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Feb. 21, 2026 - Rudy Giuliani
01:10:55
America's Mayor Live (870): President Trump Gives Iran 10-Day Notice While Weighing Limited Strikes

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Constitutional Interpretation Controversy 00:15:14
This is Rudy Giuliani back with you on America's Mayor Live, and we are having back of us the Supreme Court.
I was hoping we would just show a third of it.
The third that has common sense.
I was like, wait, move it over a little bit?
That was fun.
I was ready to move it over.
Although I have to say, this is not an opinion that you can get all that you can, in terms of ideology, that you can get all upset about.
This is a pure statutory interpretation, constitutional interpretation.
This is a lawyer's game decision that goes back to the things you learned in the first year of law school.
Most people took a course and they used to call it different things, but it encompassed how to interpret statutes and constitutions.
And, you know, reminding me, this is one of the reasons why, and I hope no one thinks this is either elitist or condescending, but this is just the truth, I think, at least it's my view, my opinion.
So it is either it's a joke or it's well known, but that many Jewish people are great lawyers.
I think that's true.
I think that's disproportionately true.
I think, but I came from New York and I went to NYU Law School.
So that would be my impression.
As I look around the country, it dissipates a little, right?
You see, you don't see, but you still see many great, I mean, I just, I just, I mean, just think of the lawyers that I practice with, and, you know, a third, I'd say, were Jewish, certainly by background.
Some had changed, some weren't as religious, some were very.
But I think there's a reason for that.
I think particularly those who studied for their bar mitzvah and did at least some Hebrew school study.
As I have been in Hebrew schools, it reminds me a great deal of law school grammar school.
And then the rabbis who have had these legendary debates that permeate the great literature of the Jewish religion.
These are debates about the meaning of words.
Now, beyond that, the spirituality that those words convey.
But basic is linguistic interpretation.
Well, here's what this case is all about.
Takes the Constitution and then the legislation.
It says Constitution and legislation.
Constitution of the United States makes it quite clear in Article 1 that the Congress of the United States sets tariffs.
And tariffs are, let's get one step back so we don't prejudice the answer.
Tariffs are impositions that are placed on the import of goods.
And they are protectionist, which to free traders, a lot of free traders are bad words.
To real free traders who understand them, they don't have to be bad words.
They might be necessary words.
Because you really don't have free trade if it's not fair.
It's no longer free.
Difficult concept for some of these people like the Wall Street Journal.
They even misinterpret Adam Smith.
However, the Constitution, as part of a much bigger plan, sets out as our original guarantee of freedom before we had a Bill of Rights, our protection against despotic government.
Our protection against a monarchy or a dictator or the separation of powers or what we also call checks and balances.
So what that means is that neither one of the three branches of government will be supreme.
So it would be very hard for us to have a dictator.
They each have enumerated powers.
They have no more power than the power given to them.
So there you go.
It's separated in three.
Congress passes the laws.
President executes the laws, hence executive, and the court interprets the laws.
So when the legislature is trying to run things, it's violating the president's constitutional domain and it's unconstitutional.
When the president is legislating, passing laws, or what can be assumed to be like laws, without some delegation in narrow circumstances from Congress, he's acting unconstitutionally, which is essentially what six justices decided today with regard to the 10% tariff that was imposed, I think across the board, right?
And then third, the court is supposed to interpret the law.
But like these judges who are trying to regulate how ICE operates, they're not supposed to in detail be executing the law or getting involved in how the law is executed.
Just pronouncing if it's the interpretation of the law, first, pronouncing whether the law itself is constitutional, and then number two, whether the application of it is constitutional and in line with what the law said.
Anytime you step beyond that, your actions, including actions by the court, can be unconstitutional.
Then we have the other area of checks and balances, which is states' rights.
All those rights for the Congress, for the president, for the court, you find expressly written out in the Constitution.
If you can find it, it doesn't exist.
And that right then goes to the states and the people thereof.
It belongs to them to figure out what to do with.
So if it says, if it doesn't say you can have a police department, which it doesn't, then police departments are done by the states and the local governments.
If it doesn't say Congress shall pass laws for the education of Americans, then the education of Americans is the domain of state and local government.
If it doesn't say Congress shall provide for extraordinary and necessary relief from the weather, then that's a function of the states.
Whatever.
You have to find a specific grant of authority to one of the branches of government for the federal government to exercise.
Once you do, however, then that law is supreme because there's also a supremacy clause which is violated brutally by sanctuary cities and modern Democrats as if it doesn't exist in the Constitution.
So today, the Supreme Court decided that the tariff that the president imposed, which is one of three main tariffs that he imposed, was unconstitutional.
And it's the tariff under the 1977 Act.
It also decided that, or didn't decide, but left alone all the other tariffs that he has in effect under at least three different tariff authorizations.
And one could say cleared for him an area of substitution for this under a 1974 tariff act.
Now, why is that?
Because although Congress sets the tariffs and passes the tariffs and is in charge of the tariffs, it can, as the president can, and can delegate some of its power to the president,
really because the president is entitled to take the steps that are necessary and proper to carry out the meaning of a law.
And sometimes Congress legislates so generally that they realize there have to be very particular applications of it that are very different, and they will give some limited authority for the president.
For example, although he can't set tariffs, they'll set up a range and say within certain circumstances he can.
Now, the law that he operated under is a law that doesn't mention tariffs.
