Piers Morgan Uncensored panelists dissect Donald Trump's proposal to resettle Palestinians in Egypt and Jordan while the U.S. owns Gaza, a plan critics deem ethically dubious and logistically impossible due to Arab refusal. The discussion intensifies regarding the Ukraine war, contrasting optimism for a year-end settlement where Russia retains Crimea against fears of further expansion, while debating NATO's future and U.S. foreign policy legitimacy. Finally, Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi argues that empowering Iran's people through civil disobedience is essential to overthrowing the regime, suggesting this internal shift could resolve regional conflicts including the Israeli-Palestinian issue. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Trump's Asinine Gaza Plan00:03:24
If all of the hostages aren't returned by Saturday at 12 o'clock, all hell is going to break out.
It's called The Consequences of a War, and a war that was started by Hamas on October 7th.
Donald Trump the other day said there's 1.9 million people in Gaza.
Okay, that's 400,000 shy of what we started with.
What are you guys going to do?
Start bombing the rubble?
This is biblical levels of evil.
When Israel does 60 times the terrorism of Hamas, we should call them what they are, a terrorist state, and we should stop funding them.
It was always about the theft of Palestinian land.
If Israel wanted to occupy Gaza, they would be occupying Gaza right now.
None of them will.
Clearly, they want to be occupying Gaza.
What is your reaction to Donald Trump and his announcement about talking to Putin?
America's got all the chips here.
We can get Vladimir Putin to do much of what we would like him to do.
I think you could work out a deal where the U.S. pulls out of NATO.
We did not do anything to prevent this totally preventable war.
This week has been dominated by cries of constitutional crisis in D.C. as President Trump fights the courts and emboldens Elon Musk.
It's worth noting in response that U.S. foreign policy has operated without constitutional sanction for many decades and with far graver consequences.
Now, President Trump finds himself at the beating heart of a genuine crisis unfolding 5,000 miles away in Gaza.
Hamas says Israel has violated the terms of its ceasefire agreement and is suspending the release of hostages.
President Trump has given Netanyahu the green light to cancel with it altogether if hostages are not returned as planned on Saturday.
I'm speaking for myself.
Israel can override it.
But from myself, Saturday at 12 o'clock, and if they're not here, all hell is going to break out.
Well, Arab states are still reeling from Trump's claim that Palestinians should be resettled in Egypt and Jordan, with the U.S. owning and rebuilding Gaza as a Middle Eastern Riviera.
They've all fiercely refused that proposal, just as they've long refused to take in Palestinian refugees.
But Jordan's King Abdullah struck a different turn on his visit to the White House this week, pledging to take in 2,000 sick children from Gaza and hailing Trump as a peacemaking visionary.
Mr. President, I truly believe that with all the challenges that we have in the Middle East, that I finally see somebody that could take us across the finish line to bring stability, peace, and prosperity to all of us in the region.
So is Trump successfully bluffing to get deals done and then claim credit for a ceasefire reprieve or is he running the reckless risk of eventually needing a bite to match his bark?
What drilling to debate all this is Chen Uger, the host and founder of The Young Turks, the commentator and author, Batir Unger Sagan, Dave Smith, host of Part of the Problem, and the actor and commentator, Dean Kane.
Well, welcome to all of you.
Check Yuga, I mean, look, Trump's literally ignited a ferocious firestorm of debate with this Gaza Riviera plan.
As with so many things that Trump does, the immediate response I would have is, well, what does he really want here?
And I suspect what he really wants is for the leaders of Arab countries in the Middle East to step up and come up with a workable plan that actually gets things sorted because Trump's right.
Politicians Owned by Israel00:05:23
Nothing else has worked.
Yeah, Trump is not right about one thing here.
His plan is obviously asinine.
We all can acknowledge that.
It has no chance of success.
It's ridiculous.
But more importantly, why is he doing it?
Can we be honest here?
I know in mainstream media and cable news, you can't say this.
Can we say this here?
It's honestly because of his donors.
Right?
I mean, Miriam Adelson gave him that Adelson family over three elections gave him $337 million.
Heretz reported that she wanted portions of the West Bank and Gaza Strips annexed.
So why is Trump saying we're going to own it?
He's trying to trick MAGA into thinking after we let the Israelis slaughter more Palestinians as they try to push 2 million people out of their homes and their homeland.
And after we finance that slaughter, which we're definitely going to finance because Trump, and to be fair to Trump, almost all the Democrats, all Washington is owned by Israel.
Netanyahu, who dogwalked Trump around the park, made him look like a waiter as he was putting his chair in.
So we're going to pay for all that slaughter.
And then Trump goes, oh, don't worry because we're going to own it later.
We're not going to own anything.
You think Israel is going to give it back to us?
No, they're going to steal that land.
This was never about self-defense.
We were right all along.
It was always about the theft of Palestinian land.
We told you so.
All right, Batia, your response.
I think that there's a really important point to be made here, which is that no Palestinians have been allowed to flee this war zone because, of course, Israel was not going to let in civilians from Gaza who may have Hamas members hiding amongst them.
But also, Egypt did not allow almost a single Palestinian to exit the Gaza Strip.
Trump has been very clear that what he imagines here, rightly or wrongly, is the voluntary resettlement of Palestinians who wish to leave Gaza.
Now, I know a lot of Palestinians who would rather live in the rubble than leave their homeland, and I respect that.
But 40% of Gazans before this war were either employed by Hamas, by the public sector, or by UNRWA, or by jobs in Israel.
None of those streams of revenue are going to exist now.
And so the question I think we need to be asking is this.
Does the international community owe it to the people of Gaza to continue subsidizing their living in Gaza under Hamas rule?
Because that is essentially what has been happening until now.
Now, of course, I do not support any sort of forceful removal of anybody from their homeland, but I don't think that's what Trump is imagining.
It was very clear from the press conference that there's going to be this meeting in Riyadh between the Saudis, between the Jordanians, and between the Egyptians, all of whom have done nothing to help the Palestinians forever.
And so I think this question becomes who owes who what?
And that's really what Trump is trying to introduce here is a new path forward.
Dave Smith, you said about the plan, I called it insane ethnic cleansing and the worst proposal a president can make.
But if what it achieves is it gets everybody in a room actually properly debating a solution to all this, isn't it a means to an end?
Well, I guess you could say that about anything, like if he doesn't come through on what he's saying he's going to do, and then something else better comes out of it, perhaps.
But look, it doesn't, the plan itself doesn't make any sense.
I don't think Bhatia is right to say that it was clear that this is going to be voluntary.
I mean, at best, that was unclear.
