The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 1923 - Did Israel Drag Us Into War With Iran?
Aired: 2026-03-03
Duration: 51:21


=== Hiding the Ball (13:10) ===

[00:00:00]  Folks, have you ever seen my show Barfight?
[00:00:02]  A duke it out, usually with two libs at John Rich's Redneck Riviera in Nashville live in front of a big audience.
[00:00:09]  Well, this week, we're going to make the show 100% live, including live to you, the online audience.
[00:00:15]  No delay, no censor button, no panic producer waving his arms in the corner.
[00:00:19]  We're going live from Broadway in Nashville for a special War in Iran episode with anti-Trump liberal guest Luke Beasley and anti-war right-winger Alex Stein.
[00:00:30]  Watch Barfight with me, Michael Knowles, 9 p.m. Eastern exclusively on Daily Wire Plus.
[00:00:37]  Did Marco Rubio just admit that Israel dragged us into war with Iran?
[00:00:43]  The second question that been asked is, why now?
[00:00:45]  Well, there's two reasons why now.
[00:00:47]  The first is it was abundantly clear that if Iran came under attack by anyone, the United States or Israel or anyone, they were going to respond and respond against the United States.
[00:00:56]  The orders had been delegated down to the field commanders.
[00:01:00]  It was automatic and in fact it bare to be true because in fact within an hour of the initial attack on the leadership compound, the missile forces in the South and in the North for that matter had already been activated to launch.
[00:01:14]  In fact, those had already been pre-positioned.
[00:01:17]  The third is the assessment that was made that if we stood and waited for that attack to come first before we hit them, we would suffer much higher casualties.
[00:01:26]  And so the president made the very wise decision.
[00:01:29]  We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action.
[00:01:31]  We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces.
[00:01:34]  And we knew that if we didn't preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties and perhaps even higher those killed.
[00:01:43]  And then we would all be here answering questions about why we knew that and didn't act.
[00:01:46]  There you have it.
[00:01:47]  Israel forced our hand.
[00:01:49]  Trump had no choice.
[00:01:51]  And this has all been a game of catch-up since Bibi Netanyahu laid down the law.
[00:01:55]  That's what Rubio said, right?
[00:01:58]  Well, not so fast.
[00:02:01]  I'm Michael Knowles.
[00:02:02]  the Michael Knowles Show.
[00:02:21]  Welcome back to the show.
[00:02:23]  In non-Iran related news, the Clintons were just deposed by the House Oversights Committee in Chappaqua.
[00:02:30]  So this was under oath.
[00:02:32]  And Bill Clinton seemed somewhat interested in the truth.
[00:02:38]  He seemed to be giving truthful answers, including about President Trump's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.
[00:02:43]  But even more than that, he seemed to be interested in those old pictures of him with the girls in the jacuzzis.
[00:02:50]  He really, he lingered over those pictures.
[00:02:52]  A little smile on old Bubba's face.
[00:02:54]  We'll get to that in a moment first.
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[00:04:17]  Rubio seems to lay it out, doesn't he?
[00:04:19]  This video is going viral all over social media.
[00:04:22]  Rubio says, look, the reason we struck, the reason we launched a preemptive attack is because we had very firm intelligence that Iran was going to attack us, our interests and our bases around the Middle East.
[00:04:36]  And the reason Iran was going to attack us, the way that we know that that is the case, is because Israel was going to attack Iran.
[00:04:43]  And Israel was going to attack Iran whether we wanted them to or not.
[00:04:48]  And Iran, we had the plans.
[00:04:49]  We had the orders from the commanders.
[00:04:51]  Iran was going to punish us for what Israel did, even though we had no control over what Israel was going to do.
[00:04:57]  So in order to stave off the attack from Iran in response to the attack from Israel, we had to launch an attack on Iran.
[00:05:04]  So the conclusion is Israel dragged us into war with Iran, right?
[00:05:09]  That's the conclusion that people are drawing from the clip, and it's a totally understandable reaction.
[00:05:14]  However, that little clip misses a lot of other context that Mark Orubio himself actually gives.
[00:05:22]  Here's the full context from Rubio.
[00:05:24]  The U.S. was forced to strike because of an impending Israeli action.
[00:05:28]  No, first of all, I mean, two things I would say.
[00:05:29]  Number one is no matter what, ultimately this operation needed to happen.
[00:05:32]  That's the question of why now.
[00:05:34]  But this operation needed to happen because Iran in about a year or a year and a half would cross the line of immunity, meaning they would have so many short-range missiles, so many drones that no one could do anything about it because they could hold the whole world hostage.
[00:05:46]  Look at the damage they're doing now.
[00:05:48]  And this is a weekend, Iran.
[00:05:50]  Imagine a year from now.
[00:05:51]  So that had to happen.
[00:05:52]  Obviously, we were aware of Israeli intentions and understood what that would mean for us.
[00:05:56]  and we had to be prepared to act as a result of it.
[00:05:58]  But this had to happen no matter what.
[00:06:00]  Very important context here, because if you only saw the first clip, you would say, I don't know, you would interpret it as Rubio saying, look, guys, we didn't want to go to war with Iran.
[00:06:10]  We didn't want to strike them, but these Israelis made us do it.
[00:06:15]  And we had no option because we were going to get blamed for their attack.
[00:06:18]  So we had to do it, but we didn't want to.
[00:06:19]  They made us do it.
[00:06:21]  But then Rubio in the very same press conference makes clear that is not what he means.
[00:06:27]  He says, no, no, we were going to do this eventually.
[00:06:30]  We were going to do this sometime over the course of the next year.
[00:06:33]  Iran was already getting much stronger.
[00:06:36]  They were going to have crossed the threshold of immunity, meaning they would have been immune to our attacks in the future.
[00:06:42]  Now, some people are hearing this and they're saying, well, hold on, hold on, hold on.
[00:06:46]  Last summer, you guys said that you completely destroyed Iran's nuclear program.
[00:06:51]  So how can you tell me that they would be close to the threshold of immunity six months later?
[00:06:57]  That doesn't make any sense.
[00:06:58]  Either you were lying then or you're lying now.
[00:07:00]  But that's not what Rubio said.
[00:07:02]  You have to pay attention to exactly what the administration is saying.
[00:07:05]  They are giving you answers.