It allows the president for emergency reasons to set sanctions and other economic measures and inhibitions on people who are importing to the United States during a time of emergency.
Don't say you can do tariffs.
Most presidents have used this law.
Most presidents have used it and call what they were doing sanctions.
If the president had called the 10% on every country because they've screwed us in the past a sanction, as I read the opinions, of course, the three dissenting justice would have said yes.
And at least three or four of the justices that struck it down would have said yes.
So this is all being struck down for failure to use the right word, Ted.
Could be.
It is possible the court would have said that if you called it a sanction, but it really looks and smells and acts like a tariff, it really is a tariff, and therefore it's unconstitutional.
Because you can't do indirectly what you're prohibited from doing directly, except when you do it and you get away with it.
So how important, how much of this decision is a substantive decision?
And how much of it, this decision is a semantic decision?
It's a little both, right?
I don't know what would have happened if the president had called it a sanction.
I do know what would have happened if he passed it under three other provisions, however.
It would have most likely been not struck down.
So what does that mean?
That means as of four o'clock this afternoon, the tariffs are back in effect, except they're back in effect under another back in effect under another law, which the president has already designated.
He did it somehow.
I think while he was talking, he had somebody writing it out.
Yeah, but it was laid out in the opinion that he could do it.
Not only that, the opinion makes clear, the opinion makes clear that the president can charge a higher tariffs than this.
The problem isn't that he charged tariffs.
The problem isn't that he charged tariffs that were too much.
The problem is that he used the wrong statute and called it the wrong thing.
That's what six justices said.
As the president said, the dissent by Justice Kavanaugh for Justices Thomas and Alito was brilliant.
Now, the Treasury has collected $133 billion from the import taxes, import tariffs that were in question.
They are supposedly going to yield about $3 trillion over 10 years.
The decision does not stop the president from imposing those same tariffs under other laws.
And they even say he's allowed to charge much more.
And two of the other tariffs remain in effect.
Wow.
So look, you take what you can get and they're trying to make this into a big defeat and a terrible.
Right.
And the president has plenty of tools in his toolbox, as they say.
Yeah, well, I think so far we're looking at a three-hour delay in charging tariffs.
And I think if you square up at the end of the day, we're not going to lose any.
Right.
So here on the screen, some of the things that we're going to do.
So the law that he used is a 1977 law that allows the president to regulate importation during emergencies and to set import duties.
So if he set a duty amounting to 10% and he called it a duty, and a duty is money, I think it would have been constitutional.
That doesn't make an awful lot of sense, Ted.
Right.
It doesn't.
Other presidents have used the law dozens of times to impose sanctions.
But the president was the first to invoke it for import taxes, which is what they described tariffs as, which is a fair.
10% Sanctions on Imports 00:12:57
But what's the difference between a sanction and a tariff and a tax?
Because Russia has screwed us so often, and they do it all the time, and we have a history of unfair trade practices in 100 cases in front of the courts, and they lie and they that's an emergency, or China uses it to steal our technology.
And as a result of that, they put our national security in grave jeopardy.
Therefore, I'm imposing a 10% sanction on everything they bring into the United States.
That's okay.
Oh, but I'm imposing a 10% tariff.
That's wrong.
You got to put it in the sanctions box, not in the tariff box.
And you can put it in the same treasury, but one is illegal and the other isn't.
Please tell me that they're not that pedantic.
Or is this just an attempt to hit him in the head, you know, at a time in which he's trying to get us out of a possible war?
I don't know.
I don't know what motivates three of them, Roberts and Kavanaugh, who I am shocked.
I'm not shocked by Roberts or anymore by Comey Barrett, who's Roberts will give you some good decisions and then he'll surprise the heck out of you and go rogue and lefty.
But I know she's floating around somewhere in the netherworld.
I mean, you can't pin her down at all with any kind of rational, coherent philosophy.
But no harm done.
By the end of the day, he had signed an order reimposing it under a law that predates this law, same amount, 10%, and a law that appears to have been approved by the Supreme Court.
So you tell me what happened today.
So I guess we'll find out a year, a year or two or two, if not anything happened today, because now we start the whole process again.
So this new tariff that has been imposed under a different law, a law that was passed in 1974, will be challenged by the same people.
They'll go back to the district court, depending on whether they get a left-wing judge or a right-wing judge, or God willing, a fair judge.
It'll get decided somehow.
It doesn't matter how it gets decided in the lower court.
The courts here allowed him, even though they decided against him, the Supreme Court allowed him to collect the tariffs while it was in question, which also raises the question, does he have to return the money?
And I would say they don't order it.
Kavanaugh raises it as a problem, but doesn't say what has to be done with it.
He just says they create my colleagues, because he's against what they did.
My colleagues have raised a terrible financial problem for the U.S.
To tell the truth, it isn't so terrible.
Someone should have had the grace and the dignity to get on television tonight who's been bashing him over tariffs and say, we were at least wrong about one thing.
We've been telling you for a year that if he puts all these tariffs on imports to the United States, it'd go down.
People just wouldn't be importing things because they'd have to charge too much.
They'd make too few sales.
Their margin of profit would be destroyed.
So you'd have some impact on imports.
No, you had a record for the largest number of imports in the history of the United States of America.
No one the president, all the tariff ones that were worried about tariffs and going crazy over tariffs and don't know how to read Adam Smith.
He beat them all.
He made the most money from tariffs ever under any president.
I don't know.
