Rubin Report - Dave Rubin - Ex-CIA: What You Aren’t Being Told About Iran | Mike Baker
Aired: 2026-03-04
Duration: 26:37


=== Tactical Errors and Predetermined Orders (08:03) ===

[00:00:00]  I think it's a tactical error on the part of what's left of the regime and their leadership.
[00:00:04]  And I think it also shows that they're probably operating off of what you would call pre-issued standing orders because their command and control is so decimated at this point.
[00:00:14]  They're not really a lot of the units that are operating these missiles are probably not getting real-time instruction from superiors.
[00:00:22]  So they're operating off of a predetermined set list and they're just kind of figuring it out as they go along.
[00:00:28]  So there may not be somebody at the top who says, you know, probably firing off missiles at Oman, you know, at Riyadh, in Qatar, probably not a good idea.
[00:00:41]  It's not unexpected because they did say they'd go after U.S. facilities.
[00:00:45]  But I think that, look, they're just further isolating themselves on the world stage by doing this.
[00:00:52]  And there are a number of actors out there in the Middle East countries that privately would love to see the regime go away.
[00:01:07]  I'm Dave Rubin and joining me right now is former CIA officer and host of the president's daily brief, Mike Baker.
[00:01:15]  Mike, we're at war, and you are on my list of war people.
[00:01:19]  Congratulations.
[00:01:20]  What a great list that must be.
[00:01:22]  Yeah.
[00:01:24]  I am glad to have you on.
[00:01:25]  As always, I always find that you have a way of making sense of some of these complex issues.
[00:01:30]  So where should we start with this?
[00:01:33]  I don't think most people watching this are surprised that this is happening.
[00:01:38]  Maybe they're surprised at the scale of it or Iran's reaction, dragging nine other countries into it, at least, maybe even more than that.
[00:01:46]  Where do you want to start here?
[00:01:47]  Yeah, well, you know what?
[00:01:49]  There's so many different places we could go with this.
[00:01:51]  I suppose part of it is what you just said, which, look, you don't deploy all those assets to a region.
[00:01:58]  So to your point, a lot of people probably weren't surprised that this eventually popped off.
[00:02:02]  But you don't send two carrier strike groups and squadrons of fighter jets and that many tankers, which is a very important factor, right?
[00:02:12]  When you talk about what are you considering doing, when you start putting out dozens and dozens of tankers into a region, that tells you something about what your plans are.
[00:02:22]  So that part of it, not necessarily surprising.
[00:02:25]  The fact that they acted and decided to kick this off at a particular time, also not really surprising.
[00:02:32]  That tends to be intelligence-driven.
[00:02:36]  And, you know, it wasn't so much that the White House just got frustrated with the negotiations and said, okay, now let's do this, right?
[00:02:42]  Typically, something like this, you hope to have a window of opportunity for something particularly attractive in terms of targeting.
[00:02:51]  And that's certainly how this played out.
[00:02:54]  So, do you think there was a chance that negotiations were going to end without a military strike?
[00:03:03]  I mean, it sounds like they were trying to have these talks, yet at the same time, as you point out, we were moving stuff there to add leverage.
[00:03:11]  Do you think there was an actual off-ramp, or was this a fargone conclusion?
[00:03:15]  Well, I think there were people hoping that there was an off-ramp.
[00:03:18]  I don't doubt that the White House was hoping that they could get a solid, significant deal that could prevent a military conflict.
[00:03:28]  But to be honest with you, that never actually looked like it was going to happen.
[00:03:33]  The Iranian side, they never negotiated from a position of good faith.
[00:03:37]  Look, it's the same people who just finished slaughtering thousands of their own citizens and detaining tens of thousands of others.
[00:03:43]  So, somehow, this idea that we were going to sit down with those same cats and have a good faith negotiation, it was surreal in a sense, but they never offered anything, right?
