Israel/Iran Escalation: WW3 or Negotiating Tactic? Plus: Analyst Curt Mills on Trump's Israel/Iran Policy and More
Glenn breaks down the escalations between Israel and Iran prior to Israel's attack on Iran's nuclear and military sites. Plus: Curt Mills, the executive director of The American Conservative, discusses the future of the Iran nuclear deal and Trump's foreign policy. Note: this episode aired before Israel struck Iran. ----------------------- Watch full episodes on Rumble, streamed LIVE 7pm ET. Become part of our Locals community Follow System Update: Twitter Instagram TikTok Facebook LinkedIn
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Good evening, it's Thursday, June 12th.
Welcome to a new episode of System Update, our live nightly show that airs every Monday through Friday at 7:00 PM Eastern, exclusively here on Rumble, the free speech alternative to YouTube.
Tonight, for more than 20 years, and by the time, The invasion of Iraq, which Benjamin Netanyahu explicitly encouraged in 2002, was to be but a prelude.
To the US invasion of and regime change in multiple countries in that region, culminating in regime change in Iran.
If you go through that list, every country has subsequently suffered regime change, Iran being the last remaining one.
Since Donald Trump was inaugurated, he has repeatedly said that he strongly prefers to reach an agreement with Iran diplomatically regarding their nuclear energy program rather than have the US involved in yet another Middle East war.
Iran, after all, is three times larger than Iraq by population and is a far more sophisticated military capable of doing far more damage than the Iraqis could even dream of having done.
Despite all that, Israel, which is often referred to by its domestic loyalists as America's greatest ally, America's greatest ally has been working aggressively to undermine Trump's stated goals in multiple ways.
The proximate cause for Trump's firing of his own national security advisor, Mike Waltz, was Waltz's secret planning with the Israelis behind Trump's back in order to plan how an attack on Iran could occur and how to lure the United States' involvement in it.
While President Trump for months has stated over and over that he is optimistic about the progress being made in U.S.-Iran negotiations, much of that has changed quite noticeably over the last several days.
Trump began sounding a far more pessimistic note.
about the status of that diplomacy.
Even more alarmingly, the U.S. openly took steps designed to suggest that some sort of a serious war is imminent, including ordering all nonessential personnel removed from the U.S. military base in Iraq and elsewhere.
And media outlets in the U.S., Europe, and in Israel have all been strongly suggesting that an Israeli attack on Iran of some sort remains imminent.
All of this is quite disturbing for obvious reasons.
It would be a major war with extremely dangerous escalatory potential.
But it is also all extremely unclear.
Are these threats real?
Is a war with Iran really imminent?
Or is this just negotiating tactics to increase pressure on the Iranian government?
Could or would Israel even consider attacking Iran without a green light from Donald Trump and a promise of U.S. military cover?
And what would be the political tolerance within Trump's own base of political support for any kind of military conflict with Iran, given that his own movement has repeatedly emphasized the need to avoid more foreign wars, especially in the Middle East?
And especially wars fought not for the interest of our country, but for the interest of Israel or any other country as well.
We're going to sort through all of the latest evidence, all of these developments that are obviously significant, to discern the most reliable understanding of all of those questions.
And we're also going to speak to Kurt Mills, the executive director of American Conservative Magazine, who has long been following this Israel-Iran-U.S.
conflict as attentively as anybody.
Before we get to all of that, we have a quick programming note, and that is that System Update You can listen to every episode 12 hours after the first broadcast live here on Rumble on Spotify, Apple, and all the major podcasting platforms where if you rate, review, and follow our show, it really helps spread the visibility of our program.
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If you go and look back and try and find every instance in which the United States and the world was warned, principally by Israel, That Iran was on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons or that they would do so first within two or three years and then within six months and then within two or three months and then within two or three weeks.
I think you'd be really shocked at how long this scam has been.
Being played on the American people to try and give the American people a sense of urgency about the need to go fight a war that Israel once fought in the Middle East by attacking Iran.
And, of course, the bigger scam is that the pretext for this kind of a bombing campaign would be that Iran is on the verge of nuclear weapons, as it has been for the last 25 years, and that we need to immediately stop it for world peace.
Somehow North Korea has nuclear weapons, Pakistan and India.
Multiple countries in Europe.
Of course, Israel has a huge stockpile.
And the world has been peaceful.
You could even argue more peaceful as a result because those countries don't typically go to war with each other.
In fact, India and Pakistan just did.
They resolved it reasonably quickly.
There was no thought about the use of nuclear weapons.
Russia has, of course, the biggest stockpile in the world.
But we're told that if Iran were to acquire nuclear weapons, that would immediately be the world's greatest danger.
We have to go to war in order to stop that.
Even though there is not and never has been evidence that Iran is attempting to acquire nuclear weapons, they certainly want and have the right to and insist upon having a nuclear energy program, which is much different than an acquisition of nuclear weapons, but this is something that the United States and the American people have been told for almost two and a half decades.
To try and rile them up into believing that a war against Iran is necessary.
We're subsumed with that propaganda now more than ever to the point where there are now in multiple countries around the world, the United States, Israel, much of Europe, circulating news reports that are just outright saying that Israel is on the verge of attacking Iran,
which would automatically include some involvement by or participation of the United States military, not necessarily as part of the attack, though certainly In order to protect Israel from what would undoubtedly be the serious retaliation by the Iranians should Israel do that.
So any kind we're talking about an Israeli attack on Iran, what we actually are talking about is yet another American war.
It would quickly become an American war.
The Iranians have made clear their primary target of retaliation would be American bases and American service members in the region or American assets.
It would spike oil prices so radically it's hard to predict what the economic effect would be.
It would do nothing but work to the detriment of the American people.
But it seems as though there's a campaign for sure to convince the world that Israel is about to go and attack Iran.
for the New York Times today.
Israel appears ready to attack Iran, officials in the US and Europe say.
The concern about a potential Israeli strike and the prospect of retaliation by Iran led the United States on Wednesday to withdraw diplomats from Iraq and authorize the voluntary departure of US military family members from the Middle East.
Word of the US decision to withdraw personnel from the region along with a warning from Britain about new threats to Middle East commercial shipping.
Mr. Trump told reporters, quote, well, you're going to have to figure that one out for yourself.
The British warning came from a maritime trade agency that monitors Middle East shipping.
And that said in the public advisory that had, quote, been made aware of increased tensions within the region, which could lead to an escalation of military activity having a direct impact on mariners.
Iranian military and government officials have already met to discuss their response to a potential Israeli strike, according to a senior Iranian official.