The only thing that Trump made crystal clear is that they would not be allowed back in.
He said that explicitly in the interview with Brett Bayer.
And the problem even, I think, Pierce, with the idea, which a lot of Trump supporters, and I voted for him in this election, but a lot of Trump supporters are saying, oh, this is just a Trump negotiating tactic.
The problem with that angle is that it doesn't even make sense as a negotiating tactic.
I mean, who are you putting pressure on here?
Like the idea is you would have to, in order to have a negotiating tactic here, you would have to be putting some pressure on Israel.
I mean, the idea that we're going to put more pressure on the people of Gaza, I think they've felt quite enough pressure over the last nearly year and a half now and many decades before that.
But this is just so, even just to float this out as a starting point in a negotiation is so outrageous.
I mean, the idea that Israel breaks it and then we buy it after Israel, as we all know on this panel, has used their significant influence.
Like even if you don't want to go quite as far as Jenk and say that, you know, the politicians in America are owned by Israel, although he's got an argument there.
Israel has used their significant influence to push America into the entire terror wars of the last 25 years.
Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli war cabinet has still been trying to pressure us to fight a war with Iran, another catastrophic war in the Middle East.
Unconditional Support Ends00:14:46
This is what these guys want.
And now we're responsible for cleaning up their mess.
It's an outrage.
It is the antithesis of America first and the antithesis of the spirit in which so many people, the reason why so many people supported Donald Trump, a break from the permanent war party.
Piers Morgan Uncensored is now proudly independent.
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Okay, before I go to Dean, just one more thing, Dave, on this, which is Trump's position is, look, all right, give me a better option.
In other words, if it's not America that rebuilds flattened northern Gaza, which is clearly uninhabitable to families, right?
I have one.
Right.
If it's not America that does that, who does it?
Well, I mean, that's, I mean, look, if we want to try something new, what we could try is not giving Israel unconditional support and arming and financing.
No, but that's not my question.
My question is, who is going to rebuild Gaza?
I can answer it, Piers.
Okay, Chen.
The responsibility ought to be on Israel.
Yeah.
Okay, Cheney.
Yeah.
So as you know, Piers, from day one, what I said was Israel should use special forces.
This bombing of indiscriminate buildings was outrageous.
It was always meant to level it.
Hold on.
So then what I said after that, Piers, if you remember, is you should do a deal with the Palestinian Authority and the West Bank to give the occupied territories back to the Palestinians where it belongs and have a two-state solution that we've always fought for.
And that way they would have the authority and the credibility to be able to push Hamas out of the government.
Who rebuilt Gaza?
Israel doesn't pay for it.
The U.S. doesn't have to do it.
Yeah, I know.
I know.
I'm getting to it.
And so then I know Israel would never pay for anything.
They'd try to make us pay for it by paying all their bills.
So then you go to the Arab countries, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and you say, oh my God, we got a deal.
We got a two-state solution.
The Palestinians are going to finally have a homeland.
Now you guys pay for the rebuilding.
I guarantee you that they do that.
That is an easy solution.
The only thing blocking that solution.
That way America doesn't pay anything.
There's no more killing.
There's peace.
The only ones blocking that are Israel because they don't want two states.
They want to steal Gaza.
And now they just said it.
They want the other people.
So there's no question about it.
Cheng, Cheng, this all sounds utopian and so easy, except that, of course, you've still got a large Hamas presence, as we see with the release of all these hostages.
We believe from American intelligence that for every Hamas terrorist who's been killed, they've already been replaced.
The ideology may, if anything, have been fueled.
And that ideology is committed to the destruction of all things Israel.
So this full utopia picture you're paying for.
It bears no relation to reality.
It's not utopia.
It's super simple.
No.
First of all, peers, you leave it to the Palestinians.
That's why I'm saying do the deal with the Palestinian Authority and the West Bank.
You leave it to the Palestinians to drive Hamas out.
So that's their internal business.
But in order to do that, you have to have a deal for a two-state solution.
And you make the Middle Eastern countries, the Arab countries that have always said that they want an independent Palestine pay for rebuilding Palestine.
It makes perfect sense.
But it does right to the point.
Okay, look, you had me right to the point.
You say the Palestinian government.
If you go to the side, it won't work.
You're going to the same talking point about how Palestinians are always going to be terrorists.
I get it.
That's a ridiculous Israeli propaganda.
No, no, no.
I don't think that at all.
But I think the idea that the Palestinian Authority will simply go bang and Hamas disappear, forget it.
Dean Kane, let me bring you in here.
You've been bothered by the same thing.
But it's not simple, but yeah, of course that's what you do.
And they might be brutal about it, but that's not an Israeli business.
You've got a guy.
You've got a guy in his 80s running the Palestinian Authority, right?
I do not entrust him, frankly, with all due respect to run Hamas out of town.
Let me bring that up.
I'm giving you a perfectly viable solution.
All right.
Perfectly viable.
And you're coming out with excuses because Israel wants Gaza.
Be honest.
I'm not coming up with any excuse to admit that Israel clearly, clearly wants to steal Gaza.
Wasn't that the defense?
Let me ask you.
I certainly believe there are people in Netanyahu's cabinet, Ben Gavir, Smodrich, and others, who absolutely would like that.
That's been my problem with this for a long time.
Let me bring Dean Kane to be waiting patiently.
I mean, Dean, look, you know, a lot of people outraged, as always, by what Trump has suggested.
But is there merit to his apparent madness?
Absolutely 100%.
Look, what we're just failing to talk about here is October 7th.
And I'll quote Douglas Murray here.
You don't get to start a war and then complain when you lose it.
And there are consequences to losing it.
And Hamas needs to be absolutely driven out and ended in Gaza.
That's unequivocal.
Otherwise, they're going to completely keep going with the same circle, teaching people through UNRWA and the schooling there that Israelis are drinking your blood, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
They're fomenting this.
We're paying for half of this stuff through USAID and the other things that are going on.
It's ridiculous.
I think Israel has every right to step up.
I think President Trump has made it clear that he's going to back them 100%, unlike this last administration.
And I think we'll actually see something really happen in this area.
But the problem seems to me is there is no real evidence that Hamas have been defeated.
In fact, if anything, these propaganda videos they're showing with the hostages, there seem to be a lot of Hamas and a lot of support for Hamas, certainly in the early ones.
And I think that would be very important.
I can't believe they don't love Israel.
Well, no, but this has been my problem against 62,000 people there.
Yeah, but just to go back to the city.
They don't love Israel.
That's so shocking.
Well, hang on.
I'm going to go back to the bank.
Would you love your oppressors?