[00:03:56]  All they wanted to talk about was a very slim element of their nuclear program, which was what level could they enrich to, right?
[00:04:04]  And there is nobody in that world of science that will say that you need anything beyond 5% enrichment for peaceful civilian purposes.
[00:04:15]  So, the fact that they went up to 60% tells you pretty much all you needed to know.
[00:04:19]  And then they were saying, well, we'd be willing to drop back down to 20%, right?
[00:04:24]  So, and they didn't want to talk about their ballistic missiles.
[00:04:27]  They didn't want to talk about, so there was never an effort on that side.
[00:04:30]  And then on the U.S. side and the Allies and the Omanis and the Qataris, they were saying exactly what you would expect from envoys and mediators, which is, well, we're making significant progress.
[00:04:42]  No, they weren't.
[00:04:43]  There was never any significant progress being made.
[00:04:46]  Can you talk a little bit from your CIA history on the intelligence side?
[00:04:50]  Like, one thing that I'm incredibly impressed with right now is that we have, I mean, Khomeini is gone.
[00:04:56]  Their leadership is completely gone, the military leadership.
[00:04:59]  Now they had a meeting to bring in basically the next Ayatollah.
[00:05:03]  We took those guys out, or at least the Israelis did.
[00:05:05]  Can you talk a little bit on the intelligence side?
[00:05:08]  How is it even possible in this day and age that we are even able to keep things a secret, to pull off the level of attack that has transpired over the last 90-so hours?
[00:05:19]  It seems rather extraordinary that there were no leaks or anything else.
[00:05:24]  Yeah, but the answer is going to sound rather simplistic, but it hasn't ever changed in the world of keeping secrets, which is that you limit it to a need-to-know basis, right?
[00:05:33]  So you have to prevent disseminating that information about a potential operation or an action or an opportunity or a source or whatever it may be.
[00:05:41]  You have to limit that severely to a need-to-know basis, which is what happened.
[00:05:48]  And I get it.
[00:05:48]  There are a lot of people talking about the War Powers Act, and a lot of people saying, well, Congress should have been able to weigh in on all of this.
[00:05:55]  And I understand what they're thinking.
[00:05:58]  I get it, but I don't agree with it because there's no way that you could go to Congress in a big way.
[00:06:04]  They briefed the gang of eight, right?
[00:06:07]  They briefed our important allies overseas ahead of time, but they kept it limited to a need-to-know basis in order to save lives, U.S. and allied lives in this operation, because obviously we needed the element of surprise.
[00:06:25]  So that part has never really changed in terms of how you keep a secret.
[00:06:30]  Right.
[00:06:30]  And both Democrat and Republican administrations have been going to war and flipping Libya and throwing bombs all over the world without getting congressional authorization.
[00:06:41]  The other part that nobody really wants to talk about, maybe you can offer some insight, is that I think we have plenty of Congress people on the Democrat side we can't trust.
[00:06:49]  There's no way you could bring an Ilhan Omar or Rashida Tlaib into a meeting about this and have them not leak it.
[00:06:54]  So that seems like a somewhat new problem that maybe we wouldn't have had 20 years ago.
[00:06:59]  Well, I think that is true, right?
[00:07:01]  I mean, people just in Washington, D.C. in general, whether they're up on the Hill or anywhere else, seem to have a hard time keeping their pie holes shut.
[00:07:08]  So if you were to go to Congress and brief all the members of Congress, I guarantee you, I would bet everything I own on the fact that you would have a leak.
[00:07:19]  And it might not even be from who you think, right?
[00:07:21]  It may be from just someone else who's got a contact within the media and they can't help themselves because they like to be seen as being in the know.
[00:07:28]  It could be because of ideological differences.
[00:07:30]  Certainly, you would put someone like Ilhan Omar in that camp based on the things that she's said since.
[00:07:36]  And you would also never get agreement.
[00:07:38]  So what are you doing?