The country's defense minister raised alarms on Wednesday with a warning that, in the event of a conflict following failed nuclear talks, the United States would suffer heavy losses.
This is the Iranian foreign minister talking, quote, America will have to leave the region because all of its military bases are within our reach, and we will, without any consideration, target them in the host countries, he told reporters.
This has now become essentially conventional wisdom that Israel is About to attack Iran.
Here from Newsweek earlier today, just the headline says, Iran threatens to attack U.S. forces if Israel strikes nuclear sites.
So you're already seeing threats exchanged, escalation very possible, even though it would supposedly only be Israel doing the attack.
THE IRANIANS KNOW VERY WELL THAT NOTHING LIKE THAT COULD HAPPEN WITHOUT THE INVOLVEMENT OF AND SUPPORT FROM THE U.S. GOVERNMENT.
THEY WOULD CONSIDER IT RIGHTFULLY SO AS THE WORLD WOULD JUST LIKE THEY Everyone understands that when Israel does something, the United States is ultimately responsible, and the Iranians have made very clear that they would consider an attack on their country, an attack carried out not only by Israel, or even primarily by Israel, but by the United States as well, and that's where their retaliation would be directed.
Here from NBC News, earlier today, Israel considering a military strike on Iran, sources say.
Israel is considering taking military action against Iran, most likely without U.S. support in the coming days, even as President Donald Trump is in advanced discussions with Tehran about a diplomatic deal to curtail its nuclear program, according to five people with knowledge of the situation.
If Israel does conduct any operations against Iran, they would be conducted without any U.S. military assistance, according to a source familiar with the matter.
But the individual did not rule out American intelligence support being provided to Israel.
There's a lot of semantic gamesmanship being played here.
Because when the U.S. government says this attack would be carried out without the U.S. military, that really doesn't mean all that much.
It means that whatever bombs are dropped will come from Israeli jets rather than American jets, and that Israeli bombs will be used rather than American bombs.
And, of course, Israeli bombs are bombs sent by the United States, paid for by the United States.
Technically, they're in Israel's possession.
All that really means is the United States military won't be deployed to participate directly in the attack, but of course, there's no possibility that Israel would engage in an attack like this unless it had the assurance that the United States would then act to protect it.
Remember when Israel bombed the Iranian consulate in Damascus, engaged in targeted assassinations on Iranian soil?
And the Iranians responded with ballistic missile attack on Israel.
It was the United States and its allies that were forced to intervene, intercept a lot of those missiles.
There's no way Israel would have the cover without the United States military involved in order to undertake an attack like this, and it's inconceivable as a result that the Israelis would do something like this without the green light from President Trump of the United States, given that Israel is not...
As I said, Donald Trump has been sounding very optimistic notes for weeks, even months, about the prospects of reaching a deal with Iran.
He has been telling Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, who has been urging that the United States and Israel attack Iran in this window where Israel claims that it's vulnerable.
President Trump has been saying, I don't think we need to do that.
I'm very confident we can get a diplomatic solution to ensure that Iran's nuclear energy program doesn't turn into a nuclear weapons program.
He's been heralding the Iranian negotiators and the American negotiators for the great progress that they've made, indicating repeatedly that he thinks that the United States and Iran are close to a deal.
Suddenly, the entire tone of that shifted.
Here was President Trump yesterday in an interview with, I believe, Miranda Devine in the New York Post, when asked about whether he still thinks a deal with Iran is likely.
So, Camp David, you were just there, and you were with the generals and the admirals and Marco Rubio.
What were you talking about?
Well, I can't tell you exactly, but it was a pleasure.
Without discussing anything, look, we had a meeting, a very important meeting, and really talked about many subjects.
Iran, Ukraine, Russia.
Yeah, all of that.
It's all big topics, especially when you have generals and admirals.
Do you think you're going to be able to stop Iran from enriching its I did think so.
And I'm getting more and more less confident about it.
They seem to be...
Something happened to them, but I am much less confident of a deal being made.
I would have said a deal would be made.
So there you see him very deliberately, I mean explicitly, signaling that he no longer is optimistic, saying that somehow Iran has changed its negotiating posture.
To make it less likely that a deal can actually be reached.
He believes they're kind of playing for time.
These are things being put in his head, being absolutely conveyed to him and suggested to him.
He had this big national security meeting at Camp David that he was asked about, and certain members of his administration who have been much more eager to resolve this diplomatically, including the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, were absent.
And several generals known to be quite hawkish in Iran were present.
He had a meeting, Donald Trump did.
He's very influenced by Fox News personalities.
That's why they fill his administration.
One of whom is Mark Levin, who ironically didn't support Trump in 2016 over his military policies, his foreign policy critique of the neocons and Bush and Cheney.
has since become a supporter, and he visited the White House.
Marco Bin did has become increasingly vocal to try and convince Trump that an attack on Iran with the Israelis now is urgent, and that's somebody that Donald Trump definitely listens to.
Now, all of this, of course, could be negotiating tactics.
This is the sort of thing President Trump does.
We've talked about this many times on our show that sometimes his rhetoric should not be taken literally as some threat to That threat to go to war is often not indicative of the fact that he wants to go to war.
He did that with North Korea, of course.
In the first term, notoriously boasted that his red button is much bigger than North Korea's.
They ended up having a very good relationship.
And we've seen President Trump do this many times.
But here's the thing that actually did call my attention the most and that did concern me the most, and it's the following.
And we've talked about this dynamic on our show before.
Once Donald Trump says, as he's said many times, I want to resolve this diplomatically, I want to reach a deal with Iran rather than have a war with Iran, the Republicans in the Senate and the Congress and the Israelis, of course, can't come out and criticize Trump and say, no, that's wrong.
We shouldn't be negotiating.
It's ridiculous to think we can get a deal diplomatically.
We need to use military force, even though that's what they all think.
Not all, but many of them think.
They can't come out and admit that.
They have to praise Trump if they hope to influence him and say they agree with Trump.
So their tactic has been to say we agree with President Trump that the best way to handle this would be diplomatically, and yet then they create a set of conditions that a deal with Iran has to meet that they know can never be met because Iran could not and would not agree to those conditions.
So they're essentially saying, yeah, we want a deal too.
The deal has to have A, B, and C, knowing that ABC aren't possible.
And so they're essentially setting up in advance that no deal could possibly be done.
And one of the primary conditions for Iran is the question of enrichment, enriching uranium, because in order to enrich uranium, in order to develop a nuclear weapon, you have to enrich uranium at a very, very high level, 80 percent, 90 percent.