I mean what you did on October 7th.
I wouldn't love people who murdered my family.
There, you sound like you.
No, you sound like one of the means you're wrong.
The Palestinians didn't start this war.
Israel started it with the occupation.
You don't get to occupy Texas for 57 years.
And if Texas fights back, go, oh, look at the terrorists in Texas.
They started the war.
No, Israel definitively started a war.
America first.
I'm tired of Israel first, Israel first.
Give them $300 billion.
Pay for their genocides.
Get out of there.
America first and let these poor people, Palestinians, go.
The problem is Israel and their infinite greed for land, land, land, and slaughter.
So just to be clear.
Just to be clear, Chen, because you're going a bit further than you have before.
Just to be clear, you think October the 7th was an inevitable consequence of the way the Palestinian people have been treated?
Guys, I hate October 7th.
When Hamas does violence, they do so much damage to the Palestinians and the Muslims.
But two things can be true at the same time.
You could have something awful, and then you could use your brain to figure out, hey, why did that happen?
And does anyone think that any American wouldn't fight back if they were occupied and humiliated and their land stolen and their families bullied and harassed and humiliated for 57 straight years?
Of course we would fight back.
Of course, any set of human beings would fight back.
But when Israel oppresses them and uses their might of their giant military to crush them, that's not terrorism.
But if Palestinians fight back, terrorists, it's absurd.
It's propaganda.
It's both terrorism.
So yes, Hamas doing terrorism is despicable.
And when Israel does 60 times the terrorism of Hamas, we should call them what they are, a terrorist state, and we should stop funding them.
Don't send our taxpayer money to go fund terrorist government of Israel.
All right, Batsya, your response.
I just want to talk about this idea of Israel owning the United States government because it seems to me that people who make that argument want to have it both ways.
On the one hand, we give Israel exorbitant amounts of money.
And on the other hand, somehow they control us through the money that we give them.
And it's never been clear to me, like, what do they use for that control?
So people will say APAC, but APEC spends about $3 million on local races in America, on congressional races.
It's not a lot of money.
The number one donor is.
It's actually the power that the Israel lobbyists are.
Among the American people is the fact that Americans are supportive of Israel.
It's like the way that the NRA was popular when it was because Americans like their guns.
These lobbyists are, they are powerful to the extent that they reflect views that the American people already have.
And I think that's a really important point to point out here because you cannot take an unpopular view and just use money in order to push it.
And nothing has proven that like this last election signal.
Take Nikki Haley.
Nikki Haley outspent Donald Trump two to one.
Kamala Harris outsput spent Donald Trump two to one.
Money in politics has been revealed to be nothing compared to the will of the American people.
This is an amazing thing.
I mean, I was, as a lefty, I was really against Citizens United.
And it turns out, actually, the American electorate has a very clear idea of what it wants.
If you look at Donald Trump's cabinet, every single person in that cabinet, which is, by the way, the most diverse ideological cabinet in American history, they all have a very similar view of what it means to be America first.
There's only one thing that they all share, and they all seem to think that having a pro-Israel point of view is very much inherent in the America first ideology because Israel is a good ally.
Israel brings a lot to the table.
We get a lot more bang for our butt.
In fact, I think Israel should stop taking aid from the United States because I think Israel has paid a much higher price for that aid in terms of its sovereignty.
It has been bad for Israel to take all this money because it means that the Americans can tell them what to do.
And they shouldn't accept that.
They should be sovereign nations.
I'll just make one more quick point.
Sovereignty is not something you can give somebody.
It's not a gift you can give to another nation.
I feel for the Palestinian people, but the idea that somehow Israel, which won its sovereignty through winning wars, owes them something in the form of a sovereign state.
This is just ridiculous.
Like this doesn't actually make any sense.
Shank, you said who should rebuild Gaza.
You said the Arab nations should rebuild Gaza in exchange for the two-state solution.
But what Trump is about to do is get a deal in which they rebuild Gaza without actually having to have a two-state solution.
So he's actually sort of a little bit ahead of the game in the way that he often turns out to be.
Okay, let me bring in.
No, you know how unrealistic that is.
You think Saudi Arabia is going to pay for Israel to occupy Gaza?
Nobody's going to pay.
Nobody is going to go.
No, I don't think Israel wants to occupy Gaza at all.
They wouldn't be that biggest sucker.
If Israel wanted to occupy Gaza, it would be occupying Gaza right now.
None of them will.
Clearly doesn't want to be occupying Gaza.
Yeah, none of them will.
Why, Shank, according to you, why is Israel not currently occupying Gaza if they want it so badly?
Because they're waiting for America to give them permission.
They were waiting for this election.
That's why they supported Trump.
So Kamala Harris and Joe Biden were terrible on this issue.
They gave Israel everything they wanted, but Netanyahu made a deal with Trump, and it became obvious to me that the reason for that was just Trump was going to give them even more, which is just to let them grab this land in Gaza, which is going to cause a massive conflict.
And guess who's going to pay for it?
We're all going to pay for it.
Okay, let me bring in.
Come on, you know the donors control things.
The drug companies are deeply unpopular and they win every time in Congress.
All right, let me bring in.
Buy our Congress, and so does Israel.
Made the point.
Let me bring in Dave Smith.
Dave, the immediate big picture here is that there's been a big fracturing of the agreement in terms of releasing hostages, Hamas, and so on.
And it's now coming to a head on Saturday where Trump says if they don't release all of the hostages by Saturday, midday, I think he said, and all hell will break loose.
Supposed to be three hostages being released.
Netanyahu now no longer says three, but doesn't give an actual number.
He just says many, I think.
So you've got three different positions here.
Either way, it feels like a very precarious moment in this process.
What do you make of it?
Yeah, well, I mean, I certainly agree.
It's a precarious moment.
You know, there was a good piece in the New York Times about this.
I mean, where even some Israeli officials were admitting that they haven't held up their end of the ceasefire either.
There's been a bunch of Palestinians killed during this ceasefire.
You know, the problem here, I think, with Trump's negotiating posture is that, again, it's just all the pressure is just trying to put more pressure on Hamas and on Gaza.
But there's two parties here.
A Precarious Ceasefire Moment00:15:18
And I think at the very least, people could acknowledge that like there has to be some pressure on both of them.
And this is one, you know, I just wanted to respond to a couple of the things Batia was saying, because there actually was really interesting news that you was broke on your show here, Pierce.
If you remember back a few weeks ago, when you hosted a debate between Wesley Clark and Scott Horton and four-star General Wesley Clark, who's probably most famous for his seven countries in five years comment that he had seen that this plan was all, he revealed very casually on your show that actually he had seen these plans back in 1991.