Is there any humility in which people say, gosh, we were wrong?
And what about how it was going to create runaway inflation?
We may have deflation going on.
Take a look at this chart, please.
Just take a look at the chart.
I'd like to shove this down their throat.
I'm sorry, it's Lent.
I'm not allowed to say that.
I would like to show this to them in a fair and rational way, very calmly, and say imports in the United States grew to a record high in 2025, leaving the trade deficit a little change despite steep Trump administration tariffs.
Now, they say aimed at closing the trade gaps.
They're not aimed at closing the trade gaps.
They're aimed at making money for us.
And they did.
The trade deficit in goods last year rose to a record, oh, 1.241 trillion.
Overall imports last year were 4.334 trillion, up about 5% from the prior record.
So there's one thing that tariffs don't do.
This we can say definitively.
They don't inhibit people from selling things in the greatest market in the world.
In fact, if anything, they appear to stimulate them to do it.
Yeah.
Now, Iran.
Where are we going on Iran?
The last word from the president out of his own mouth, which maybe we can get, is they have, and it changes a little.
10 days, but maybe less.
Another point he said, 10 or 15 days, or maybe less.
So he's obviously being deliberately fudgy.
I'm not going to not bet my life on this.
It makes sense that he doesn't do it until the Ford is there, Ted, since he seems to be taking it all the way from all the way from Venezuela, right?
From the Atlantic.
They say it's going to take a week for it to get there.
Now, somehow I think he's going to, I think it's going to happen in less than a week.
So it may be that the Ford is headed there because this is going to be, as some people predict, a two or three month action.
This could be.
This is not going to be that they are.
They are judging, and this could be deceptive.
They're judging by the level of forces there, that this will be a long-term, long-term meaning to a month or two activity of bombing, because the purposes of it, which haven't been completely determined yet, one purpose would be, of course, our original purpose, which is to make sure that, number one,
we did the entire job when we hit him the first time with regard to stopping their nuclear capability for a good long time.
We may want to add a little more time to that.
We are aware of the fact that I don't know if we're sure if we got everything.
We like to think that we did, but there were reports that we didn't.
So we could make sure that we did.
Number two, there are definite reports that they've been rebuilding.
And third, there were reports that they are burying things deeper at a very, very frenetic pace.
A repeat to some extent of what we did before with even deeper bunker-busting bombs would probably be a good idea.
And maybe we just do that, some people say, in trying to encourage them to come to the bargaining table.
If you've come to the conclusion, as I have, that the bargaining table is a sucker punch because they're not going to tell the truth.
They're not going to live up to anything they agree to.
What the heck are we doing that other than to fake them out a little?
Then it makes sense to go on with the other wings of this, which is one to decapitate the regime and get rid of the top monsters and murderers who have been killing people now for 50 to 60 years.
Number two, to thin out both the resources and the personnel of the IRGC so that what appear to be a substantial number of rebels and freedom fighters have an even chance of taking over, which they do, by the way.
Which they do, even if we don't do this.
Although I think it's much more questionable.
Well, let's hear the president.
We'll play both clips.
This one, let's play the one from the Board of Peace first.
I believe that came before his comments on Air Force One.
Here we go.
A step further or we may not.
Maybe we're going to make a deal.
You're going to be finding out over the next probably 10 days.
But this meeting today is proof with determined leadership, nothing is impossible.
You couldn't have peace in the Middle East.
So now we may have to take it a step further or we may not.
Maybe we're going to make a deal.
You're going to be finding out over the next probably 10 days.
But this meeting today is proof with determined leadership, nothing is impossible.
You couldn't have peace in the Middle East.
I'm not going to talk to you about that.
What is the goal if there is a U.S. military?
There's one way to make a deal, or we're going to get a deal one way or the other.
But with the military strike, is it to wipe out the nuclear?
I'm not going to talk to you about that, but we're either going to get a deal or it's going to be unfortunate for them.
And on a deadline, a firm to make a deal?
I would think that would be enough time, 10, 15 days, pretty much maximum.
Mr. President, we'll meet the other board of peace.
So there you have it.
The president giving multiple timeframes, but as the mayor said, we're looking at 10 days, and that would have been yesterday.
So now maybe we're looking at nine days.
Yeah, and again, it really depends on what happens with the Ford and what the Ford is being used for.
Now, we have a guest.
We do.
We have Iran.
Noranna give us a little.
Right.
So we have two great guests.
We're going to go first to the senator, Senator Torricelli.
Oh, my goodness, my friend.
And we got him there.
My apologies.
Actually, actually, in the car, and I'm actually in Palm Beach, and I'm parked alongside Mar-Largo by coincidence.
We should have had him over here.
You're only a mile away.
You're right around the corner.
I'm not even a mile away.
I can see it out my window.
But anyway, my apologies.
Actually, I need to get more light on here.
Not sure to do it.
There we go.
There we go.
Yeah, better.
Okay.
All right.
Well, you come over and see us.
What the heck are you doing?
So I want to, I need you to tell people, because of the propaganda that's going on, that the MEK, NCRI, and that group which we've worked with, which pre-existed, me, pre-existed you, and you were there longer, is fully ready to handle a transition.
Professional Class in Iran 00:14:57
And it would be a full transition.
And it takes off our back one of the great things that we worry about, which is we can't handle nation building.
We don't have to nation build.
They're going to nation build.