In order to enrich uranium simply for nuclear energy, which is always what Iran has said is its only aspiration, you have to enrich uranium at 3%, 4%, 5%.
And so the deal that President Obama and the Obama administration reached with Iran, involving Russia and the EU and all that, the Iran deal that President Trump nullified or withdrew from, allowed Iran to enrich uranium up to the point that you need to do it for nuclear energy.
But not any further, and certainly nowhere near what would be necessary to develop a nuclear weapon.
There were inspectors all over the place, massive surveillance at every Iranian site.
And the consensus is and was that Iran was complying with that deal.
Trump ran on a platform saying that deal was too one-sided in favor of Iran.
But the red line for Iran has always been, we are a sovereign country.
Every sovereign country has the right to have nuclear energy.
And we are never going to give up our right to have nuclear energy.
That's fundamental to who we are as a country.
And in order to be able to have nuclear energy, they have to enrich uranium, but only up to a certain level.
And they previously agreed not to enrich uranium past that.
And it was always going to be hard for Trump to find a kind of spot where he could reach a deal with Iran and justify how it was better than the one Obama got.
But it was certainly plausible.
I ran around understand that that's what needs to happen.
And yet the warmongers in the Senate, the Republican warmongers who want to go to war for Israel, people like Tom Codden and Lindsey Graham, There could be no enrichment of any kind.
When Steve Whitcoff, Obama's, Trump's negotiator, was talking publicly, he was very open to the prospect that Iran could enrich uranium.
That's the only way a deal could possibly be done.
And yet, Whitcoff's statements have become increasingly hawkish about that issue specifically.
And Donald Trump, as part of an interview on Air Force One, Last week specifically talked, and I think it's the first time, about how enrichment is something that the Iranians cannot have.
What do you make of the Ayatollah saying that they have to enrich?
Well, they won't be enriching.
If they enrich, then we're going to have to do it the other way.
And I don't really want to do it the other way, but we're going to have enriching.
What's your latest?
There's not going to be enrichment.
Now, Trump sometimes talks in very kind of vague ways.
And it's possible he meant they're not going to be enriching up to the level you would need to to acquire a nuclear weapon.
But I know that Iran is not insisting on that negotiations.
This sounded like the Tom Cotton, Lindsey Graham, Netanyahu position that, yes, we want to do a deal with Iran, but only if they cannot have a nuclear energy program at all.
They can't enrich at all.
And once you set that as a condition, you're essentially assuring that no deal could ever be reached.
Here from...
Israel assured the U.S. it won't strike Iran unless the talks fail.
"Israel has reassured the White House that it won't launch an attack against Iran's nuclear facilities unless President Trump's signals negotiations with Iran have failed.
Two Israeli officials with direct knowledge tell Axios.
The Trump administration has been concerned in recent weeks that Israel is preparing to launch a strike despite the ongoing talks.
And Trump said he cautioned Netanyahu against making his move while talks are still taking place.
Also said his stance quote could change with a phone call if he feels the talks with Iran are going nowhere.
Israel conveyed the message of reassurance during a visit to Washington last week by a bunch of Israeli officials.
One official said Israel made it clear to the U.S. counterpart that Israel won't surprise the Trump administration with a military strike on Iran.
Now, that's what makes it so, I think you could say alarming, certainly notable, that Trump's rhetoric on this has changed rather fundamentally, and he's doing it.
On purpose, signaling that he no longer believes there's progress in these talks.
And that could be one of two, that creates one of two possibilities.
Either the Israelis having heard that they won't strike unless Trump signals that the negotiations are going nowhere, now hear that and believe it's starting to become authorization for them to strike.
And of course, they would be talking to President Trump about that.
The other is, President Trump's getting frustrated.
He thinks the progress isn't what he wants it to be.
And so he wants to kind of dangle in front of Iran the prospect or the threat that at any moment he could give the green light to the Israelis, and that would be an attack.
Whatever it is, it's a radical change in Trump's posture.
There's clearly not just rhetoric, but actions taking place in the region, preparing for conflict, removing nonessential personnel.
And once you enter that sort of danger zone, where you're threatening war, where you're preparing for war, where you're leaking plans that you're going to have war, In a lot of ways, it makes it so there's no turning back.
Trump went to the Kennedy Center.
As you might know, he made himself the chairman of the Kennedy Center and commandeered the arts program at the Kennedy Center.
And this is when he wanted his favorite play held, and he went to it, I believe, on Tuesday night.
And he was being asked when he got there about all of these events in the Middle East, and here's what he said.
Say it again.
Yes, a question from Newsmax.
Could you provide an update on Iran?
We're hearing reports that U.S. personnel are being moved out of the region within striking distance.
Well, they are being moved out because it could be a dangerous place, and we'll see what happens.
But they are, and we've given notice to move out, and we'll see what happens.
Is there anything that could be done to dial the temperature down in the region?
They can't have a nuclear weapon, personally.
They can't have a nuclear weapon.
We're not going to allow that.
So that's what he's been saying from the start.
They can't have a nuclear weapon.
Iran already proved under the Obama administration they're willing to undo a deal where they cannot have nuclear weapons.
But that deal allowed them to enrich uranium sufficient to have a nuclear energy program.
And it seems like Trump's now saying that condition that Iran has always made clear is non-negotiable.
It's a red line for them.
That the Americans themselves with Whitcoff.
I've always said is negotiable as well, suddenly now is not negotiable, and that might be what is convincing Trump or causing people to successfully convince Trump that suddenly the Iranians are not interested in the deal because they're insisting on enrichment, something they've been insisting on from the beginning.
One of the questions has always been, and this happened a lot in President Trump's first term, was the extent to which he's being manipulated by people around him.
To pursue an agenda that he says and that I think most people believe is not his own.
Of course again pretending oh yes we want a deal too.
But then saying the military options should be on the table and hiding from him what the actual consequences of that might be in terms of the Iranian capabilities.
This is from Axios earlier today.
Exclusive.
U.S. fears Iran's response to an Israeli strike would be a mass casualty event.
White House Envoy Steve Witkoff privately warned top Senate Republicans last week that Iran could unleash a mass casualty response if Israel bombs their nuclear facilities.
Behind the scenes last Thursday, Whitcoff held a closed-door meeting on Iran with a group of Republican senators.
Among them, Senators Rish of Idaho, Graham of South Carolina, Barrasso of Wyoming, and Ricketts of Nebraska.
Whitcoff told those senators that military strikes by Israel are on the table if no agreement is reached.
He also brought up Iran's ballistic missile capabilities.