And you know where they came from?
They came from Paul Wolfowitz, and he said this was sanctioned by Israel, that Israel under George H.W. Bush's administration had the plan to topple all of these governments.
This is a decade before 9-11.
And then, of course, they lost the election.
The plan got re-ignited when George W. Bush took over.
But to Badia's point, there was no groundswelling of support from the American people to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi or to start a civil war in Syria or even to overthrow Saddam Hussein.
This was totally a top-down move, largely done by Israeli influence.
And so it's just not the case that what's popular is always going to rise to the top and that politics and business have no influence on this.
And I'm not a lefty.
I'm not like, I don't care about getting money out of politics.
I care about getting politics out of money.
I want to see the size and scope of the government drastically reduced.
So it doesn't even really matter who owns the thing.
And I think Elon and Trump are doing a great job on that front, or at least starting to.
But, you know, this is just the idea of what we're going to look.
Pierce, the thing that's kind of frustrating here, right?
Is that I sit here on your show six months ago, eight months ago, and I say, you're never going to be able to get rid of Hamas.
You're just going to get more Hamas or Hamas-like groups doing this.
And then we, and then we turn around and then all the pro-Israel, you know, people, they just act like that point never happened.
We just move on to whatever the next like topic is.
But what are you guys going to do?
Start bombing the rubble?
I mean, like, for God's sakes, like have a little bit of humanity.
The numbers, look, Donald Trump, by the way, I think Jenk is wrong when he's floating out.
You know, remember all those months where on this show, people would always argue whether you can trust the Ministry of Health's numbers or not?
That argument's over.
It's way higher than what they were estimating.
Donald Trump the other day said there's 1.9 million people in Gaza.
Okay, that's 400,000 shy of what we started with.
I'm not claiming to know what the exact numbers are, but this is just so, I mean, like on any, this is biblical levels of evil.
You're just going to start bombing these people again and think that's going to solve the problem?
Yeah, Dean, I mean, look, I think these are very valid questions.
I've been saying for many months, what's the plan for the end of this?
Because it seemed to me there was no actual evidence that the ideology was being removed whatsoever.
In fact, quite the opposite.
It looked like support for Hamas was growing in Gaza because of the scale of the retribution from Israel for October the 7th.
Dean, I mean, my question for you would be, just on a human level, if you were suddenly told, along with your entire neighborhood, right, you've all got to leave, right?
And you can't come back.
Instinctively, on a human level, you'd be like, sorry, what?
No, this is my home.
I'm not going anywhere.
And even if you're- If they told me that in a sort of a blank slate, but if people had done what happened on October 7th and then you get removed from that area, I don't know how much you can complain.
And when they're pushing that.
But why should 2 million people be punished for the actions of 50,000 people in Hamas?
Well, what is the percent of support for Hamas within the Gaza?
It's hard to gauge what it really is because, rather like in Russia and other places, when you have a controlling body in a country who ruled by fear and violence and intimidation and murder, then often people are not going to be honest in polling, right?
So we don't really know.
I mean, I've seen enough scenes to say exactly that.
There's a lot of support, but I think to punish, to collectively punish 2 million people, which is what is going on here under this plan, that seems to me to be almost the embodiment of ethnic cleansing, isn't it?
I mean, if you're forcing them against their will to leave their homes and not allow them back, that is, by the definition of the phrase, ethnic cleansing.
Well, it's not a genocide and it's not ethnic cleansing.
There are plenty of Arab Jews or non-Jews inside of Israel.
It's that it's Hamas.
It's that they're not there.
Hang on, hang on.
They're there voluntarily.
The point about ethnic cleansing is where a group of people are removed from a place where they live against their wishes.
That is called ethnic cleansing.
It's called the consequences of a war and a war that was started by Hamas on October 7th, period.
You do that.
Let me tell you what, Piers, anybody on this panel, if your kid was among those that were taken hostage and pulled across, what would you do to get him back?
I would do anything.
Yeah, but I would read.
But, Dean, I agree with you.
Dean, I agree with you, but what would you do?
Why don't we ever apply that to the other side?
I get your point.
It makes sense.
I agree with you.
I would do anything.
But what about the Palestinian children?
Who have gotten such greater numbers so much more oppressed?
But quit putting rockets and things in schools.
Quit putting it.
I mean, there's no question what Hamas is doing by burying all their things right in the schoolyards, right in the churches, right in the mosques, wherever it is in areas.
They do that.
And then, what do you do?
How do you respond to that?
At a certain point, do you see the pictures?
Have you seen the pictures of Gaza?
Are you telling me there was Hamas?
There were Hamas missiles in every single one of those buildings, that that's the entirety of the story is that Israel just had to blow up this building, which, by the way, still, I don't think would be morally justified.
But like, come on, man.
Look, like, it's just, again, even to Dean's point, I always find this fascinating because somehow Americans could say this about the people in Hamas and go like, you know, like you said, yeah, I wouldn't like to be kicked out of my neighborhood, but if my, if my government had done October 7th, I'd accept it.
Your government, Dean, destroyed Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Yemen, the drone bombing campaign in Pakistan.
So like, what are you, can you get kicked out of your house now?
Is it not ethnic cleansing if we were to kick you out of your neighborhood?
This is so ridiculous that we impose these standards on these poor people that we would never dream of holding ourselves to that standard.
It's just, it logically makes absolutely no sense.
And it doesn't really matter what Hamas's approval rating is in the same way that it doesn't matter that George W. Bush had record high approval ratings.
That doesn't mean that the innocent civilians in the United States of America are fair game and neither should any other group of civilians be.
Okay, back to your response.
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Can I just jump in for a second?
I feel a little bit like, Dave, I appreciate what you're saying, but I feel a little bit like you're trying to have it both ways.
On the one hand, you're saying, you know, Hamas is an ideology will never be defeated.
You know, Ergo, there is this sort of widespread support for it.
You know, on the other hand, you're asking Israel to live side by side and treat the population of Gaza as innocent.
Now, I happen to agree with the latter.
I think Hamas is, I don't understand why everybody keeps saying that they're so popular.
The latest polling have shown Hamas support is down to 20%.
I've even seen polls at 7% because the people of Gaza, the innocent people of Gaza, understand who brought this upon them.
Hamas is much more popular right now in the West Bank than it is in Gaza because people in the West Bank have not had to, well, a little bit, they've had to bear the costs of what happened on October 7th, but mostly it's been the people in Gaza.
And I think that to ignore the historic unpopularity of Hamas is truly criminal.