[00:07:39]  You're going in there to brief them, not to get their consent, but to brief them because that would make them feel important.
[00:07:45]  But then they're just, you're going to leak and then you're going to screw this up and then you're going to lose a lot of lives that shouldn't be lost.
[00:07:51]  So I think that part of it, again, I understand the other side saying, okay, fine.
[00:07:57]  But in the real world, the world that we live in, you can't have full transparency.

=== Regime's Tactical Error (09:13) ===

[00:08:03]  What do you make of how the administration has laid out the goals?
[00:08:07]  You know, it seems like it happened so quickly and Khomeini was taken out so fast that at first people are like, well, what is this?
[00:08:14]  Is this regime changed?
[00:08:15]  Now it seems Trump's given a couple of press conferences and Rubio particularly, where they're laying out the goals.
[00:08:21]  What do you think are the effective real world goals that we can?
[00:08:25]  Do you think we can accomplish all the goals they've laid out?
[00:08:27]  Have they laid out everything we need to hear?
[00:08:31]  Well, I think they've now, I wouldn't say that in the first 48 hours, but obviously they have their hands full.
[00:08:38]  But I think now they have laid out the objectives fairly clearly.
[00:08:41]  Look, the first couple, I think that they've achieved those remarkably quickly.
[00:08:47]  That would be a significant destruction of the missile stockpiles, launchers, and also the ability to resupply to manufacture missiles going forward.
[00:08:59]  The destruction of the Navy, such as it is, Iran's never been a blue-water Navy strength out there.
[00:09:07]  They've kind of relied on asymmetrical warfare, so the fast boats, the ability to disrupt commercial shipping, particularly in the Strait of Hormuz.
[00:09:15]  The other issues are much more complicated.
[00:09:19]  The objective of they'll never have a nuclear weapon, the objective of they will never foment terrorism through the support of their terror proxies that they've built up over all these years.
[00:09:32]  Those things require A, more time, and B, a kind of a fundamental shift in the regime itself.
[00:09:39]  And so whether that happens is completely down to the Iranian people at this point.
[00:09:45]  I know that there's been these rumblings about, well, they haven't ruled out the idea of boots on the ground.
[00:09:51]  I don't see a moment where anybody says, yeah, let's put boots on the ground in Iran.
[00:09:56]  So I would be skeptical that that would happen.
[00:09:59]  But this comes down to the Iranian people and whether they see this as their moment and whether there's an opportunity to overcome what's left of the security apparatus, which is still significant.
[00:10:12]  Right.
[00:10:12]  So does that seem realistic to you?
[00:10:14]  If let's say another week goes by and we considerably degrade whatever offensive capabilities they have and they're starting to run out of missiles and then you start getting mass defections, which it looks like it's happening already.
[00:10:26]  What do you think it looks like when Trump says the people have to take over?
[00:10:31]  Like, what do you think that actually looks like?
[00:10:34]  Because I think what most people, and I respect this position, people are worried, hey, this is just going to turn into another Iraq or we're going to kill Qaddafi and then Libya became a failed state.
[00:10:44]  There'll be some version of that.
[00:10:45]  Now, the Iranian people are very different than the Iranian regime, but what does it actually look like on the ground?
[00:10:51]  Yeah, I'm glad you raised Libya.
[00:10:53]  You can't make a comparison there.
[00:10:55]  Libya is an enormous, it's a tribal environment, right?
[00:10:59]  Over 130 tribes spread across this massive land space, never a sense of any sort of federal system in any way.
[00:11:08]  And likewise, you can't take Venezuela and say, well, that's a template for Iran, right?
[00:11:14]  Venezuela had a history of elections and a sense of democracy and what that meant.
[00:11:19]  And you had a defined opposition.
[00:11:22]  You don't have that necessarily in Iran.
[00:11:25]  So there's going to have to be, as you pointed out, there's going to have to be defections.