It has been so frustrating through the years because now the American media is beginning to latch on to this false dichotomy that either we have the Ayatollah or we bring back the Shah's son.
So you have a religious dictatorship or you have a fascist dictatorship.
And not only is that not accurate, it's not fair to the Iranian people or to history and obviously not in the interest of the United States, which is most important.
People, you know, in our generation, we've been separated from Iran for so many years because we've had no economic relationship, no political relationships, that we fail to remember that this was a highly advanced society.
If you go back into the 60s and 70s, they used to call Iran the France of the Middle East.
It had technology.
It had industry.
It was building an infrastructure.
It had great universities.
And some of that remains true.
And remarkably talented people.
If you could get this yoke off the backs of the Iranian people and allow the professional class in Iran to emerge, this country can be built into something.
And as you're pointing out, in the diaspora and within Iran, there are people who are mobilized.
And you and I have been aligned with the MEK, the National Council Resistance for years.
These are doctors, lawyers, engineers, highly educated people.
I've actually never seen anything like it.
If you took the Ayatollah out tomorrow and parachuted in these people, they'd have this economy running.
They'd have elections.
They'd have a democratic society.
They'd have an advanced economy, not in years, but in months.
These are talented people.
Well, I think that's absolutely correct.
I mean, I've had probably over the last three weeks, maybe about 10, maybe seven of whom are connected directly with NCRI and MEK.
Some are favorable to it.
Remarkable people.
I mean, the number of degrees, I mean, just, and they're accomplished.
Let these people with the natural resources they have in Iran and this class of educated people take these lunatics out of Tehran and allow the Iranian people to rise.
What it would mean for the Middle East, for the United States, and for the world to have a stable, strong, economically prosperous nation sitting in the middle of the Middle East would change the whole game.
Obviously, you and I look at this all from the advantage of primary United States, and it's certainly that, but it actually would have an international impact.
And this is all doable.
I don't know what the president's going to do this weekend.
Anything to me that topples this regime is all good.
The danger it possesses to the Iranian people and to the world.
Ultimately, the Iranian people are going to win their own freedom.
But if we can do something to help topple this, more power to them.
Yeah, I think that any kind of strike of substance, and it would have to be one of substance, they're teetering.
It has to be a big ball.
They're teetering.
And, you know, if I were advising the president on this, which, of course, I'm not, I would say the fissure you want to create here is that there is still an Iranian military.
that is weakened, but it does not belong to the Ayatollah.
There's still a professional military class.
They are overshadowed by the revolutionary guards.
If you can create enough chaos in the revolutionary guards, hitting their training sites, their barracks, their command posts, leave the Iranian military to the extent you can alone and tip that balance as you create chaos within the regime.
Give the Iranian people then and the Iranian military a chance themselves to get rid of the Ayatollah and restore their own regime.
And then you'll have people like the MEK coming in to help with political leadership and rebuild the country.
Yeah, I do think that they have learned, watching even Venezuela to some extent, they've learned the mistake of Iraq, which was to try to get the whole government out, which Bremer did.
And my colleague Bernie Carrick, who went there to run the police, had to leave after seven months because you know, Rudy, because I was in the Foreign Relations Committee in those days.
You were in office then.
You know that.
I was in the office of that.
And you know, when George Bush called Putin to say we're invading Iraq, Putin said to him, you know, I'll put this in my New Jersey vernacular.
I don't agree with what you're doing.
I think you're making a mistake.
But if you're doing it, let me just tell you this.
Keep the Iraqi army in place and the Bath Party.
They're the only people who can run the country.
Get rid of Saddam Hussein.
Get rid of his clique.
But keep the institution of the army.
No one else can keep the country together.
I will never again say something complimentary about Putin, but that's my first and last time.
But he was 100% right.
And you were right.
That lesson has been learned by the United States the hard way.
You know what always amazed me about that?
Here we are, the country that turned around Japan, Italy, and Germany and made them best friends in three years by doing exactly that.
And you know, just so you know, that was I'm not here to beat up on George Bush.
I actually kind of like George Bush.
But just so you know, that isn't that that wasn't said.
It was actually said in those meetings.
You know, Mr. President, we allowed Nazis to stay in office after the Second World War because we wanted to keep Germany together.
If we could allow Nazis to stay in office after the Second World War, we can allow some people in the Baath party to keep the lights on and the trains running in Iraq.
But we didn't.
What was the thinking?
Why didn't we do that?
Because it would give him control.
He's dead.
He can't have control.
It's also a lack of recognition that there are members of the Nazi Party and members of the Nazi Party.
I will tell you something else, because, you know, Americans have misperceptions of some of these countries.
I spent a lot of time in Baghdad before the war.
Because Saddam Hussein was a thug and genuinely ignorant and a horrible person, we tend to think the whole regime was that way.
I've met with members of the Baath Party and the government of Iraq in those days.
If they didn't go to Stanford, they went to Cambridge.
If they didn't go to Cambridge, they went to Harvard or MIT.
He had a very educated professional class running the country.
The problem was not the leadership of Iraq across the board.
It was Saddam Hussein.
And so, getting rid of all these people who knew how to run the power plants, knew how to pump oil, knew how to run the government.
If you could have just kept it under American control for democratization and allowed it to evolve, the whole history would have been different.
And you were right, that is a complete guide for what we now do in Iran.
Yeah.
And, you know, we know that Iran has never in all these 47 years been completely sold on the idea of this.
Most of them are not religious zealots.
At all.