[00:07:07]  They are making a coherent argument.
[00:07:09]  Some people don't want to hear it, though.
[00:07:11]  He said that the advancements in their missile systems would have been too great a year or a year and a half from now.
[00:07:19]  And that would have given them immunity.
[00:07:21]  Not the advancement in their nuclear program, the advancement in their regular conventional missile systems.
[00:07:26]  The regular and conventional missile systems, which of course exist in no small part to protect the nuclear program that they had already made clear they planned to develop again.
[00:07:36]  This is not, you know, reading between the lines like Saddam Hussein 20 years ago.
[00:07:42]  The Iranians were not exactly holding the ball or hiding the ball rather on their nuclear intentions.
[00:07:48]  They have been consistent for decades that they want a nuclear weapon.
[00:07:53]  Or rather, that they want a nuclear program that they insist will only be used for civilian use.
[00:07:58]  And there, I think, we can read at least a little tiny bit between the lines and understand that they clearly want a nuclear weapon.
[00:08:05]  So that was the issue.
[00:08:06]  Rubio says, no, no, no, no, we were always going to do this at some point.
[00:08:10]  However, the fact that the Israelis were going to go in means that this was the time to do it.
[00:08:16]  Now, a couple of ways to read this.
[00:08:18]  You could either read this just on its face and say, okay, yeah, I guess the Israelis were going to do it.
[00:08:24]  And that kind of forced our hand.
[00:08:25]  We were probably going to do it anyway, but that's why we did it right now.
[00:08:30]  Or you can maybe read a little more political cover in this.
[00:08:35]  Because I think the way that a lot of people are interpreting this statement, they think that Netanyahu called up and said, hey, buddy, Abibi Trump, listen, bro.
[00:08:44]  We're going in tomorrow.
[00:08:45]  So you can do what you want, but you're going to get punished for what we do.
[00:08:49]  But we're doing it tomorrow.
[00:08:50]  Sorry, peace.
[00:08:53]  I don't think that's really what happened here.
[00:08:56]  And the reason I don't think that's what happened is we have been gradually but severely building up our military assets outside of Iran for two months now.
[00:09:08]  So the notion that, you know, Israel gave us the heads up and said, hey, look, we're going in.
[00:09:13]  Do what you want.
[00:09:14]  Do what you want.
[00:09:14]  You're going to get punished for what we're doing.
[00:09:15]  But do what you want, but we're going in on Saturday.
[00:09:18]  It obviously wasn't just that, because that wouldn't explain the massive and gradual military buildup in the Gulf for the past two months.
[00:09:29]  Now, one explanation for this is that it flies a little bit of political cover for the administration.
[00:09:35]  We'll get to more on that in a second.
[00:09:38]  However, clearly this was the intention of the administration.
[00:09:42]  And there are a lot of people out there, including Trump supporters, especially the online class, you know, the podcaster class of Trump supporters who say, this is ridiculous.
[00:09:50]  We were told no new wars.
[00:09:52]  We certainly wouldn't go to war with Iran.
[00:09:54]  This is a complete betrayal by President Trump and by the whole administration of MAGA and America First.
[00:10:02]  If we had known that America was going to go to war with Iran, we never would have voted for them, especially if we had known that we weren't even going to choose to go to war.
[00:10:12]  We were going to get going to get dragged into war by Israel.
[00:10:14]  We were going to have to back up one of their attacks.
[00:10:16]  Had we known that, we would not have voted for Trump.
[00:10:19]  He's a liar.
[00:10:19]  This is a betrayal.
[00:10:21]  Hold on.
[00:10:23]  Hold on, hold on.
[00:10:25]  I'm not even going to focus on President Trump has been clear for 10 years that he's not going to let Iran get a nuclear weapon and that he's going to oppose Iran.
[00:10:32]  And he made it pretty clear he doesn't like that they kept trying to kill him.
[00:10:35]  But let's go even deeper into the administration.
[00:10:38]  What about the vice president?
[00:10:39]  People are accusing JD Vance of hypocrisy here, of lying, deception, hiding the ball.
[00:10:44]  Let me rewind to the vice presidential debate in October of 2024 when JD Vance was asked this exact question and he gave this excellent answer.
[00:10:57]  Now, you asked about a preemptive strike, Margaret, and I want to answer the question.
[00:11:00]  Look, it is up to Israel what they think they need to do to keep their country safe.
[00:11:05]  And we should support our allies wherever they are when they're fighting the bad guys.
[00:11:08]  I think that's the right approach to take with the Israel question.
[00:11:12]  Whether you agree with this, whether you don't agree with this, you cannot accuse the Trump administration of flip-flopping here.
[00:11:20]  You cannot accuse the Trump administration of hiding the ball or deceiving voters.
[00:11:25]  They promised to do exactly what they are doing now.
[00:11:30]  The thing that they have been very clearly telegraphing for the past two months with the military buildup in the Gulf.
[00:11:38]  Now, what about this kind of a strike?
[00:11:39]  Some people would say, okay, well, it's one thing to strike Iran, but it's another to launch this massive offensive that could destabilize the regime and topple the head of the regime.
[00:11:49]  And surely they were hiding the ball on that, right?
[00:11:53]  Right?
[00:11:53]  Let's go back to July of 2024 with the vice president.
[00:11:58]  The most important part, I think, of the Trump doctrine and foreign policy is you don't commit America's troops unless you really have to.
[00:12:05]  But when you do, you punch and you punch hard.
[00:12:07]  I think that's the way that you respect America's brave men and women who are serving.
[00:12:11]  Now, let me say something about when you say that, does that like, for example, how President Trump beat the Caliphate?
[00:12:17]  Overwhelming force and it was done pretty fast.
[00:12:19]  How President Trump beat the Caliphate, beat ISIS, which people said literally couldn't be done, and he did it in a matter of months.
[00:12:25]  But also Iran, Sean.
[00:12:27]  A lot of people recognize that we need to do something with Iran, but not these weak little bombing runs.
[00:12:32]  If you're going to punch the Iranians, you have to punch them hard, and that's what he did when he took out Salamani.
[00:12:36]  By the way, that action, people said that it would lead to broader war.
[00:12:40]  It actually brought peace.
[00:12:41]  It actually checked the Iranians and slowed them down a little bit.