[00:11:29]  There's going to have to be individuals within the structure, the IRGC and elsewhere, the armed forces that say, okay, enough is enough, right?
[00:11:40]  Maybe they're not fundamentalists, right?
[00:11:42]  They're not members of the Assembly of Experts.
[00:11:44]  They're not hardline clerics.
[00:11:45]  And they've said, okay, that's it.
[00:11:47]  Maybe they're hearing mumblings from their own family saying, you know, you've got to do something, right?
[00:11:52]  And so if you get those individuals with sufficient responsibility or credibility within the armed forces, within parts of the IRGC, there's parts of it that will never change, right?
[00:12:03]  Because they're so entrenched and they've enriched themselves so much, they don't see an upside to turning.
[00:12:09]  But if you can get enough of those individuals that do, then the people have a chance.
[00:12:15]  But unarmed population against an armed security apparatus that just finished slaughtering thousands of them, you've got to hope for some real internal change within that leadership structure for this to actually take effect.
[00:12:32]  Otherwise, a likely scenario is you get a reshuffling of the deck chairs.
[00:12:37]  Eventually, you do get a successor named.
[00:12:41]  The RGC continues to hold.
[00:12:44]  They have had their teeth removed for the most part in terms of their missile stockpiles and a lot of other capabilities that they had, but they're still in charge.
[00:12:53]  And the people look around and go, you know, now what?
[00:12:57]  And so, once again, you have this failed opportunity for the people to realize a better future.
[00:13:04]  What do you make of their reaction?
[00:13:06]  I mean, it's obvious.
[00:13:07]  Okay, so Israel takes out Khomeini.
[00:13:10]  Obviously, they're going to get hit with missiles, although their laser system now is pretty freaking impressive.
[00:13:15]  And we're seeing, you know, sort of Star Wars develop right in front of our eyes.
[00:13:19]  But what do you make of the fact that they then have now attacked nine Arab countries in the midst of this?
[00:13:24]  Yeah, I think it's a tactical error on the part of what's left of the regime and their leadership.
[00:13:29]  And I think it also shows that they're probably operating off of what you would call pre-issued standing orders because their command and control is so decimated at this point.
[00:13:39]  They're not really, a lot of the units that are operating these missiles are probably not getting real-time instruction from superiors.
[00:13:48]  So they're operating off of a predetermined set list and they're just kind of figuring it out as they go along.
[00:13:53]  So there may not be somebody at the top who says, you know, probably firing off missiles at Oman, you know, at Riyadh, in Qatar, probably not a good idea.
[00:14:06]  It's not unexpected because they did say they'd go after U.S. facilities.
[00:14:10]  But I think that, look, they're just further isolating themselves on the world stage by doing this.
[00:14:17]  And there are a number of actors out there in the Middle East countries that privately would love to see the regime go away.
[00:14:25]  Right.
[00:14:26]  So is that really what's happening here?
[00:14:27]  That the U.S. and Israel basically are doing everybody's dirty work and they'll always kind of blame Israel and then by extension blame the U.S.
[00:14:36]  But secretly, Saudi Arabia, especially now, I mean, they're getting attacked right now.
[00:14:40]  Even Qatar is getting attacked right now.
[00:14:43]  So in some sense, they just want every, they want us to do the dirty work.
[00:14:46]  They're not really threatened by the U.S. and Israel.
[00:14:49]  They know that Iran's a bad guy, but there's an optics issue for religious reasons, et cetera, et cetera.
[00:14:54]  Right.
[00:14:54]  Yeah.
[00:14:55]  No, I think you're right.
[00:14:56]  I think you're onto something there, which is similar to what we see in the Ukraine conflict, where I think Europe, the EU, certainly the U.S., looks at it and goes, well, in a sense, you're at the front end of the spear here, degrading the Russian military and showing us all their various weaknesses.
[00:15:14]  So I think there is an element to that.