The revolution of 1979 was a genuine revolution of the people.
And there's some wonderful literature out about it now.
That it rose from the markets, from the middle class, from the merchant class, and the students who came together in a brief moment in a coalition to topple the Shah.
The problem is, in that coalition were the Ayatollahs, and they co-opted it and they stole the revolution.
It was not an Iranian problem.
It was a problem of this religious dictatorship, which is why those elements are still there.
The MEK was part of that coalition.
They were in the streets taking down the Shah.
Most of the leadership of the MEK was in jail under the Shah.
Many of them were killed.
So this is a second chance now to have the Ayatollahs fall and hopefully get these democratic forces in office.
But I hope and I pray that the United States does not fall prey to this nonsense of bringing back the Shah.
It's not fair to the Iranian people, and mostly it's counter to American interests.
Yeah, I think it'll backfire too.
I think you could end up with an immediate civil war.
It'll backfire.
Given the reaction of the ethnic minorities to him, they just and the country could well fall apart.
You know, a majority of people in Iran are not Iran are not Persians.
There are many nationalities.
And you can have the exact situation of what happened in Iraq.
This thing could fall apart.
This has got to be done carefully.
Well, you stay involved, and you've done unbelievable work.
Well, thank you.
My apologies again for calling you from along the road in a baseball cap.
You look like you're at war.
And mostly it's that season.
Go, Yanks.
Oh, yeah.
Wow.
All right.
See you there.
God bless for having me.
You've got to know this man has devoted a great deal of his life, particularly since he's been out of office, to freedom for the people of Iran.
And when it happens, he'll be one of the Americans, I'd say, you know, one of the Americans that had the most to do with it.
Right.
We also have Dr. Saeed Sajadi, yes, who we've had on before.
Remember, he's from Kansas City, and he's deeply involved in the efforts in Iran.
And we want to check in with him to see where his thinking is now.
Hello, Mayor Giuliani.
Thank you for having me.
How are you, Doc?
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Very nice to have you.
So tell us what you're seeing is now, given the situation.
America has a massive force right out surrounding Iran.
They've got more coming.
It looks like some kind of an attack is going to take place.
Mayor, if you allow me, I want to mention something that you were talking to Senator Torcelli.
Mass was, You know, back in 1990, it was August, I believe, when Iraqi government invaded Kuwait.
And then the first Gulf War, I believe it was January of 1991.
And when the Iraqi army was in a way demolished, actually, it wasn't after U.S., the first Gulf War, you know, it was demolished.
And at the time, thousands of the IRGC forces actually, they poured into Iraq to overthrow the Iraqi government.
And at the time, MEK, which was in the format of National Liberation Army of Iran, actually they had their bases at the border with Iran.
And they fought IRGC forces, thousands of them, and they routed the IRGC forces.
And so, and I want to say that if MEK did not exist or didn't have their bases there, the Iraqi government would have been overthrown.
But the mistake in 2003, March, when US again attacked Iraq, I don't think the strategic problem was that they didn't allow the previous army to be involved.
The problem was that they disarmed MEK.
MEK was the force at the border with Iran, which prevented Iran to advance into Iraq.
And early on, U.S. forces, allied forces, actually that was a condition.
Before the war, actually, it was the former minister of Britain who was going back and forth to Tehran, Washington, and London.
And the idea was to get Iran on board with invasion of Iraq.
And the Iran's or Mullah's regime condition was the MEK bases, which was National Liberation Army of Iran, they need to be basically dismantled.
And I'm not sure if you're aware, the Allied forces, they bombarded, even though the National Liberation Army before, before war started, actually they gave their position to Pentagon.
They said, we're at these positions and we're not even defending ourselves.
But anyway, because that was a part of the condition that Iranian regime had with the Allied forces, that MEK bases needs to be dismantled.
So they were bombarded and close to 50 members of resistance, they got killed.
Later on, they were disarmed, but they became protected individuals as the Fourth Geneva Convention.
So US Army protected them till December of 2000, I believe was 11 when US forces withdraw from Iraq.
But what I'm saying, the strategic problem with invasion with 2003 was not necessarily who was, first of all, it wasn't an organic change.
It wasn't that, you know, the society had, like today, Iran is an organic movement, you know.
Balance of Force Matters 00:12:28
And so that didn't really exist in Iraq at the time.
But a bigger problem was that the MEK, which was the balance, MEK was the balance of the force in, I would say, in that situation in the whole Middle East, because it was the balance of force was between the regime and the rest.
And MEK was standing there, would not allow the Iranian regime to advance into Iraq.
So I would say that was the major and the strategic mistake that the West did by disarming MEK, the National Liberation Army of Iraq.
And one could say that the war against, and many do, historians, that the war against Saddam Hussein should have been a war against the Ayatollah.
And also that in taking out Saddam Hussein, we didn't have a check against the Ayatollah and the Ayatollah.
Then, you know, until Israel started decapitating the groups that supported them, it looked like three years ago, it looked like Iran was developing quite an empire in the northern part of the Middle East.
I mean, they had Iran, they had Syria, they had Lebanon, they had Hezbollah, they had Hamas, they had the Houdis, and I'm missing something.
But I mean, you could draw a map of the Iranian empire growing and growing and growing, with Saudi Arabia nervous as hell.
Yes.
The only justification that one can say for invasion of Iraq was perhaps to surround the Iranian regime.
But the problem was that they left the border with Iran open.