The U.S. is concerned that Israel's air defenses would not be able to handle an Iranian response involving hundreds of missiles.
Such an attack, Witkoff told the group, could cause mass casualties and damage.
The Iranians do have a very sophisticated battery of ballistic missile capabilities.
They've proven already that they can reach Israel, even though they really did not even come close to unleashing their fastest or most sophisticated missiles.
Still, some fell on Israel, despite Israel's attempt to pretend that didn't happen.
Whitcoff is reminding Republican senators that this is not Iraq, that this is Iran, and they have much greater capabilities to kill a lot of people in Israel, but also a lot of Americans throughout the region, which the Iranians are making very clear.
They're absolutely going to do.
Despite all this, the U.S. continues to send signals to the world that they believe, or at least want you to think they believe, that an attack is imminent.
Hear from the U.S. Embassy in Israel today.
Security alert, U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem.
Due to the increased regional tensions, U.S. government employees and their family members are restricted from travel outside the greater Tel Aviv area, Jerusalem.
And the Bar Sheva areas until further notice.
Transit between these areas, including to and from Ben Gurion Airport, is authorized.
The U.S. Embassy reminds U.S. citizens of the continued need for caution and increased personal security awareness, including knowing the location of the nearest shelter in the event of a red alert, as security incidents, including murder, rocket, and missile fire, and unarmed aircraft system intrusions, often take place without any warning.
The security environment is complex and can change quickly.
Now, as I said, whether this is real, whether this is intended to be something that looks real but in fact is about threatening Iran, whether it's a prelude to some sort of very limited or symbolic strike by the Israelis on Iran to signal to Iran that it's actually a real possibility,
which Iran may not decide to take as symbolic or restrained, it certainly requires a huge amount of attention given the stakes and the ease with which Again, this kind of rhetoric, this kind of miscommunication, this perception that's seemingly being deliberately cultivated could easily spiral out of control.
Here's Trump today, asked again whether he thinks there's an imminent attack, and this is what he said.
Well, I don't want to say imminent, but it looks like it's something that could very well happen.
Look, it's very simple, not complicated.
Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.
Other than that, I want them to be successful.
I want them to be tremendous.
We'll help them be successful.
We'll trade with them.
We'll do whatever is necessary.
So there's no doubt the United States wants Iran to think that an attack is imminent.
Whether or not it really is is the thing that we don't.
But what we certainly know is that the Israelis have been chomping at the bit to do this for a long time, knowing that it would drag the Americans in by necessity.
Any president that refused to deploy military assets to protect Israel in the event of an Iranian retaliatory attack would probably be impeached.
I think that's the only thing that could cause Republicans to actually support an impeachment of Trump, is if he really said that Israel is on its own.
It's inconceivable.
That any president, even if they wanted to, could get away with that, given the importance of Israel, the primacy of Israel still, within both political parties and in all sorts of other powerful factions in the United States.
One of the theories that is being bandied about is that one of the reasons for this desired attack now on the part of the Israelis is that one particularly Pro-war, anti-Iran, hawkish member of the military, Michael Carrillo, who is the commander of CENTCOM, the U.S. Central Command, is on his way out, and he's still in that position.
And his support for an attack on Iran has always been seen by the Israelis as crucial.
He was an ally of Mike Waltz.
And here is what he said when testifying before the House Armed Services Committee when asked about Iran.
If the president directed, is CENTCOM prepared to respond with overwhelming force to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran?
I have provided the Secretary of Defense and the president a wide range of options.
I take that as a yes?
Yes.
So that's the person who's not just saying, as you would expect him to say, that, of course, The president has a wide range of options for military force against Iran, but the fact that they're talking openly about a new Mideast war I think requires our attention, our serious in-depth attention.
Now, there are also signs that, countersigns, countersignals from Trump that he's not quite ready to let the Israelis do this.
Here again from Barak Ravid, who I think I did not mention this, but until 2023.
When he became the primary U.S. reporter on U.S.-Israeli relations after October 7th, was actually in the IDF.
As recently as 2023, he had served in one of their most elite intelligence units, one of their most notorious intelligence units as well.
This is who has become the primary journalistic source in the United States on U.S.-Israeli relations.
He is himself Israeli, as I said, in the IDF until 2023.
Here's what he said today, quote, breaking.
Trump says he wants an agreement with Iran and stressed the U.S. is close to a good deal with the Iranians.
Quote, I prefer a deal.
As long as I think there is a chance, I would rather that they, the Israelis, don't go in in order to ruin it.
Now, that has been taken as a positive sign that Trump is saying, look, I'd rather the Israelis not do it.
But that, too, is...
That requires a lot more analysis because Trump is trying to create this framework where it might be possible that Israel goes and does it on its own, even though the United States has signaled that it doesn't want that kind of an attack.
And of course, again, there's no way the Israelis could do an attack like this if they didn't have commitments of U.S. military protection in the aftermath.
If Trump really thought the Israelis were going to attack, as every signal has deliberately conveyed, and wanted that not to happen, he has all sorts of weapons at his disposal.
The Israelis depend upon the United States for essentially everything.
Trump could cut off any number of things or everything if you really thought that the Israelis were going to attack Iran without his consent.
It seems to me very strongly like he's dangling Israel, kind of like showing The world that he has this rabid dog chained up to a fence.
And at any moment, that chain is starting to break.
And he might, instead of replacing the chain, actually let it break and let this rabid, deranged animal off its leash.
Here is Trump today on True Social sounding, again, a more diplomatic note.
We remain committed to a diplomatic resolution to the Iran new court issue.
My entire administration has been directed to negotiate with Iran.
They could be a great country, but they first must completely give up hopes of obtaining a nuclear weapon.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
I will admit that his reliance on that, thank you for your attention to this matter, even when issued and accompanied by the gravest announcements and threats, continues to be amusing to me.
I think I once mentioned that as a lawyer, I used to like to do that too, write a eight page letter threatening nuclear war and destruction of every conceivable thing if there was no agreement or settlement and at the end saying, thank you for your attention to this matter.
It is just a very enjoyable way to end whatever statements.
Trump has clearly increasingly become enamored of that.
But this is Trump now back to signaling that what he's been signaling for months.
Also along those lines, Reuters yesterday said this, U.S. envoy plans to meet Iran's foreign minister on Sunday, U.S. officials said.
There are still talks going on to try and make progress in a nuclear deal, something that would seem inconsistent with allowing Israel to attack, more consistent with threatening an Israeli attack in advance of those talks in order to put more pressure on Iran.