[00:12:45]  We'll get into what is exactly happening right now.
[00:12:48]  We'll get into the calculation, whether it was a wise move to do this, to do it now, to do.
[00:12:53]  I just want to clear the air, though, for a moment, because there's so much confusion among the right-wing chattering pundit class.
[00:13:01]  If you are surprised by President Trump's actions, by the administration's actions in Iran, that's on you.

=== My Saudi Arabian Accent Needs Work (08:49) ===

[00:13:10]  You were not paying attention.
[00:13:12]  They told you they were going to do this repeatedly in great detail.
[00:13:17]  And then they telegraphed the buildup for the past two months in the Gulf.
[00:13:20]  So it's one thing to say, well, I just hoped they wouldn't do it.
[00:13:25]  I hope they were just kidding.
[00:13:27]  I thought that was a bad idea.
[00:13:28]  Okay.
[00:13:29]  But please do not accuse this administration of hypocrisy, of contradicting itself, of flip-flopping, of being led around by a collar or something.
[00:13:40]  They were totally clear.
[00:13:42]  This is what they campaigned on.
[00:13:44]  And if you voted for them and you didn't have cotton in your ears, this is what you voted for.
[00:13:48]  Now, what we could still wonder is, was this action in Iran?
[00:13:55]  Iran, do we say it?
[00:13:57]  Iran is how I grew up saying it, but then Barack Obama made us have to get all cosmopolitan.
[00:14:02]  So Iran, whatever you want to call it.
[00:14:05]  Pretty soon we'll be calling it Persia again.
[00:14:08]  Was this just about the U.S. and Israel?
[00:14:12]  First question, was this just about Israel?
[00:14:14]  Second question, was this just about the U.S. and Israel?
[00:14:17]  Actually, there seemed to be more interests at stake even beyond those two countries.
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[00:15:46]  One of the questions that comes up, especially in our dealings with Israel, which, you know, as I've pointed out, it's a troublesome province.
[00:15:55]  It's been a troublesome province since the Roman Empire.
[00:15:58]  You know, a lot of controversies and things pop off there.
[00:16:01]  It's something about that part of the world.
[00:16:03]  But you say, okay, well, is it only about the Americans and the Israelis?
[00:16:09]  Is this an issue of the Christians and the Jews versus the whole Muslim world?
[00:16:14]  I don't quite think so.
[00:16:16]  Here is the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, talking to 60 Minutes about the Ayatollah of Iran.
[00:16:25]  You've been rivals for centuries.
[00:16:27]  At its heart, what is this rift about?
[00:16:29]  Is it a battle for Islam?
[00:16:33]  Iran is not a rival to Saudi Arabia.
[00:16:36]  Its army is not among the top five armies in the Muslim world.
[00:16:39]  The Saudi economy is larger than the Iranian economy.
[00:16:42]  Iran is far from being equal to Saudi Arabia.
[00:16:46]  But I've seen that you called the Ayatollah, Khameni, the new Hitler of the Middle East.
[00:16:52]  Absolutely.
[00:16:53]  Why?
[00:16:55]  Because he wants to expand.
[00:16:57]  He wants to create his own project in the Middle East, very much like Hitler, who wanted to expand at the time.
[00:17:03]  Many countries around the world and in Europe did not realize how dangerous Hitler was until what happened happened.
[00:17:09]  I don't want to see the same events happening in the Middle East.
[00:17:12]  Does Saudi Arabia need nuclear weapons to counter Iran?
[00:17:17]  Saudi Arabia does not want to acquire any nuclear bomb.
[00:17:20]  But without a doubt, if Iran developed a nuclear bomb, we will follow suit as soon as possible.
[00:17:27]  So, you know, look, it is very simple.
[00:17:29]  Iran sucks, is totally terrible.
[00:17:31]  We hate them.
[00:17:32]  We've been enemies for a long time.
[00:17:34]  They are weak and they are poor and we hate their guts.
[00:17:36]  Also, the leader of Iran is Hitler.
[00:17:39]  He is Hitler.
[00:17:39]  He wants to expand.
[00:17:40]  He is a threat to the entire region and maybe to the whole world.
[00:17:44]  And by the way, if he gets what he says that he wants, we're going to have nuclear proliferation throughout the entire region.
[00:17:51]  But, you know, do whatever you want, America.
[00:17:53]  It is not.
[00:17:53]  It's totally up to you.
[00:17:54]  You do whatever you want.
[00:17:56]  I'm just telling you, this guy, he is Hitler, and we will get a nuclear weapon.
[00:18:01]  If he gets a nuclear weapon, and the whole world will go up in smoke, but do whatever you want.
[00:18:07]  Oh, by the way, he's also really weak and you could totally take him out really easy, you know, but like do whatever you want.
[00:18:12]  I don't know.
[00:18:13]  My Saudi, my Arabian accent needs a little bit of work.
[00:18:17]  But we see the point here.
[00:18:19]  Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudis, obviously were in favor of this action in Iran.
[00:18:26]  And so, regardless of whatever you think of this action, we cannot reduce it to some nonsense that you're seeing floating all around social media, that this was haphazard.
[00:18:41]  You know, this was shooting from the hip.
[00:18:43]  This wasn't shooting from the hip.
[00:18:44]  President Trump has been planning this for years.
[00:18:47]  This wasn't just the tail wagging the dog.
[00:18:51]  Sometimes Israel does have too much influence in our foreign policy.
[00:18:54]  But here, it's reductive to say this is just the Israelis who wanted this and we got dragged kicking and screaming.
[00:19:01]  You have another key American ally, the Saudis, who were clearly pushing for this.
[00:19:06]  You now have other Gulf states involved, and you have Trump pushing for it for a long time.
[00:19:12]  Whether or not you agree with the strike on Iran, this was an example of brand strategy.
[00:19:18]  And this is the point of my show yesterday.
[00:19:19]  I broke out that clip and it started to go a little bit viral because I don't know.
[00:19:24]  People just don't want to give Trump the credit.
[00:19:26]  And to me, it's so obvious.
[00:19:28]  If in the first term, one of your crowning achievements is the Abraham Accords, which bring about a little bit of a detente between some of the Arab Muslim states in the Gulf and Israel, which is widely viewed in the Middle East as an outgrowth of the American empire, and they generally have not gotten along very well.
