured negotiation partner, you need to figure out which one is stronger than the other.
You need to figure out which one is actually in charge.
So you push it to the limit, you create a window, and then you watch what fills it.
If restraint fills it, do you notice?
This has held last night.
Nobody broke the ceasefire.
If that fills this space, then you have somebody to talk to.
If missiles fill it, then you've learned something else entirely.
You got to go back to work.
So here's the problem with this the news this week shows both possibilities at the same time.
You've got signals suggesting that parts of the Iranian leadership want a way out.
At the same time, you've got rockets and proxies and noise.
Two realities.
Same country.
So the question becomes Donald Trump is the best negotiator in the world.
I think he does.
But does he understand that he's got doomsday people on the other side?
I think he does.
He's not trying to make a deal with something as a whole.
You know, when Neville Chamberlain sat down with Adolf Hitler and, you know, made the Munich Agreement, he thought he was dealing with a man who wanted, you know, some defined gains.
He wasn't.
He wasn't.
He was dealing with a movement that fed on expansion, on craziness.
That agreement didn't solve anything.
It just bought time for Germany and not for the people who thought they were buying it.
Okay.
Now, fast forward Cold War, American presidents negotiated with the Soviet Union.
That system had ideology too.
It talked about global revolution, but it also wanted to survive.
And that's why the deals held, because we had mad, mutually assured destruction.
Because underneath everything that the Soviet Union was said, they still feared, just like we did, the fear of annihilation, nuclear war.
That's a line you're not going to cross.
The real question is who is controlling Iran today?
And which side of the line is it?
Does the power fall on the one that understands mad or the other side that may actually welcome nuclear destruction?
That's the whole game.
That's the fundamental question we're missing.
Because if enough of that system wants to survive, then what Trump is doing, pressure mixed with pauses, will work.
If the balance is tipping the other way, then that faction that welcomes chaos gains control, then every pause becomes an opportunity for them, and we have to go back in and keep hitting them hard.
Every opening becomes cover.
Every negotiation is just a delay tactic.
We've seen that happen before.
He's not dumb enough to fall for that again.
So, what you're seeing now feels really, really messy because it is.
It's why today I'm telling you, and I try to tell you this every day, and there's at least during the war here, is we don't know what we're dealing with.
We don't know who we're even dealing with.
And in this particular scenario, both outcomes are logical and reasonable as endpoints, and they have extraordinarily different endings.
This is not a clean negotiation.
You know, this is Donald Trump.
If he would have gone in and tried to negotiate for some company, you know, he's going to buy some company, and half the board wants to restructure and wants to sell to him, and the other half is literally setting the building on fire while the meeting is happening.
You could talk all you want, you can still make your moves, but you better understand which side is actually holding the matches and which one has control of the doors.
And I think watching this week, Trump understands exactly what he's dealing with.
He didn't go all the way in.
He didn't try to end it in one dramatic move.
He pushed it to the limit and then created space, and now he's watching.
That's not how you close a real estate deal, but that is the way you would probe a system to find out who's in charge, who can I trust.
And quite honestly, and then you can also know the names of the people you need to target.
Understanding this is not the same as mastering it because this kind of negotiation has a really hard truth built into it.
You don't get a clean win.
You don't get a document that signs away or gives you everything that you want.
What you get, if you do it right, is time time for the pressure to work, time for internal fractures to widen, time for people to get stronger on the streets, time for the side that wants to survive to outweigh the side that doesn't care if everything burns.
But if you get it wrong, you don't just lose a deal.
You strengthen the part of the system that was never interested in survival in the first place.
So when you watch the headlines this week, pause.
Missiles, mixed signals.
It's not confusion.
That's the reality of what happens when a negotiator used to dealing with self interest, as every negotiator in the West is, sits across from a system where not everybody's values of survival are the same.