It's to suggest that we cannot imagine a life for the Palestinians in Gaza in their homeland, not living under the brutal regime of Hamas.
Hamas is only able to attack Israel in a very limited way.
You know, October 7th was not some act of like unbelievable genius.
They broke a goddamn fence because Israel wasn't looking at the fence, right?
It was like the most easy, obvious, stupid thing, right?
When actually right now, Hamas's ability to actually kill Israelis is going to be back to what it was before October 7th, which is very, very minimal.
This is not like an unbelievably sophisticated group here.
And what I don't understand is why do we think it is compassion to the Palestinians to sentence them to live under a brutal dictatorship that murders and tortures and steals food from its own people?
And I'm not saying that we should have some sort of plan here for regime change or whatnot, but I'm saying that there seems to be this weird view that the primary victims of Hamas are Israelis and they are not.
They are the people of Gaza.
And again, Pierce, I don't think the question is one of ethnic cleansing because Trump, you're right, Dave.
He did say they can't go back, but he also then very quickly said they're not going to want to.
He is picturing a situation in which young Gazans are given an opportunity to leave and seek a life elsewhere, an option, a choice, which they have not been given ever before.
And the question is, should they be given that choice or should they be subsidized by the international community to continue living under the brutality?
The problem that's terrorists is a problem.
All right, but hang on, hang on.
Look, there's a lot to unpack there, but the immediate problem is none of the Arab states want to do this.
So this plan is not going to go anywhere because none of them are prepared to take in 2 million Palestinian refugees, least of all.
People always say that when Trump starts a negotiation, no one's going to do this.
Look at what he achieved, Pierce, over the last three weeks with tariffs.
He got everything he wanted, every single one.
Can I respond to that?
There's a very big difference between tariffs and 2 million refugees.
Listen, the idea to even make the comparison of Mexico or Canada sending 10,000 troops to their border and compare that to Jordan or Egypt taking in a million refugees each is just, I mean, they view this as an existential threat to their regime.
And there's lots of historical reasons for that.
But like, there's just no comparison between getting that concession and getting this one.
But I think, Bach, like, I think you're misunderstanding what I'm saying.
I'm not saying Hamas could never be defeated.
I'm not saying that the Palestinians are sentenced to live under Hamas forever.
I don't think it's our job to determine who their government is.
If we wanted to use that justification, we could justify having regime change in the majority of governments around the world.
The point is that I'm saying Hamas cannot be defeated like this, or at least a similar ideology.
You'll either have Hamas or a Hamas-like group, as I've said on the show before.
This is General McMcChrystal, not a libertarian dove like me.
It was he's the one who coined the term insurgent math.
What's 10 minus 2?
20.
The more you keep doing this, everybody, every time you kill a little girl, they had a father and a brother and an uncle, and you just get more people.
So Hamas might be less powerful because or less popular, excuse me, because they have been unable to protect their people, but they'll be just be looking for the next most gangster protector that they can provide.
Okay, no, no, no, support for the two-state solution in Gaza has grown since October 7th by leaps and bounds.
Like the exact opposite of that is the same thing.
No, no, it's not sorry.
It's not at all.
That's not what I'm saying.
Now let me say to your other point, and I don't even think you realize you did this, but you just gave the whole game away.
Like you just totally gave away any justification Israel has for this.
When you say October 7th wasn't some genius thing, we just weren't looking at the wall.
We could just look at the wall.
You know, I think, Pierce, a lot of times, as I've watched so many debates on your show about this over the last year, people argue the number of people who are dead.
People argue the civilian to combatant ratio.
All of this is irrelevant, okay?
When you look at the unimaginable amount of profound human suffering that Israel has inflicted on Gaza over the last year plus, the only relevant question is, do you absolutely have to do this?
Is there any alternative?
Well, also, what I would say is if there's not, if that's not the case, if you're saying we could just keep our eye on that wall, then you have absolutely no excuse for it.
But I would say, I would say what happened.
If somebody does what they have to, you have to destroy that.
Hang on one second.
I just want to respond to that because we've done a lot of debates, like you say.
I mean, most of us have been debating this all year on this show.
Here's what I would say.
Maybe two, three weeks in, I began asking two questions repeatedly.
What is a proportionate response?
And what is the end game?
And one other word was, what happens when this is over?
And nobody really on the Israeli side ever had a real answer for this, right?
And it seems to me that the scale of a response, given that Hamas, if the mission was to eradicate Hamas, that has simply not happened.
So that has not been achieved.
So the victory that Netanyahu wanted, which was the elimination of Hamas, I don't think anybody would argue that that has been achieved.
And so we are where we are with that.
Secondly, there's no question that in terms of the plan for the end of this, there wasn't one, right?
And that's why Trump has come up with this idea, because nobody else has come up with a plan, which makes any sense to him.
You know, the Arab countries do not really want to get involved in rebuilding Gaza or taking in any refugees.
They expect America to pick up the bill for this and to do it themselves.
Trump says, fine, but if we're going to do that, it'll take a year, two years, who knows?
Three years?
I mean, Gaza's been destroyed.
What happens to these people in the meantime?
It's uninhabitable for anyone with families.
He's right about that.
Where do they go?
What do they do?
And he's offering one solution, which they're all saying is ridiculous.
Well, okay, what's the other one?
And that seems to me to be where we've got to, where the mission cannot be categorized as a victory when you've got this level of civilian death and the people you were trying to eradicate are still there in large numbers and the ideology has not been dismantled.
In fact, it's probably been fueled.
Then I'm not sure what kind of victory.
Pulling Out of NATO00:14:43
It feels a very pyrrhic victory.
I mean, Check, let me bring you in here.
It just feels to me like a very pyrrhic victory that is very likely to blow up in Israel's face because they've simply gone too far.
Yeah.
So, Piers, as you know, and I just said it again today, I'm a rare person who keeps offering a constructive solution.
And that solution has the Arab states paying instead of America paying.
It has the Palestinians taking care of their own country instead of us taking care of it or Israel taking care of it.
So, and it checks off all those boxes.
And I want you guys to understand how practical it is because oftentimes peace is shown as impossible or impractical.
But Israel actually already did this.
We have a model for it.
Their peace deal with Egypt.
And so at the time, everybody said, oh, you can't work with Egypt.
They attacked Israel twice and they did.
They organized all the Arab nations against Israel twice.
Egypt is the worst of the worst.
They'll always attack Israel.
Well, those folks who said that were wrong.
Egypt never attacked Israel again.
It's been a stalwart ally, and the peace deal worked.
And then people said, well, okay, we're condemning the Egyptians to live under Mubarak and military rule, et cetera.