[00:19:48]  If you can bring them together in opposition to Iran, and then you reify that more abstract coalition with missiles now that Iran miscalculated and started firing on the Gulf states, including Kuwait, including Saudi Arabia, including Oman.
[00:20:05]  So you get the Gulf states really practically in a kind of military alliance with Israel and the United States to oppose Iran, you are reshaping the world order.
[00:20:14]  No coincidence that hours after the attacks on Iran, Russia picks up the phone.
[00:20:21]  Russia says, you know what?
[00:20:22]  We're not going to defend our client state in Iran.
[00:20:25]  We're not going to defend them, whatever.
[00:20:26]  And they even make some jokes about it.
[00:20:28]  According to some reports, they say, well, look, in Israel, a lot of people speak Russian.
[00:20:32]  Okay, we're not going to get involved.
[00:20:33]  We don't want to go again.
[00:20:34]  Don't worry about it.
[00:20:35]  We're going to hang the Ayatoll out to dry.
[00:20:37]  And by the way, those security guarantees you wanted in Ukraine, okay, you got them.
[00:20:42]  Just back off, okay?
[00:20:45]  China, obviously on the back foot, because the United States has just taken control of almost 20% of oil that goes to China from Venezuela and Iran.
[00:20:54]  All of a sudden, you are seeing a reshifting of the world order in a way that, at least in theory, President Trump believes will benefit America.
[00:21:03]  It will achieve his grand strategic objective, which he has not been deceptive about.
[00:21:09]  He hasn't been shy about.
[00:21:10]  It is to make America great again.
[00:21:12]  That's clearly the theory.
[00:21:14]  There is plenty of room for skepticism of this particular strike, but what there's not really room for is ignorance or deception or self-deception or fooling yourself that this was an accident or just a fumble.
[00:21:29]  This has been the plan for a very, very long time.
[00:21:33]  Trump has been clear about it.
[00:21:35]  I said yesterday, putting all my cards on the table, I said, had I been on the National Security Council, no one invited me, but had I been on the National Security Council with only the information that was public, I'm not privy to classified information.
[00:21:49]  We're starting to get some information that the government apparently had with regard to orders from commanders about how and attacks from Israel and this and that.

=== Defensive Operation Debate (15:20) ===

[00:22:00]  So the picture is starting to get clearer.
[00:22:01]  But I said, if I only had the publicly available information on Friday, I would have advocated strenuously against an attack on Iran because I would have done the calculation.
[00:22:16]  I would have said, I don't think that the costs are worth the potential benefits.
[00:22:21]  I don't think the risk calculation pans out.
[00:22:24]  As we begin to learn more information about these unknowns, the efficiency with which we could conduct such a war, that's information that really the government is privy to, not so much the public.
[00:22:34]  And as we learn more about the timeline and threats posed by Iran, then that calculation could change.
[00:22:39]  But the key here is that is a calculation from within, not the isolationist, which is even in itself a term of derision, not from the isolationist box of foreign policy, not from the hawk, neocon, bomb every country in the world to spread abstract ideals form of foreign policy.
[00:22:59]  It's that middle box, the one that says we're going to pursue our interests in a pragmatic and prudent way.
[00:23:05]  We're going to make sure that we pursue material interests and we're going to take serious calculation of balances of power around the world.
[00:23:13]  It's a little more realistic.
[00:23:15]  It's a little more classical.
[00:23:16]  That's what's going on.
[00:23:17]  And reasonable minds could disagree, especially when people have different levels of information about whether or not the strike is a good idea or not.
[00:23:26]  But in terms of the end strategy, I don't think there's much room for disagreement.
[00:23:32]  Okay.
[00:23:33]  Two other comments are going viral on this.
[00:23:36]  One from Democrat Senator Mark Warner, the other from House Speaker Mike Johnson, that are leading some people to think this was a big bungle or we got bullied into this or the administration is compromised or not thinking.
[00:23:49]  And we'll get into those comments in just a moment.
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[00:25:06]  Mark Warner, Democrat senator, has this to say about the operation.
[00:25:13]  Said before, I've say now, there was no imminent threat to the United States of America by the Iranians.
[00:25:27]  There was a threat to Israel.
[00:25:32]  If we equate a threat to Israel as the equivalent of an imminent threat to the United States, then we are in uncharted territory.
[00:25:42]  Israel is a great ally of America.
[00:25:46]  I stand firmly with Israel.
[00:25:50]  But I believe at the end of the day, when we are talking about putting American soldiers in harm's way, when we have American casualties and expectations of more, there needs to be the proof of an imminent threat to American interest.
[00:26:11]  This guy is such a slick politician, such a slick politician.
[00:26:15]  Because what he says, if you're not paying close attention, it seems kind of persuasive.
[00:26:20]  And yet let's examine all the points that he just brought up.
[00:26:23]  He says there was no imminent threat to America.
[00:26:25]  So he's contradicting Rubio here.
[00:26:28]  And more to the point, he's contradicting the reality that already unfolded.
[00:26:34]  Because Rubio's argument is not that Iran was going to attack us just out of the blue.
[00:26:39]  Rubio's argument was Israel is going to attack whether we want to or not, and Iran is going to punish us for Israel's attack, even if we're not involved in Israel's attack, because Iran makes no distinction between Israel and the United States and views Israel as an American colony, part of the American empire.
[00:26:57]  Now, we know that immediately upon the attack from Israel, we know that the Iranians hit American interests.
[00:27:07]  So right off the bat, what Warner is saying is not true.
[00:27:10]  He's using slippery language, but it's not true.
[00:27:12]  Yeah, I guess they didn't hit Detroit, but they did hit American interests.
[00:27:16]  We have interests all over the world.
[00:27:17]  We're the global empire.
[00:27:19]  Next up, he says, look, there was a threat to Israel, but there was no threat to America.
[00:27:26]  Okay, there was a threat to Israel, and we should not conflate Israeli and American interests as if they're identical.
[00:27:32]  That I totally agree with.
[00:27:33]  I think every reasonable person, other than the hawkiest, most neoconnie warhawks in the world would agree with that.
[00:27:41]  But is that what's going on here?
[00:27:44]  No, we're just talking about the threat to Americans was in Kuwait.
[00:27:48]  The threat to Americans was in all of our bases, all of our personnel, all of our interests around the Gulf.