Here is an Iranian, I believe he's the foreign minister.
Oh, sorry, this is actually Oman, where the talks are going to take place, the foreign minister of Oman, and he says, I am pleased to confirm the six rounds of Iran-US talks will be held in Muscat this Sunday, the 15th.
So that's also today.
So there's very conflicting signals about what's going on here, and it's hard to believe that's not deliberate.
At the same time, as I said, these kind of conflicting signals on their own can be very dangerous and can spiral quickly out of control.
Pete Hegseth, the Pentagon chief, was in the U.S. Senate today.
And Lindsey Graham, who has become one of the leading advocates, of course, for war with Iran, the way he has war with every other country, was questioning him and attempting to make him agree that Iran, according to evidence, is very close to a nuclear weapon.
Here's that exchange.
So I'm trying to get everybody to think, let's don't do what we did in the 30s.
They're going to use a nuclear weapon if they get it.
Are they trying to build a nuclear weapon versus a peaceful nuclear power program, Mr. Secretary?
Have the Iranians been trying to build a nuke?
There are plenty of indications that they have been moving their way towards something that would look a lot like a nuclear weapon.
The Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, who's responsible for coordinating all of the different intelligence reports and ultimately reaching her best conclusion that gets presented to the president to make decisions, has been very clear that the evidence is not that Iran is doing that.
That has been the U.S. intelligence position for a long time.
So the fact that Pete Hegsteth is now saying and agreeing with Lindsey Graham, yes, there are strong indications that that's likely to happen.
I also consider disturbing, as is Tulsi Gabbard's very strange absence from a lot of these meetings.
And she visited Hiroshima several days ago and posted a video where she didn't exactly criticize the U.S. for having used nuclear weapons.
But the whole video was designed to convey how tragic and horrific and incomparably destructive the use of nuclear weapons is.
That it lasts for generations.
That could include the conflict with Russia and Ukraine, given that Russia has a lot of nuclear weapons.
It could include the conflict with Iran over nuclear weapons between the U.S. and Israel.
Both of them have stockpiles.
But I found that video, though not extremely direct.
Still nonetheless very pointed that it appeared at the moment it appeared that it was a video released on her personal channels at the same time that she seems to be a little bit excluded from this process despite what ought to be her central role in telling the president whether there's intelligence to suggest that Iran really is moving to nuclear weapons.
Just to give you a sense for how long this goes back, and we've shown you this before.
I had a debate with Alan Dershowitz last year in New York on the question of whether the U.S. should Strike Iran's nuclear program.
Shockingly, he wants the U.S. to.
And I went through 15 minutes of news articles going back many, many years where we were told and Israelis were warning that the Iranians were like seconds away from getting a nuclear bomb.
We had no choice but to attack because they're about to get one.
But I didn't realize how far back even then that it went.
Hear from the United Press International, which used to be the big wire service along with AP.
It's April 24, 1984.
The Ayatollah bomb is in production for Iran.
That's the headline.
Quote, Iran is moving, quote, very quickly toward production of a nuclear bomb and could have such a weapon within two years, the authoritative Jane's Defense Weekly reported today.
Jane's quoted news reports as saying production on Iranian nuclear Ayatollah Khomeini's nuclear bomb was, quote, entering its final stages.
And that construction would follow a completion of a nuclear power plant being built with the help of West German experts.
Jane's Weekly editor Robert Hutchinson said although the report originated with the Arabian Gulf Press, quote, we checked it out and it seems to stand up.
The indications are that Iran, the Iranians are moving that way and moving that way very quickly.
That's 1984, five years after the Iranian Revolution.
So that's basically 40 years ago.
A little bit over 40 years ago.
Here from Ynet News, which is part of the Israeli press.
This is April of 2015.
This is from a 1992 article in Hebrew that Ynet republished.
Here is the headline.
Netanyahu in 1993 says this, Iran will have a bomb by 1999.
The Prime Minister has been warning for over 20 years that Tehran is close to achieving its pursuit of nuclear weapons.
Quote, In a column in February 1993, quote, the rulers of Iran have said repeatedly that they will have an Islamic bomb and that its first target will be Israel, he argued in a piece titled, quote, the greatest danger, claiming that Iran will develop its first nuclear bomb by 1999, which at the time, this report was 16 years ago.
It's now 26 years ago.
And it didn't happen.
Netanyahu, who served as a member of the Knesset at the time, wrote about the Iranian regime 22 years ago, saying that, quote, it is our duty to make sure in advance that the regime will not obtain the tools necessary to realize its aspirations.
Here from the New York Times, January of 1995, Iran may be able to build an atomic bomb in five years, U.S. and Israeli officials fear.
It's 30 years ago.
Here from 20 years ago, NBC News, December 2005.
Netanyahu warns of Iran nuclear threat.
Iran should take, quote, bold and courageous action against arch-foe Iran's nuclear program, similar to its 1981 airstrike on the main Iraqi atomic reactor.
Former President Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday, Israeli officials have said that unless stopped, Iran will achieve the know-how to build a bomb by March of next year.
The Israel loyalist Jeffrey Goldberg, now the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, wrote a cover story on exactly this issue in September of 2010, that's 15 years ago, called The Point of No Return, where he essentially says he went to Israel.
Everybody agrees that Iran is about to get a nuclear weapon.
This is sort of the window where it's kind of the last chance of being able to stop Israel from doing so.
That's 15 or 16 years ago.
Here is Netanyahu in one of his most notorious appearances.
It's amazing.
This is 2012.
It seems like this was just so recently.
But it just shows how long this same propagandistic narrative has been deliberately disseminated, notwithstanding the fact that we all heard the same thing about Iraq, only for it to be proven untrue.
This is Netanyahu.
He went to the United Nations.
He had a cartoon-like graphic.
Designed to convey the urgency and the eminence of stopping Iran.
And here's what he said.
So how much enriched uranium do you need for a bomb?
And how close is Iran to getting it?
Well, let me show you.
Brought a diagram for you.
Here's a diagram.
This is a bomb.
This is a fuse.
In the case of Iran's nuclear plans to build a bomb, this bomb has to be filled with enough enriched uranium.
And Iran has to go through three stages.
The first stage, they have to enrich enough low enriched uranium.
The second stage, they have to enrich enough medium enriched uranium.
And the third stage and final stage, they have to enrich enough high enriched uranium for the first bomb.
Where's Iran?
Iran's completed the first stage.
Took them many years, but they completed it, and they're 70% of the way there.
Now they're well into the second stage.
And by next spring, at most, by next summer, at current enrichment rates, they will have finished the medium enrichment and move on to the final stage.