But that's Egypt's business.
That's not our business.
So let the Palestinians handle their own business.
And Piers, you said there's never been a plan here.
No, there's always been a plan.
They just didn't want to say it in public because they're pretending that this was about self-defense.
October 7th happened 15 months ago.
I mean, they've destroyed almost every building in Gaza.
The plan is obvious and they're now finally announcing it, which is that Israel is going to take it.
That's why they never had realistic ceasefire proposals.
That's why they never drove towards peace.
That's why they never want a two-state solution because they want one state, Israel, from the river to the sea.
And Nanyahu has literally said, from the river to the sea, we're going to have all of it.
So we're all pretending that Israel doesn't want to take this land when that's been their intent all along.
And why are we pretending that?
Because APAC was the number one donor in politics in this election cycle.
Donald Trump's gotten 337 million, but Biden got 11 million from APAC.
Kamala Harris got 5 million from Israeli lobby in this campaign.
So Washington, D.C. is occupied territory.
That is why we're not getting to the obvious America first answer, which would also make the Palestinians happy and get peace for Israel and get a safe Jewish haven, which we all want for Israel and would stop this madness.
But we've got to actually go towards the actual practical solution, which is peace and a two-state solution.
And the people blocking that are Netanyahu and his far-right, ridiculous government in Israel.
And Dave is right.
You put pressure on the people blocking the deal, which is Netanyahu and Israel.
The people in Gaza have almost no power at all.
The people with nearly every single- You know what, maybe my guess is my guess is that the Arab nations will say, right, we will let America rebuild Gaza.
The Palestinian people will not be all forced out.
The ones who want to stay will be able to stay.
But it has to be as part of a two-state solution pathway that is specifically laid out and has a timeline.
I suspect that may be how this ends up.
Anyway, we'll see.
I want to just change to another war briefly.
And let me start with you, Dean, on this one.
This is Ukraine.
Donald Trump has revealed he's had a very productive call with Vladimir Putin.
He said, we talked about the strengths of our respective nations and the great benefit we'll someday work together.
But first, we want to stop the millions of deaths taking place in the war with Russia and Ukraine.
President Putin even used my strong campaign motto of common sense.
We both believe in it strongly, adding they've agreed to start negotiations immediately and that he will notify Ukrainian president Vladimir Zelensky of the conversation.
And that apparently is going to happen imminently.
So there's movement there.
I interviewed President Zelensky last week and it was clear that he also is prepared to sit around a negotiating table and try and resolve this.
But what is your reaction to Donald Trump and his announcement about talking to Putin?
He should talk to both sides.
I'm all for that 100%.
But I say that with President Trump's leadership, that that war in Ukraine will be over for the end of this calendar year.
And I think that's what everybody wants since what President Trump has said himself.
It's like, I want to stop the killing.
I want to stop people from dying.
And that war, I believe, wholeheartedly will be done by the end of this year.
Whatever the concessions are, I don't know, but it's going to be done and people will stop dying.
And that'll be a conflict that we've needed to end.
There's so many people who have been killed there.
And I'll be celebrating when it is over.
And it will be over by the end of this year.
Dave Smith, you know, my concern with this is the only way I can conceivably see this getting resolved anytime soon is that Vladimir Putin gets to keep what he's taken, as he did with Crimea.
I just don't see that the Ukrainians have enough strength or enough resolve from people like the United States now to continue the battle.
And so we're left with where we are on geographic lines, which means Putin really, you know, he wins, doesn't he?
He takes what he's taken again.
Well, I mean, I don't know.
Look, I certainly get your point.
And I think that we are can, there are constraints to reality.
And, you know, look, I mean, even like I, me and Jank, as we've been talking about this situation in Israel, I mean, both of us would probably agree that it certainly wasn't legitimate the way the state of Israel was formed to begin with.
And there was a whole lot of ethnic cleansing that went on then.
But neither of us are arguing.
We're saying the Palestinians should have their land in Gaza and the West Bank.
Neither of us are saying like, you got it.
You know what I mean?
Like, because at a certain point in time, you just have to deal with the reality of the situation.
People living that this, what, you know, there is no practical way to force Vladimir Putin out of the areas that he's taken, short of the U.S. military rolling in and having a direct confrontation with Russia.
And I just don't think that any of us are willing to do that so that the Donbass region is ruled by Kiev rather than Moscow.
That's just not, I'm sorry, that's not worth the cost of a total war between America and Russia.
I hope Dean is right.
I think this is an incredible improvement from the previous administration and their rhetoric and their strategy there.
And I give a lot of credit to Pete Hegseth, who also just recently said some great things on this issue that NATO won't be involved.
Look, I know that me and you don't agree on this, Piers, but I'm with Scott Horton and John Mearsheimer on this.
I think that U.S. foreign policy and particularly NATO enlargement, color-coded revolutions, I think we did a lot to provoke this conflict.
And I think that much like Israel in the Middle East, look, America's got all the chips here, really, when it comes down to it.
We can get Vladimir Putin to do much of what we would like him to do.
I would like to see Trump follow through on one of his previous ideas.
I think the only chance of actually getting all that Ukrainian territory, short of Crimea, you're not getting Crimea, but the rest of the territory, I think you could work out a deal where the U.S. pulls out of NATO.
Donald Trump said it before.
Why on earth are we subsidizing the defense of rich European countries?
Because we worked out this agreement when they were in ashes after World War II to prevent against the Soviet Union.
Well, they're not in ashes anymore.
The Soviet Union doesn't exist anymore.
There's no reason why America needs to subsidize the defense of other rich countries.
So, look, I think this is a huge improvement.
There probably is room for improvement even from there.
And I don't know, I'm not quite as confident as Dean, but I really do hope that this war comes to an end and the killing.
Yeah, I mean, look, the reason we disagree is I wouldn't trust Putin as far as I could throw him.
And I think he deeply trust him.
He deeply regrets the Soviet Union ever got broken up and he would love to get it all restored.
He sees himself as a modern-day czar is my opinion.
But Pierce, I think I think he can't.
If he only, he couldn't even take Kiev.
So what do you think?
He's rolling on Poland.
I'm not saying I trust him.
But he'll end up briefly to him.
He'll end up with a third of Ukraine to go with Crimea, right?
And I just wouldn't trust him.
I think that he will try and come again for more of Ukraine.
And we'll see.
History will prove one of us right about this.
I just don't trust him and think he is a ruthless Russian dictator.
And I think he's used the excuse of NATO encroachment when in fact the reason NATO had to be encroached was precisely because of what he's done in Ukraine.
So it depends who you really want to believe most here.