[00:27:54]  That's what Iran hit.
[00:27:56]  They also hit Israel, but those are two different things.
[00:28:00]  And then he goes, so he says, basically, you know, Israel dragged us into war.
[00:28:04]  These guys, you know, they've hypnotized the Trump administration.
[00:28:07]  They have dragged us into war.
[00:28:08]  Trump has no agency.
[00:28:10]  It's all Netanyahu dragging him around by a dog collar.
[00:28:12]  But look, I totally stand by our great ally, Israel.
[00:28:16]  Oh, Israel is such a great ally.
[00:28:18]  And this gives away the game with what Warner's doing here.
[00:28:21]  Because on the one hand, he says, these tricky Jews are dragging us around and they're killing our boys and they're, you know, they're just recklessly putting us into danger, but they're also a great ally.
[00:28:34]  Well, you got to pick one, buddy.
[00:28:36]  Hold on.
[00:28:36]  You've made just completely contradictory arguments.
[00:28:40]  Now, why?
[00:28:42]  Because what Warner is doing here, clearly, is not giving a sober assessment of the situation.
[00:28:48]  He's lying about what happened from the very get-go.
[00:28:51]  What he is doing, and it's very clever, is he is exploiting a fissure on the right.
[00:28:56]  He knows that the Israel issue, much as it is a fissure on the left, you have the kind of pro-Israel establishment Dems, and then you have the anti-Israel Democrat base marching around with Greta Thunberg in the Palestine kefir.
[00:29:08]  Much as you have that fissure on the left, you also have that fissure on the right.
[00:29:11]  Now, the debate on the right is a little bit more balanced and nuanced.
[00:29:16]  It's not all, you know, it's not all Greta Thunberg.
[00:29:18]  It's not all, you know, free, free, free Palestine from the river to the sea.
[00:29:21]  There's a little eccentricity to it, but it's traditionally been more of a sober debate over how much influence should Israel have on our foreign policy?
[00:29:29]  What are the benefits of the Israel alliance?
[00:29:31]  How much money should we give Israel if we give them any money at all?
[00:29:33]  You know, these are all totally open for debate.
[00:29:36]  That debate has gotten a lot hotter.
[00:29:37]  It's become a lot more radical.
[00:29:39]  And Warner is trying to exploit that while still carving out both sides of the issue.
[00:29:45]  Oh, yeah, that dirty, rotten, filthy Israel is just dragging us into war and trying to get all our boys killed, but they're a great ally.
[00:29:50]  We really love them.
[00:29:51]  They're a great ally.
[00:29:52]  We stand with them.
[00:29:52]  I stand with them.
[00:29:53]  I, Mark Warner, am the strongest supporter of Israel, the nefarious devil state that keeps dragging our boys into war.
[00:29:59]  I stand with Israel.
[00:30:00]  Hold on.
[00:30:01]  It's a little schizophrenic there, Mark, wouldn't you say?
[00:30:04]  So that's one of the statements going around.
[00:30:07]  It's well done from a purely cynical political perspective.
[00:30:12]  It's getting the job done.
[00:30:13]  You know, the various propagandists, both partisan domestically, but also around the world, are sending that clip around.
[00:30:20]  So he did a good job.
[00:30:22]  Not in conveying the truth, but he did a good job in advancing his political team.
[00:30:27]  Now, the second clip that's going around is House Speaker Mike Johnson describing why this operation in Iran was not, as it appears, I think, to most people, an offensive operation, but was in fact a defensive operation.
[00:30:41]  To me, the most critical point is that this was a defensive measure, a defensive operation.
[00:30:48]  And why is that?
[00:30:49]  I took some notes, and this is not classified, so I'll tell you what I think is important.
[00:30:54]  Israel was determined to act in their own defense here, with or without American support.
[00:31:00]  Why?
[00:31:01]  Because Israel faced what they deemed to be an existential threat.
[00:31:05]  Iran was building missiles at a radical and a rapid clip to the point where our allies in the region could not keep up.
[00:31:15]  As you know, Iran has long vowed to take out Israel, wipe it off the map, and they have long seen that as a critical threat to their very existence.
[00:31:27]  Because Israel was determined to act with or without the U.S., our commander-in-chief and the administration and the officials I just named had a very difficult decision to make.
[00:31:38]  They had to evaluate the threats to the U.S., to our troops, to our installations, to our assets in the region and beyond.
[00:31:47]  Okay, this is unlike what Werner was saying.
[00:31:50]  This is a pretty good argument, though it's counterintuitive for a lot of people.
[00:31:53]  Now, look, we launched the first bombs.
[00:31:58]  So doesn't that mean this was an offensive action rather than a defensive action?
[00:32:02]  Well, Rubio is providing some cover here.
[00:32:05]  And Rubio is saying, well, hold on.
[00:32:07]  We knew that Israel was going to strike.
[00:32:10]  And we knew with as much certainty as one can possibly know in war, we knew the orders had been given that we would be attacked as a result of that strike.
[00:32:19]  And we knew the strike was going to happen.
[00:32:21]  Therefore, our attacking Iran was a defensive measure, not an offensive measure.
[00:32:27]  Show me the flaw in that argument.
[00:32:30]  Unless you just don't believe Rubio, unless you don't believe the intelligence, which is okay, fair enough, but then we can't even have an argument.
[00:32:39]  We're not even beginning from the same epistemological bases.
[00:32:44]  Unless you just say, no, la, la, la, I don't believe you, there's no flaw in the argument.
[00:32:50]  So what Warner is doing is exploring a fissure on the right.
[00:32:53]  What Johnson is doing is observing a fact that gives the administration political cover here.
[00:32:58]  If this is an urgent, imminent, defensive action, it gives the admin a lot, a lot more cover, legal and political.
[00:33:06]  Totally right.
[00:33:07]  Okay, one last point before we get to Bill Clinton talking about sitting in the hot tub with girls and Jeffrey Epstein.
[00:33:12]  There's this question that's come about.
[00:33:14]  Is this a just war?
[00:33:18]  Is the strike on Iran, the ongoing strikes on Iran, are they an example of a just war?
[00:33:26]  And some people throw out the idea of international law.
[00:33:30]  Some people throw out the idea of the eusgensium.
[00:33:32]  Some people throw out the idea that there is any such thing as justice in war.