From there, it's only a few months, possibly a few weeks.
And for those of you listening and don't remember this graphic, it was not only extremely crude and primitive, almost laughably so, but the part of the final stage showed a fuse.
With the bomb exploding, with the kind of little cartoon-like explosion like you would see on the Roadrunner.
I'm probably dating myself with that reference, but that was a cartoon where they were constantly blowing things up, blowing themselves up.
It was that sort of Sunday morning cartoon graphic for kids warning the world.
This was 2012, almost 15 years ago, about how Iran could be months away from actually making the bomb.
Here from Haritz in September of 2020, so this is five years ago, "Iran would have enough fissile missile for nuclear bomb by the year's end," a US official says.
Saddam Hussein was on the market.
Buying aluminum tubes that only had one purpose, which is to build nuclear weapons, already had an active biological weapon program.
We only had a small amount of time before we could stop him from gaining nuclear weapons, because if he did, he would pass them to his close friends in Al Qaeda, an alliance invented by Jeffrey Goldberg while at The New Yorker.
It's remarkable how the propaganda never changes, and in their defense, I suppose, The reason it doesn't change is because it constantly works.
Here's CNN last year.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken says Iran's nuclear weapon breakout time is probably down to one to two weeks.
These same articles over and over for going back, and I didn't realize this, 40 years to the 80s.
I thought it began in the late 90s.
When I had prepared that list with Professor Dershowitz last year, we've given you this list before, but it's remarkable how constant and almost identical these warnings have been, always with the same goal, to rile Americans into a state of fear about Iran so that the United States once again goes fights a war in the Middle East that is against Israel's enemies and that Israel wants, for its own interest, a war to be fought.
A lot of interesting things politically in terms of how Trump's base is more divided on these kind of questions than ever before.
That's certainly something we talked a lot about on this show.
The move toward a non-interventionist posture that has become very central to many of the most influential people in the MAGA base.
So there's political issues.
And political questions as well to whether or not the United States could even, whether the President Trump could even take the United States into a war with Israel against Iran in terms of what that would do to his political standing.
And we're going to talk about that.
And many other questions in just a little bit with the executive director of the American Conservative magazine, Kurt Mills, who has been covering this topic for a long time.
We've had him on our show.
We had him on our show about a couple of months ago, and right after the short message from our sponsor, we are going to go to him.
I think he's one of the most informed analysts on this question, and he will help us sort through a lot of these issues even more deeply.
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Kurt Mills is the executive director of the American Conservative Magazine, which I think I mentioned before was actually the first magazine for which I It has been one of the most informative voices on foreign policy, at least since the time I began reading it back then, especially covering now the Trump administration's Iran policies.
Kurt has worked at the National Interest, U.S. News & World Report, Washington Examiner, and The Spectator, and his writing has appeared in all sorts of journals.
He has become someone who Steve Bannon has been turning to on the question of Iran and foreign policy, and is becoming an increasingly Most of you probably know that because we've had him on our show before, and we are happy to welcome him back.
Kurt, good evening.
It's great to see you.
Good evening.
All right, so we just spent 45 minutes or so going through what are clearly changes in at least the rhetoric being used by both the U.S. government and media outlets around the world concerning A possible Israeli strike on Iran.
Clearly there's an attempt to make the Iranians believe that's happening.
The question is whether or not it really is.
Trump himself had always been very optimistic about the progress being made in these negotiations.
And then a few days ago he started saying, I'm not nearly as optimistic.
In fact, I'm quite pessimistic.
something changed with Iran.
But do you think this really is what it is being purported to be, which is the decision by the Israelis to kind of on their own go and attack the Iranians?
Or is this a kind of orchestrated campaign to convince the Iranians in light of these imminent talks, the next round of talks, that Being attacked is a real possibility if they don't become more pliable in negotiations.
I think it's both.
And I think the chronology matters.
I think the Israelis have increasingly looked at a unilateral action.
And I think amidst that crisis that such an action would would engender a crisis, one, because it could sabotage the negotiations.
And two, if the U.S. and Trump broke with Israel loudly, that would be unprecedented in the history of the bilateral relationship.
I think if Trump's So this is a very fast-moving enterprise.
I mean, as we are filming, we are hours from sunrise in Tehran, and there is considerable anxiety that there will be a strike, frankly, before sunrise in some administration.
On the other hand, we are dazed from the new round of negotiations in Oman, and there's also a view now that this could be the final round of negotiations, that Trump will sign something because the threat is so great of a Netanyahu action.
So this is the most high-risk, high-reward scenario of an already high-risk, high-reward scenario because we could be at war.
or we could have effective detente by Monday.
Maybe I'm naively underestimating how extremist and, one might say, unhinged the Israeli government has become.
I recognize maybe that's the case.
But I have a very hard time believing that there even is such a thing as a possible unilateral Israeli strike.
It might be unilateral in the sense that only Israeli jets are used for the initial strike and Israeli bombs are used in order to attack these facilities.
But in terms of a strike that either is done without the approval and green light from President Trump And even without the assurance that the US military would then be deployed to protect Israel in the likely event of an Iranian retaliation, even with this current Israeli government, I find it almost impossible to believe that they would be talking about a unilateral Israeli strike in the sense that they would do something in opposition to or even without the approval of President Trump.
Do you think that's actually possible?
I'm just going where the facts lead me.
And I understand that that is, I know it sounds unbelievable, but the virtue of President Trump, in my view, is that he often just openly telegraphs what's going on.
I mean, this is a bizarrely transparent president, as I think everybody is aware.
And the words that he used today is that the U.S. is interested in negotiations with Iran.
As long as, quote, Israel doesn't spoil it.
I mean, like, in the history of the relationship with Jerusalem, going back to the 40s, I don't think you've ever...
And it's just being lost in the fray, lost in the helter-skelter of what's going on.
I don't think you've ever seen so oops.
I mean, Trump, the President of the United States, said that Israel, again, a putative ally, this government, a putative ally of the United States, could spoil a major endeavor of the Trump administration.
Now, as to the level of objection, you know, if Trump stamps his foot and says, you know, Bibi, we're out.
We're cutting supplies.
I'm not going to take your calls.
That's one thing.
If he gives a circumspect answer, that's another thing.
But yeah, I think it looks like Netanyahu is considering this.
And look, I think it's always very useful to invert.
If you were Netanyahu and you had Netanyahu's priors, what exactly is the case for not doing this?
He's gambled for his entire career.
He is about the furtherance of his power.
I think that's pretty clear.