Actually, the Iranian resistance at the time warned West, saying that.
I think that's when I came into it in 2010.
And I think Iran achieved some of its objective at that period when we weren't able to do a status of forces agreement with Iraq.
And we weren't able to keep troops because, you know, I'll give you my bias because we had Biden negotiating the status of forces agreement.
And he's the first American that's not been able to get one ever in history.
Who knows how much he was paid.
But in any event, we didn't have any troops there.
Iran effectively ran Iraq all through the Obama administration.
I mean, when we were negotiating to release the refugees from Iraq, because they were being killed, you know, a few at a time by the Quds forces in Soleimani, Iran had more control over Iraq than the U.S. did.
Yes.
The government of Iraq, especially, let's say, in Nuri al-Maliki, I mean, this guy lived in Iran, I believe, for a period of 12 years.
IRGC trained him and his forces.
I mean, he's becoming the prime minister of Iraq.
So obviously, Iran was actually the main occupier of Iraq for years.
I got to take you now because I got to conclude a minute, but I want to know what you think would happen if there was a substantial attack that was focused on the IRGC, the IRGC bases or weapons, and also the nuclear sites.
Would that have the impact of destabilizing and give the, let's call them the rebels, because that's what they are, right?
And it's beyond just the MEK.
It seems like it's the whole population.
Would they be able to overtake the government?
I believe the Iranian people welcome any elimination of the IRGC or scaling down or anything that limits them.
So it's natural.
But I think that what really we need to hear is that what is the purpose of this perhaps military attack?
Is it to set the stage to make a deal?
So then if that's the case, really one cannot expect the Iranian people to say we're for it or against it.
I think that Iranian people first think they want West, especially US, to say that they recognize the right of Iranian people to overthrow this regime.
So this needs to be said first, then also to give support those rebellious resistant units who confront IRGC in the streets of Iran.
So we need also to give them the support.
I think in that picture, then one can take a position as far as the military action.
But right now, I think first thing first, we need to, this comes, you know, the military action really as a means to have a better position in a negotiation.
You know, that's not something worthwhile for the Iranian people.
They're not a part of any deals.
And so we need to support them.
This is a historical time.
It's been 47 years since Molas came to power.
And we have this window of opportunity, short window of opportunity.
We want to empower the Iranian people.
They're in the streets.
I mean, it's different than the rest of the Middle East.
I mean, it's an organic movement.
We need to support them.
And to me, that should come first.
So you are saying, and a lot of people are, that what we need is a statement from the United States in particular, the West in general, that the Iranian people deserve freedom.
And in essence, there should be not just regime change, but regime change to a free government.
Yes, and that's the reason that...
And that, irrespective of military assistance, attacks, or just similar to what Ronald Reagan did for Poland.
Yes.
We didn't send troops in or anything like that.
We just said, we're behind the Polish people.
We believe they're entitled finally to freedom.
And that set off Alec Valessa and the movement.
And who knows?
They must have gotten a lot of support from us under the table.
But it appears as if they did it on their own.
Yes.
I'm going to tell you what I think the problem is.
From the president's point of view, maybe the rest of the West, but certainly the president.
He sort of gave it away the other day when he said it would be best if there was regime change in Iran.
I think that's the first time he said that.
He's come close before.
He's never said the words regime change.
Yes.
For whatever purposes, and I can't fully analyze this, I think they want this to end.
So it doesn't look like the United States did regime change.
Yes.
It's just, but it didn't do it.
And part of that, I think, is wise also because of the history of Iran.
Iran has had too many regime changes with the West, Britain in particular, but then eventually the US CIA imposing the ruler.
They happened way back at the beginning of the last century, and Britain put the crooked Slavi family in.
Then he got thrown out and CIA came back and they grabbed poor pathetic Shah II, who was crying and peeing in his pants.
They put him back.
Yes.
Mayor.
I don't think we're going to make a mistake with the baby Shah.
I really don't.
Yes.
Mayor, it's very important to look at Iran in a historical view.
The movement for freedom in Iran started 1906.
We had a revolution, constitutional revolution.
It started earlier than that, about 10, 15 years earlier than that.
But 1906, we had the constitutional revolution to reform the monarchy.
So this, and also 1957, 1957 was the continuation of that to bring about freedom.
What I'm trying to say is that the movement for freedom has been going on for over a century in Iran.
So it's very important to realize that today there is no going back to another dictatorship.
Senator Torricelli just said that.
Yes, the movement is for freedom.
Reza Pahlavi.
Penn said that on the last Saturday ago in Berlin.
I mean, it's mind-boggling that you're going to go from a theocratic dictatorship to a monarchical dictatorship.
I mean, we'll go back.
IRGC will be substituted by a return of the Savak.
Mayor, actually, the Iranian regime benefits from Riza Pahlavi coming to TV and many who try to portray as if he is leading the movement.
I had a gentleman on about six, seven days ago and did a report, which I think was quite revealing that the regime is actually the architect of a lot of their posts on social media.
I mean, millions.
They're making it appear as if there's a lot of support for him, because in particularly in areas of the country where maybe the support is strong, but not so strong back, back, back.
And it discourages people.
It brings it down.
And think about it.
I'm not going to sacrifice my life and my kids to go back to a king.
Who ever had a revolution for a king?
Do we have never had one?
The Iranian regime benefits from Riza Pahlavi because actually close to 50% of, as Senator Tercelli said, close to 50% of the Iran population are minorities, nationalities, or ethnic minorities.