Batsy, let me bring you in.
I mean, it seems to me, whatever people think of this, Donald Trump, once again, as he's shown since he became president again, he steamed in here.
utterly determined to get this resolved very quickly.
And he is indisputably a man of peace.
He does not believe in war.
He thinks war is bad business.
It's bad for dead bodies and bad for money that gets wasted.
I mean, it's an unusual thing with an American president.
You know, sitting here in London right now, I'm like, this is good to have an American president who doesn't like war.
Hallelujah.
Exactly.
And first of all, utterly delicious for once to be on the same side as Dave of an argument.
I think the United States should immediately withdraw from NATO.
I just want to push back on one thing you said.
Sorry, on that.
Wait a minute.
Wait a minute.
That would be a catastrophe.
And I'll tell you why.
Russia has 6,000 nuclear weapons.
America has a few less.
America with Europe has a little bit more than Russia.
That's why NATO has to stay intact.
You have to have a strong...
But where Trump was right is that all the member countries have to pay their way.
It was completely scandalous.
They weren't even paying their minimum dues.
And guess what?
Most of them now are, right?
And the ones who aren't will soon be bounced out if they're not careful.
So first of all, Trump was...
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Right.
I don't think he wants to dismantle NATO because he understands that NATO collectively actually is more powerful than Russia.
If you dismantle it, neither America nor Europe, Europe as an entity or America, would have the same firepower, nuclear as Russia.
That's why it has to be a lot of people.
So first of all, that acknowledgement was bought in blood, right?
Donald Trump was mercilessly booed and mocked for suggesting that for 10 years, but by many, many, many people.
So first of all, acknowledging that that acknowledgement was hard won and he's right now.
Second of all, what I would say is, you know, when the war in Ukraine started, the Donbass region was not part of Ukraine.
It was an independent republic of Donetsk and Luhansk.
There was a civil war undergoing at that exact time.
And in fact, the residents of Donetsk and the residents of Luhansk were blaming Putin for abandoning them and not invading and coming to protect them from the neo-Nazi, as they called it, Ukrainian regime.
But that's not true.
Only 10%.
Hang on.
That's not true.
At the start of the war, there was a civil war in the Donbass region.
Only 10% of those polled in that region wanted to be part of Russia.
10%.
90% did not.
That was not true in 2014 and 2015 during the Maidan Revolution.
That was true after Putin invaded.
I agree with you then that the war itself was very unifying in Ukraine.
But at the day that that war started, there was a civil war going on there and that area was an independent republic.
Two weeks into the war, Putin laid down three conditions for immediately withdrawing troops from Ukraine.
Number one, Ukraine will not be part of NATO.
Number two, the area, the Donbass, that region that was under civil war would be remain independent, right?
That was the second condition.
And the third condition that he laid out was that Crimea would remain part of Russia.
Guess what?
The war is about to end along those three conditions.
But the people like me and Dave who pointed this out when Putin laid that down were called Russian stooges.
A million young men ago.
A million young men were still alive when we were saying all Putin is asking for is a ratification of the status quo and you won't give it to him.
And now all these people are dead.
That's not to say that the deaths are not at Putin's feet.
They are.
But I agree with Dave.
I think we did not do anything to prevent this totally preventable war.
Okay.
I couldn't disagree more with that analysis, but I appreciate the way you conveyed it.
Chang, final word to you briefly, if you don't mind.
Yeah.
So I'm going to be consistent here.
We need to get to peace.
And Biden and Boris Johnson, in this case, did great damage to the cause of peace.
They pushed the Ukrainians further away from it when they could have had a pretty good peace offer way earlier.
Now, unfortunately, they're going to get a bad peace offer.
And so it doesn't seem like there's a great way to avoid letting the Russians keep some portions of Ukraine that they've already taken.
I agree with Dave.
It's too impractical to try to take it back.
I would propose that the deal is, yes, you get to keep that Russia, but the rest of Ukraine gets to join NATO to be forever protected.
Remember, we took away their nukes with the promise that we would protect them forever.
Now, we've kind of failed on that promise, but at least protect the rest.
And that would be a way to do that.
I don't agree with getting out of NATO.
I think that's a terrible idea.
I agree with Piers.
But I do agree with all of you guys that Trump did a very good job of getting them to pay their bills.
In fact, I think they should pay more than us because we're mainly defending them.
So don't ruin the alliance, but make it fair and just.
Yeah, I agree.
Just on that NATO point, Pete Hegset, the Defense Secretary, the United States does not believe, he says, that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome for negotiated settlement.
And if you take the logic of the pro-Putin members of this panel, joke, but if you take the logic of the more, more, more we believe him elements, then if the reason why he went to war was to stop NATO in Croatia, the last thing he'll do in a peace deal is allow Ukraine to become a full paid-up member of NATO is my assessment.
Empowering the Iranian People00:10:32
Anyway, great panel.
Thank you all very much.
But we have to have compromises.
Thank you, Pierce.
We do.
God bless you.
Thanks, Pierce.
Yeah, good to see you guys.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
We're on joined in the studio now by the Crown Prince of Iran, Reza Paslavi, who says this is a moment for a reset in the Middle East.
Great to see you again.
Good to see you again.
So much has happened.
I mean, every time I see you, so much has happened.
But what do you make of where we are in the Middle East right now?
In a nutshell, I don't think there's any moment after 46 years that we see the Iranian regime as its weakest.
And in proportion to that, the Iranian people as resolved and determined than ever before.
The loss of proxies and the fall of the Bashar regime in Syria has been a severe blow to the regime means of implementing its sort of beyond its border intervention and fomenting conflict.
And so therefore, they really have their backs to the wall right now.
The speed that Assad was driven out of Syria in the end was very dramatic.
These things often can be like that.
Is there any real expectation that there could be a similar uprising in Iran, for example, that the people look at what happened in Syria and think, yeah, we can do that.
And would it be achievable?
You know, Pierce, the first time that we met, I think you were still with CNN.
We had the first interview.
And throughout the years, I think you can also remember that while we had several generations of protests in Iran throughout the years and the decades, the frequency of them have become much more, particularly since the massive revolution and the fact that Iranians are more than ever ready to go beyond the regime.
The cries on the streets, the protests of death to the dictator, death to the Islamic regime, are louder than ever, including the last few days, which was around the anniversary, the 46th anniversary of the revolution.
What's, however, important for all of us to realize is that I believe there's an alignment of the stars in terms of a golden opportunity to put an end to the very root of the crisis all over, which is the regime itself.
The epicenter has always been Tehran.
I said in the way that the regime is weak and the people are ready.