[00:33:36]  Some people are hardcore pacifists or peaceknicks or whatever.
[00:33:40]  Again, you know, I refer you, if you are tempted to be a pacifist on the grounds of Christianity, I strongly urge you to read, at the very least, C.S. Lewis's excellent 20th century essay about why he is not a pacifist, why Christians should not be pacifists.
[00:33:54]  But in any case, there's a long-standing tradition that going back to Cicero, going back to the pagans, but developed throughout the history of Christendom and maybe perfected by St. Thomas Aquinas, the common doctor and the angelic doctor, which says that some wars are justified, but they have to be justified on certain grounds.
[00:34:12]  And so just looking at this action here, we'll pull out a handful of the principles that go along with just war.
[00:34:19]  And we'll see if this qualifies.
[00:34:21]  It has to be the last resort.
[00:34:22]  Diplomatic negotiation has to be exhausted.
[00:34:26]  Now, we've been negotiating with Iran for a very long time.
[00:34:28]  And there are going to be people who tell you after 47 years of negotiations and recently after six months of negotiations following a massive bombing on the nuclear program, very intensive negotiations, and after many, many years of top-level American to Iranian negotiations, there will be people who look you in the face and tell you, we were this close to a deal.
[00:34:47]  We were, oh, if we only had a couple more weeks, we would have gotten a deal with the Iranians.
[00:34:51]  I think most people, though, looking at the history of the last 47 years, especially of the last six months, will tell you we, the United States, and especially Donald Trump, did everything that they could to negotiate and diplomacy failed.
[00:35:06]  The second qualification for a just war is it has to be waged by a legitimate authority.
[00:35:11]  I know some, you know, some libs still don't want to acknowledge that Trump won the election in 2016 and 2024, maybe 2020, but at least 2024.
[00:35:18]  But it's a legitimate authority.
[00:35:20]  The U.S. government is a legitimate authority.
[00:35:22]  President Trump is legitimately the president.
[00:35:24]  Number three, it has to redress an injury.
[00:35:27]  Iran has killed roughly a thousand of our soldiers over the past 47 years over the course of the regime.
[00:35:34]  This goes back to the 1980s, but you especially saw this.
[00:35:37]  Well, actually, it goes back to the very founding of the Islamic regime in Iran because the Islamic regime in Iran began by taking American hostages.
[00:35:45]  But then you had the Beirut Barracks bombings in the 80s.
[00:35:49]  You had hundreds of U.S. soldiers killed by Iran in the global war on terror.
[00:35:52]  And Iran was killing U.S. troops, three U.S. troops, just two years ago.
[00:35:56]  So this is ongoing.
[00:35:57]  Clearly, there's an injury to redress, to say nothing of the threat to the global order that the Iranian weapons program posed.
[00:36:04]  A reasonable chance of success.
[00:36:06]  Yeah, okay.
[00:36:07]  This one reasonable minds can differ on because they might say, well, the situation in Iran is going to spin out of control and it's going to wind up worse than it was when we started.
[00:36:14]  But I think looking at the United States military, the strongest military force ever in the history of the world, along with the amazing diplomatic breakthroughs of President Trump because of the Abraham Accords, because of his good relationships with the Gulf states, I think you'd have to say, at the very least, they have a reasonable chance of success.
[00:36:29]  The goal is to reestablish peace.
[00:36:31]  Obviously, that's the case.
[00:36:32]  President Trump is a business guy and he's a New Yorker business guy and he knows that blood is bad for business.
[00:36:38]  President Trump, I think, has demonstrated over both terms that he wants to reestablish peace.
[00:36:44]  Proportionality, that the goods to be achieved have to be reasonable to the risks that you're taking.
[00:36:52]  Again, reasonable minds can disagree on this.
[00:36:54]  I think there's a good case that it is.
[00:36:57]  And then finally, number seven, you have to discriminate between combatants and non-combatants, which the United States does.
[00:37:03]  And ironically, which Iran does not do because Iran had one foot in the international order, one foot outside of the international order, and Iran was the largest state sponsor of terror.
[00:37:11]  So a terrorism, which, of course, does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants, between soldiers and civilians, and which targets civilians to achieve political ends.

=== Proportionality And Beyond (09:42) ===

[00:37:20]  Seems to me, what am I?
[00:37:22]  I'm not an academic of any sort.
[00:37:25]  I'm not a moral philosopher.
[00:37:27]  I'm not a theologian.
[00:37:28]  However, just as a simple layman looking at the political situation, seems like there's a decent case for justice in this strike.
[00:37:36]  Okay, speaking of morality, I want to get to Bill Clinton deposed under oath.
[00:37:42]  Not that speaking under oath has always meant that much to Bill Clinton, but we will get his take on Epstein.
[00:37:48]  What was he doing in that hot tub with those little chickies?
[00:37:52]  What did President Trump know about Jeffrey Epstein?
[00:37:57]  What does Clinton know about Trump's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein?
[00:38:00]  We'll get to that momentarily.
[00:38:01]  First, though, my favorite comment yesterday from Pyro5263 says, breaking.
[00:38:07]  District judge overturns Khomeini's death.
[00:38:10]  That's true.
[00:38:10]  It's really, it's unfortunate, you know, and I'm sure it'll go up to the Supreme Court.
[00:38:15]  But yeah, according to the mainstream media, I'm sure there's an article about this somewhere.
[00:38:23]  A district court judge has brought Khamenei back to life, said Trump had no right to kill him.
[00:38:28]  So anyway, Bill Clinton deposed by the House Oversight Committee.
[00:38:33]  My favorite clip from the whole deposition, from the whole testimony.
[00:38:38]  President Trump, sorry, President Clinton answers the questions of these congressmen.
[00:38:44]  It was James Comer.
[00:38:45]  It was Nancy Mace, I think, Anna Paulina Luna.
[00:38:48]  And then he's sitting there looking at the pictures that they hand to him.
[00:38:52]  Some of these girls, Bubba in the hot tub, hanging out with Jeffrey.
[00:38:56]  And he just lingers like he's taking a trip down memory lane.
[00:39:00]  Do we have the clip?
[00:39:03]  Look at him.
[00:39:04]  Look at his, his mouth is open.
[00:39:06]  He's almost salivating.