And none of these minorities, courts, Turks, Lords, Baluchs, Arabs, because the Shah, the Pahlavi regimes in past since 19, I believe since 1921, has suppressed these minorities and in some cases mass murdering them.
So none of them want a Pahlavi coming back to power.
So Iranian regime by portraying or many voices in the West portraying that the Rizal Pahi is leading the movement is preventing the people of Iran, majority, to come and be a part of the uprising.
So they benefit from it.
The second benefit is that it is important the resistance that I support, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which is led by Maryam Rajavi, to be recognized.
Obviously, if Riza Pahlavi is introduced as the leader, then it overshadowed the real leadership of the movement, which historically is MEK, National Council of Resistance of Iran.
Epstein Scandal Revelations 00:04:40
Well, thank you very, very much.
Who knows?
There may be developments this weekend, and we'll be back in touch with you, okay?
Yes, thank you very much, and let's hope this all happens the right way.
We've been waiting a long time.
Yes, thank you.
So we're going to conclude very shortly and send you back to Wendell TV so you can see Dr. Maria's show, which is excellent.
A couple of things I quickly want to bring up then.
I'm going to look at my little list right here.
And that is that in the Epstein case, you should know that one of the revelations that came forward that kind of complicates this tremendously is that there was a possible witness against Epstein before he took his own life, John Luc Brunel.
And John Luc Brunel was apparently very, very close to Epstein.
And he was a French modeling scout.
And they have been a supplier for Epstein.
And he seems to have been trying to make a deal with the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of New York and with the FBI.
All of a sudden, there's a notation that Epstein called a lawyer by the name of Kathy Rummel.
Rumler, Rumler.
Kathy Rumler, you might remember, for a short time was being considered for Attorney General of the United States by Prince Obama.
And he was Prince Obama's lawyer forever and ever, personal lawyer forever, ever, including at this time when Epstein was making the call.
And she began working with him to try to help him, I guess, stay out of this Justice Department problem.
Now, the Justice Department was the Obama Justice Department at the time, and nothing ever came of this.
So somebody's got to track these down, and we can't leave them just hanging out there.
And I don't pay as much attention to this as I should, or maybe I shouldn't, because there's so many other things that seem more important as far as what we can really get to and get at, given the length of time that's gone by here.
And the fact that so many people have looked at it, and it's no prosecutable case.
I hope they're wrong.
I mean, I hope there's some prosecutable cases that can come out of this who people who did dastardly things, which apparently is the case.
But in any event, somebody's got to take a good look at this, Kathy Ruhmiller.
Rumler, Rumler.
She's all over the place.
This is just one example of how Biden, Obama's intimately close lawyer.
I mean, these people are like close, close friends, was involved in this.
And Obama's name's been thrown around in this.
So I know they've been trying really, really hard to implicate President Trump to no avail because he's not.
In fact, if anything, he's one of the few people who has absolute vindication from not just from the Maxwell person, but from the chief victim, Virginia Jufre, who says that Trump, she was with Trump.
Trump never did anything.
Trump was a gentleman.
Trump actually helped her and saved her.
And they tried very, very hard to put words in her mouth.
This is the time, this time we're talking about here, is when Epstein was conniving with groups of people to try to destroy Trump.
This is during the period of time he was doing it.
And this is this rumor, a woman is about as close to Prince Obama as you're going to get.
Pakistan just signed a deal with the United States to develop the Roosevelt Hotel, which was the hotel that was taken by Mayor Adams for homeless people.
Became rather famous because so much crime was occurring there and they were paying enormous amounts of money for it.
But now it's going to be back as a, well, maybe a hotel.
Maybe it's going to be an office building.
That part of Manhattan is much more, much more valuable for office space than residential, maybe even hotel space.
New York Accent At Risk 00:03:40
There's an article in the Post saying that the New York accent and the accents of other metropolitan areas, including Philadelphia and New England, are at risk.
The famous New York accent is slowly disappearing.
A nationwide survey of 3,042 adults across the U.S. this month revealed that the Big Apple's notable pronunciations rank 12th in regional dialects that residents feel are dying off.
Topping the list were the Appalachian dialect, the Southern Draw, the Louisiana Creole accent, the accents of metropolitan areas like New York, Philadelphia, and New England, the famous Boston accent, right?
Are further down the risk, further down the list at being at risk, but they are at risk.
They've been better at warding off extinction since they've developed portrayals in the media so that that keeps them going.
Now, I predicted this way back in 1977, 1978, when I first went to the Ozarks as a person appointed by the court to run a coal company in Hazard, Kentucky.
And one of the things I said was that I was very, very lucky to get here before this accent disappears, because eventually everybody's going to be talking like Walter Cronkite and Jim Rather.
And they all agreed with me.
That's a long time ago.
So finally, somebody recognized my wisdom.
A survey done by Mark Penn and an article by Mark Penn and Andrew Stein points this out today, is that MEGA is not isolationist.
Of course, they're not isolationists.
Haven't I been telling you that?
Only very, very ignorant, small-minded, uneducated people are isolationists with a big eye.
If isolationism is part of your orientation, fine.
If it bends, however, to reality, the reality of being safe and protecting yourself against external danger, then it's the right kind of isolationism.
Don't get involved in things you don't have to be involved in.
Make sure you're involved in things you have to be involved in.