And the status quo is not super attractive to him.
His coalition was near collapse this week.
Polling came out this week in Israel that showed his arch-rival Naftali Bennett would win 65-plus seats in the Knesset if the election was held today.
He needs this war.
And even if the U.S. weren't to back it, he could take his odds.
He could take his chances with a stab in the back myth that he could try to sell his own population.
I know this sounds like wild, almost science fiction stuff.
But again, the Trump presidency is science fiction stuff.
And we have seen fast emerging changes even in the last 60 days since the U.S. opened negotiations with the Iranians in early April.
All right, so let's take that on face value then.
And, you know, one of the reasons why Trump has interested me since 2016 is because exactly what you just said, that he does things that were inconceivable in our foreign policy for decades and would be inconceivable certainly under a Joe Biden administration, Kamala Harris administration, sort of a Jeb Bush-type administration, right?
So, like, the ceiling was always much higher to me, even though the floor was kind of lower.
And I thought that kind of circuit break, as Seymour Hersh described it, was something we needed, and I think we're seeing that here.
Nonetheless, you tell me if I'm wrong, but having watched Donald Trump for a long time and having him refuse to give the sort of sacred deference to the U.S.-Israeli relationship that other presidents have just almost reflexively given, at least publicly, if— What you're saying is true.
Donald Trump's being very transparent, and his view is, I want this deal done, and I don't want Israel spoiling it, why would he just kind of say, it's up to you, BB, but I'd prefer that you not do it, as opposed to using the extremely significant, really existential leverage the United States has over Israel and saying, if you do this, don't expect any more weapons from us.
Don't expect any more cash transfers.
Don't expect any more diplomatic cover or intelligence that we provide, and definitely don't expect our military to protect you when Iran retaliates.
Why would...
He could easily prevent Netanyahu from doing it, assuming Netanyahu isn't completely insane at this point.
So why do you find that plausible?
Look, I think the situation is actually fairly legible.
So first of all, we can't rule out I think it's pretty clear, and we talked about this on the previous appearance on your program, that Trump has changed.
Trump has taken over.
Trump is ruler of the Republican Party, and he has become a revolutionary figure in American life, but also perhaps even more searingly in the GOP itself.
However, he has not entirely extirpated or cleansed the ranks of the old bush guard.
Anyone who wants to work with him and anyone who particularly wants to support his campaign, he's kept.
And so I would say, case in point, the sort of Fox News empresario Mark Levin, who is, I think, influential.
But also cartoonish, his persona on X, you know, all caps, et cetera, et cetera, is case in point.
This is somebody who was a never-Trumper in the spring of 2016.
This is somebody whose politics are not the kind of conservative, anti-globalist, anti-war politics of Donald Trump.
He's like a standard neocon.
He's a standard Israel-loyal neocon, you could say.
As classic and standard as it gets.
Yes, but he did not found the bulwark, right?
He is not Bill Kristol.
He has not left the ranks.
So where is he at?
You know, major donors have supported Trump in 2016, 2020, and 2024.
They like someone like Mark Levin.
Trump probably gets on with him personally.
He likes his show.
Easy interview, probably.
He's not going to ask a ton of tough questions unless it really pertains to Israel, let's say.
And so someone like Levin gets a lunch at the White House, as he did this week.
And he is pushing all kinds of stuff that, for instance, openly flouts the consensus established by Trump's own DNI, Tulsi Gabbard.
And that matters.
And that throws things into motion.
And Levin has contacts pretty clearly in Jerusalem, and he's in the mix.
And you can say this is not the ideal way to conduct the presidency, but I would – So it is what it is.
These people have a seat at the table.
They can play spoiler.
And it is an hour-by-hour, hard-fought thing.
Let me ask you something that really captured my attention this week.
And maybe I'm reading too much into it, but in connection with the Mark Levin stuff, and what you can imagine is a hard-scale, hardcore sell to Trump being made on the part of the people, the sort of Tom Cottons and Lindsey Grahams, and to say nothing of the Israelis themselves who want this war.
You know, one of the things that I found encouraging was, you know, Steve Whitcoff in particular, who's handling the negotiations, has been saying pretty much from the start.
He said explicitly at one point, Yeah, of course, any agreement that we reach would, of course, allow the Iranians to enrich uranium because that would be necessary for their nuclear energy program that everyone accepts they have a right to have.
And the Iranians, everybody knows, would never give up the right to enrich for nuclear energy.
And that was the kind of strategy of the Tom Cottons and Lindsey Grahams.
And even Netanyahu would say, oh, yeah, we agree with President Trump.
We also want an agreement, but it has to have these conditions, no enrichment, the dismantling of the nuclear program.
And when Trump was asked on Air Force One about why he became more pessimistic about these negotiations, he said, look, the Iranians can't enrich.
They can't have enrichment.
And they're insisting on enrichment, and it seems like something changed with them.
I don't know quite what it is.
Now, you know, Trump is not always very precise in how he expresses himself.
He could mean they want to enrich at a higher percentage than the U.S. thinks is acceptable.
But the way he said it was, the Iranians can't enrich at all.
And that, to me, sounds like the sort of thing that he might be convinced to believe by these kinds of outside forces.
Do you think that has been a change in Trump's posture?
The agreement has to be the Iranians can enrich, and so when he hears that the Iranians are insisting on enrichment, that to him is a sort of recalcitrance or a kind of stubbornness on the part of Iran to get a deal?
Yes, although I would say the messaging from the White House and then per all the reporting about the draft proposals from the U.S. have been extremely inconsistent on this.
The negotiations opened up.
With one goal, no nuclear weapon.
And the Iranians themselves said they were game for that.
No nuke.
They have a deal.
This is the open signaling from Irachi, the foreign minister from Iran.
Then the Israel hawks, the neocons, have been slipping in this zero enrichment line.
Now, I should quickly say there is this caveat, this potential civil nuclear corridor with Saudi, UAE, etc., which would create a zero Iranian only enrichment zone.
But in general, zero enrichment has been the clarion call of the hawks that Trump and Wyckoff have used.
I think it's important, though, to circle back to the last 24 hours.
Trump, in the last few hours, issued a truth.
And he said the following two things.
And I think it's very important amidst everything that's going on right now.
He said, number one, the administration needs to fall in line around negotiations.
Everybody in the administration.
I mean, it appeared to be a closed ranks order.
And then number two, he said, reiterating comments earlier today, the goal is no Iranian nuclear weapon.
Nothing about zero enrichment.
And this is the clear dovetail on earlier weeks' negotiations, earlier weeks' jaw-jawing, where they would say zero enrichment, and then the reports would come that they were open to some low level of enrichment.