[00:15:19]  It would be for the region's good if those players, if those actors out there would be more vocal in their opposition to the Iranian regime at this point.
[00:15:30]  But as you pointed out, there's a number of reasons why they're kind of talking out of both sides of their mouth, I suppose.
[00:15:36]  But I do think it's a tactical error on the part of the Iranian regime to almost indiscriminately just start firing off at, I think, some 11 Arab states, Gulf states at this point.
[00:15:48]  What do you think this looks like in about two weeks?
[00:15:51]  If everything just kind of tracks as it is right now and their systems continue to be degraded, and as Trump pointed out, you know, there were all these rumors online that somehow we were running out of munitions already and he's put that to rest.
[00:16:02]  If everything just kind of tracks the way Trump and Rubio and Hegset are laying it out, where do you think we're at in, say, a week or two?
[00:16:10]  Yeah, I think that, you know, I know everybody loves being in a prediction game.
[00:16:14]  Yeah, I know.
[00:16:15]  They've got a lot of target packages, right?
[00:16:17]  That they just keep going off the shelf, both the Israelis and the U.S.
[00:16:21]  And look, we're also getting intel support from the other players out there, right?
[00:16:25]  The Saudis, Jordanians, UAE.
[00:16:27]  It's not like they just, they're not engaged in some level of involvement, right?
[00:16:33]  But again, it's off the radar screen.
[00:16:35]  So I think what does it look like in one, two weeks?
[00:16:40]  On the ground, it all comes down to are there fractures within the leadership, within the IRGC in particular, and what remains of the sort of non-clerical government administration there at Iran.
[00:16:58]  It comes down to that.
[00:17:01]  Look, we've already got air superiority over most of Iran at this stage, so we can pick and choose.
[00:17:07]  It's a real luxury in combat terms.
[00:17:10]  So I think the wildcard is in part Hezbollah.

=== Hezbollah's Asymmetric Threat (02:51) ===

[00:17:17]  And it's a different world right now, right?
[00:17:18]  We've already seen the Lebanese government come out.
[00:17:21]  You can't do that, right?
[00:17:22]  Telling Hezbollah.
[00:17:23]  Now, you know, the Lebanese military government have always had a hard time controlling Hezbollah.
[00:17:30]  The dynamic is different.
[00:17:31]  And I think Hezbollah may feel that.
[00:17:34]  And so you've got that element.
[00:17:35]  And then you've got the asymmetric issue of terrorism.
[00:17:40]  And do you get sympathizers overseas?
[00:17:44]  Do you get even something as organized as a sleeper cell operating in the EU or the U.S. that decides it's time to strike out?
[00:17:54]  That's something that's hard to predict, but is right at the very front of this in terms of concerns from within the White House and certainly within the Intel community and law enforcement in the U.S. and the EU.
[00:18:05]  What would you say to the sort of hyper-libertarian people on the right?
[00:18:10]  I would put Tucker, although I, frankly, personally, I think his intentions are a little more nefarious at this point, but the hyper-isolationist America should do nothing outside of its borders and not be involved in the world.
[00:18:22]  What would you say to people who are taking that position right now?
[00:18:26]  Yeah, I mean, I understand.
[00:18:27]  That'd be a wonderful world to live in.
[00:18:29]  I'd love to live in a world like that where you could just draw the curtains and all you have to do is worry about your own nation.
[00:18:35]  But what I would say is that's not the world that we live in, right?
[00:18:39]  And so God bless you if that's how you think.
[00:18:41]  That's terrific.
[00:18:43]  But I think it's all based on your own personal experiences too.
[00:18:46]  I mean, what do the kids say nowadays?
[00:18:48]  Your lived experience.
[00:18:51]  And I've spent most of mine overseas in some very hostile and challenging environments.
[00:18:55]  And I've seen that it's not a community of nations out there.
[00:18:58]  And I've also seen how interconnected everything is, right?