So interventionist, isolationist, you shouldn't be either.
It should be right in the middle.
We were going to talk about Tucker Carlson and his being detained at the Israeli airport, which some people believe is a phony.
And also there is a interchange between Mike and between Mike Huckabee, who will turn out to be right, and Tucker Carlson, if he disagrees with him, will turn out to be wrong, that we have to listen to.
But we haven't had a chance to listen to it.
It is described as Huckabee takes him apart.
But you might remember that Tucker Carlson sat through some very vicious language by Fuentes without contradiction or even note about Mike Huckabee when he interviewed him.
As Tucker did some absolutely absurd things that Fuentes said without contradiction, seemingly approving his Nazi comments, his anti-Jewish comments,
his idiotic view of theology, that Jewish people have a blood libel coming down for 2,000 years because the people at the crucifixion of Jesus said, the blood be on me and my people.
Like somebody 2,000 years ago can accept a curse for you 2,000 years later.
Battle at Teatro la Fenice 00:02:48
I mean, that's about, you ask the people, you ask the security people.
And the guy says it on my show, I get the security people, take him out of here, please.
There's a hospital.
How about getting him treated?
This guy really believes there are witches, I guess.
Some crazy people that are yelling for some for Jesus to die 2,000 years ago have an impact on people alive today.
Have transmitted what a curse.
Holy.
And that thing has been the cause of so much death.
It might be one of the worst of the prejudices against the Jewish people.
One of the sickest, one of the dumbest.
And finally, one of the most anti-Christian, since the man we're talking about, Jesus Christ, forgave everybody, including the Romans, who are the ones who actually put the nails in him.
So I think we've got most of it.
I also wanted to go into the battle that's going on at the Teatro la Finice.
Finici?
Finici.
That's the Venice Opera.
The Venice Opera hired a new director who is also a conductor, a young and very, very promising talent, a woman named Beatrice Venizzi.
So that's fabulous.
In Venice, we have a Venizzi.
Now they want to get rid of Venizzi because she's a supporter of Georgia Maloney.
Sounds like America.
Yeah.
And the orchestra is like refusing to play.
I got to call Georgia and say, send me over there.
I'll take care of this.
I have a whole bunch of classical musicians that I know that are out of work.
I can go over there.
I mean, you know, don't tell anybody, but I could even do a little conducting of Verdi.
I could do Rigoletto.
This whole thing occurred.
This little contra tops occurred during a performance of Simon Bocanegra, which is interestingly about the Doge of Venice.
I'm sorry, the Doge of Genoa.
And Genoa and Venice in those days were great enemies.
So we'll go into greater detail and see if we can find out more about what's going on here, because it seems to me that they have this same persecution of people who are on the right wing going on in Italy.
They want her fired from her job as an opera conductor and whatever else.
Mandani has already flip-flopped so many times.
He looks like what he is, but I'm not going to say what it is because I'm not allowed to say it for Lent.
Guiding Principles of 1776 00:04:05
And this weekend, keep your eyes peeled.
The president's going to have a big dinner with the governors.
It seems like the ones who showed up are all very, very positive, including some of the Democrats.
Maybe we can work together and do something for the American people.
I sure as heck worked with President Clinton when I was a mayor and got a lot done with President Clinton.
Positive things for him, positive things for me, positive things for America, positive things for the United States of America.
It all kind of works together, ladies and gentlemen, when you are a patriotic American, a decent person, and a person of common sense.
Well, go to Windell TV.
Dr. Maria's on.
Pray this weekend, first Sunday of Lent, as we head toward Easter.
Remember, Ash Wednesday, right?
Remember whatever it is that you decided to give up for Lent.
Keep doing it.
I am.
I spent three days without ice cream.
And a little less food generally.
I fasted on both days.
So pray for the people of Israel.
Pray for the people of Ukraine.
Pray for the people of Iran.
Pray for the people of Venezuela.
And us.
God bless America.
It's our purpose to bring to bear the principle of common sense and rational discussion to the issues of our day.
America was created at a time of great turmoil, tremendous disagreements, anger, hatred.
There was a book written in 1776 that guided much of the discipline of thinking that brought to us the discovery of our freedoms, of our God-given freedoms.
It was Thomas Paine's Common Sense, written in 1776, one of the first American bestsellers, in which Thomas Paine explained, by rational principles, the reason why these small colonies felt the necessity to separate from the kingdom of Great Britain and the King of England.
He explained their inherent desire for liberty, for freedom, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, the ability to select the people who govern them.
And he explained it in ways that were understandable to all the people, not just the elite.
Because the desire for freedom is universal.
The desire for freedom adheres in the human mind and it is part of the human soul.
This is exactly the time we should consult our history.
Look at what we've done in the past and see if we can't use it to help us now.
We understand that our founders created the greatest country in the history of the world.
The greatest democracy, the freest country, a country that has taken more people out of poverty than any country ever.
All of us are so fortunate to be Americans.
But a great deal of the reason for America's constant ability to self-improve is because we're able to reason.
We're able to talk.
We're able to analyze.
We are able to apply our God-given common sense.
So let's do it.
It's our purpose to bring to bear the principle of common sense and rational discussion to the issues of our day.
America was created at a time of great turmoil, tremendous disagreements, anger, hatred.
It was a book written in 1776 that guided much of the discipline of thinking that brought to us the discovery of our freedoms, of our God-given freedoms.
It was Thomas Paine's Common Sense.
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