[00:39:07]  The lawyer goes and takes the pictures and he grabs them back.
[00:39:11]  Hold on a second here.
[00:39:13]  Oh, there she is.
[00:39:16]  Look at him.
[00:39:17]  You couldn't make this up.
[00:39:18]  Eyebrows go up, smile on his face.
[00:39:20]  Oh, hey there.
[00:39:23]  That's right.
[00:39:25]  Mr. President, we have five minutes remaining in the majority's purse hour.
[00:39:30]  Five minutes.
[00:39:30]  I'm going to need a little bit longer with these pics.
[00:39:33]  Questions related to the crimes committed by Mr. Epstein and Miss Maddie.
[00:39:39]  Oh, sorry.
[00:39:39]  He's not looking at him.
[00:39:40]  Sorry, I can't.
[00:39:42]  My mind was on something.
[00:39:43]  Could you repeat the question, please?
[00:39:45]  Could you just some are wondering if Bill Clinton has lost a step?
[00:39:55]  You know, Bill Clinton, say what you will about Bill Clinton.
[00:39:57]  The guy is super duper smart, very intelligent guy, slick willy.
[00:40:02]  Manages to sneak out of an impeachment conviction by questioning the meaning of the word is.
[00:40:09]  You know, he's pretty, but I kind of see this more as the DGAF phase of Bill Clinton.
[00:40:17]  He's even jokes come up about this, like, why did Jeffrey Epstein say you liked young girls?
[00:40:23]  I've never had any interest in underage girls.
[00:40:25]  I didn't say underage, Mr. President.
[00:40:26]  I said young.
[00:40:28]  Well, yeah, not that either, you know.
[00:40:30]  He goes, is an intern young?
[00:40:32]  That was one of the questions.
[00:40:33]  And Clinton just goes, yes.
[00:40:35]  I guess you'd say that, wouldn't you?
[00:40:37]  He just, what are you going to do?
[00:40:39]  What are you going to do for Bill Clinton?
[00:40:41]  And by the way, because he's just laying it all out on the table, including salivating over these pictures from the good old days with Jeffrey, Bill Clinton has this to say about Trump's relationship with Epstein.
[00:40:55]  I hate this, but because I don't believe I should inject anything.
[00:40:59]  But I do not want to leave the impression.
[00:41:03]  But since there was no follow-up question, he never, the president never, this is 20-something years ago, never said anything to me to make me think he was involved in anything unprofitable with regard to Epstein either.
[00:41:21]  He just didn't.
[00:41:23]  That's the truth.
[00:41:24]  You know, as I said earlier, the only conversation I had with President Trump about this was in the early 2000s.
[00:41:38]  And I have no information that he did anything wrong.
[00:41:45]  I just want it all out there.
[00:41:46]  I want everybody to get it all out there and let everybody see where we are.
[00:41:51]  Look, I didn't.
[00:41:53]  I mean, look, I hate the guy and he's terrible and everything, but he just didn't.
[00:41:57]  He didn't do anything wrong.
[00:41:59]  What I love here is I guess some lived, some of the people who are still contending against all facts that there's a smoking gun about Trump in the Epstein files.
[00:42:08]  There obviously isn't.
[00:42:09]  If there had been, Biden would have used it.
[00:42:12]  They were trying to prosecute him four different ways.
[00:42:15]  They were trying to kick him off ballots.
[00:42:17]  They justified killing him.
[00:42:18]  I think they would have used it if they had a smoking gun from the Epstein files.
[00:42:21]  But Clinton here, I think this is DGAF Clinton.
[00:42:26]  He's not trying to hide, you know, turning his intern into a human humidor.
[00:42:30]  He's not trying to hide any of his past predilections and vices.
[00:42:34]  He's sitting there, you know, reminiscing, nostalgic over these old photos of Jeffrey.
[00:42:40]  And then comes out and goes, look, I'm just, I'll be real with you.
[00:42:42]  I don't, Trump didn't really do anything bad with Jeffrey.
[00:42:45]  I don't, look, I don't, we talked about it like one time, but he didn't.
[00:42:50]  Love it.
[00:42:51]  Dems destroyed.
[00:42:52]  Worth it.
[00:42:53]  It was worth it.
[00:42:54]  The whole deposition, just to get that line.
[00:42:57]  There are also some videos going around of Hillary Clinton just losing her mind and shrieking like a succubus from hell in the deposition.
[00:43:04]  Maybe we'll have time to get to that tomorrow.
[00:43:06]  We're running a little short on time.
[00:43:07]  And I do want to get to one last point, vindicating actually the administration and the conservative policies that we've seen over the last year, even as some people go a little weak in the need.
[00:43:19]  This has nothing to do with Iran.
[00:43:20]  This has nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein.
[00:43:22]  This is in Charlotte, North Carolina, where a driver has just gone viral for trying to run over a cop.
[00:43:32]  Crazy.
[00:43:33]  Look at that.
[00:43:34]  For those of you who are just listening right now, this is not even a light, light little tap.
[00:43:39]  You know, this is a guy accelerating, but it's not, it's not a huge car.
[00:43:42]  It's just a little sedan.
[00:43:44]  Thank God.
[00:43:44]  I think the cop is okay.
[00:43:45]  He rolls off the hood of the car.
[00:43:48]  But this is a reminder that for weeks, we were told, well, we were told conflicting stories.
[00:43:57]  We were told that the ICE officers executed a poor innocent protester in Minneapolis through the driver's side window.
[00:44:07]  And then when we saw that the bullet went through the windshield, we heard, okay, well, the ICE officer executed a poor protester just sitting in her car minding her own business.
[00:44:16]  Then when we saw the car was moving, we were told, well, no, they executed a poor protester for trying to flee a cop.
[00:44:22]  Again, don't try to flee a cop.
[00:44:24]  But then we actually got the video and we saw that the wheel was turned to face the cop.
[00:44:29]  So then we were told, well, the cop executed a poor protester because her wheel was briefly turned facing him.
[00:44:38]  And then we got the full story, which is she hit the cop with her SUV.
[00:44:43]  She hit the cop and he shot her.
[00:44:47]  And his shot was absolutely the correct thing to do.
[00:44:51]  The person entirely responsible for that woman's death was that woman.
[00:44:56]  And the cop was totally justified.