[00:19:01]  Nothing happens in a bubble that doesn't impact your own country, your own citizens.
[00:19:07]  So I get it.
[00:19:08]  You know, I understand why people think that seems like an attractive idea.
[00:19:13]  And, you know, I'd love that to be the case for the world because that would mean that we do, in a sense, have a community of nations.
[00:19:20]  And we could all just kind of focus on ourselves and everything else would tick along nicely.
[00:19:24]  But I don't believe that's the world we live in.
[00:19:26]  Right.
[00:19:27]  Yeah, I'm totally with you.
[00:19:28]  I mean, so to that point, what would you then say to the people who maybe aren't fully in that camp, but they just have a little PTSD or hangover from some of our misadventures?
[00:19:38]  So they understand, okay, maybe we do have to do something, but our track record is spotty.
[00:19:45]  Yeah, no, and it is.
[00:19:46]  There's no doubt about it.
[00:19:47]  And it's messy, right?
[00:19:49]  You can't gloss over any of this in terms of all the various scenarios and how it could play out, right?
[00:19:56]  We've got enough recent case studies to show us that these things can oftentimes not go the way that you'd like them to go according to the scenarios you drew up.
[00:20:05]  So I understand that.

=== Kicking the Can Down the Road (04:00) ===

[00:20:08]  I think that what's happened is administration after administration with Iran has simply just kicked the can down the road or put lipstick on a pig or a bandaid on a sucking chest wound or however you want to describe it.
[00:20:18]  And they've always left it up to the next generation or the next administration.
[00:20:26]  If you want to continue living under the threat and the eventuality, because that's where they're heading, we're heading of the Iranian regime of essentially a government of fanatics Acquiring nuclear weapons, then if you think that's the sort of world you want to live in, I don't have common ground.
[00:20:47]  I don't have the ability to influence that sort of thinking.
[00:20:50]  So, also, not to mention the thousands that were killed or maimed, wounded by Iran exporting their IED technology and resourcing and training and capabilities during our time in Iraq.
[00:21:04]  I get the understanding of being fatigued by it all.
[00:21:08]  I certainly agree with that.
[00:21:10]  But fanatics and terrorists don't get tired of it.
[00:21:14]  So, I know we all think the global war on terror ended.
[00:21:16]  And in a certain sense, it did in terms of how much attention we devoted to it and resource, but it still goes on out there, right?
[00:21:26]  It's not a world of unicorns and people holding hands and singing whatever they sing when they hold hands.
[00:21:34]  I'm not a very eloquent person at times.
[00:21:36]  No, that was, well, I think it was something there were, you should have thrown rainbows in there or something and smoked a change or something.
[00:21:43]  So, all right, let's say this goes really like we're two weeks from now.
[00:21:48]  You know, the regime has largely been taken out.
[00:21:51]  The people are starting to take over some institutions, whatever that sort of thing, it starts forming in a way that, let's say, would be positive.
[00:22:00]  Do you think this really, in some sense, could be the war to end all conventional wars?
[00:22:06]  In that the largest state sponsor of terror in the Middle East would be gone.
[00:22:11]  It would sort of show that the map is there to stay.
[00:22:13]  Israel's not going anywhere.
[00:22:15]  The United States is involved in the world again.
[00:22:18]  Like, guys, start making peace and expansion of the Abraham Accords.
[00:22:22]  That's my sense that that's what Trump sees: he doesn't like war, which is why he's fighting this war.
[00:22:29]  Yeah, I think that if you want long-term regional stability, regional stability and peace, then you have to imagine that doesn't include the Mullahs and the IRGC.
[00:22:45]  You won't, as long as that group, and a number of them are now gone, but they are working to reconstitute themselves, and the hardliners still exist and they're still in IRGC.
[00:22:55]  As long as that exists with their stated objective of the destruction of Israel and all that they've done to do that in their efforts to acquire nuclear weapons and their race to build up their ballistic missile stockpiles and create bigger and better ballistic missiles, you're not going to get that sort of peace and stability in the region.