So I think you can't rule out.
Let me ask you about this possibility that obviously there is an attempt by a lot of people to convey that the Israelis are about to attack, and the U.S. government has taken steps that would suggest that it gives credence to those reports by removing personnel and the like, etc.
And that's one of the reasons why we're talking about this tonight is because there's a lot of people who believe, and rightfully so, that things have gotten worse or more acute in terms of the war risk between Israel and Iran.
Do you think there's any scenario in which Trump sort of gives the go-ahead for an extremely limited Israeli strike on Iran, where it's kind of symbolic, it's very restrained, it's obviously not intended to be a full-scale attack on the Iranian nuclear infrastructure?
Just kind of a reminder to Iran that this is a very real possibility of something that could happen.
Is that a possibility that you envision?
I think it's possible.
I think based on the public statements we've had today, again, to repeat myself, the language, the Israelis speak.
It sounds like he's very disinclined towards this.
So it's possible he could signal, for reasons we discussed, his coalition, maybe his donors, that he could signal agnosticism to Jerusalem, to Netanyahu.
And that's one thing.
And maybe he could say, hmm, you know, at this point, this attack has been telegraphed for 24 hours.
I mean, like, what kind of attack if you really wanted to have punch, if you really wanted to take out the Aurani?
I mean, it lays bare.
What a crock, honestly, the plan to get rid of the Iranian nuclear program with just strikes really is.
Who would choreograph and telegraph it so far ahead?
But that's besides the point.
I think it's possible that that occurs, but I think the idea that there would be White House assent, I don't think it's there.
And you've seen clear lobbying within MAGA world against this, and I think people are very disinclined.
I think it's a gamble.
We don't know in that scenario how the Iranians would react.
The Iranian political system is intricate and complex.
And if it instantly empowers the hardliners, that could be it for the negotiations.
But again, overnight, yesterday, parts of the Israeli press were gleefully reporting that the Omani talks for this weekend would be canceled.
And then sure enough, the Omani government signaled immediately.
As soon as sunrise, that the talks were still on.
So I think the extreme scenarios of this scenario were closed pretty quickly when the story first broke.
Just a couple more questions.
I mentioned that the American Conservative was the first magazine for which I wrote.
When I began my journalism career, it surprised a lot of people because at the time, my press So there was a perception that I was very much a leftist.
And then suddenly I began writing articles in the American Conservative.
And that was something that I began to understand for the first time before that, just kind of paying moderate attention to politics with that there's this strain on the right.
The kind of anti-interventionist, anti-neocon right that Pat Buchanan represented, one of the founders of the American Conservative at the time, Scott McConnell, was the editor.
And that's why I found common ground there.
And I think if you go back and look, Pat Buchanan was probably one of the most prescient.
Insightful voices against the war in Iraq and the reasons why it was happening, the faction most responsible for it.
He hated the neocons.
But back then, the American conservative in that kind of strain was very much a fringe and lonely voice within the American right.
Fast forward kind of 20 years later.
And you're seeing, I don't just mean cursor opposition, I mean like very impassioned opposition, sustained, enduring, passionate opposition to any possibility of a U.S. role in an attack on Iran in a way that I think 20 years ago would have been inconceivable.
I know you were on Steve Bannon's show with Marjorie Taylor Greene, who— She's really kind of letting loose about her anger that the United States seems to constantly be involved in wars that don't interest or promote the interests of her constituents, but rather Israel.
But you also have people like Charlie Kirk and even Mount Walsh and a bunch of other people like that who are an important part of Trump's political base that aren't just saying, yeah, this doesn't seem like a good idea, but are vehemently opposed.
Obviously, Tucker Carlson and She still carries weight within that faction as well.
First of all, I assume you agree that that has been a significant change in the politics of the American right.
What do you think explains that?
Yeah, I mean, look, for TAC, for the American Conservative, the reality is, fortunately for the magazine, but unfortunately for the country, we were right.
These wars were a disaster.
The conservative globalism of George W. Bush.
Was a fiasco.
And it just took 20 years for swathes of the Republican Party and the rest of the country to catch up.
And Trump himself, you know, I mean, very interestingly, you know, Trump himself, you mentioned the magazine was founded by Pat, co-founded by Pat, along with Scott McConnell and others.
You know, Trump himself, when he consolidated power in the Republican Party in the summer of 2016, when he won the primary, he actually called.
Pat Buchanan to apologize for the fight that they had had 16 years prior when they both had run for the Reform Party nomination for president.
Trump is not somebody who apologizes, you might have noticed.
And he went out of his way to apologize to Buchanan because he realized he had Effectively, either come to believe what Pat believed, more or less, or cribbed his platform or a mixture thereof.
And so this has been a long time coming.
In a lot of ways, what's weird about the Trump second term, obviously, number one, it's non-contiguous.
But number two, it has the energy, verb, consistency, and ideology of what a lot of people hoped for in the first term.
And so that's what you're seeing now.
And then additionally, you know, for my generation, you fly to a lot of people, Charlie, Kirk, Posobiec, et cetera, et cetera.
These are people, these are millennials.
And these are people that were teens when TAC was founded and myself included.
And we saw the rumination that the Bush administration wrought.
It is not...
The GOP old guard does not have purchase.
It's not charismatic.
I think it's the most dangerous faction in American politics.
Yeah, it is interesting.
In 2016, the way I always understood Trump, especially when Steve Bannon was architecting the campaign, was as kind of an obvious successor generationally to the worldview of Pat Buchanan, not just on foreign policy, obviously on trade as well, his very hard line on immigration that Pat Buchanan had.
It just was obvious that there was this strain bubbling over, and then you saw it.
I think, too, in the success, the surprising success of Ron Paul's presidential run in 2008, 2012, tapping into a way bigger faction in Republican politics that people understood was there.
And it kind of took someone like Trump with that level of charisma and name recognition to really take it and make it mainstream.
And that, to me, has been the story of the emergence of Donald Trump.
I hope you're right on everything that, on the kind of optimism that you have, especially deciphering these signals of the last 24 hours.
I do agree it is Trump getting back to the messaging that he has had for months with respect to Iran.
And I think we'll see over the next 24 hours.
You said, you know, it's going to be morning in Tehran shortly.
There's some fear that even in the next 12 hours, the next 36 hours, that could see an Israeli strike.
So we'll see how all of that.
Plays out, but I'm definitely rooting for you to be prescient in all the analysis you brought tonight, and I appreciate your taking the time to talk to us.