[00:44:59]  It's sad, but it was totally justified.
[00:45:02]  And now when we see other instances like this, I mean, thank God that cop is alive.
[00:45:06]  He didn't get totally run over by the car.
[00:45:08]  He easily could have been killed.
[00:45:11]  Part of, and the cop would have been totally justified to shoot that guy too.
[00:45:17]  Part of inflicting punishment is not just justice.
[00:45:21]  I mean, justice is part of it.
[00:45:23]  And, you know, I guess that is the most important part of inflicting punishment on somebody through our criminal justice system and through our law enforcement officers.
[00:45:32]  But another important part of inflicting punishment is establishing and reaffirming standards.
[00:45:42]  Part of what was so sad about that lady in Minnesota getting shot after hitting the cop with her SUV is that she didn't realize that was going to happen.
[00:45:50]  She didn't realize that was the consequence of her actions.
[00:45:53]  Her lesbian partner started shrieking, why did the gun have bullets in it?
[00:45:57]  The lesbian partner didn't know, who was encouraging the woman to be out there and to be provoking the cops.
[00:46:02]  The lesbian partner didn't realize that guns have bullets in them.
[00:46:06]  And you might say, well, yeah, she's a crazy lady.
[00:46:08]  Yeah, she's ignorant.
[00:46:09]  Well, no, not just, yeah, sure.
[00:46:10]  But also, we have been living for years and years now in a political society that does not punish criminals, that lets criminals off the hook, that often doesn't arrest them.
[00:46:21]  When we arrest them, we let them out of jail immediately.
[00:46:24]  We let rioters run roughshod and kill dozens of people and destroy property.
[00:46:28]  We let them attack cops and we don't do anything about it.
[00:46:30]  So then when President Trump comes in, when a conservative administration comes in and says, hey, cops, hey, federal officers, we got your back.
[00:46:39]  The rioters, the anarchists, they don't know what to do.
[00:46:42]  Just the ordinary libs who are living under these standards, they don't know what to do.
[00:46:46]  And part of enforcing the law is reestablishing those standards so that people don't put themselves in those bad situations in the first place.
[00:46:54]  Part of the mass deportations, part of the major show of force to deport these people, some of it is to get those specific people out.

=== Declining Power, Self-Deportations (03:13) ===

[00:47:03]  But a lot of it is to tell the other illegals here, you got to go.
[00:47:06]  Leave now or we're going to come get you, which is why you had, now, according to multiple sources, mass self-deportations last year, probably more self-deportations than formal government deportations.
[00:47:17]  Part of that message is to tell the illegal aliens who are at our southern border right now, don't come in, that you're not going to get away with it.
[00:47:24]  This is part of what's going on in Iran.
[00:47:27]  The United States as an empire has been declining for at least 25 years and probably more than that.
[00:47:33]  We have been declining and our adversaries have been gaining.
[00:47:37]  We were the sole global hegemon after the Cold War for the 90s up until 9-11.
[00:47:42]  And then after 9-11, things started to go a little squirrely.
[00:47:45]  And you saw China start to rise in part because of stupid decisions by politicians in the United States that Trump explicitly ran against, like letting China into the World Trade Organization, by going soft on Russia, not playing Russia properly, as we saw under Obama and as we saw under Biden.
[00:48:02]  Trump played Russia pretty well.
[00:48:04]  Russia did not aggress under Trump's watch.
[00:48:07]  Russia did go invade and further invade countries under Bush, under Obama, and under Biden, but not under Trump.
[00:48:15]  You saw these powers start to threaten the United States, start to threaten dollar hegemony, start to threaten our military assets, start to threaten our interests around the world, start to move into places like Africa and the Middle East and Latin America, move into places like Venezuela.
[00:48:32]  And what Trump has done here and what he campaigned on is it's a gamble, but it's a grand strategy.
[00:48:38]  He's saying, no more.
[00:48:40]  We're going to reset the standards.
[00:48:42]  We're going to reset the whole world order.
[00:48:44]  And we're going to do so in a way that benefits America and at least gives us a chance of being great again.
[00:48:49]  Because right now we're on a steep slope to decline.
[00:48:53]  Will this work?
[00:48:54]  We don't know.
[00:48:55]  We don't know if the Iran gambit was a smart one.
[00:48:58]  No one can know.
[00:48:59]  Anyone who's telling you they know how this is going to turn out right now is just making it up.
[00:49:03]  We do know that Putin offered security guarantees in Ukraine hours after the strike on Iran.
[00:49:09]  We do know that China has to come up with 20% of its oil right now.
[00:49:13]  We do know, we do know that this has flexed American power again, and it has put our adversaries on the back foot.
[00:49:23]  And that's the sort of thing, if you want to be strong and you want to be great again, that's the sort of thing you do have to do.
[00:49:28]  We can all argue over how we do it and when we do it and this way or that way, but that's the thing you have to do domestically and on the world stage.
[00:49:37]  Okay, today's THE Tuesday.
[00:49:38]  The rest of the show continues now.
[00:49:39]  You do not want to miss it.
[00:49:40]  Be a member.
[00:49:41]  Use code NOLSKINNOWLIA to check out for two months free on all annual plans.
[00:50:00]  Tomorrow, we make war.
[00:50:06]  I think it's a desperate plan.
[00:50:09]  And foolish.
[00:50:12]  I would save my people from destruction.
[00:50:15]  So should you.

=== Domestic And World Stage (01:04) ===

[00:50:17]  This new faith is clad in his judgment.
[00:50:19]  He's waiting on a miracle.
[00:50:21]  And why do you tell me this?
[00:50:22]  Because I think you can give him one.
[00:50:25]  If I lead you into victory, Uther, the men of Britain will proclaim me king.
[00:50:30]  He seeks our deliverance from God when he could so easily just give it to us with his own hands.
[00:50:37]  How long ago you offered me the Fisher King's sword?
[00:50:39]  I have always believed you were meant to be High King.
[00:50:43]  How many lives must be lost before you accept the power you were born to wield?
[00:50:48]  For Britain!
[00:50:57]  How are we to drive out 15,000 Saxon with only two and a half thousand men?
[00:51:09]  Today, Britain died!
[00:51:16]  Yay!
[00:51:18]  The Pendragon cycle.
[00:51:20]  Rise of the Merlin.