[00:23:17]  And the players know that.
[00:23:18]  The Saudis know that.
[00:23:19]  The Jordanians know that.
[00:23:21]  They all know it, right?
[00:23:23]  But nobody's taken that step.
[00:23:25]  And so now we've done it.
[00:23:27]  You don't know what's going to come out the other side.
[00:23:30]  And that's why people have always kicked it down the road because, you know, nobody's wanted to find out.
[00:23:37]  But I think it's a good move.
[00:23:40]  It's an overdue move.
[00:23:42]  I'm not saying it's going to end well.
[00:23:44]  You don't know.
[00:23:45]  But it's worth the effort because if you do want peace and stability in that region, there's got to be a new government there.
[00:23:56]  I don't think it'll be the war to end all wars.
[00:23:58]  I think we'll have another one.
[00:23:59]  I'm not particularly optimistic about human nature and the ability to not go to war.
[00:24:05]  So I'm sure we're going to have more just like we'll have another pandemic.

=== Taiwan's Uncertain Future (02:28) ===

[00:24:09]  Man, I said different topic.
[00:24:11]  Different.
[00:24:13]  Right.
[00:24:14]  For the record, I don't mean it in the most literal sense of war to end all wars.
[00:24:17]  I mean sort of like you take out these bad guys here.
[00:24:20]  It ends a certain hangover of 70 plus years in that area.
[00:24:27]  Let me ask you one other thing.
[00:24:28]  How much of this do you think really has to do with China?
[00:24:32]  In that, you know, we went in, we get Maduro out of Venezuela.
[00:24:35]  We now have access to some of their oil.
[00:24:38]  Obviously, you know, there's the Greenland situation.
[00:24:40]  We want to keep Russia and China out of there.
[00:24:42]  China has now said they're not going to militarily back Iran.
[00:24:46]  They'll offer moral support, which is pretty much nothing at this point.
[00:24:50]  That basically we're showing China, well, you probably don't want to do Taiwan now because Trump's in charge and he's not afraid to do things, and that we're exerting our just overall American influence again.
[00:25:02]  Yeah, I'm glad you brought up China because one of the more fascinating parts of this has been the reaction from what Iran considered to be their strategic partners.
[00:25:12]  And so much like with the 12-day war, that partnership really turned out to be some memos with condemnation in it, and that was it.
[00:25:20]  So that's the same way here.
[00:25:24]  I don't think the Chinese regime under Xi Jinping looks at this and draws a conclusion or a lesson about Taiwan.
[00:25:32]  I think that sits in another box.
[00:25:35]  But I think they look at it in terms of sort of the immediacy of what does this mean from an energy perspective and their, you know, their not reliance, but their access to Iranian oil.
[00:25:49]  And so I think that's an aspect of it, but they've got a pretty long-term vision when it comes to Taiwan.
[00:25:56]  So I don't think they look at it in one or two or three-year term.
[00:26:00]  I think they'd probably look beyond Trump.
[00:26:02]  Now, I think they'd probably look at Trump and go, yeah, in the scheme of things, if we were thinking about Taiwan for 2027, maybe we'll just hold off to 2029.
[00:26:11]  Right.
[00:26:12]  But I think in the long term, I don't think it would deter Xi Jinping.
[00:26:16]  He considers Taiwan his legacy.
[00:26:19]  Right.
[00:26:19]  And the crazy part, of course, is especially with where the Democrat Party's at at this point, it's like all of the progress, assuming it all goes well, all of it could be reversed in basically three years.
[00:26:30]  Mike, I have a feeling this story is not going anywhere.
[00:26:32]  We should do this again in a couple of weeks.
[00:26:34]  I'd love to, man.
[00:26:35]  Thank you, my friend.
[00:26:36]  Take care.