The important thing is for some governments who are behind the curve to catch up to that.
Why do I say this is important?
Because as I'm sure everybody wants to avoid conflict or escalation of conflict, and the only way to avoid conflict, particularly if diplomacy has failed to achieve what was a false premise of behavior change, and there has to be a reset, as you said, of policy, the best way to address the issue so that we don't lead directly from failed diplomacy to conflict and aggression is to provide a third alternative,
which is empowering the Iranian people this time.
So therefore, a policy of maximum pressure that so far has been implemented in the regime has to be coupled with a policy of maximum support, thereby enabling the Iranian people to ultimately achieve that goal of liberation, put an end to this regime, and instead of what we had as a major source of instability, instead have an element that brings stability and peace, which is conducive to realistic prospect of permanent solutions, shall we say,
about the Israeli-Palestinian issue that cannot be achieved as long as this regime is there sabotaging every effort.
Right, so I mean, the belief is that Iran's tentacles extend to Hezbollah, the Houthis, Hamas, and that they've all been destabilized to a degree.
But possibly the ideology behind it has not been.
And certainly in Gaza, for example, the US intelligence believes that perhaps you've killed a lot of Hamas terrorists, but that the thinking that belies them actually may have been fueled by everything that's gone on there.
What do you think of that?
I would say that it's very hard to defeat an ideology by killing people.
What is to eradicate an ideology is to give the people an alternative whereby they can escape regimes that try to dominate via ideology, whether it's communism like we saw during the Cold War and the Soviet Union, or an Islamic theocracy that is trying to push its agenda of exporting an ideology, of course, at the expense of the population of the country from which they're using as a launching pad,
which serves for Khomeini and his entire vision of exporting this ideology across the world.
The alternative is there, because the ask of people today in Iran is the very same values that the free world enjoys and aspire by: human rights, democracy, no discrimination of any form.
And that's exactly what the Iranian people want.
Against the DNA of a regime that cannot coexist in the world based on that conflict of values, which is why you cannot ever achieve a reasonable outcome by compromising with them.
That's why you cannot trust them.
That's why they will never agree to it.
Even as lately of President Trump trying to still offer yet another opportunity for them to come clean, Khomeini rejects it, not because it's irrational, but because he can afford to agree to it.
And these are why we President Trump's come up with this idea that the Palestinians should all be taken in by Egypt and Jordan, two million people.
It's been met with huge kickback from the Palestinians and from other Arab countries in the region.
But as with many things that Trump says, you know, maybe he's trying to create a debate here about what should actually happen because most of Gaza has been flattened.
I mean, what happens to these people, do you think?
Well, first of all, my heart goes out to... the victims of all of these conflicts.
But we have to think of what is the permanent and only solution.
Again, I think that when you have a regime in Iran that is an element of instability, that is fomenting aggression, supports terrorism, how could you possibly, in that atmosphere, talk about legitimate, possible, lasting peace?
I think the key element to change the entire situation in the Middle East and beyond is the impact that the regime has if the regime is no longer there.
And instead, you have a government that, first of all, is representative of the people of Iran's aspiration, people who want peace, who don't have any hostility or aggression towards Israel or the Arabs or any ethnicity or any religion.
Instead, we want to be contributors to stabilizing our region.
That's where finally we can see a possibility taking place.
Well, again, I think that the formula that we have always prescribed to you, you're familiar with it, you remember me saying it all along, is that the Iranian people are the ultimate agent of change.
They are your true boots on the ground.
You would see a similar scenario to what we saw in Syria.
Well, I mean, I think Iran is really unique in terms of we cannot draw a parallel to, let's say, Iraq or Afghanistan or Syria as recently as it has been.
But in terms of the people themselves within the country rising up against the regime.
Well, that's what the people of Iran have been trying to do, except that they've been alone in this fight.
They have received no support whatsoever from the outside world.
And the reason I say this is because successful campaign of change of regimes in a non-violent way, without involving foreign intervention or military occupation or what have you, could not have been achieved all by itself without some tacit support from the free world.
Example, solidarity movement in Poland at the end of the Cold War, or the support for Nelson Mandela and the ANC to put an end to apartheid in South Africa.
In the same spirit, I think that empowerment means that we're giving the people a real chance to stand up to a regime.
They need to be fortified.
They need to be engaged with.
And I think the shift that I'm talking about in policy and a reset is that instead of talking about appeasement, instead of talking about expecting a behavior change and they have been given ample chance to come clean and they haven't, isn't it time for once to give the Iranian people a chance to really be the agent of change and trust the Iranian people in the fact that they aspire to the very same principle that the free world is governed by against a regime that is completely neglecting these rights to begin with?
It's a win-win for all.
It's really a situation that will be a relief to our immediate neighbors.
It will be an element that addresses the security concerns of many countries.
It eliminates the existential threat to Israel.
And most importantly, and I'm sure Donald Trump as a businessman will appreciate this, it's good for business too.
You have to have a stable environment in order to have economic opportunities.
I mean, what is the one thing you would like President Trump to do right now to help facilitate this?
Well, one thing we can learn from his first mandate and the maximum pressure campaign was certainly effective.
But this is sufficient for what it is that we are trying to achieve.
That's why I propose that parallel to the maximum pressure campaign.
And I hope Europe will join in some elements that could be added more pressure.
For instance, the listing of the IRGC as a terrorist organization, which is yet to be implemented by Western governments, and couple this with a campaign of maximum support, energizing, invigorating the people on the streets in Iran so they can better organize and mobilize themselves in the campaign of civil disobedience.
Perhaps the final coup de grace against the regime will be labor strikes that paralyzes the regime and forces an implosion.
At the same time, this will be a cause for more defections from the regime.
We already have seen signs of it.
I've already had elements who until yesteryear believed in, again, maybe reform is still plausible, but that idea has been, that narrative has changed.
Today, people know that the solution is to get out of this regime, but have a policy that also prepares the ground for post-regime in terms of the transition period.
And how this defection makes most people who don't have their hands sold with the blood of the Iranian people survive regime change and have a hope for the future.
So they're not stuck in no man's land or forced to stay with the regime to the bitter end.
That's part of the solution to minimize the cost to the nation to achieve the goals that they have.
For that, we really need to have solidarity from the outside world.
Living Through History00:00:42
Krampus Plovi, it's always good to catch up with you.
I feel like we're living through history when I see you.
Every few years we get together and so much happens in between.
Well, let's make a deal.
Next time I see you, we'll be in Tehran.
How's that?
Let's do that.
That would be great.
Good to see you.
Great to see you.
Thank you very much.
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